Jamie Aucoin. Pinterest
When I was in the business school, a professor said: “Always Be Closing, the ABC of the marketer“.
Last night Glenn Shoosmith taught me a similar lesson: “Always Be Commercial”.
I think it’s an essential philosophy in all the staff of a startup, not just for marketers but coders and designers as well. Because sell is easy in a 99%.
Last night I met Jon Mell, thanks to my friend Luis Suárez.
Jon told me a thing that I’ve been feeling during all this time in London, but in a clever way. He said:
The 99% of a sale is very easy. It’s the 1% of the end where everything gets complicated.
So true. When you meet someone and you say what do you do, some people would become interested in what you are saying. However, one thing is interested and other very different thing is to have the money in your bank account.
It’s very easy to have a chat with someone and explain how good you are. When you have to demonstrate you are really good is when the person has to give you the money, the final 1%.
“Serendipity facilitated”. That’s what Luis Suárez taught me last night. A concept that means to be in the right place, in the right moment and that seems it was accidentally -when actually was calculated-.
Someone said that the luck has to be created. So if you want to join in some company or to meet someone, do a lot of research in order to know where does that person usually attends. In the end, he/she would asks you “what are you doing here?”.
The thing is that if you want something, find the way to achieve it. Don’t let the good luck to do all the job.
Will Smith said that so much better than me in Pursuit of Happiness:
Networking in London ; Rob Dray. Flickr
After a week in London, attending to events and having appointments with people of startups, the first thing I can conclude is that here they have an astonishing collaborative environment. That is, they help you selflessly. They don’t expect a commission or something like that. Startups people in London help you with the only goal to help you grow. Their profit is that maybe one day you can return them the favor.
Another thing that has surprised me a lot is how clear people have the things. They go to networking events and all conversations starts like:
- Hi, my name is…
- What are you doing here?
- Oh, that sounds interesting. Do you have any business card?
And then they leave to do the same thing with other person or the stay with you and talking more time. Depends of how good you both feel.
So here people go to events completely alone. And they go back with a really big bunch of business cards where, most of them are useful in some sense. Maybe they are not your customers but they know a few of them. What we call networking.
In Spain people go to events where are going to be their friends. So in Spain you maybe meet some few new people after an event and, if you are lucky, send a few emails with them or add them to LinkedIn.
Here is really different. People know that they are there because of networking, so they don’t need more than three sentences to have your business card and know if you are interesting for their business or not.
Maybe that’s why here you can grow your network so much faster than in other countries. Because here people help you if they know someone who can help you.
According to the tips of Kevin Eyres, grow your network as much as possible in London.
In his book Linchipin, Seth Godin talks about “the problemshooter”. He explains it trough the following example:
“Your restaurant has four waiters, and tought times require you to lay someone off.
Three of the waiters work hard. The other one is good, but is also a master at solving problems. He can placate an angry customer, finesse the balky computer system, and mollify the chef when he’s had too much to drink.
Any idea who has the most secure job?”
I remember one day explaining a bunch of technical issues to my boss in order to he understands how a thing he wanted I do in a project was so hard to do. I’ll never forget his answer: “solutions, give me solutions
”.
So don’t do tasks. Solve problems, like Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction.
Push for help
Last night I attended to Mobile Madness, at TechHub. There I had the feeling of the real networking, as I said on Twitter.
Just 1h of networking in @TechHub has been more productive than a bunch of whole events #THDemoNight
— David Guerra Terol (@dgterol) February 8, 2012
There I met Matthew Stratford, among other very interesting people. Mat told me an anecdote wich taught me a lot about how important are the little details that you only can demonstrate through your attitude.
He told me about Toni Hopponen, a Finnish entrepreneur who met Mat during his first week in London. One day Mat told to Toni that he has a gap in his agenda to have a chat. Toni replied to Mat instantly telling that he will attend to that chat, and he even don’t know how far was the appointment. This little detail left a feeling in Mat that he was completely willing to help Toni in his adventure, because he saw a terrific attitude.
In the other hand, Mat told me that one day he told to a person to have a chat because he was quite near. That person showed up in te appointment really late according how far he was. Mat of course received him but the willingness to do all his best to help that person was really different than the one he had with Toni.
Now Mat is helping me a lot just because in my first day in London I’m attending to an event where meet the kind of people I’m interested on. Isn’t it something everyone should expected? It looks not.
People usually thinks that work is a bunch of heavy tasks. They wake up soon, go to somewhere they don’t like and they are there during (at least) 8h.
With this philosophy they’ll probably don’t move on in their professional career.
Work is a platform where you must show all your talent. Doesn’t matter if you work as waitress in a restaurant or as a software engineer in Google. Both are platforms where you can stand out working with passion, and the output is a next move in your career.
Confucio said “work in something you love and you’ll never have to work“.
Most important thing in a work is the feeling you left when you are gone. Best way to left a great feeling is working in something you really love, because it lets you to work with passion and you’ll become the best.
During my tourism consultancy experience, I used my work as an astonishing platform. I published a lot in the blog of the company, a lot of people added me on LinkedIn. Other people followed me on Twitter thanks to the retweets of my posts. Now, those contacts let me start my Day 0 in a priceless position.
If you hate your job, quit. Your life is so priceless to dedicate it to be in a place you don’t like just for a salary.
Now choose: platform or salary?
Today I’m moving to London in order to look for a new exciting live in Tech City UK. Meanwhile, I’ll be developing the business of motion4startups, a very interesting project that tries to help startups through video-marketing.
I’ve been working during year an a half as marketing consultant in a holding of tourism startups. However, I’ve being dreaming with going abroad and work with most talented people in the world since I was a kid. This is the perfect time to do that.
As I said, in this blog I’ll be writing about my experiences in this new adventure, my thoughts and, some translations of my Spanish blog.
Friends, colleagues, professional contacts and of course my family, hope the best for me in this new life. I hope not disappoint them.
As Michael Jordan says in this commercial, “I will became what I am“.
During the last two years, I’ve been blogging in Spanish. However, now I’m moving to London looking for a new exciting life there.
I want to grow my network and go abroad as much as I can. That’s why I think the best option I have is to start blogging in English, because now so much more people can read my thoughts.
In this new version of my blog, I’ll be writing my experiences and translasting some important posts of my blog in Spanish.
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