Bridgetown Point of View
PDX Everday – N. Lee JohnsonArchive for October, 2008
Professional Sales People
That is my profession, chosen, more likely my default profession. I have been a salesperson for a very, very long time. I paid for school via phone sales. I did not study sales, but rather art. An education not at all used in my current profession.
I hated sales. I hated cold calling, hunting leads, talking to people, carrying a quota, processing an order, competing with other sales people. For the most part, the only thing that was likable about being a salesperson is of course the paycheck.
Sales is a natural talent for some people, but it’s not so unique that it can’t be learned by anyone. I am a person who had to spend years learning how to sell.
I remember Jana Winslow, a coworker of mine who as a natural salesperson, ask me where I saw myself 5 years from now. My answer had no inclusion of “sales” as a profession. She asked me about how I felt about being in sales. I told her “it’s not my dream job, I can think of other things I’d rather being doing for a living. I mean, when you were growing up, did you ever dream about being in sales? Nobody does.” She looked at me and said, “I did. I dreamt of having a multimillion-dollar deal. Landing a big account. Being the top salesperson.” At the time, I thought that was really sad.
Reflecting how much it pained me to be in sales for so many years, I envy Jana Winslow. Even in tough times, when her pipeline was non-existent and she was being told “not interested go away” – I seriously doubt she ever hated life. I’m almost positive that made her hungrier and more determined to find her dream sale.
What have I learned over the past 10 years in sales? Easy.
Never take anything personally. I have to call salespeople and naively, I was excited. Who better to build a quick rapport than another salesperson? WRONG! Salespeople are guarded. And given the chance to finally control a sales call, they have the opportunity to tell you “no” when their days are filled with that comment. Don’t take it personally, find another contact and get an answer you want to hear. If here are multiple contacts on a prospect, call them all, don’t limit yourself to a single contact.
Call early, call often. The more calls the more chances at getting a lead, a sale, a contact, a decision maker, a project. Make as many calls as you can make. Take the average number of calls and double that number for your call volume.
You can’t get if you don’t ask. This applies to orders, and contacts. Don’t be afraid to ask for the decision maker and don’t be afraid to ask for the CXO level contact. Don’t be afraid to call back over and over, even if it means bumping heads with the gatekeeper.
Spring Break 2007
Long distance dating is a bear. It’s slightly more impossible when there are several continents involved.
How do you do it? It’s tough. Very tough. But it’s the every cheesey “worth the wait” saying.
Obama on my mind.
It must be pretty embarassing for all the previous VPS, with their experience, education, wealth, family background, that all they actually just needed to be really pretty.
I think I’d be a little pissed. I can see Al Gore going, “Impudent STRUMPET. I INVENTED THE INTERNET and all SHE did was GO MOOSE HUNTING.”
It’s probably in her favor that the majority of Presidents and Vice Presidents didn’t go to Ivy League Universities.
Harvard University
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Rutherford B. Hayes (Law School)
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
John F. Kennedy
George W. Bush (Business School)
Yale University
William Howard Taft
Gerald R. Ford
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
College of William & Mary
Thomas Jefferson
James Monroe
John Tyler
Princeton University
James Madison
Woodrow Wilson
Georgetown
Lyndon B. Johnson (attended a few months the School of Law)
Curse you Wikipedia and your ability to distract my research. Curse you and your questionably-reliable factoids!
Both Sarah Palin and Barack Obama symbolize change in our history. Either way we go, they will provide either women or minorities the inspiration they need to become strong, powerful and finally heard. So loud you can’t ignore them. So loud you have no other choice but to treat women or minorities equally.
To me, it will be one or the other. We’re too young a nation to have gotten over those hurdles. Women and minorities in power in a countries that are dominated by white males have been countries, societies, cultures longer than the US. And despite our wealth, pride, education – we aren’t mature enough as a nation to treat all citizens as equals.
And as much as I would like Sarah Palin to pave a road for women – I think we have to overcome racism in our nation first.
Strange Fruit – Abel Meeropol
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
Bobby Kennedy
[...] and when [he] shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Week 2
Holy cow. I dunno what I did, but it was expensive.
Week 1 = $91.20
Week 2 = 131.80
________________
223.60
Week 2 = Pastries for work, Starbucks, and other stupid purchases. It’s amazing how much you learn about wasting money when you pay attention to the stuff that seems occational, but are actually habitual, just in a few dollars here and there. They add up in a month.
Although I’m $25 bucks from hitting my cap, there’s 2 weeks left in the month. No spend month is a bust. Readjust the goal to under $350.
Next month, I will try again, for $250.
$59.1 trillion
National Debt, or Debt held by the public, including unfunded Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare…
And Happy Birthday to me! U.S. National Debt: 53-Year High on Sept. 22, 2008
No Spend Month Week 1
Laughing Buddah on a pupu platter! The first week of no spend month was an epic fail: $85 spent. That’s $15 over per week and to be on plan, I have to only spend $55 this week.
I know where it all went awry – Wholefoods. I am weak. I knew temptation was lurking in the deli section and I barreled in like a bull in a china shop, headstrong and full of “you can’t beat me, I’ve got goals and will not falter.” The pesto pasta salad and dill gravy meatballs disarmed me quickly. I got back at them though. They were delicious.
So, no more Wholefoods. Too much temptation.
Cleaning supplies. What I wanted wasn’t there, so I bought the next best thing, which happened to be the most expensive things. If what you need isn’t there, go home without it. Dont spend money just because you’ve already spent it in your head.
1 trip to Starbucks. I’ve got be a lot stronger.
According to 1 informal poll, 6 out of 10 Americans feel that we’re headed into a great economic depression for a very long time with unemployment at 25% and increased homelessness.
Other economists recently contacted by CNNMoney.com said that the unemployment rate could rise as high as 10% to 12% next year if the bailout does not work. While that could be roughly double the current 6.1% unemployment rate, it would be only half of the worst rate seen in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But at the same time this article on AMEX rates credit risk by where you live, is not a bad thing. First impression is “GOOD!” I mean, it’s probably been about 5 or 10 years since anyone sold anything to a company based on cocktails and lapdances at the gentlemen’s club, so why cover those kinds of ‘business expenses.’ The previous statement makes it seem like that’s how I think ALL business expenses are accumulated, but my point is, credit for business purposes need to be looked and redefined.
I don’t like credit cards myself and I think there’s a reasonable amount of credit you can have available through cards. I had friends who bragged about having 25k to 50K limit credit cards and I was mostly horrified than impressed.
Thanks to Rachel of SmallNotebook for the inspiration.
What’s Wrong With People?
I’m going to be an aunt soon. It’s about the best thing in the world, next to being a parent, I imagine. Unfortunately I read a lot of news stories about murders, accidents, exploitation of children. It’s stupid how many of them are on the news. It’s enough to make you never want to have kids because it seems that you can’t protect them from predators.
Unless you’re this dad.
The events are traumatizing on all accounts. But at least, the bad guy didn’t win.
The Bad Habits of Americans as Pointed out By My Better Half
Gunter is a Gen Y spawn of East German parents. Conservation isn’t a trend or “good idea”, or challenge, it’s just how stuff is done.
I learned this over our last few trips. In Dresden I learned of the water conserving toilet with the “no-splash” bowl-shelf. I bathed rather than showered. And I air dried my clothes instead of leaving them in the dryer for 1 hour. Gunter doesn’t have a car so we walked everywhere we needed to go; grocer, movies, shopping, park, museums. Well, we rented a Smart car to drive to Prague. As much as we complain about the cost of gas in the US, my gas bill for Prague was in the range of $100 dollars.
Dresden is also nicely laid out city where walking anyplace isn’t much of a challenge, not to mention is gorgeous.
Now, stateside, much different experience. Before Portland, I lived in a suburb of Seattle. By the lake, gorgeous, big, beautiful. However, we drove everywhere. The grocer was a drive. The entertainment was a drive. Gunter asked why the neighborhoods were planned so that you had to drive to get anywhere. I’m not sure of the answer, my best guess is zoning and property value of having a Safeway dropped every 6 blocks in an area with multimillion dollar homes.
So, in the past 18 months I was learning quite a bit from Gunter. When I told him I was moving to Portland, his requests where 1) Live in the city. 2) Live close enough so you can walk or bike to work. 3) Live someplace where you can get to whatever you need by walking or public transportation and not have to drive.
Done, done and done-ish. Unfortunately, if you live downtown, neither the Marriott nor the Whole Foods stock toilet scrubbers or 3 prong converters so you have to drive out of the city to buy them.
