Another month has passed, and it’s time for another update. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned over the past 28 days.
1. Lots of Great People Are Doing Amazing Things
A shout out to my friend Selena Flood for introducing me to the Social Entrepreneurship Empowerment Series. In this series 41 leading entrepreneurs involved in the social enterprise sector came together to share their expertise and knowledge. While I didn’t get a chance to listen to all the live seminars, the ones I did listen to were super inspiring and motivating me in working on my businesses. The first seminars I believe are free and available, however some of the later ones are a paid download.
To register and download the seminars, click here (affiliate link) or here (non affiliate link)
2. You Can Bargain Almost Anything
I was ordering some new business cards this month and ended up going with an online organization called Vista Print. Now, let me preface this by saying if you’ve ever signed up to their mailing list or tried to navigate their site – it is a veritable labyrinth of pages, promos, upsells, cross sells, free sells, and almost every trick imaginable from a sales perspective (lesson #2a, don’t sign up for their newsletters!). I was having some issues uploading a file, and decided to give their customer service line a call. To put it briefly, it was the most hilarious and entertaining call I had that entire week. It is probably wroth of a blog post in and of itself, but to put it briefly, the sales rep I spoke with despite speaking in the most monotone voice ever, was either very well trained or had a very good script they were following. Being a salesperson myself, I immediately caught on to every sales trick they tried to throw my way, and responded with a number of counter gambits of my own. Using a combination of strategies, of which the most effective was the walk away technique (used it twice to great effect), I was able to bargain down the price of the cards I wanted to order by probably 35% or so. All this with a simple phone call!
For negotiation tips, I’d highly recommend this book, Secrets of Power Negotiating, by Roger Dawson.
3. The Internet is Fantastic
I’ve come to embrace my inner nerd, especially as I spend a fair chunk of my time in front of a computer screen these days. Despite all the junk and overload of information floating around out there, there are a number of hidden or not so hidden gems. Some of my favourite sites that I read fairly regularly include:
- Lifehacker: lots of daily posts, but good to skim for the articles that interest you the most
- A smart bear: fascinating insight about the business/startup world
- Well preserved: preserving, dehydrating, freezing, or storing local Ontario produce
- The Art of Noncomformity: I feel like the posts are starting to lose their oomph like they had about a year ago, but it allows me to vicariously travel the world and plan for my next trip with some of the travel hacking techniques he outlines on his blog
4.Talk Is Cheap
Over the past year or so, I’ve probably talked with countless people who tell me about how passionate they are about their ideas, goals, dreams, business ideas or other lofty ideals. These ideas are great and inspiring, but unfortunately most people have not taken any steps towards outlining a plan or taking any action to achieve this plan. Talk is cheap – anyone can talk up a storm and tell you about their brilliant idea or plan. The real secret is going out there and taking action and working consciously towards your goals.
5. The Journey Is More Valuable Than The Final Destination
As I continue taking my own advice from #4, I’ve discovered that the journey is more valuable than the final destination, and sometimes we don’t realize how far we’ve come until we stop and look back. Being on a journey is exciting; it has its own energy and forces you to change, adapt, and grow according to whatever life throws your way. I’m a believer that life won’t throw anything your way that you won’t be able to handle – so embrace the journey, enjoy the ride, and stop to smell the flowers every once in a while. Life is meant to be fun, and not all work drudgery.
6. There Are Some Terrible Resumes Out There
At the beginning of the month, I hired a new sales rep. Screening throuhg some of the resumes, and as a general observation from past screening – there are some really terrible resumes out there. I’m talking worse than blatant spelling and grammar mistakes. There are people who don’t read the job posting instructions; lazily copy and paste old job applications (complete with the wrong company name in the header), don’t know how to format a resume or list irrelevant things from 10+ years ago. Do yourself and everyone a favor – go to a resume clinic, do a search for how to setup your resume, and get with the program. At least now in the digital age less paper is wasted, though it still doesn’t make up for the fact that you’re wasting the recruiter’s time.
That’s it for this month. Until next time….