Random: February 2008 Archives

(Russ) The sad truth is that in life many tasks are boring, tedious and just plain no fun. Like most I would like nothing better than to outsource this work to India, or some other place where the pittance I will pay makes it all worth while.

Enter Amazon's Mechanical Turk. To quote amazon: MT allows people to, "complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it". Basically MT allows you to throw together a short description of the task you want completed, choose how much your willing to pay for it and how many times you want it done. This task, or 'Hit' as its called in MT parlance is then posted on the MT site for MT workers to get busy on.

I've had mixed experiences with MT; fundamentally it depends on the kind of task you are requesting.

(Billy) Generally, the simpler the better. Need data entry done? Great, use MT. Need to collect contact information from 1000 websites? Use MT? Need a well-crafted, well-researched article needing loads of technical jargon? Do it yourself.

MT is great for one-time, incredibly tedious tasks. If you need something more, try getting a Virtual Assistant. Try GetAFreelancer.com. Tim Ferriss has some great advice in his book "The Four Hour Work Week" on this. Maybe we will put a post together someday.

Cold calling is probably one of the most difficult and nerve wracking things to do, but it is probably one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur could have.  There are so many things to learn, connections to be made, and information to be gained when cold calling.

Cold calling takes so many forms.  You can cold call your competitors posing as a potential customer, gaining heaps of valuable information.  You can cold call an industry expert or knowledgeable individual for advice.  You can cold call a potential customer hoping to get a meeting.

Here's a fun story: The summer after my freshman year of college I had an internship with Northwestern Mutual Financial Network--Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance being their biggest business.  I was trained and titled as a "Financial Representative" and expected to meet with and sell to prospective clients.  The only problem was getting in front of them. 

The most intuitive solution is to start calling within your circle of people you know.  After you've exhausted this list (read: refuse to call friends and family to sling life insurance), you have to move on to the next best thing: a phone book. 

Armed with a script and telephone I boldly called my voicemail until I worked up the courage to call someone real.  I was sweating, literally.  My heart was pounding, I stumbled across my words, and skipped over parts of the script.  I'm sure I sounded like a complete idiot.

But I learned some valuable lessons: phone skills, asking for a meeting, asking for advice, asking for something the other person is reluctant to give, getting past gate keepers, and being calm, cool, and collected.

The most important lesson I learned: getting past "no", gracefully hanging up, and dialing again...all without sweating.

Cold calling for life insurance makes every other kind of cold call seem trivial.  Cold call competitor's businesses for information.  Cold call alumni for advice.  Cold call your voicemail for practice.  Just cold call.

You will mess up.  You will look like an idiot.  You will get 'no'.  You might get yelled at.  You might feel bad for a while.  You wont die.  You will learn.  You will be thankful.