text:
In last month's column, I described how to use tools such as AutoText and Text Lightning to write faster and better. For more info, go to my Web page www.billgood.com/advisor productivity. Now let's talk about how these and other technologies apply to your sales pipeline.
A sales pipeline is, by nature, a management mess. You work hard to get people in, but then they jump out. A few whoosh right along toward a buying decision. Some you nearly have to drag to the finish line, and others get ejected because they are so unpleasant as to make business or even life hardly worth living. A few jump back in.
Others who had been communicating go "dark." A few buy when you did not expect it, and many you think are certain to become clients surprise you and take your ideas and go to a competitor.
The pipeline is a roiling, shifting, leaky affair. Your skill in managing the pipeline is vital. Certainly one skill is sealing the hated cracks.
A Scenario
Let's suppose you have set a first appointment for Bob Loblaw four weeks down the road. He is a prominent consulting engineer but he will be out of the country for three of those weeks consulting on a bridge in Iceland. In four weeks, you can die in his mind. Or someone else can weasel in.
The usual way to confirm an appointment that is no more than a week or 10 days away is to send a confirmation email today. Send a letter a week before. Call the day before.
But what about the four weeks he's mostly inIceland? Can you lightly place some emails in his inbox to keep your name alive?
You bet.
Key concept: Prepare your communication plan right now. Don't write yourself reminders to "Send Bob an email." Everything is fresh in your mind right now. Do the emails now. Send them later using a feature of Outlook called Delay Delivery.
A Law to Seal Cracks
Here it is: A prospect moving in the pipeline needs to hear from you at least once a week.
I want my name in front of Bob at least three times during the three weeks he is gone. My total contacts will be six.
1. Confirm the appointment by email today. AutoText is fine for this.
2. Print a confirmation letter. File it in a 1-31 file to mail seven days before the appointment.
3. Set reminder to call and confirm day before.
Now let's fill the blank spot in the pipeline. Huge leak potential. Prepare three different emails right now, and use the "Delay Delivery" option in Microsoft Outlookto schedule delivery.
4. Send an article the day before he leaves. It should be related to one or more of his goals. Since you are using an attachment, set it up with Text Lightning. Your boiler plate email could read:
Here is an article I thought you should read. It offers some insightful remarks on the latest theories on how much you should consider withdrawing from your 401(k) once you retire.
P.S. Before you leave forIceland, send this to your iPad. You will certainly have some time on the plane for some quiet reading.
(Use your P.S. to personalize a boilerplate email.)
5. Send an article of general interest before he returns. Schedule it just a day or two before he flies home. Always keep several articles that you can send to people who are in a blank spot in your pipeline.
I found this piece on overcoming information overload. I was able to use some of its tips to do a better job of sorting through the fire hose of data I deal with every day. I thought it might be useful for you.
P.S. Since it's a long flight, you might have time on the way back to give it some thought.
6. Send a "Welcome Back" email. You should have at least two "Welcome Back" pieces in your AutoText library. One would be to welcome someone home from a business trip, and the other from a vacation. Obviously, you fill in the brackets.
Welcome back from <where they went>. I hope it was both enjoyable and profitable.
P.S. I'm looking forward to our meeting next Tuesday. I hope the jet lag has faded by then.
Delay Delivery Problem
I set all my delayed emails for 6:30a.m.MountainTime. This most likely puts them at the top of my correspondent's inbox. That's where I want them.
By setting everything I have delayed to be sent at the same time, I can better deal with this sad fact: Delay Delivery does not always work. Sometime the email just sits in the outbox.
Using SaneBox, a Web service I will describe below, I have set an email reminder that hits my inbox at 6:30 each morning. It simply says, "Did my outbox clear?" If not, I go clear it. Once something gets stuck in your outbox, it's stuck. You have to open it, copy the text, delete the old one and resend. Annoying? You bet. I am just waiting for a better solution and I will bail on Outlook.
Managing Email
Let's talk about SaneBox. It makes your inbox sane. I have a special folder just for emails from my team. There are a lot of them. I don't want client or prospect emails lost in the internal torrent. Love this.
There's more. For me, SaneBox solved a longtime administrative problem: How can I know if someone who should have responded failed to do so?
This was the black hole for me. I might ask a member of my team, "Call Bob and find out blah blah." Did it get done? How do I follow up? Keep separate lists of messages to which I expect a reply? Gag me.
Suppose a client calls in and leaves a voicemail message: "I can't make our appointment today. Let's push it off a couple of weeks."
You send an email to reschedule.
How do you know he, and perhaps countless others, did not reply? Memory? (Gasp!)
I use the follow-up reminder service of SaneBox. (My subscription is $5 or something per month.)
Let's say I send him an email:
Please call my assistant Lisa to reset that appointment for Tuesday.
If you have SaneBox, you can add this address to your bcc field: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Friday morning at 6:00 a.m., that email comes back.
Check it. "Have I heard back?" If yes, delete. If no, send yourself a reminder-call email to call him at 5:30 p.m. You know he's in his car on the way home.
SaneBox and Delay Delivery will help seal the cracks.


text:
Here's a list of most intelligent animals in the world. The animal listed here is sorted by the level of intelligence. This list can't be used as a scientific reference as this is just for your information. So If You have other more intelligence animals that should be listed here, please just comment on this post. So Let's take a look at top 10 most intelligent animals in the world.
1. African Grey Parrot
African gray parrot is a species found in West and Central African rain forest. Parrots is famous to show that they can imitate human speech, but the African Gray can associate words with meaning and form small sentences. This bird communicate with each other through songs, calls, and body language. African Gray's can easily be trained to have conversations and activities. They can be managed to imitate, create voices and imitate sound of household perfectly. One specific example is Alex birds. Alex can identify more than fifty objects, seven colors, five shapes, and a numeric value to six. Alex understands the difference between large and small, above and below, and even show emotion understanding by telling handlers "to go away" when he became bored with the test. Then there is the story of the African Gray Parrot in Nagarey, Japan lost from the owner, wounded, and sent to the animal hospital. While in hospital the bird began to speak with the vet says "I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura." He also provides a complete home address to the last number. Pretty sure he was right and returned to the house, but not before entertaining the hospital with a song and dance.
2. Bottlenose Dolphin
Bottlenose Dolphin lives in the warm waters worldwide and is the most intelligent species of dolphins. It has a very large brain and the cerebral cortex and the frontal lobe is 40% larger than humans. Cerebral cortex is a part of the brain responsible for social communications, abstract information processing, problem solving, and intelligence of a higher level. Dolphin bottle very easily trained. They have been found to have the ability to think, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas, and learn from previous experiences. They use echolocation to hunt prey, and certain forms of squeaks and whistles to communicate with one another. It is also interesting to see that in many occasions this dolphin show remorse for the other species and the signs of consciousness. In a story recently, the local dolphin named Moko saved two Pygmy sperm whales stranded on New Zealand. Whales had been stranded for hours when Moko appeared and led the pair through the bars of sand for safety. It is a beautiful sight for locals and become national news.
3. Chimpanzee
This animal can be found in wet tropical forests and savannas of West and Central Africa. Chimpanzee are able to learn, perform the tasks of thinking organization, and has a better memory then any other animal. They have been known to beat the college educated in the memory test. They can be taught to use computers to solve numerical problems. These animals can quickly adapt and perform sign language to communicate with humans. Chimpanzees have been observed using advanced knowledge tools. This includes a spear to take animals out of small holes in trees, using branches to lure and catch prey, using stones to break nuts, and leaves a sponge to absorb water. They have seen an attack using tactical maneuvers, such as flanking prey. They often use mental manipulation within their families. Chimpanzee Genome Project is completed in 2005. This shows that chimpanzees share 98% genetically the same DNA as humans. It was approximately four to six million years since humans and chimpanzees that deviate from the evolution of their common ancestor. More recently, chimpanzees have been seen teaching sign language to their babies without human intervention. We were just beginning to understand the mental abilities of chimpanzees.
4. Ravens & Crows
These two animals is mentioned together because both are members of the family Corvidae birds. This family is widely regarded as the most intelligent of all birds. Peak crow IQ scale, which is a scientific test to determine the intelligence of birds. They can count, distinguish complex shapes, and perform observational study tasks. Crows are social creatures and will be involved in the air to form a jousting sequence power. Wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs as bait fish, think in advance and anticipate the catch. The New Caledonian Crow have been studied for its ability to use tools in looking for food everyday . This includes creating a knife that cut the leaves and stems of grass. They are also using advanced picking, smoothing, and bending of twigs and grass stems to produce a variety of food substances. Raven is similar to the crow, but larger size. Both species are black and the main difference is in their vocalizations. Ravens do a lot of the same behavior as crows, but they have been recognized for their ability to drop the beans, clams, muscles, and oysters on the highway, waiting for cars to run them over.
5. Elephant
There are three living species of elephants, African Bush Elephant, African forest elephant and Asian elephant. All the offspring is expected to inherit the same genetic genius. In many cultures the elephant is seen as a symbol of wisdom and known for their extraordinary memories. They create a mental map and is said to remember the exact location of water holes that feeding them after not visited for years. Elephant brain is the largest of all land animals. Elephants have exceptional hearing and they use their ears and trunk to listen. They communicate with the bellows, roars, like a trumpet call, and can even send voice remotely using the land. This animal is one of the few species that has shown mirror self-recognition and identify themselves as independent. This test is considered as the higher basis for empathy, altruism, and social interaction in some other species. Elephants have noted a variety of behaviors. Including actions associated with grief, making music, love, play, and the use of sophisticated equipment. Elephants have extraordinary taste for artistic achievement. They can paint a portrait that expresses itself.
6.. North Pacific Giant Octopus
This animal live in the depth of the sea. They belong to cephalopods molluscs class. All types of cephalopods are known to have exceptional intellectual ability. Octopus is considered the most intelligent invertebrate life. In the experimental conditions, these animals have shown short and long term memory. They have an extraordinary observation learning and problem solving skills. Octopus nervous system has a very large, but only partially found in their brains. In about two-thirds of octopus, neurons can be found on the rope around and the arm. There are arm that has a very large autonomy. They are masters of mimicry and camouflage. They are professional escape artist and can often be found in the hull crabs, eat the catch. This animal is very keen eyesight, sense of touch, and very fast. There was a report from the North Pacific Giant Octopus that reach 600 pounds, with a range of hands 30 feet.
7. Portia Labiata Jumping Spider
This species is a member of the genus Portia, kind of spiders and smallest creatures in the list. Also known as the White-whiskered Portia, they inhabit the critical areas and secondary forests in Africa, Asia, and Australia. This spider has shown the ability to learn in laboratory tests and the bug has been labeled the smartest in the world. They perform surprisingly well in various tasks of solving problems. One of the principles of their other charming skills of spider webs to their food. To do this they will pull the rhythm in the corner of the web to mimic the trapped bug or insect intruders. If Portia had been found of this spider before, it will remember what the rhythm pattern used to achieve success. Portia labiata had large eyes and have been seen using extraordinary instinctive behavior. The spider who planned to use trial and error approach to hunting and cognitive showed a strong base. When the prey comes and goes, the spider will sit and wait for hours to have a perfect moment to strike. Next, plan ahead and understanding that will eventually eat again. This spider has also shown signs of selective attention by identifying a particular object and prey on others.
8. Rhesus Monkey
9. Border Collie
10. Rats
There are hundreds of species of rats in the whole world. Rat is one of the most studied and tested the animals on this planet. They have been the subject of research and experiments for various well-known and influential physiological studies. The reason for this is that mice is similar to the psychology of human. All rats learned new behaviors and tricks easily. A 2007 study found that mice have metacognition, which is a mental ability previously only been documented in humans and some primates. Mice have a remarkable sense of smell and hearing. They have been trained to detect landmines and bombs. Research and latest technology has been suggested that mice could even smell and identify human sputum samples infected with TB. This is a wonderful animal to solve the maze. Rats are social animals and show signs of remorse, joy, loss, and stress. They dream in a very similar way as humans. They also demonstrate exceptional organizational and technical maintenance. Just remember, mice are intelligent and friendly creatures so don't afraid of them.
2. Bottlenose Dolphin
3. Chimpanzee
4. Ravens & Crows
5. Elephant
6.. North Pacific Giant Octopus
7. Portia Labiata Jumping Spider
8. Rhesus Monkey
Rhesus monkeys are known for intelligence and it has been widely used in biological and medical research. It has great memory, the ability to learn, and make decisions for themselves. They use facial expressions very similar to human and understood by humans. Rhesus Monkey's have demonstrated suicidal tendencies, planning attacks, and highly complex social animals. They have a detailed system of shared vocal similarities to human communication. Research on the genome sequencing of the Rhesus Monkey in 2007, conclude that humans and apes share 93% of their genetic DNA. Humans and apes chromosome mosaic each other.
Border Collie is widely regarded as the most intelligent dog breed in the world. They usually spend their time tending sheep and cattle handling various forms, but It's also a great pet. With physical exercise and various forms of mental stimulation this dog is the fastest to learn. The dog is originated in Scotland, Welsh, and English border and the dogs make a direct impact on the agricultural industry. It has been reported that in certain areas Australian Outback, a trained collie can do five times the amount of work that usually done by human. Border Collie dominate over all breeds in dog sports. They excel in the high jump, utility classes, flying-ball, and even can take first place in dog dancing competitions. They have an extraordinary sense of smell and is widely regarded as the great dog. They can be trained as helper dogs, or in search and rescue as well. This dog obviously will recognize you as an individual personality, they will learn your routine, anticipate what will happen next, and find a way to get what they want.

subset: commoncrawl