In the world, there are certain immutable physical laws. We all know them. You know, you’ve got your Newton’s Law of Gravity, your Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Moore’s Law…and now there’s my Theorem of Agita and Angst. Newton – What goes up will come down Einstein – E = mc2 Moore – Computing performance will double every…
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Conversion is king, at least in the land of online sales. You can run all the multivariate and A/B testing in the world, but when it comes to turning a prospect into a customer, there’s no replacement for a salesperson’s ability to overcome a buyer’s hesitations. Chat& makes this possible. With features such as live…
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Did you recently move to a new city? Looking to meet some new people? Or perhaps you’re looking to pick up a new skill but aren’t totally sure what to add to your repertoire? LifeCrowd is your solution. This Santa Monica-based startup is looking to “make the quest to discovering and experiencing new activities an exciting…
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A new year is like a fresh, clean slate. As you reflect back on the year behind you, do you find yourself thinking about new challenges or a change of scenery? While our economy is still struggling in many ways, there are jobs out there. In fact, in our sector, there are many great paying…
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When selling, I either want to be first or last. Being second place takes the same amount of effort as winning, but it has the same rewards as the last place loser. The effort spent coming in second could be better utilized winning the next deal. Having a strong sales process may be more important…
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In Daniel Pink’s, book “Drive.” he explores a new motivational system for business–one based on autonomy, mastery and purpose. It is a brilliant book filled with brilliant concepts on system for right-brain conceptual workers. Sorry, I’m a sales guy at heart, so I can say this: we sales folk are left-brained, show-me-the-money, greedy pirates, and the old…
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In most startups, the CEOs typically wear multiple hats. You arrive at work in the morning and put on the CEO hat. One hour later, you try on the COO hat, and then you switch to Marketing, and then to Sales. It’s exciting, challenging and fun, and all too often it provides a CEO with…
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3 questions: 1. Do you sell stuff? 2. Do you provide a service? 3. Do you use Gmail? If you answered yes to any of the above, check out Boston-based startup Yesware, an email productivity service that can help your sales team close more deals. Integrated into Gmail and your mobile phone, Yesware provides email…
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After 30 years of doing the entrepreneurial thing, a person – even one as dense as me – starts to notice certain repetitive patterns. There are times I’m talking with a CEO and their story starts unfolding into what I call a “Oh NO! Here we go again” moment. It’s difficult to hold back and not…
Read MoreNo Worries I’m running a small company with headquarters in Denver and Brisbane, Australia. I’m currently in Brisbane with my Australian software engineering team and we’re discussing the importance of our next release. Our company has already burned through $64 million of other people’s money, and our largest, most important strategic partner and investor has stopped…
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Want to convert more leads into customers? Silly question. Of course—we all do! Boston-based Flimp Media makes it that much easier with their interactive video brochure technology. Poised to change lead generation practices for B2B companies, Flimp interactive video brochures make it possible to take the deep connection and engagement of video and convert it…
Read MoreWhen a business owner tells you how much their product or service costs, have you ever just responded in a surprised tone, “How Much?” Try it. It’s an amazingly useful little ploy. It doesn’t matter whether you believe the price is fair or not, you will be surprised how many times, a person with full…
Read MoreAlthough we tend to focus on the startup entrepreneur at Tech Cocktail, every once in a while we catch a corporate sales concept that we need to share. After all, sales are critical to even the smallest business. This week, Blackboard, a corporate learning solution based in DC, announced the development of a new application…
Read MoreFor small businesses, creating proposals can account for a significant percentage of work hours. Many hours and days can be spent just organizing proposals for clients and collaborating across teams via email. And sending the proposals to potential clients, not knowing whether they’ve been viewed or not just adds frustration and stress to the mix….
Read MoreTo a salesperson, there is nothing quite as important as the sales lead. Without these vital pieces of the puzzle the industry would be next to impossible to navigate. The question is, how does one get a hold of these sales leads? Many times, companies will buy lists of generated sales leads from companies that…
Read MoreThese days, most of us are pretty good about monitoring our website activity. We know our “hits” from our “page views” from our “visitors” and many of us track those numbers religiously. Unfortunately, though, those numbers only show you who reaches the virtual door. What happens after a potential buyer steps inside your website? Too…
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There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More
Coming off of one of our biggest Tech Cocktail mixer events in Chicago this past week, which showcased 14 early-stage start-ups, we thought it would... Read More