Rational and Emotional Approaches to Change Essay

Presentation Pioneers seem to settle on choices dependent on what they may pick up or lose in their influential positions. This may mean being seen as week or solid. Is it true that they are daring individuals with regards to their being seen by their supporters which conflicts with business as usual? Any progressions may likewise be viewed as a trade off of their qualities. Enthusiastic Intelligence In 1985 Reuven Bar-on was reasearching the characteristics that lead to progress. He appeared there was substantially more than customary Intelligences or IQ and built up the idea of Emotional Intelligence-Emotinal Quotient or EQ was born.(Roy Childs, Emotional Intelligence and Leaderhsip). 2012 Team Technology. As indicated by the Harvard Business Review, passionate knowledge is one of the characterizing characteristics of agood pioneer. It can take an individual of to some degree â€Å"average insight and capacities and change them into a compelling and effective piece of any association. An enthusiastic pioneer would have passionate knowledge which is characterized by the capacity comprehend and deal with our feelings and people around us. This quality gives people an assortment of aptitudes, for example, the capacity to oversee connections, explore informal organizations, I impact and motivate others. (Sara Flecther, Lead Change Group. May 30, 2012.) In today’s working environment, it has become exceptionally significant why pioneers ought to develop their enthusiastic insight: mindfulness; passionate administration; compelling correspondence; social mindfulness and struggle resolution.(Sara Fletcher ,Lead Change Group. May 30, 2012.) The possibility that accomplishment in both life and in work (in any event where overseeing individuals is concerned is a huge factor) turned out to be exceptionally tenable and associations have perceived how their best chiefs and administrators need to build up their comprehension of themselves and other. (Roy Childs, Emotonal Intelliegence and Leaderhsip. 2012 Teamology.) A passionate pioneer is additionally described as being charmismatic. Charmismatic administration hypothesis is a well known and much reseached way to deal with understanding successful initiative. (Hughes, Ginnett, Curphy, 2003). Utilizing this knowledge depends on a few models, self â€assessment questionaires.This approach has evident impediments in identifing levels of self-awarenessâ€Å"how would you be able to know about what you areâ not mindful of!â€Å"(Roy Childs Emotional Intelligence and Leadership.2012 Teamology) A superior methodology is supposed to be expertimental works out, input reaction to recognize qualities and shortcomings, self-appraisals by an autonomous source which offers a more significant level of genuineness. This methodology challenges numerous difficulties however can cause development and advancement.

Practicing Theory :: essays research papers

Incorporating Theories In legislative issues, people appear to be extremely opposing towards each other. Numerous circumstances designate for difference just as intriguing conversations and discussions. I was viewing the presidential discussion when my better half began shedding her feeling, which I didn’t very concur with. Maybe she disregarded what one competitor said and accepted the other in light of the fact that there was a predisposition in her reasoning. That, alongside what every applicant was stating was causing influence as I would see it and I felt uneasiness. I picked Cognitive Dissonance Theory for this occurrence because of the clashing thoughts going on in my mind during this circumstance. At the point when she began offering one-sided remarks about whatever a specific competitor stated, I had clashing contemplations that go directly alongside the conflicting relationship part of the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. I imagined that so as to settle on a choice you have to know all that happens odds and ends of it, yet what clashed with this idea was her one-sided remark that depended entirely on one articulation. What I was after to make my own musings and decisions pleasing was to show up at some degree of predictable considerations inside myself with regards to how I can reduce the pressure. The purpose behind this discord was a result of outside sources that drove me to make a move that caused an impact. Be that as it may, after the conversation with the other individual I ended up attempting to accomplish consonance and lessen discord d ue to my uneasiness. Generally I was attempting to persuade myself that I should attempt to discover some trade off with what she was stating so the contention would stop to exist. All together for the contention to stop and adapt to the discord my disposition needed to change, which drove me after the discussion to search out specific introduction. This implied I needed to look for data not present around then to help lessen the cacophony inside myself and stop the contending among her and myself. From what she was stating I additionally searched out an alternate sort of discernment, specific translation. From the equivocal data she offered I attempted to bargain and make some of it steady to my own contemplations that could help further to end the cacophony. A definitive strategy I utilized that I wasn’t even mindful of until I saw this term was insignificant defense. The insignificant motivation given for this situation was simply me saying, â€Å"I’m not saying yo u are incorrect, I simply need you to see the entire picture before you condemn.

Early Reading Program Essay Example for Free

Early Reading Program Essay The article Experts Eschew Narrow Reading of Early-Literacy Study by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo talks about a significant point, concentrated on advancing projects for pre-schoolers that will improve their perusing aptitudes when they arrive at their basic years. â€Å"A since a long time ago guaranteed survey of early-perusing research infers that instructing the letter set and letter sounds in preschool fortifies children’s odds of accomplishment in figuring out how to peruse later on† (Manzo, 2009). This is a fascinating article since it unmistakably exhibits how these youngsters will profit the early education programs since these will assist them with understanding better and quicker. The projects will help secure these youngsters a decent future in light of the fact that these will guarantee them of decent instruction that can prepare them as right on time as their pre-school years. Be that as it may, these early proficiency programs present issues for youngsters, just as to teachers. For the kids, these projects may squeeze them. Their opportunity to learn things at their own pace will be removed. At such an early age, kids will be presented to organized learning and may get used to this sort of instruction, which is certainly not something to be thankful for since not every single scholastic establishment offer a similar kind. For the instructors, the test will be to structure the projects so that the kids won't lose enthusiasm, simultaneously will be helpful to them. Training is a huge piece of making sure about a decent future. It will improve ones odds of acquiring occupations that can bolster the person in question monetarily. It can likewise enable an individual to acknowledge what the individual in question needs to do throughout everyday life and expand their possibilities without limit. Early education projects ought to be painstakingly arranged with the end goal that insignificant issues will be met en route. This is significant so as to not risk the childrens scholarly lives and eventually, their future. Reference Manzo, K. K. (2009, January 21). Specialists Eschew Narrow Reading of Early-Literacy Study. Recovered June 5, 2009, from http://www. edweek. organization/ew/articles/2009/01/08/18read. h28. html

Group Interviews Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Gathering Interviews - Essay Example Likewise called as center gatherings and board interviews, bunch meeting has, still, its a lot of points of interest and hindrances. A few notions on its focal points as an examination strategy has made gathering meeting a widely utilized procedure (Robinson, 1993). Contrasting this procedure and individual or one-on-one meeting, bunch meeting is attempted to produce a more extensive assortment of reaction, which thusly, is profoundly significant in showcasing and social explores. Organizations utilize this procedure in work screenings also, to see administration and character of the competitors in an open conversation. Along these lines, they could recognize the solid and skilled ones who are appropriate for their open positions. As far as time, bunch meeting is a productive method in social inquires about to comply with time constraints yet still create adequate and sensible informational index. With these portion of positive characteristics, the moxy of gathering meeting has come to be likened with â€Å"qualitative research† (Robinson, 1993). Much of the time, the impact of gathering meeting on talk with space and condition is treated as a bit of leeway. As the vast majority feel strain when set for an individual meeting, the setting of a few interviewees at one meeting by one way or another alleviates the weight of the circumstance. The scary feel of the one-on-one meeting is additionally diminished during a gathering interviews as interviewees get the happy with feeling alongside the one another, as opposed to alone with a decent mediator. For this situation, the evident perspective on the mediator or specialist as a power, which makes the circumstance threatening, is kept away from. Association among the interviewees is likewise observed as a preferred position by and large, as it makes an agreeable situation as well as rather an open door for a reasonable conversation and informational collection. It is in this exuberant cooperation and rich conversation that the information develops (Cohen and Manion, 1994). Accordin gly, gathering

Criminal prevention, treatment or punishment program Research Paper

Criminal anticipation, treatment or discipline program - Research Paper Example The utilize of such youth and adolescent situated projects change starting with one state then onto the next albeit nearby specialists and police authorities concede that one without the other is just inadequate. In criminal avoidance and concealment, the two practices are showing viability at various levels despite the fact that anticipation had demonstrated to be increasingly useful in misusing the utilization and the board of one of the least talked about yet exceptionally significant regions of criminology †the funds. 2 In looking for the rebuilding of the Community Youth Services award line for the two monetary years 2011 and 2012, Chicago Area Project (CAP) Director David E. Whitaker, said that the projects which center around adolescent wrongdoing avoidance cost citizens under $500 per youth yearly while the cost of keeping an adolescent reprobate in confinement is evaluated to be up to $80,000 or $75,000 progressively costly per youth, every year. The executive of the Il linois side of the CAP venture said that regardless of whether just a single percent or 700 of these adolescents go into adolescent confinement, the expense would be a faltering $56 million yearly or multiple times more prominent than the whole Community Youth Services award line. ... Such standard is unequivocally underlined in the statement of purpose of the Anti-Gang Office, a division of the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security in Houston, Texas in these words: The workplace works under the reason that pack action is best tended to through three methodologies: avoidance, intercession and concealment. Counteraction and mediation are offered by administration associations, with concealment tended to by law requirement and criminal equity organizations. (houstontx.gov) 3 Peace and soundness begins at home especially with the guardians themselves setting up the very center of order and arrangements that make for a quiet and stable family, the most fundamental establishment of any general public. By and large, the entire network and people in general everywhere will in the long run assume responsibility in the general part of wrongdoing prevention taking note of that the mainstays of the equity framework prominently the police must be as ful l of feeling as the overall population needs them to be. In emphasizing the viable evenness of criminology, a Mayor of Houston expresses that: â€Å"suppression is commonly not fruitful alone. Houston gives a case of how concealment can be joined with other program components, in that the Mayor's Anti-Gang Office utilizes concealment procedures as one component of the OJJDP's exhaustive group model, â€Å"a worldview that uses five center techniques (network preparation, arrangement of chances, social intercession, concealment, authoritative change and improvement) to address posse issues inside a focused on community.†(usmayors.org) Working intently in consonance with the Anti-Gang Office of the Mayor, the Houston Police

CP13 Podcast with Mike Smalls from Hoopla Software about Boosting Team Performance

CP13 Podcast with Mike Smalls from Hoopla Software about Boosting Team Performance INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi folks! Do you have a sales team and are really interested in pushing up your motivation while achieving more results? Today we have an entrepreneur who knows all about this. Hi, Mike, who are you and what do you do?Mike: Hello, Mike Smalls, Im the founder and CEO of Hoopla. So I lead the strategy and direction of the company.Martin: What is Hoopla?Mike: Hoopla is a sales motivation and communication platform that allows companies to take          normally hidden data from backend systems like CRM systems and other areas, and bring that data to light. In order to drive the right kind of behaviors and actions from the sales teams and other people within the company by highlighting successes, creating competitions and recognizing performance as it happens through big screen TVs or mobile devices around the company. Its like an ESPN network for the entire company.Martin: Mike, can you elaborate a little bit on your background and at what point in time did you come up with this idea? Was there some kind of moment where you thought: Ah! Thats a super cool idea?Mike: So my background is in building and running sales teams, sales and marketing teams for a variety of companies, big companies like Symantec as well as a bunch of start-ups. I just kept seeing the same kind of patterns and challenges. I wanted to solve problems that I had, which was getting folks to do the right kind of actions and behaviors in advance to produce results as opposed to reporting on information after the fact.So getting them to do the right kind of calls, meetings, and create opportunities we needed to tap into their natural psychology. And the Ah-ha moment really was sitting in front of my TV on a Sunday watching a football game. When I watched one of these athletes do a flip into the endzone just to get on the Sunday highlight reel and the next weeks review show. I realized that the wiring of an athlete and a sales person are very similar. They love to be on stage an d they love to get the recognition and they love to compete and win. So there is a lot of similarities between athletes and sales people. That was the Ah-ha moment.Martin: Cool, so after this football match what did you do next?Mike: I was actually working for a company. I actually had a special clause in my contract that allowed me to work on my start-up in kind of my spare time without worry of them owning the idea. I had this idea where I hired a developer that came and worked out of my house. I paid him with my own money to build a prototype of an early sketch that I kind of thought through. It was very different from what Hoopla is today, but it was the beginnings of that. Essentially it was taking that data that was buried and was putting it out in an application, which then I was able to show some early investors, some seed investors the concept. Once that prototype was done it allowed me to raise a little bit of money to get the whole thing launched.Martin: Cool, so you got investors before you approached potential clients?Mike: Well, actually there is a sidebar to this story. One of the things I did to try and get prepared for launching this company was that we created a free application. It was just a simple little countdown clock that counted down the number of selling days left in a week, month, quarter, year, or what have you, subtracted out the weekends. That worked inside of sales force and it displayed the remaining selling days right at the sidebar. It was a component of Hoopla, but I figured we would get that out there on the market first to see if we could get some early adoption for free and build our marketing database.That actually was a really great start because what it did was allow us to get into communication and conversations with potential customers before we launched the real product. To date, we have had over 2,000 companies download that free little countdown clock that is forming the basis for our marketing efforts.Martin: Cool , Lets talk about the first three or six months after you successfully raised the money and you developed the MVP version and put it out to the sales force. What was it really like when you got the money to your bank account and started to build a team?Mike: Well, first of all, it was a little leap even though I had a little money it wasnt a lot. It wasnt enough to live off of. I ended up taking a serious haircut in salary, pay, compensation, and all that. I knew the clock was ticking from day one, but it was invigorating in that we got our very first customer. That moment when you sign that contract and they give you a check it is really invigorating. What happened from there was the word of mouth started to spread. Things started to build and to grow. Once we had the investment dollars we still had a six months of development to go before we could actually get out there and sell it full force.Martin: Understood.BUSINESS MODEL OF HOOPLA SOFTWAREMartin: Lets talk about the business model. So who are your major customers? Is it only the sales department or others functions? Are you focusing on a specific industry or region? What are your target customers?Mike: That is a good question. We started out built completely on the sales force platform and so our customers were the only customer who was used sale force at the beginning. Sales teams were the subset within that. Our customers were all sort of mid-size and larger companies that had inside sales teams that did transactions and had a lot of activity that they wanted to track and measure.One of the main components of our system is our TV experience where the individual reps are being highlighted on the screen and they are being recognized. Having people inside an organization to be able to view that was a key element for that first success. We have since expanded out that customers can use us with other data sources as well as other departments. That core first audience of that inside sales team that within t hese organizations is still our primary foot in the door. We do sell in the US, Europe, Australia, and Canada. Those are our four main geographies.Martin: Cool, I want to understand a little bit more how the product works. Is it really that a customer is building the dashboard for himself and needs to plug in the TV in order to show this to the sales people? Or is it that you are automatically building some great dashboards and distribute them to the TV?Mike: Yes, good question. We have a bunch of template elements that can be displaced. So leaderboards, top performers, countdowns, and team versus team kind of elements. We have all these kind of templates that are fed by the data that the customer will link into our system. That linking in can come from a sales force report or it can come from a CSV file, Excel file, and soon a Google sheet spreadsheet. All that information can be fed in automatically.The customer doesnt have to be an expert in design or all that. Essentially it is like building a PowerPoint slide show if you will. Put these different components together that play in a loop and they are dynamically being updated as the data is changing. One of the key things that people love is the automated alerts or news flashes that occur whenever data changes that it significant. A deal gets closed, a goal gets met, somebody achieves something, there is fan fair, there is a song that plays, a video that plays and each individual rep can put their own walk-up song, their own custom soundtrack to their face and their image, or show a GIF image. It gets real fun and they have a lot of fun doing that.Martin: Okay, I understand. So this is the unique selling point, I guess.Mike: Part of it, yes.Martin: Imagine Im a sales guy. I have at least two options when I want to understand my metrics. I can either use Hoopla software or I can use some other dashboard provider which delivers me some real time analytics? Why should I use Hoopla?Mike: Hoopla makes everything come to life and it is pushing that information out, it is broadcasting that information out as opposed to you having to log into some system to do your own analysis and to remember to do that, right. So to what is happening is as things are occurring in your organization information is being pushed out. People are being celebrated. Wins are being recognized. People can even challenge each other live on a given metric. So I might challenge you to a three-day competition that you have to accept and its all public information through a broadcast. The big difference is that its relevant, interesting, and engaging, but its being pushed out to you and being broadcast to you as opposed to you going I need to go check my dashboard.Martin: So you are trying to use gamification and pushing the message out there?Mike: Yes, thats right. Game mechanics play a role here because its recognition, competition, and you can see progress against goals. It is very relevant as opposed to static informa tion.Martin: Can you put some light on how the competitive situation in a sales team changes once the Hoopla system is in place? For example, what is the average uplift in productivity, sales, per sales person, whatsoever? And what is the effect of the people selling the lowest? Are they team motivated?Mike: Those are good questions and they come up a lot. First of all from an uplift perspective, are customers report to us all kinds of uplift activities that they see happening. Anywhere from 30% on up and it is pretty amazing the kind of changes that can happen. Sort of to highlight that we have, one customer they bought Hoopla and they had this problem where they had to field in a sales force that wasnt being updated. It was like a lead source field and they wanted to get that done. What they did was created a little highlight and then focused on that. A competition around who could get those fields updated. The first day they broadcasted that information out there people started t o question what field do we have to fill up and etc. By day three, 100% had been changed and been filled out. So by this quick and simple little highlighting gamification techniques, it actually causes the behavior change.Your question about top performers versus bottom: I think one of the things that are interesting is people have control over these metrics. This is not something happening to them. So if for example you are measuring people on the number of calls being made and they are at the bottom of the list. They have control over how to change that. They can see that and see that as a fair system versus the manager giving favoritism for somebody over another and they dont know if its fair or not. This is an objective system. Its clear how you can win. That makes it much more motivational.Martin: How is your pricing model working and how did you come up with this price point?Mike: Our pricing model is we charge per user, per month. Its around $15 a user, per month. It actually goes down depending on your connections. But that price point was built on some research that we did by talking to existing customers. We actually hired a firm to help us with that to help us  understand the optimal point where customers really saw the value and wanted to have a price point that mapped to the value proposition. We did a lot of analysis on that and that has really been paying off for us. It helps to give us an optimal curve in terms of price point and value gained by the customer.Martin: Mike, I understand how your business model is working right now. But did it change significantly over the years?Mike: Not significantly, but definitely we have made tweaks. We have made changes things as we have learned by talking to customers and by seeing what happens on a given quarter or month basis. But nothing really has been significantly different. Its just minor changes to packages and pricing over time.Martin: How are you now a days acquiring customers and what did you do in terms of customer development?Mike: So we started off very direct sales, inside sales, where we were using that marketing tool of a free application to kind of generate leads to then contact those folks to create our first customers. We built up a sales organization that did that over time. What we have been doing in the last six months is steering more and more toward making the self-service experience much more possible with the product. You can now go up to Hoopla.net today. You can sign up for a free trial. You get 14 days. You can set up your whole system. At the end of that time, you can just put your credit card in and you buy the product without even talking to anyone if you want or we are here to help. We have live chat. We have people on call. People that can help with the demo of it. The goal is to reduce all the friction to let people buy on their own and add users as they need.Martin: Mike, when you are looking into the future for the next two or three years, what t hings of the following do you want to focus on? Is it:An internationalization because you said that youre only active in only four countries?Do you want to focus down on the sales department meaning extending the value propositions you are offering the sales department? OrExtending the current value proposition you have that means active metrics and motivation gamification and extending this to other departments like for example marketing, customer support, product, and so on?Mike: I would say that it is the latter. Our vision is that Hoopla is applicable and valuable to every employee in every company. We think every company in the world should be using the product because it makes the employees perform better. It makes them more engaged. It gives them visibility into where they are against their goals, progress, and against each other. So we think that multiple departments are the right answer going forward.Martin: When you started out what had been your expectations? So lets say this is what I wanted to have achieved after four years and now you are here and what is the delta between what you have expected and what you actually achieved?Mike: Good question. You know that everybody always assumes a perfectly linear growth path that keeps going up and to the right. When the day you start till you advance four years and everything goes perfectly and smoothly. I think the difference in reality versus expectation is that is a very herky-jerky path to success. It is not a smooth road. You have got to expect a lot of bumps along the way and be able to react to those changes. Nothing ever goes as planned. Things take twice or three times as long as you expect, but you just got to stay the course otherwise you will get derailed. So it is definitely different than I expected, but very rewarding.Martin: What have been the biggest bumps and how did you circumvent or manage them?Mike: I would say categories of bumps, right. It is people, hiring the right kind of people and putting them on the team. Its making the right kinds technology and product decisions. Where do you put your investment? How fast do you spend your money? Do you optimize for growth or different areas?I think there is learnings along the way. You know the CEOs job is to make sure we have the right strategy, make sure we have the right people, and that we have money in the bank. I have made mistakes in each one of those areas, but I think we are settling down it that.Martin: Good stuff.ENTREPRENEURIAL ADVICE FROM MICHAEL SMALLSMartin: Great, I assume you have a lot over the years. So if your child comes up to you and says: Daddy, I would like to start a company and imagine your child is a little bit older like 15 or 16 or so. What type of advice would you give your child?Mike: Well, I would say first of all the company is going to be more successful if youre attempting to solve a problem you are intimately aware of, something you are passionate about. Just starting a company for starting a companys sake I would not recommend it. I would recommend you first identify an area of expertise and a problem to solve that you are passionate about solving because you have to be able to stick with it. I would also give him advice or her advice that you need to be prepared for a long grueling effort and you have got to be prepared for that. Its not a get rich quick scheme at all. I would recommend that as well.Martin: Any other things that you have learned?Mike: I would say go with your gut because you are going to get a lot of advice from a lot of people, investors, other folks, and if you get tossed and turned a little bit you are going to get off course. If you follow your gut you know exactly what and your gut can usually be trust on that. I think that is a key piece of advice.I would say dont spend the money too quickly, be careful, be conservative about it. It goes fast. So you have to make sure you are managing your finances very well because its a long road an d you want to be equipped for that.Martin: So when I talk to start-ups most of them, especially in the early days have problems with generating sales. Either because they dont understand the customer, they dont know how to reach them, close a deal, etc. You have lots of experience in terms of sales. What is your advice on really closing a deal and getting to the customers fast and cheap?Mike: You know its back to the old crossing the chasm model, but you have to find the early adopters that are going to have influence with other customers. One of the most important things you can do is build sort of band equity and word of mouth within a particular area. If you have got a product and you want to find those customers that want to be your advocates and you want to really leverage those advocates to help spread the word to other customers.We had the wonderful experience of having some early influential customers that they would tell other people about it or people would come to their o ffices with our product on the walls, being used and they wanted to know more about it. I think its that and making sure that you create really good equity with your customers so you dont burn any of those bridges. You treat everybody fairly. Its better to start off with a good group of customers than to have bad word of mouth to be spread out there.Getting to them the challenges are always breaking through the noise. That is why we did the countdown clock. It allowed us to get in the door. But finding those customers and asking them for referrals, asking people to spread the word for you are really key elements.Martin: Mike, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and walking us through how you business model and your model works. Thank you so much.Mike: My pleasure. Thank you.Martin: Have a great day.THANKS FOR LISTENING! Welcome to the 13th episode of our podcast!You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi folks! Do you have a sales team and are really interested in pushing up your motivation while achieving more results? Today we have an entrepreneur who knows all about this. Hi, Mike, who are you and what do you do?Mike: Hello, Mike Smalls, Im the founder and CEO of Hoopla. So I lead the strategy and direction of the company.Martin: What is Hoopla?Mike: Hoopla is a sales motivation and communication platform that allows companies to take          normally hidden data from backend systems like CRM systems and other areas, and bring that data to light. In order to drive the right kind of behaviors and actions from the sales teams and other people within the company by highlighting successes, creating competitions and recognizing performance as it happens through big screen TVs or mobile devices around the company. Its like an ESPN network for the entire company.Martin: Mike, can you elaborate a little bit on your background and at what point in time did you come up with this idea? Was there some kind of moment where you thought: Ah! Thats a super cool idea?Mike: So my background is in building and running sales teams, sales and marketing teams for a variety of companies, big companies like Symantec as well as a bunch of start-ups. I just kept seeing the same kind of patterns and challenges. I wanted to solve problems that I had, which was getting folks to do the right kind of actions and behaviors in advance to produce results as opposed to reporting on information after the fact.So getting them to do the right kind of calls, meetings, and create opportunities we needed to tap into their natural psychology. And the Ah-ha moment really was sitting in front of my TV on a Sunday watching a football game. When I watched one of these athletes do a flip into the endzone just to get on the Sunday highlight reel and the next weeks review show. I realized that the wiring of an athlete and a sales person are very similar. They love to be on stage an d they love to get the recognition and they love to compete and win. So there is a lot of similarities between athletes and sales people. That was the Ah-ha moment.Martin: Cool, so after this football match what did you do next?Mike: I was actually working for a company. I actually had a special clause in my contract that allowed me to work on my start-up in kind of my spare time without worry of them owning the idea. I had this idea where I hired a developer that came and worked out of my house. I paid him with my own money to build a prototype of an early sketch that I kind of thought through. It was very different from what Hoopla is today, but it was the beginnings of that. Essentially it was taking that data that was buried and was putting it out in an application, which then I was able to show some early investors, some seed investors the concept. Once that prototype was done it allowed me to raise a little bit of money to get the whole thing launched.Martin: Cool, so you got investors before you approached potential clients?Mike: Well, actually there is a sidebar to this story. One of the things I did to try and get prepared for launching this company was that we created a free application. It was just a simple little countdown clock that counted down the number of selling days left in a week, month, quarter, year, or what have you, subtracted out the weekends. That worked inside of sales force and it displayed the remaining selling days right at the sidebar. It was a component of Hoopla, but I figured we would get that out there on the market first to see if we could get some early adoption for free and build our marketing database.That actually was a really great start because what it did was allow us to get into communication and conversations with potential customers before we launched the real product. To date, we have had over 2,000 companies download that free little countdown clock that is forming the basis for our marketing efforts.Martin: Cool , Lets talk about the first three or six months after you successfully raised the money and you developed the MVP version and put it out to the sales force. What was it really like when you got the money to your bank account and started to build a team?Mike: Well, first of all, it was a little leap even though I had a little money it wasnt a lot. It wasnt enough to live off of. I ended up taking a serious haircut in salary, pay, compensation, and all that. I knew the clock was ticking from day one, but it was invigorating in that we got our very first customer. That moment when you sign that contract and they give you a check it is really invigorating. What happened from there was the word of mouth started to spread. Things started to build and to grow. Once we had the investment dollars we still had a six months of development to go before we could actually get out there and sell it full force.Martin: Understood.BUSINESS MODEL OF HOOPLA SOFTWAREMartin: Lets talk about the business model. So who are your major customers? Is it only the sales department or others functions? Are you focusing on a specific industry or region? What are your target customers?Mike: That is a good question. We started out built completely on the sales force platform and so our customers were the only customer who was used sale force at the beginning. Sales teams were the subset within that. Our customers were all sort of mid-size and larger companies that had inside sales teams that did transactions and had a lot of activity that they wanted to track and measure.One of the main components of our system is our TV experience where the individual reps are being highlighted on the screen and they are being recognized. Having people inside an organization to be able to view that was a key element for that first success. We have since expanded out that customers can use us with other data sources as well as other departments. That core first audience of that inside sales team that within t hese organizations is still our primary foot in the door. We do sell in the US, Europe, Australia, and Canada. Those are our four main geographies.Martin: Cool, I want to understand a little bit more how the product works. Is it really that a customer is building the dashboard for himself and needs to plug in the TV in order to show this to the sales people? Or is it that you are automatically building some great dashboards and distribute them to the TV?Mike: Yes, good question. We have a bunch of template elements that can be displaced. So leaderboards, top performers, countdowns, and team versus team kind of elements. We have all these kind of templates that are fed by the data that the customer will link into our system. That linking in can come from a sales force report or it can come from a CSV file, Excel file, and soon a Google sheet spreadsheet. All that information can be fed in automatically.The customer doesnt have to be an expert in design or all that. Essentially it is like building a PowerPoint slide show if you will. Put these different components together that play in a loop and they are dynamically being updated as the data is changing. One of the key things that people love is the automated alerts or news flashes that occur whenever data changes that it significant. A deal gets closed, a goal gets met, somebody achieves something, there is fan fair, there is a song that plays, a video that plays and each individual rep can put their own walk-up song, their own custom soundtrack to their face and their image, or show a GIF image. It gets real fun and they have a lot of fun doing that.Martin: Okay, I understand. So this is the unique selling point, I guess.Mike: Part of it, yes.Martin: Imagine Im a sales guy. I have at least two options when I want to understand my metrics. I can either use Hoopla software or I can use some other dashboard provider which delivers me some real time analytics? Why should I use Hoopla?Mike: Hoopla makes everything come to life and it is pushing that information out, it is broadcasting that information out as opposed to you having to log into some system to do your own analysis and to remember to do that, right. So to what is happening is as things are occurring in your organization information is being pushed out. People are being celebrated. Wins are being recognized. People can even challenge each other live on a given metric. So I might challenge you to a three-day competition that you have to accept and its all public information through a broadcast. The big difference is that its relevant, interesting, and engaging, but its being pushed out to you and being broadcast to you as opposed to you going I need to go check my dashboard.Martin: So you are trying to use gamification and pushing the message out there?Mike: Yes, thats right. Game mechanics play a role here because its recognition, competition, and you can see progress against goals. It is very relevant as opposed to static informa tion.Martin: Can you put some light on how the competitive situation in a sales team changes once the Hoopla system is in place? For example, what is the average uplift in productivity, sales, per sales person, whatsoever? And what is the effect of the people selling the lowest? Are they team motivated?Mike: Those are good questions and they come up a lot. First of all from an uplift perspective, are customers report to us all kinds of uplift activities that they see happening. Anywhere from 30% on up and it is pretty amazing the kind of changes that can happen. Sort of to highlight that we have, one customer they bought Hoopla and they had this problem where they had to field in a sales force that wasnt being updated. It was like a lead source field and they wanted to get that done. What they did was created a little highlight and then focused on that. A competition around who could get those fields updated. The first day they broadcasted that information out there people started t o question what field do we have to fill up and etc. By day three, 100% had been changed and been filled out. So by this quick and simple little highlighting gamification techniques, it actually causes the behavior change.Your question about top performers versus bottom: I think one of the things that are interesting is people have control over these metrics. This is not something happening to them. So if for example you are measuring people on the number of calls being made and they are at the bottom of the list. They have control over how to change that. They can see that and see that as a fair system versus the manager giving favoritism for somebody over another and they dont know if its fair or not. This is an objective system. Its clear how you can win. That makes it much more motivational.Martin: How is your pricing model working and how did you come up with this price point?Mike: Our pricing model is we charge per user, per month. Its around $15 a user, per month. It actually goes down depending on your connections. But that price point was built on some research that we did by talking to existing customers. We actually hired a firm to help us with that to help us  understand the optimal point where customers really saw the value and wanted to have a price point that mapped to the value proposition. We did a lot of analysis on that and that has really been paying off for us. It helps to give us an optimal curve in terms of price point and value gained by the customer.Martin: Mike, I understand how your business model is working right now. But did it change significantly over the years?Mike: Not significantly, but definitely we have made tweaks. We have made changes things as we have learned by talking to customers and by seeing what happens on a given quarter or month basis. But nothing really has been significantly different. Its just minor changes to packages and pricing over time.Martin: How are you now a days acquiring customers and what did you do in terms of customer development?Mike: So we started off very direct sales, inside sales, where we were using that marketing tool of a free application to kind of generate leads to then contact those folks to create our first customers. We built up a sales organization that did that over time. What we have been doing in the last six months is steering more and more toward making the self-service experience much more possible with the product. You can now go up to Hoopla.net today. You can sign up for a free trial. You get 14 days. You can set up your whole system. At the end of that time, you can just put your credit card in and you buy the product without even talking to anyone if you want or we are here to help. We have live chat. We have people on call. People that can help with the demo of it. The goal is to reduce all the friction to let people buy on their own and add users as they need.Martin: Mike, when you are looking into the future for the next two or three years, what t hings of the following do you want to focus on? Is it:An internationalization because you said that youre only active in only four countries?Do you want to focus down on the sales department meaning extending the value propositions you are offering the sales department? OrExtending the current value proposition you have that means active metrics and motivation gamification and extending this to other departments like for example marketing, customer support, product, and so on?Mike: I would say that it is the latter. Our vision is that Hoopla is applicable and valuable to every employee in every company. We think every company in the world should be using the product because it makes the employees perform better. It makes them more engaged. It gives them visibility into where they are against their goals, progress, and against each other. So we think that multiple departments are the right answer going forward.Martin: When you started out what had been your expectations? So lets say this is what I wanted to have achieved after four years and now you are here and what is the delta between what you have expected and what you actually achieved?Mike: Good question. You know that everybody always assumes a perfectly linear growth path that keeps going up and to the right. When the day you start till you advance four years and everything goes perfectly and smoothly. I think the difference in reality versus expectation is that is a very herky-jerky path to success. It is not a smooth road. You have got to expect a lot of bumps along the way and be able to react to those changes. Nothing ever goes as planned. Things take twice or three times as long as you expect, but you just got to stay the course otherwise you will get derailed. So it is definitely different than I expected, but very rewarding.Martin: What have been the biggest bumps and how did you circumvent or manage them?Mike: I would say categories of bumps, right. It is people, hiring the right kind of people and putting them on the team. Its making the right kinds technology and product decisions. Where do you put your investment? How fast do you spend your money? Do you optimize for growth or different areas?I think there is learnings along the way. You know the CEOs job is to make sure we have the right strategy, make sure we have the right people, and that we have money in the bank. I have made mistakes in each one of those areas, but I think we are settling down it that.Martin: Good stuff.ENTREPRENEURIAL ADVICE FROM MICHAEL SMALLSMartin: Great, I assume you have a lot over the years. So if your child comes up to you and says: Daddy, I would like to start a company and imagine your child is a little bit older like 15 or 16 or so. What type of advice would you give your child?Mike: Well, I would say first of all the company is going to be more successful if youre attempting to solve a problem you are intimately aware of, something you are passionate about. Just starting a company for starting a companys sake I would not recommend it. I would recommend you first identify an area of expertise and a problem to solve that you are passionate about solving because you have to be able to stick with it. I would also give him advice or her advice that you need to be prepared for a long grueling effort and you have got to be prepared for that. Its not a get rich quick scheme at all. I would recommend that as well.Martin: Any other things that you have learned?Mike: I would say go with your gut because you are going to get a lot of advice from a lot of people, investors, other folks, and if you get tossed and turned a little bit you are going to get off course. If you follow your gut you know exactly what and your gut can usually be trust on that. I think that is a key piece of advice.I would say dont spend the money too quickly, be careful, be conservative about it. It goes fast. So you have to make sure you are managing your finances very well because its a long road an d you want to be equipped for that.Martin: So when I talk to start-ups most of them, especially in the early days have problems with generating sales. Either because they dont understand the customer, they dont know how to reach them, close a deal, etc. You have lots of experience in terms of sales. What is your advice on really closing a deal and getting to the customers fast and cheap?Mike: You know its back to the old crossing the chasm model, but you have to find the early adopters that are going to have influence with other customers. One of the most important things you can do is build sort of band equity and word of mouth within a particular area. If you have got a product and you want to find those customers that want to be your advocates and you want to really leverage those advocates to help spread the word to other customers.We had the wonderful experience of having some early influential customers that they would tell other people about it or people would come to their o ffices with our product on the walls, being used and they wanted to know more about it. I think its that and making sure that you create really good equity with your customers so you dont burn any of those bridges. You treat everybody fairly. Its better to start off with a good group of customers than to have bad word of mouth to be spread out there.Getting to them the challenges are always breaking through the noise. That is why we did the countdown clock. It allowed us to get in the door. But finding those customers and asking them for referrals, asking people to spread the word for you are really key elements.Martin: Mike, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and walking us through how you business model and your model works. Thank you so much.Mike: My pleasure. Thank you.Martin: Have a great day.THANKS FOR LISTENING!Thanks so much for joining our 13th podcast episode!Have some feedback you’d like to share?  Leave  a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed thi s episode, please  share  it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.Also,  please leave an honest review for The Cleverism Podcast on iTunes or on SoundCloud. Ratings and reviews  are  extremely  helpful  and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.Special thanks  to Mike for joining me this week. Until  next time!

Popular Piece Of Modern Literature - Free Essay Example

The Lord Of The Flies is a popular piece of modern literature by the Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding, red by many students to this day. The Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding was born on September 19, 1911, Newquay, Cornwall, England and died on June 19, 1993, Perranarworthal, Cornwall, England at the age of 81. In 1940 Golding temporarily abandoned teaching in Bishop Wordsworths School in Salisbury to join the Royal Navy to fight in WWII. Upbound the Lord Of The Flies publish in 1954, the Lord of the Flies did not have great success after being released, it was Goldings first novel. During time was after the war of WWII that is why there is a war element in the book of Lord Of The Flies The book sold about three thousand copies in the United States during 1955, before the Lord Of The Flies was going out of print it went on to become a best-seller of that year. The critics, some thought that Goldings novel [Lord Of The Flies] has a remarkably complete and solid structure(Kinkead- Weekes and Gregor 15). This shows that for the readers it took time for them to appreciate Goldings work after a year. Critically they agree that Goldings work was solid and complete, which these are the reasons why Goldings book Lord Of The Flies is a popular book till today. The Lord Of The Flies follows chronological order. It starts with all characters arriving on to the island. There are sequences of dreaming like the kids dreaming about the beasty or when Simon daydreamed about the Lord Of Flies near the dead body of the pilot. Throughout chapter 1-4, the tension rises between Jack and Ralf, the two leaders. At the end of the book, every one cried when the adult came to save them. The comparison of the start and the end is the process of becoming savages and reverting back to kids when the adult came. The similarity between the start and the end is that they all revert back to a kid in the end, just like they got there. The book is told on a deserted island following the character after they crashed on it, the story is most likely take place during WWII because the mention of war and the book is published 10 years after WWII. The Lord Of The Flies is told from a third person omniscient and present term view. The point of view throughout the story did not change. Because this allows Golding to follow and talk about any of the characters at any point of the story. This is done to distances the reader as to allow Golding to judge the characters actions at any point of the story. Goldings use of syntax of long periodic sentences when describing the peaceful coral island shaded with greens and purples. And some time shorter sentences like when Golding describes moments of violence or high tension. For an example, for the all pigs death, Golding uses great detail and imagery to create stress an tension. All these is to create a full image for the reader to feel, see, and imagine that part of the event.