My first year in Sales by Tony Green

My employment in the sales profession now totals one year in duration. As an engineer entering sales at almost 40 years of age plenty of ups and downs would be experienced.

My motivation for joining the sales force was to use my technical background to help solve customer’s problems while at the same time earning at good living.

The requirement to perform while learning on the job presented me with many challenges. In my view, part of the reason was the existence in Silicon Valley of plenty of folks who are technical trained with previous sales experience. From my first year sales is something where you would prefer someone with experience even though you need to start somewhere. The result was I landed many interviews but received no offers.

One of the things I learned from those who are in sales is persistence is required. So I continued to push in search of the sales job when there were many other non sales jobs whose qualifications I met. Finally, I got a break and landed a sales position.

After doing the job for a year it became clear a company might be better served to hire someone with previous experience. Companies should seek to hire someone who wants to go the extra mile for customers who are the essence of what sales is about. How would I grade my performance as a professional in sales? I am still waiting to close my first large sale. The journey has had ups and downs; however, through everything I always try to focus on the customer.

Hopefully, the customer is where my focus will stay, on the person writes the check at the end of the day.

Inbound Marketing and why it makes sense by Tony Green

The training of sales people through the year’s taught in order to consistently meet your quotas cold calling was required to reaching out to prospective buyers. Many people from my experience and research dislike calling busy people of the blue. Even though there are uses for this practice, it is very time consuming with a low rate of success in regards to the amount of work.

Let’s face facts; most people are accustomed to receiving cold calls at one time or another. These interruptive tactics are where the prospect is required to stop what they are doing to hear your message. Better yet, they may or may not need your product. The internet has made things easier to promote interruptive messaging with the prime example being pop-up ads which many times do nothing to move the sales process along and in many cases becomes an inhibitor.

Every sales and marketer is a consumer in some regards. Do you like telemarketers or annoying popup when checking your personal email after a long day of work?

I was reminded me of a video I saw on YouTube posted by Hubspot.com in shows a scene which depicted someone in a sales management role imploring a sales person to get on the phone. The sales manager character states to the frustrated sales person, “If you are not dialing I am not smiling.”

Recently the emergence a different philosophy in which companies is creating content relating to the customers issues has changed the game. Promoting the information to the proper people allows qualified prospects to seek you out in question of how you can help solve their problems.

Does this sound too good to be true for most sales people? Yes, this is why large scale adoption of this concept is not commonplace.

Lately times are changing especially with Social Media with large companies are seeing the value of building communities with prospective clients instead of hiring sales to push products on them.

This method by all counts is easier on everyone, the sales force, the purchaser and that is the essence of inbound marketing. The idea makes perfect sense if one looks at the process in the eye of the customer, the transactions still occur and the pressure is eliminated from the entire process. This may not be adequate for most sales folks but is good enough for me.

My New Smart Meter by Tony Green

The time had finally come. I never thought I would see the day. I received a letter from PG&E few weeks back stating someone would be installing a smart meter in our home. I was skeptical in light of the economy it somehow would fail to happen.

The old meter monitored the amount of electricity you used in kilowatt Hours and used this to determine your bill every month.

The new meter would allow, in addition, to measuring power but enable renewable energy sources such as Wind, Solar, and Plug-In vehicles to provide power back to the electric grid.

The installer arrived at my house and informed me they would be securing power temporarily to install the meter and would knock on the door to let me know prior to shutting off the power.

I am been reading in print and electronic media that these Smart Meters will be the wave of the future revolutionizing the method power is used and consumed. They will be required if the enormous potential of renewable energy would be fulfilled. The adoption of technology which changes lives often takes a long amount of time to transpire.

In fact, Electric charging stations were in the process of being installed in nearby San Jose which would enable Electric Vehicle to power up in the same fashion car acquire fuel at filling stations. This is an important hurdle that must be cleared it all Vehicles powered by batteries are going to gain widespread adoption.

Perhaps these events signal the beginning of the energy independent future we have dreamed of?

For now, I needed to stop visualizing about possibilities of the future. I hear a knock at the door. Perhaps the time to make alternative energy a reality is here at last.

Biodiesel versus Diesel what is the difference? by Tony Green

Diesel is any fuel used in diesel engines. These engines are used in various machines with engines including cars and trucks. The fuels are produced from distilling crude oil which results in a mixture of carbon chains varying from 8 to 21 carbons in length.

Biodiesels can also be used in any engine where diesel is used without modification. The primary from differences from ordinary diesel is its origin and its composition. It is derived from reacting fats or lipids (e.g., vegetable oil, animal fat (tallow)) with an alcohol and composed of (FAME) Fatty Acid Methyl Esters consisting of long-chain alkyl (methyl, propyl or ethyl) esters.

Why do both fuel work in diesel engines if one is based on petroleum and the other from vegetable oil?

The answer is provided by examining the structure of these two materials. After being processed from feedstock of crude oil Diesel fuel is typically composed of cetane, or n-hexadecane (C₁₆H₃₄),

A typical molecule of biodiesel after processing from its feedstock of vegetable oils is composed of a long chain of carbon atoms, with hydrogen atoms attached, similar to the diesel molecule except the end grouping identified as an ester functional group.

The energy from both diesel and biodiesel comes from the carbon hydrogen (C-H) bonds which comprise both of the molecules.

Diesel engines can burn biodiesel fuel with no modifications (except for replacing some rubber tubing inside the automobile that may soften with biodiesel). This is possible because biodiesel is very similar in its composition to regular diesel, shown above. Notice diesel also has the long chain of carbon and hydrogen atoms, but doesn't have the ester group shown in blue above.

Diesel is used in general as is while Biodiesel is blended in various proportions with gasoline. Blends of biodiesel and traditional hydrocarbon-based diesel are products most distributed for use in the retail diesel fuel marketplace. Much of the world uses a system known as the "B" factor to state the amount of biodiesel in any fuel mix: fuel containing 20% biodiesel is labeled B20, while pure biodiesel is referred to as B100. Blends of 20 percent biodiesel with 80 percent petroleum diesel (B20) can fuel unmodified diesel engines. Biodiesel can also provide power in its pure form (B100), but may require certain engine modifications to avoid maintenance and performance problems.

The future will see more biodiesels being used in place of conventional diesel in many applications including jet fuel. The adoption rate will be faster if the price of biodiesel becomes comparable or less to that of ordinary diesel. The transition had already begun as many applications, since jet fuel is the structurally the same was diesel, are beginning to use biodiesel to power their airplane fleets.

Images courtesy of http://www.goshen.edu/chemistry and http://www.dreamstime.com

Troubleshooting by Tony Green

The scenario is along these lines. A complex electro mechanical system is not functioning. The system is not producing revenue by creating its designed product. A lot of money may be in jeopardy if the system is not brought back to normal operation in a short amount of time. Your job is to repair the equipment and return it to operation.

Where do you start? There could be an infinite amount of things which may be the cause of the problem. You realize the pressure cooker is about to begin unless progress is made.

You suddenly remember the seven step troubleshooting procedure you learned while you were in the Navy as a nuke.

You identify and elaborate on the symptoms, identify the list possible faulty components, and narrow down your list to the one you suspect is causing your problem and finally create a possible retest procedure after performing a root cause analysis.

Yet, the machine is still not working. You relax and try a few more things. As this process occurs you ensure you are thinking positive thoughts as in the past you initially been stumped yet were eventually successful. After a few additional adjustments to your list of what may be causing the problem you find your culprit and the system is brought back into operation.

A sigh of relief is breathed as the crisis has been averted and receiving kudos from management you reflect on how you got the job done once more.

In the end you used two things: a process of determining the problem and a true belief you would figure out the solution. Yes, with that you can fix anything…