Fun Day at the University of Natural Science

I had a great day last week with the students at the University of Natural Science. The first time I ever talked to a Venture Capitalist was 9 years ago. I remember one of the key things he asked me was how are you going to defend your position. Interestingly enough, that was the #1 … Continue reading Fun Day at the University of Natural Science →

Book Review – Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross

Here is a review I wrote for my company blog. Great book.

Vinasource

predictable-revenueEvery now and then I come across a book that makes me go wow.  Predictable Revenue is one of them.

At some points the writing style seems a little choppy, but the message was pretty amazing.  Learn how a team of 1, completely changed how sales were being done for salesforce.com, ultimately building out a 12 person team that resulted in $100,000,000 a year in new sales.  And yes, that was recurring revenue!

It’s a fascinating story that tells of how Aaron went from CEO to Junior salesperson to someone who revolutionized how a billion dollar company manages their sales.

And yes, he does plug salesforce.com as a tool quite often!

Here is a quick summary of his methods:

Predictable Revenue is all about creating Predictable Lead Generation

First, get your team specialized by separating your sales group into the following roles:

  • Sales Development – (Qualifiers)
  • Account Executives – (Closers)
  • Account…

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Here’s why we flattened our company

This was one of my favorite initiatives I have ever been a part of.

Vinasource

I have been blessed to have spent a majority of my working career as an entrepreneur surrounded by great people.  I’ve spent much of this career reading business books, blogs, and magazines. While there are many different opinions on how to run a business, no matter who you talk to in the entrepreneur or managerial world, they will tell you this: “It’s critical to surround yourself by great people”.  That being the case, as leaders, the next step is to make sure you have done everything in your power to set those great people free to grow the business.

The evolution of Vinasource started as a couple of guys, sick of Microsoft process, who wanted to operate freely and build great, affordable applications for our clients. We were fortunate to find a dynamic, enthusiastic group of developers in Vietnam and we were off to the races. We ran the company loosely…

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Critical Chain – A Book Review by David Hajdu

A book review I wrote for my company blog.

Vinasource

Most entrepreneurs pick up a business book every now and then and find nuggets of information that they can apply to their business. Rarely though do we find those books entertaining. Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt accomplishes both.

The story revolves around a university professor in his final year who is trying to gain tenure in the face of budget cuts. Tasked with finding something new in Project Management, he uses his unique teaching style to work through problems with the students in his executive MBA class.

While the story was fun, the nuggets of information – particularly around estimating and the Theory of Constraints – are what really stood out. In project management, estimation is always one of the most difficult tasks. This is particularly true in software development. What the students found in the professor’s class was that a large part of their estimating challenge stemmed from…

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What does Transparency and Social Media Have To do With Creating a Strong Business Mindset Across Your Team?

Some of my thoughts on building business mindset as a core competency across your team.

Vinasource

Social Media Recently I was interviewed by Entrepreneur Magazine columnist Chris Hann.  The question they were trying to answer was “Do you accept friend requests from your employees on Facebook”. The short answer for me is yes.  The long answer is a bit more involved. I’ve been really excited about a recent move in our company to provide full transparency to our team while teaching everyone what it means to take ownership in our business. At Vinasource, one of our core values is “Build open and honest relationships through communication”.  What this means as company leaders is that no information is kept secret from the team. While some people feel big about privacy, I’m not one of them. In the modern era of social media, it’s a bit of a pipe dream to think you can really keep many too many things a secret. So, why not embrace it! At Vinasource we…

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