Jason's Notes About Stuff

"My job is not to make you happy." "I'd appreciate if you talked less with your hands. I find that very irritating." "Maybe if you talked less we'd get along better." These are some wonderful quotes from Daryl Ashby , a local Pemberton Holmes real estate representative in Victoria, BC, during our final move-out inspection. As we pleasantly greeted Daryl, he gave us with a scowl, telling us how this type of inspection  "wasn't his job."  It seems that through a scheduling mishap, they had forgotten about it until the last minute. Our moving day, already a difficult time, was made infinitely more stressful by his sour demeanor. I found his attitude and statements both astounding, and confusing. Real estate is typically a field that relies on referrals and references to survive. 8 months earlier, we had a similarly rude , aggressive experience with his real estate agent daughter Cheryl Ashby . The place was in horrid...

It may sound strange, but whenever I receive a business lead from my website, one of the first "qualifiers" I look at is the email address . Over 7 years and hundreds of leads (most of them useless), I've discovered that an email address can say a lot about someone. Even before reading the project description or budget , I look very carefully at the email address.  From there, my qualifying process is a bit like this: 1. Is it a company address or free email service? If it is a company address , that's positive.  I use the domain name to go to their website and try to determine: a) How long they've been in business b) Their relative size c) Any affiliations with larger companies/organizations 2. If it is a free email address , it is usually one of the following: Great: Gmail: This is what most technical people use, and it is by far the best. Ok: Yahoo Mail: This was a great service back in the 90s, but has since declined.  This might indica...

I return most  business phone calls (and all personal ones).  However -- There is a type of messages that I don't reply to anymore.  It goes something like this: "Hi, this is John Doe from Acme Corp. I've tried calling you several times but was unable to reach you. Could you please give me a call at 123-4567 x890.  That's John Doe at  1 2 3 - 4 5 6 7  x 8 9 0 . Look forward to speaking with you then.  Thanks! " This seems to be a standard template for a sales "cold call."   It's made to sound like it might be a potential client or other important call, but over the years, I've learned that most worthwhile messages include the reason for the call. When I return messages like the above, it is always some random provider trying to sell me something. What I don't understand is why they don't mention the product or service they're trying to sell in the message. Do they think they're being sneaky ?  Do they think they...