First instinct for me is vote for Hillary. I actually like her and I’m sure there are a lot of people disagreeing but I would like to see her be the president. Sad thing is, I actually don’t think she will win. I do think she lives her life to do what she does and I think she will do a good job at it. I think she will also do something about health care that would benefit more people. The latest news is that Hillary is mad at Obama for some campaign literature that said “her health care proposal would force everyone to buy health insurance, regardless of ability to pay, a charge Clinton vehemently denied.” (See the article on cnn) I just can’t imagine that she would do such a thing and force people to buy health insurance. I think she might make health care more available to people who might not be able to afford it, but to force people to buy it who can’t???

The health care issue is very close to me. My grandmother who just celebrated her 90th birthday today has to spend SO MUCH money per month on prescription drugs and some things are just not covered that well…meanwhile someone who just came to the country and/or has not worked if any can get the medicaid and get lots of coverage. She’s worked all her life and now still has to make sure she saves up just for her prescription drugs. I think it’s completely unfair. We also have a close friend with 3 kids who are trying to make ends meet since they were both laid off few years back. Now they do not even have insurance except catastrophic coverage for themselves…which is scary. The kids gets coverage from the state as long as they do not make too much but just low enough…which is like dumb since if they make just a little more they will have to pay for it themselves and they will not be able to at this time. There has to be a kind of health care available for families like them. Why should a family that does not try to work or try to earn money get the full help from the government while families that do, sometime can’t.

Whatever, I don’t even want to talk about it anymore since there isn’t much I can do. Anyhow, I think Obama might win since he’s got the young crowd. My husband said people are in a Obama high since they want something different so badly, but their high will come down…but might be too late when that happens. I don’t have too much against Obama (unless if the campaign literature is actually false…then it will be shame shame), but I think Hillary will be a better President since she knows how to nudge her way around to get things done since she’s been in the White House before and I agree where she stands on some of the issue. I do like Obama for some things and if I keep thinking too much, I will just need to toss a coin.

Still…vote for Hillary!!!

Will Your Sales Team Finish 2007 Strong? If not, perhaps it’s because the prospect’s perception of your business value, and the actual value delivered of your offering are mis-matched.

As Sales Training, Marketing Advisement and Strategy Specialists for growth-directed companies in Dallas, we have identified five steps of prospect value identification that take place during your sales cycle. Using these will help you close deals already on the table for 2007 and applying this to your 2008 forecast will help shorten those sales cycles.

Prospect value identification is an integrated process of perceived and actual value delivered based on your offering and your customer’s perception of that offering at various stages of your sales cycle. There are five steps of prospect value identification that take place during your sales cycle and they include:

1. The Vendor’s Perceived Value
   This is a vendor presented value and is based on how you see your value and how you communicate its status to your prospects or existing customers during the pre-sales cycle through your firm’s marketing communication and sales step process.
2. The Customer or Prospect Transitional Value
   This value happens in tandem during the discovery process where the prospect matches or rejects your perceived value (vendor’s perceived value) with their perception of your value. This is a value conversion step during the sales cycle.
3. The Prospect’s Perceived Value of Your Offering
   This value happens when your prospect or your customer finalizes their perception of your value relative to your competition and makes an assumption (correctly or incorrectly) of the value of your product or service relative to price, the business results it produces and the alternative options they have for purchase or non-purchase.
4. The Prospect’s Actual Value
   This is the alignment by the prospect or customer during their post-sale decision process to determine if the perceived value communicated by you in the pre-sale matches their perception of your actual value in the post-sale.
5. The Value Gap
   This is the measurement or gap between the vendor’s perceived value believed during the pre-sale steps and the prospect’s actual value calculated after the first sale.

Prospect value identification by its very nature is a layered, intricate process that must be aligned with your sales and marketing communication as an integrated approach. Prospect value observation starts at the beginning of your sales cycle and your position is often determined based on your entry point into the organization.

Enter into a prospect’s organizational chart below the title of Vice President at the beginning of your sales cycle and you are entering into the commodity zone of buying. Prospects below the title of VP generally make business decisions based on your offering’s features, functions or price.

When you sell management at the Vice President level and above, they buy based on their perceptions of your business offering’s value. This is a variable option that you can manipulate if you can sell correctly.

Often there is a gap between what firms believe in themselves and what their prospects actually experience.

It is not what you sell, but how your prospect positions the value of your offerings against the alternative buying options they have that must be managed.

To sell more, sell above the commodity line, manage the prospect’s perception of your business value, and control the value gap between their perception of your value and your perception.

Would you like to Evaluate Your Revenue Capture Success in more detail? Visit this link and request a copy of our Sales and Marketing Scorecard. It is a management business assessment tool designed to help you to evaluate your firm’s revenue capture success and compare your current operating model against industry best practices to help your company achieve its peak performance. The scorecard contains 100 questions on your sales and marketing methodology and supplies recommended best practices to increase your business success.

So I’m a little late, but I think you can still vote online. Not sure when they cut off the time for online voting. Right, intro…this is voting for Mark Cuban on Dancing With the Stars. I missed it tonight since I just woke up from napping/catching up on sleep with my 7 months old, but now I’m wide awake.

Anyway, I’ll probably catch the showing on abc.com since they’ll have it up by the next day. That’s what’s great about the internet now. I miss something and I can still watch it…at least for some shows. Why not Tivo? I guess I can do that, but really I’m on my laptop so much, I can work on things and watch things at the same time (in bed though). ABC has actually got some of my favorites shows, at least for network TV, it’s pretty good. Ugly Betty - I love. It actually makes me laugh at times and last week was just sad and a good surprising ending. LOST - I also love and it’s probably the only thing my husband and I would watch together on time. We Tivo other shows like Weeds and Flight of the Concord (it’s nerdy funny).

Oh right, so vote for Mark Cuban and here are the reasons why:
1. If you start reading his blog more. He’s actually more real and human (like everyone else with a family…except he’s got billions).
2. He’s passionate and determined.
3. He’s 49 and still dancing (and in front of the world). Plus the fact that he just had hip replacement a few months ago and still keeps going and going…like the energizer bunny…
4. He seems very down to earth and a good family man (he’s got 2 daughters).
5. He uses a Apple Mac now (Love Mac!)
6. He lives in Dallas as do most of us here.

That’s not voting for his dancing you say? Well, on shows like these, personality goes further than the actual dancing, but I haven’t seem tonight’s dance so I can’t really say too much about the dancing part. I only know he’s to do the Mambo, which supposedly is all about the hip.

You can also vote up to 10 times each line, or each online account you have (online voting ends noon on the day of the result show):
Register or go straight to the site if you already have an account with ABC.

David Hanson has done it again. He’s made international news with Handson Robotic’s new creation Zeno. “It’s a representation of robotics as a character animation medium, one that is intelligent,” and “It sees you and recognizes your face. It learns your name and can build a relationship with you.” Zeno is different from his previous creations which where more life like - it instead is more Anime looking perhaps to capture the young market since Zeno is reported to be in market in the next 3 years for about $300 according to local Fox news.

David Hanson obtained his Ph.D from UT Dallas’ School of Arts and Humanities Arts & Techology Program and was already making news with other creations. He’s no doubt a very talented, what makes him stand out to me is that he is actually artistic too.

His previous creation:

According the dallasnews.com, the Bushes are planning on moving back to Dallas. People are just guessing where they will be, but no confirmation has been made. Among the possible neighborhoods are Park Cities or Preston Hollow (where he use to live), but they are just predictions and it can be anywhere in Dallas. Since his library will be at SMU, it may be around there. Anyway, read the story yourself. I’m just not going to say anything more…………….

Actually I guess he’s the star and some professional dancer (Kym Johnson) will be dancing with him. It’s a little surprising I suppose. Kym Johnson was put with Jerry Springer and Joey Fatone in the past seasons, so I don’t know what that means. I don’t watch the show consistently, only maybe once or twice a season. The last time I watched it was only because Apollo Ono was on it…and he actually won.

I wonder if Mark Cuban knows that they kinda wear funky tight clothing! Our grandma (a great grandma) said “He’s done well in the past with everything else…he’s such a nut, he just might do ok!” I guess we’ll see…

Dancing With the Stars will premier on Monday, September 24th 8/7 c on ABC.

Meanwhile, you can also check out his view on Politics.

UPDATE: You can read about Mark Cuban’s experience on Dancing With the Stars and vote for him.

Actually I didn’t know this was happening, but Mark Cuban had hip replacement (left hip) surgery on Friday June, 29th. He is expected to recover just fine. The funny thing is I just found this out because people had been searching for Mark Cuban’s hip replacement, so I looked into this and found out this had just happened. Told you he’s not just big in dallas. People just seem to want to know everything he does.

You can read the press release here and maybe he’ll soon post something on his blog maverick site once he gets better?!

All the best and hope for a fast recovery to him from Dallas!

UPDATE: Since Mark Cuban will be on Dancing With the Stars, I’m sure he’s recovered super well…

ANOTHER UPDATE: You can read about Mark Cuban’s experience on Dancing With the Stars and vote for him. If you’ve missed the first show, you can watch it on abc.com. It even shows his scar from the surgery - OUCH!

If you haven’t read the post from Mark Cuban about his Colonoscopy, you should. It’s both hilarious and a good form of public service announcement. Yes, I said hilarious because it made me laugh. I also didn’t really know what it was because I don’t think about health too much except when it comes time to get a physical and plus I would think my Dr. would tell me it’s time to get one of those?!? Anyway, it’s equally important for women to get a Colonoscopy. So I’m glad I read it. Though I don’t think I’ll run to the Dr. and say “hey give me what Mark Cuban had”. I guess there’s an age where Dr. will start to offer me a bunch of stuff to be tested. So, I’ll wait for my turn when time comes.

Speaking of Mark Cuban, he is for sure BIG in Dallas. Funny thing is if you’re not from Dallas, or into basketball, or know much about the internet dotcom days, then you actually might not know him. I’m not kidding and I thought everyone knew who he was. Until I was talking to a mother who just moved to Dallas from California. I think I was talking about how people are into celebrities in L.A and people are into sports and religion in Dallas. I mentioned Mark Cuban and the Mavericks…she had no idea who he was. I was like..you know “broadcast.com?” I knew who he was before the Mavericks, before coming to Dallas and before he became a billionaire. It was during the dotcom days when we did some little stuff for broadcast.com, which sold to Yahoo and probably known to be the luckiest dotcom back in the late 90’s and maybe ever.

Now there’s the whole web 2.0 and companies starting left and right trying to repeat history. I think Mark Cuban might of had enough of the web, or maybe got enough from the web. He did move on to doing something similar to the Apprentice, which didn’t last. Though don’t count on him failing on TV. He started his own HD channel called HDNet with Philip Garvin (I just realized they got a 2 letter domain…must have cost a fortune!). My husband swears by HD tv and would NOT want to watch anything that’s not HD anymore (except Tennis Grand Slams, but he does complain about whey it’s not on HD!). When he sees me watching anything on “regular” tv, well…I’ll just have an earful of the quality of it. I have to say, it does make a big difference in terms of the viewing experience. I watch HD Discovery channel and it’s amazing. You just have to get use to seeing people’s every beads of sweat, nose hair and all the other imperfections. You get over that once you zoom back out and look at the whole picture!

For more detailed info on Mark Cuban, you can visit the IMBb site or visit askmen.com.

I first heard of David Hanson as being a grad student at UTD Arts and Technology Program. Looks like he’s having nothing but success. From the Metroplex Technology Business Council, you can be “Face-to-Face with Hanson’s Facial Android Technology”

Featuring Lonnie Martin and David Hanson, Hanson Robotics

Friday, June 15, 2007
11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m.
Check-in begins at 11:15 a.m.
Location: Omni Park West ~ 1590 LBJ Freeway Dallas, TX 75234

You can also check out Handson Robotics Website for more information.

So according to the Dallas Morning News, George Michael may spend more time in Dallas. His boyfriend is the owner of Goss Gallery which is here in Dallas. I’m surprised he’s not living here already and he spends his time in UK.

It’s unfortunate what happened with him and the music companies as well as all the bad news coverage. It’s the music companies’ lost and people should just leave him along. Yes, I did listen to his music growing up hahaha - yup back when he was Wham! and every christmas I still hear “Last Christmas”!

Anyhow, I guess he’s still doing well without the music companies and is apparently having tours called “25 Live Tour”, doesn’t seem like any are in US though.