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Do you work in sales? Thank you.

Posted by on Sep 11, 2009 in Business, Entrepreneurship, Sales | 0 comments

I’ve known Mark Lange for awhile and he writes excellent opinion pieces in the Christian Science Monitor. This one on sales is concise, but to the point — great stuff!

Do you work in sales? Thank you.

By Mark Lange

from the September 9, 2009 editionSAN FRANCISCO – Had enough of the recession? Next time somebody pitches you something – whether or not you open your wallet – at least say thanks.Because economic growth is a story we tell one another. Transactions are its dialogue. And the authors of both are the master storytellers: salespeople.Before you tune out, consider this: Nothing happens until somebody sells someone something. And no matter what the rest of us do all day, our paychecks and prosperity rely on their efforts.At some level, of course, everyone sells. Authors and academics (if they hope to have impact), the yard guy across the street, the young woman shilling for Greenpeace in front of Target, even President Obama. None of us succeeds without applying the art of influence, in the best sense.But front-line, all-day salespeople are the connective tissue between what we have and what we need. Their work demands a rare mix of audacity and humility, hope and realism. They take rejection and abuse that would crush the spirits of most. Yet they bounce back with the resilience of Tigger and the patience of Job.Especially in harder times, selling compels tremendous creativity and a humble heroism. This isn’t to say all salespeople are heroes. Some get a bit too creative, while a (very) few are desperately dishonest. But that’s not sales. It’s fraud.While political campaigns come and go, salespeople practice the politics of hope every day. They live by faith – faith that someone, somewhere needs what they have.Critics accuse politicians of being salespeople. If only that were true: Good salespeople can actually explain what they’re trying to sell.Everyone else in an organization can grumble and grouse, play office politics, soak in a bath of righteous cynicism. Salespeople don’t have time for that. They only get paid when somebody outside the cubicle cocoon is moved to act and demonstrate one of the truest measures of trust – parting with their money.The good ones, along with intellect, have impressive integrity. They focus on your interests, not theirs, because they know that if they’re clear about yours, their own will follow.Rather than spray you with words, they ask you questions, and listen carefully to what you’re really saying. They bring your authentic interests into sharper focus.They really don’t want to waste your time, because they make a living on theirs.Not buying? Try just saying “No thanks – but keep honing that pitch.” Better yet, offer a pointer to raise the level of their game. And if something about their approach annoys you, coach the manager who set both of you up for frustration. That’s a public service.If the world is divided between builders and complainers, there’s no doubt that salespeople build – confidence, companies, and gross domestic product. They make the potential, actual. They move minds. Build trust. And motivate the transactions that keep us all fed.Don’t be too hard on them, especially now.

Google Voice invitation request

Posted by on Jun 25, 2009 in Technology | 0 comments

Sign up and get your Google Voice account soon. See my last post on why I like Google Voice. Please share your experience…Google Voice activation

Entrepreneurs can change the world

Posted by on Jun 10, 2009 in Entrepreneurship | 1 comment

Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa’s portfolio of companies

Posted by on May 26, 2009 in Business, Carel's Conversations, Entrepreneurship, South Africa, Technology, Venture Capital | 0 comments

Hasso Plattner’s African Venture fund was launched in early 2008. In February 2009 I attended the fund’s Emerging Market Africa conference in South Africa. HPVA has invested ZAR80mm of ZAR350mm in 5 companies to date and expect to invest in at least 5 more. HPVA doesn’t disclose investments and shareholding, although they did indicate that they only take minority shareholding.You can find Hasso Plattner Venture Europe’s investments here.Recently the African fund disclosed some of the investments it has made so far:

  1. Cibecs: Enterprise backup solutions. According to some articles, HPVA invested ZAR8mm for a 25% stake in the company (HPVA indicated that these numbers aren’t correct. They didn’t say what the correct numbers are.) Cibecs was formed in 2004 by Richard Dewing, and its software has been sold to more than 30,000 users in South Africa.
  2. Inala operates in the fields of telecommunications and broadcasting in South Africa.
  3. Global Vision specializes in marketing automation software.
  4. KnowledgeTree is an open source document management system. KnowledgeTree uses a number of social media technologies to promote its products, including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs…very progressive!
  5. Dabba Telecom: Low-cost telecoms in South Africa. Dabba’s CEO Real Lissoos was voted Social Entrepreneur of the year in 2008.

MXit launches iPhone app

Posted by on May 21, 2009 in South Africa, Technology | 3 comments

MXit is a South African social networking company with 12 million subscribers around the world. According to MXit it is “a next generation Mobile Instant Messenger that connects you to a world of expression, using both instant messaging and social networking.”

MXit iPhone app

MXit iPhone app

MXit recently launched an iPhone app. I’ve been a beta user for a few weeks. With MXit you can send 1,000 character multi-media messages (MMS) to your MXit, Yahoo!, MSN, Gtalk, AIM or ICQ buddies. It seems to work well, although I still cannot get my AIM and Gtalk accounts to work. Yahoo IM works great! In summary: It works well, however this first version is still too buggy. I’m sure the MXit guys will update it quickly.MXit is also available on most mobile phones running Java, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and they have a PC beta version. You can win ~$10k (ZAR100,000) for developing the best PC MXit client. So get cracking…MXit is a great way to send free or low cost messages to friends around the world. Different from Fring and Skype it doesn’t provide VOIP calling capability.I would like to know your experience with MXit especially if you live in North or South America.

Cheapest international call rates from your iPhone

Posted by on May 10, 2009 in Business, Technology | 5 comments

These days you can make really cheap international calls directly from your iPhone. I’ve used VIP, Jajah, ATT Wireless, Skype and Google Voice. All these services will use your mobile minutes, with the expection of Skype’s iPhone app in WiFi mode. In this post I’ll give my experience with each service from a cost and ease-of-use perspective. I would love to hear about your experiences in the comments.Here goes…

  • VIP has many low cost rate plans available. I’ve used VIP for many years and it continues to be my fall back provider. It’s not very user friendly to use, i.e., no integration with the iPhone’s Contacts app. You have to dail a tollfree number and then you can dail your international number.
  • Jajah has an iPhone dailer web app that works well. You can add contacts to you Jajah address book via the Jajah.com web site. Unfortunately Jajah’s iPhone app doesn’t integrate with the iPhone’s Contacts app. Jajah on the iPhone only works when you are in 3G or/and WiFi mode.
  • ATT Wireless: Adding ATT’s $5.99 p/m World Connect service to your plan allows you can make international calls directly with your iPhone’s Contacts app at much cheaper rates (e.g., 28c p/min to a UK mobile phone vs ATT’s standard $1.69 per min.). This is by far the most friendly solution although not the cheapest. ATT World Connect and Standard Rates lookup.
  • Skype recently launched it’s own iPhone app. With the Skype app you can make FREE (only in WiFi mode) calls from your iPhone to any Skype user around the world. The rates below apply when make calls to landlines and mobile phones. Skype’s app works well and a huge plus is that it integrates directly with the iPhone’s Contacts app, so I don’t have to duplicate my contact info in Skype. Skype’s VOIP calling competes with Fring.com.
  • Google Voice: In a previous post I wrote about Google’s new Voice service. Google Voice has the lowest rates for international calling! You can access the service in one of two ways: (1) Using Google’s mobile web site — also only works in WiFi and/or 3G mode, or (2) by calling your own Google Voice # and using voice prompts a-la VIP mentioned above. One great thing about Google Voice is that all my contacts are sync-ed with Google automatically using my Mac’s AddressBook. Calling from the mobile web site is fairly easy. Definitely not as easy as Skype or using World Connect.

This table compares call rates from the US to land lines in different countries (click on a title to sort each column):

ProviderUKGermanyFranceSouth AfricaAustralia
Google Voice0.020.020.020.060.03
ATT Wireless (World Connect)0.080.090.090.360.09
ATT Wireless (Standard)1.491.491.492.693.49
VIP (SANZAR Economy Rate Plan)0.070.080.070.0790.05
Jajah0.0310.0330.0330.0850.037
Skype (incl VAT)0.0240.0240.0240.0780.024
The following table compares call rates from the US to mobile phone numbers in other countries:
ProviderUKGermanyFranceSouth AfricaAustralia
Google Voice0.190.180.150.180.17
ATT Wireless (World Connect)0.280.260.220.530.24
ATT Wireless (Standard)1.691.661.622.863.64
VIP (SANZAR Economy Rate Plan)0.2390.260.230.210.189
Jajah0.2030.2880.1970.2220.201
Skype (incl VAT)0.2910.2830.2330.2680.233

To summarize:

  • Ease of use winner: ATT World Connect. For ease dailing you cannot beat dailing directly from your iPhone’s Contacts app. Skype is a close second, followed by Google Voice, Jajah and then VIP.
  • Low cost winner: Google Voice is the cheapest. Skype is the cheapest (FREE) if you have access to WiFi.
  • Overall winner: For me Google Voice is the overall winner — fairly easy to use and the cheapest rates. If cost was less of an issue then I would’ve picked ATT’s World Connect as the winner.

SAP making a difference in South Africa using mobile phones

Posted by on Apr 26, 2009 in Entrepreneurship, SAP, South Africa, Technology | 0 comments

Thanks to the Collaboration@Rural project, SAP enables small grocers in rural South Africa to sell the goods, their customers actually need – through a mobile delivery system.

GrandCentral is now Google Voice

Posted by on Mar 19, 2009 in Business, South Africa, Technology | 0 comments

Google Voice logoOn March 11, 2009 GrandCentral finally became Google Voice. I’ve used GrandCentral since November 2006 and found it to be a very useful and reliable service. David Poque does a great job of explaining GrandCentral’s original “one number for life” approach. In July 2007 GrandCentral was acquired by Google and for awhile people thought that Google killed this service. Here is a screen shot of the new home page:

Google Voice home page

So as a GrandCentral user I am one of the favored few to be able to use the new Google Voice service. Here are my initial thoughts:

  • I prefer GrandCentral’s main page and preference settings. Google Voice uses Google’s bare bones, but familiar user interface. I’m sure I’ll get used to this over time.
  • The transcribing feature is very cool and seems to work ok. I’ll have to try it with other languages like Afrikaans and/or Germany as well.
  • The mobile interface works much better on my iPhone and I’m very impressed that you can playback voice messages using iPhone’s Quicktime player. I hope Google or somebody else will develop a native iPhone app for Google Voice. Here is the iPhone Mobile interface:

Google Voice on iPhone

  • One huge benefit for me is that I can now use OSX’s AddressBook with Google Contacts syncing functionality to keep my contacts updated in Google. GrandCentral didn’t provide an auto-sync facility and it wasn’t easy to keep contacts in GrandCentral in sync with my Mac’s AddressBook.
  • International calling rates seem to be very competitive. I’ll blog about this in an upcoming post. Btw, you get $1 free to get you going. Thanks Google. For example I could speak for 17 minutes calling a land line in South Africa (8c a minute).
  • With Google Voice you have an instant and FREE (for US users) conference call facility. Very cool. I’ve been using freeconferencecall.com.
  • SMS is new and you can now save an SMS conversation. So far I’ve been able to send and receive SMS message to US numbers. I’ve had success in sending SMS messages to international numbers and only partial success in receiving from international numbers.
  • Google doesn’t migrate your old voice messages, however you can still access them by going to the GrandCentral web page.

Here are some other useful postings regarding the new Google Voice service:

I would like to know about your experience using Google Voice? Do you of any other similar service?

Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa Conference – February 2009

Posted by on Mar 17, 2009 in Entrepreneurship, South Africa, Technology, Venture Capital | 0 comments

hpva-conference-feb-2009

I had the distinct pleasure to visit my homeland, South Africa, to attend Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa‘s first conference after forming HPV’s ZAR350mm VC fund in early 2008. Andrea Böhmert, one of HPV Africa’s co-managing partners, invited me to participate on a panel discussing “Local entrepreneurs going international”. The panel consisted of:

Other speakers during the one day event at the beautiful Webersburg Wine Estate in Stellenbosch included:

Chris Gibbons did an amazing job as MC of the conference as well as moderating the panels.I’ve attended numerous conferences over the years, and I have to say that the HPVA conference was unique in at least 2 ways:

  1. The conference attendees were each given a silver money box as a gift and the first person to open it were given the opportunity to donate R5,000 to a charity.
  2. Having James Durno as a graphic facilitator during the whole conference. James captured the day’s discussion in a set of cartoons. I think James played an important role in the day’s proceedings by keeping us entertained and informed.  Here is how he captured my contributions:

Carel Bekker @ HPVA 2009

Photos, presentations, speaker bios and more of the one day conference are available here: Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa 2009 Conference.This was an exciting day for me. I met a number of very interesting people, I was educated regarding the current state of ITC in South Africa and Africa (did you know that Africa has 350mm mobile phone subscribers?), I was given a state of the union regarding South African politics and I played a small part in allowing South African entrepreneurs to think global.South Africa has some truly ground-breaking technologies to offer the world and if the entrepreneurs that were at this event is anything to go by, then I’m sure we will soon be celebrating more Mark Shuttleworths, Elon Musks and Vinny Linghams.

SynthaSite is on the move – $20mm in new funding

Posted by on Feb 27, 2009 in Entrepreneurship, South Africa, Technology, Venture Capital | 1 comment

I previously blogged about SynthaSite‘s charismatic CEO, Vinny Lingham (Wow, I see Vinny has been selected as a 2009 Young Global Leader!). SynthaSite seems to be growing by leaps and bounds amid all the bad economic news.On February 17, 2009 Synthasite announced a $20mm in second round funding from Reinet Investments. I received this email from Vinny announcing the news:

To all my friends, family & colleagues,Today, I’m proud to announce that Reinet Fund has just invested $20 million into SynthaSite, securing our future and enabling us to continue to build our business model and product offering.  This is a massive vote of confidence in SynthaSite.  I have attached the press release for your benefit – there is also an article on TechCrunch today about the announcement: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/17/synthasite-gets-a-20-million-boost-for-simple-website-creation-software/When we began building SynthaSite from our humble base in Cape Town, we sought to create a company whose product would change the lives of millions of people by giving them a voice online.  We wanted to provide the opportunity for anyone anywhere to build a website that would achieve their unique goals, from starting a small business to showcasing their achievements.In 2007, we raised $5 million in venture capital and moved our headquarters to San Francisco (where I am now based fulltime), keeping a good portion of our technical team in Cape Town.  Since then, SynthaSite has grown from just a handful of people to more than 40 individuals across both offices, supporting over one million users and growing rapidly.I’m unbelievably excited about the future of SynthaSite and look forward to building on our success in helping you and many others reach their potential online.  These past 15 months have just been the beginning…

I wish you lots of success Vinny!