If you’re a good salesperson, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it will be your approach to customer service that determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person anything else.
The essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with customers – a relationship that that individual customer feels that he would like to pursue.
“You will be judged by what you do, not what you say.”
Aussie mum, daughter conquer Everest
Cheryl Bart with daughter Nikki
Photo via www.news.com.au
May 25, 2008 12:00am
TWO Australian women have earned a place in the record books, becoming the first mother and daughter team to conquer Mt Everest.
Businesswoman Cheryl Bart and her medical student daughter, Nikki, reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain at 9.05am yesterday. They are also the only mother and daughter to have reached the highest peaks of all seven continents.
When Mrs Bart reached the top, she shouted: “I’m at the top of the world!”
She told her support team by radio: ‘The sun is just rising and it’s just the most glorious spectacle ever, any time.”
Asked what was the hardest part, she replied, “all of it”, before breaking into cheering.
The pair has endured bitter cold and delays during their 8850m Himalayan ascent, including having their equipment confiscated as the Olympic torch relay passed by.
With temperatures dropping as low as -30C, the final leg took seven hours.
Acclimatising to the low-oxygen environment at high altitude made the last stages especially difficult.
Nikki was first to the top, enjoying magnificent views and clear skies before her mother arrived 25 minutes later.
Though they were ecstatic to make the summit, their journey was by no means over, with a perilous descent back to camp ahead.
Dubbed “Oz Chicks with Altitude”, the Sydney pair braved avalanches and extreme weather conditions during their 8.8km ascent, which began in early March.
Their journey has been emotional, with frayed nerves and admissions that they were “terrified” by the enormity of the challenge.
They told of the harsh physical toll of living on the mountain, suffering from frequent nose bleeds, dysentry and the constant threat of frostbite.
“The best comparison seems to be to childbirth - at the time you can’t imagine anything more painful and yet, with time, you can’t remember all of that and all you’re left with is glowing memories,” they wrote in their online blog.
Their climb was sponsored by BigPond, which set up a website to share their experience worldwide.
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Steorn Still Alive
…Alive enough to send lawyers my way, anyhow. The original domain name for this blog included the words “Steorn” and “Orbo”. When Steorn made it clear in their forums last year that they don’t approve of domain names that include their trademarks, I changed this site’s domain to dispatchesfromthefuture.com. I stopped promoting the original domain and turned it into a redirect leading to the new domain, so that existing links wouldn’t just go dead. I figured I’d leave things that way unless and until Steorn expressed disapproval. Well that finally happened this week. I received an e-mail from the international law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP asking that I turn over the domain to Steorn. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:
This firm has been retained by Steorn, Ltd. (“Steorn”) to protect its trademarks and domain names. Steorn is the owner of U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,386,304 and U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,382,850 for STEORN, dating back to at least as early as 2001, for technological services including research design and development in the field of energy systems, as well as technology consultancy advice and analysis in the field of energy systems. Steorn is the owner of U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,379,126 for ORBO for similar use. STEORN and ORBO are collectively referred to as the “Marks.”
I’ll be happy to hand over the domain name, and would have been even without the scary threats of enormous fines that they were thorough enough to include. But I’m even happier to see that Steorn is still alive and well enough to care about their “energy systems”-related trademarks. Here’s hoping “Orbo” has a future as more than just a name.
Free Energy Tracker
Steorn’s perpetual motion claims are extraordinary. They’ve raised millions from investors, and 2007 is the year that this will all change the world or Steorn will fall apart. Which will it be? Find out here first.
Free Energy Truth - Steorn & Orbo
Steorn created a sensation when they announced the development of Orbo technology. Orbo - free energy technology produces free, clean and constant energy.
This means an end to polluting forms of energy such as oil, coal, gas and nuclear power. Follow Free Energy Truth as we track daily developments with Steorn, Orbo and other free energy technologies.
Free Energy will become a reality. You heard it here first.
7 Keys to DIY Graphic Design on No Budget
# Think few and simple: A highly-trained, experienced graphic designer can integrate a mass of disparate material into a good-looking whole. I can’t, so I go minimalist. With the words, too. Less is more. Most people overwrite by 10%-25%; try cutting a tenth to a quarter of your text.
# Every element you choose must reinforce your theme: An old-fashioned font on a technology announcement? Pink for something aimed at lawyers? Grey for something aimed at little girls? No. Just no. If it doesn’t reinforce the theme, no matter how much you like it, don’t use it. You can always use it for something else another time.
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