Get on the phone!

As a follow up to my previous article on entrepreneurship, here is one more great advice I keep hearing a lot lately, last time from Sunny Midha, a successful entrepreneur, a tech venture capitalist and LSE graduate. And the advice is – get on the phone!

If you want something, you need to ask for it. If you have the courage and determination to call up a big guy and ask him for help, odds are you will be able to make use of that help as well.

Equally importantly, get on the phone to your potential customers to test if the idea you are thinking about would be of an interest to them. Have they bought anything like this before? Why yes, why not?

Last but not least, it’s a great way to get a job as well. One management consulting head hunter and a friend of mine, gave a talk earlier this week on getting into the industry. One of his top advices was to read related press and if a partner from an organization you want to work for has an article there or is quoted, get on the phone to his company and say you want to talk to XY about his recent article in Z. His/her assistant will probably put you through and the partner will be delighted you read the article and found it interesting enough to enquire more. Towards the end of the call, say you are considering your next career steps and got really interested in this segment of the industry. ‘Can you help me please?’ pause… While she will not probably offer you a job outright, people rarely give you a straight no as well. She might recommend you to their HR or to a friend from another consultancy in the sector which is hiring right now.