I’m still a relatively inexperienced salesman, as I’ve been selling machine tools for only two years. But I do believe I have the potential to be a decent one. I’m not afraid to talk to strangers, I think I’m a decent listener, and a lot of people appear to find me worth talking to. At the Precision Machined Parts Association (PMPA) Management Update in Las Vegas in February, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Ron Karr, a famous sales expert and author who has been on the lecture circuit for 25 years. I was surprised by several…
Author: Lloyd Graff
In our machine tool business we routinely order a standard part that comes in many sizes. The company we buy from, a world famous company, is known for its reliability and quality — but not for its speed. It always quotes us three weeks for non-stock sizes (even though it sells variations of the product every day), and I always wonder, why? I wonder how many sales they squander because of their rigidity. The company’s brand is literally sterling on silver, but they seem to take their customers for granted. We order their products, usually for resale, and the 3-week policy often…
The path toward U.S. energy independence, made possible by aboom in shale oil, will be much harder than it seems. Just a few of the roadblocks:Independent producers will spend $1.50 drilling this year for every dollar they get back. Shale output drops faster than production from conventional methods. It will take 2,500 new wells a year just to sustain output of 1 million barrels a day inNorth Dakota’s Bakken shale, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Iraq could do the same with 60. Consider Sanchez Energy Corp. The Houston-based company plans to spend as much as $600 million this year, almost double its estimated 2013…
Connecting the dots … Jan Koum, an immigrant from Kiev, Ukraine, sells his five-year-old company, WhatsApp, for $19 billion to Facebook. Ukrainian people overthrow Viktor Yanukovych, a corrupt dictator allied with Russia and Vladimir Putin. Democrats make income inequality and minimum wage law reset into campaign issues. Republicans put immigration change off the table for internal political reasons going into 2014 elections. Luxury buses traveling from San Francisco to Silicon Valley become a political issue. Vivek Ranadivé becomes lead buyer of the Sacramento Kings NBA franchise. Jan Koum came to the U.S. in 1992 as a 16-year-old with his mother…
Entrepreneurs are everybody’s favourite heroes. Politicians want to clone them. Popular television programmes such as “The Apprentice” and “Dragons’ Den” lionise them. School textbooks praise them. When the author of this blog was at Oxford “entrepreneur” was a dirty word. Today the Entrepreneur’s Society is one of the university’s most popular social clubs. But what exactly is an entrepreneur? Here the warm glow of enthusiasm dissolves into intellectual confusion. There are two distinctive views. The first is the popular view: that entrepreneurs are people who run their own companies, the self-employed or small-business people. The second is Joseph Schumpeter’s view…
In January, I vacationed in a Latin American country. I won’t name the country out of respect for a few friends who were offended by me singling out people from their nation. My trip was wonderful. I went to the beach, danced a lot of salsa and most importantly got to know a lot of the native people. I found the people there intelligent, outgoing and warm, but the more time I spent with them I noticed a distinct trait — they were very “talented at doing nothing.” As I walked the streets, I often saw many people standing outside…
Reverberations continue from the United Auto Workers’ unexpected defeat Friday night in its campaign to organize workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tenn., plant. One key question being asked in automotive and labor circles is whether the UAW gave up its future when it helped the Detroit carmakers get back on their feet. The discussion stems from the two-tier wage provisions in contracts governing union workers that have been hired since since the 2009 bailouts at General Motors GM +0.89% and Chrysler. Two-tier provisions have been around for some time, but with the car companies slashing jobs, they weren’t much of a factor until after the bailouts…
I am a global warming (GW) cynic—not a total skeptic, nor a true believer. I am cynical because I know what motivates many of the people involved—what else, money. I know the hypocrisy of those who talk tough about others’ requirements, but renege on their own actions. And I know that this is a rich world’s problem that may be laid on the backs of the poor. In McKenzie Funk I’ve found a fellow traveler. His recently published, Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming is about people looking for an opportunity to profit off GW. Whether there is a…
The do-it-yourself wedding photography approach asks wedding guests to take pictures with their phone cameras or digital cameras, email them to the bride and groom and let them edit the photos for an online or printed album. Is this a better approach than the traditional wedding photographer who poses the family and walks around shooting candids, and then charges a small fortune for the finished product? Maybe a great wedding photographer can come up with a few unforgettable images which frame a memory of the historic event. But the potential of the guest photo shoot approach, if you can really…
(CNN) — Thanks to 3-D printers, dentists can today print false teeth and medical device manufacturers can print hip replacements. Such creations are useful, but not exactly sexy. Thankfully, artists are demonstrating another dimension of the technology, printing remarkable creations that wouldn’t have been possible even a decade ago. Take Tobias Klein. The German artist wanted to meld the architecture of St. Paul’s Cathedral with representations of his own body. Approximating the shape and dimensions of your own heart is a challenge, but Klein did not have to guess. He underwent a series of MRI scans, and then, with a few…