Selling Wheels

Carl has just released REBOL v2.7.7

What makes this version unique is that it comes with SSL, ODBC. In other words, this is REBOL /Command.

You can download it at http://www.rebol.com/view-platforms.html

Got this from Forbes and I think it will be a good set of questions to ponder upon as the year end draws near and I go for my retreat in a couple of days.

Marc Kramer, 11.20.09, 5:01 PM ET

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/20/ten-key-questions-entrepreneurs-management-kramer_print.html

In the early 1990s, I was brought in as an interim president/CEO of two regional monthly magazines. Both are now out of business. It was a trying time–and also one of the great learning experiences of my life.

One magazine focused on business, and the other on the arts. What the two had in common were the investors, who forced them into a shotgun wedding and put them under one roof. These geniuses (including your intrepid columnist) thought they could squeeze pennies and boost margins by merging the back offices and the sales teams. The editorial staffs couldn’t be combined because they required different expertise.

The only magazine experience the holding company’s board members had was reading the publications. I knew the newspaper business, but as any media veteran knows, newspapers and magazines (especially monthly magazines) are entirely different beasts–and not just in terms of the physical products. (Just one example: Magazine ad revenue is booked earlier but collected much later; meanwhile, overhead gobbles cash.)

Smart, experienced, highly connected people were involved in this deal. It didn’t matter. Why? No one bothered to examine the fundamental realities of the business; no one asked the right questions. Instead, everyone was consumed with generating revenue.

Here are the 10 questions we should have been asking–the same questions that any business owner should continue to ask, year in and year out:

Just got this from Dharmesh that the PDF version of ‘How to Price Software Without Just Rolling The Dice’ is available for free download!

Yup, totally free!

You don’t even need to fill up any forms.

Visit his blog for more info.

http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/11097/How-To-Price-Software-Without-Just-Rolling-The-Dice.aspx?source=Blog_Email_[How+To+Price+Softwar]

REBOL 3 is closed to be released as beta.

You can now try REBOL 3 at http://tryrebol.esperconsultancy.nl/

Many thanks to Kaj.

Ever had a phone call from a ‘prospect’ that ask for a quotation for your services but yet refused to spend 30 minutes of their time to meet up and clarify their business objectives?

How about the ‘prospect’ who are not clear about their requirements, budget and timeline?

Selling Power has a pretty good guide on some of the common mistakes that we should avoid while working on our proposals.

I am quoting it here for easy reference (source: Selling Power).

1. The customer doesn’t know you or your software. Just because you submitted a proposal doesn’t mean you’ll actually be considered as a serious vendor. If you haven’t worked with the decision makers and stakeholders to make sure they know you and understand your approach, winning with just a proposal is about as likely as winning the lottery.
2. The proposal doesn’t follow the specified format. Sure, the format’s arbitrary and maybe even a little silly, but if you don’t follow the format that the customer requested, he or she will figure that you can’t follow a software specification either. So make sure that you do the extra work to adapt to the most specific requests.