A great job ad

http://www.squidoo.com/Hiring-for-Acumen-Fund

4HWW - Email and the Inbox

Awesome stuff

Click here - go

Negotiation

Negotiate Late — Make Others Negotiate Against Themselves

Never make a first offer when purchasing. Flinch after the first offer (”$3,000!” followed by pure silence, which uncomfortable salespeople fill by dropping the price once), let people negotiate against themselves (”Is that really the best you can offer?” elicits at least one additional drop in price), then “bracket”. If they end up at $2,000 and you want to pay $1,500, offer $1,250. They’ll counter with approximately $1,750, to which you respond: “I’ll tell you what — let’s just split the difference. I’ll overnight you a cheque, and we can call it a day.” The end result? Exactly what you wanted: $1,500.

good e- Newsletter example

http://www.psaudio.com/ps/newsletters/january-2009-ps-newsletter

Just give them the pickle

Great idea about customer service - go here - PICKLE

Using Twitter

click here for great article on how Twitter works for business from Robert Middleton

Thoughts on Aust Open Mens Final

The fifth set, for those of you who saw it, was a total mental collapse. The reason it hurt so bad was that we have all been there. No, I know I have not played an Australian Open final, but we have all experienced the disappointment that Roger Federer felt after throwing away the match.

It is pretty daunting when you have no one else but yourself to blame for a loss, which is one of the reasons that tennis can teach us.

Roger Federer rose even further in peoples esteem for him on Sunday night. Why? Because he became even more humane. His opponent Rafael Nadal seemed almost mechanically calm. The latter is a mental ghost for Roger Federer. A tennis nemesis who doesn't suffer the butterflies that totally undermined Roger's backhand in the fifth set.

Now, there were a few things at play during the match which I thought were interesting from a performance and psychological perspective which relates to how we all perform under pressure.

1. Rafael Nadal had played a 5.5 hour match less than 48 hours before. All commentators and spectators assumed that if the match went to 5 sets, that Rafael Nadal would tire, and Roger would win.

In the fourth set, Roger was trying to tire his opponent and I sensed Roger might have also believed that Rafael Nadal would falter sooner or later. He did not. Never underestimate the people around you. Expect them to be at their best when it matters, and prepare accordingly.

2. Even the best, most hardened, athletic, iron-willed mind-champions like Roger Federer sometimes gets it wrong. It's ok - it literally does happen to the best of us. What is interesting is how we bounce back.

3. Sometimes, emotions force us to let our guards down. It was heart-breaking to see Roger lose his cool, cry for 45 seconds on live tv without uttering a word, and with zero composure. It was the total opposite to what we have come to expect of him. Yet it made him even more human in my eyes and it showed me how much this meant to him. I hope he uses this as motivational fuel to take the match to Nadal on his home-turf - on clay at Roland Garros and that Federer may conquer his first French Open.

4. It is testing times for all of us. We have all experienced upsets, disappointments and losses for which we have noone but ourselves to blame. Roger knew that he could have won the match but that he lost his cool in the fifth set and that he gave Rafa the match. It was an exercise in personal leadership and Rafa came out stronger. The sobering thing is how we show up, whether we blame the outside world, or whether we seize our fate by both hands and stake a claim, that no matter what the external circumstances, I will come out victorious.