Remembering Names
Upon returning to my university, I am meeting many new people and am having to learn new names in the process. Remembering names has always been a problem for me, and I decided to research some tips to help me. I realize also that remembering names is also very important in the business setting. Small introductions can lead to profitable business relationships but only if all parties involved feel comfortable enough to pursue the avenues of communication. Remembering names assists tremendously in this goal. So here are a few tips I have learned:
1. Give your full attention to the person whom you are meeting. That means not thinking about other people you want to talk to and not thinking about the next thing that you want to say.
2. Repetition! Use every opportunity to repeat the person's name. Make it a goal to use the person's name at 3-4 times in your first conversation with them.
3. Associate the person's name. Find some context whether it be phonic, pictoral, etc. to relate the person to.
4. If you forget someone's name or didn't fully understand it, simply ask them to repeat it. It's much more respectful than trying to guess or beat around the bush. Most people are flattered by the effort.
In another life...
It has been a week since I have written an entry into this blog. As you can see my topics are widely varying from neat concise summaries to all-out pouring out of my soul on the digital page. Today's entry is more of the latter. I am going to be real and say why I am truly pursuing the entrepreneurial road. I am an entrepreneur because capitalism is the only place left where true glory can be achieved. A man can start from nothing and raise himself up to be among
America's high class. If it were centuries ago, I would more likely have taken up the
military rather than
entrepreneurship . I would have been like
Alexander the Great or
Francesco Sforza . But behold, we live in a new era. Perhaps one day I will be the Alexander the Great of the
business world ...one can only
dream .
What are white papers?
In conducting more research in how exactly I am going to
market my business, I stumbled onto the concept of white papers.
White papers are essentially a marketing piece that is informationally loaded and solution-based. Companies such as
Microsoft and
IBM regularly use whitepapers.
Whitepapers have an interesting history. They orginally applied to government produced pamphlets that were quickly bound with paper and released rather than bound with a hard spine. The term also became more popular after Winston Churchill's whitepaper in 1922 on the conflict in Palestine.
Today, whitepapers are popular in
commercial circles. In particular, they good for companies with complex and/or cutting edge services or products. They especially appropriate, indeed I say necessary, for any company using
IT (internet techonology) in a
B2B settings. They are an instant
credibility builder for these types of companies. Because they are solution based, prospects will want to know ultimately how your product or service will help to do business better and faster. Outside of B2B circles, whitepapers are less appropriate because they are by nature nonemotionally appealing.
Michael Stelzner is an authority on whitepapers if you ever want anymore information.
This is an example white paper by the Sun Developer Network:
Java Performance.
New Light
I have the feeling today that somehow I've crossed a subtle but all important threshold. It's not something that I tangibly point out. I mean outwardly things are still the same. I have
no money on which to start my business, and it seems that I am totally behind in relation to where I wanted to be once school starts at the end of this month. So I don't know what makes today different, but somehow it fundamentally is. For those of you out there like me who are
mathematically inclined, it's almost equivalent to the inflection point on a graph. Things are still actually heading in the same direction, but the underlying trend has switched and is on the verge of a
positive change. Maybe it's my attitude or perhaps my indomitable notion that I somehow
overcome everything, but I think that I'm actually going to make it!
Lean Mean Marketing & Sales Machine
So to start my online business finance
brokerage , I've decided that one key is cutback on my marketing and rather focus my energy into
sales . My orginal plan was to start out with a
marketing campaign of over 3000 direct mailings and $500 in online
advertisements . I realize that some other
brokers in my industry may consider those in themselves small efforts. But I can't even afford to do them! But, I realize that marketing isn't the key, at least now in the beginning. I now see the light, that a good salesperson is worth more than a
marketer any day of the week. Marketing might build awareness, but it's sales that put money in the bank. The great thing about sales, though, is that you practically need no money to do it. Isn't that great to know!
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