Sophia Perl of Wisdom

Quick way to know whether you are a good leader

Scarce resources means that you have to be creative in getting people motivated to work for you.  Leadership is a big word.   So how can you gauge how effective you are as a leader.  Here are some quick ways.

It’s good to do a self assessment periodically so that you can stay on your A game.  Most people are better at it than others.  Me, I tend to pick up the clues that people give whether it be a joke or a feedback sit down session.  The feedback can be good or bad, it doesn’t really matter which because both are good to hear.  Just be prepared to listen for them in everyday conversation.

One question that you should ask yourself is this, If you had no money to pay employees, would people still want to work for you for free? Better yet, would you want to work for yourself?

Don’t ask me about how I think I am as a leader.  

I’m not so crazy about Twitter

What’s all the fuss about Twitter?  I’ve been wanting to post something about Twitter for a long time, but I didn’t want to talk about something that I just don’t use too much (not an avid user or follower).  So, I like the idea that there’s one place where strangers can “stalk” other people.   I mean Facebook is where friends stalk friends.  Twitter is for the mass stalker.  I think that Twitter’s 140 character limit sucks.  I sometimes don’t like the character limit that Facebook imposes on my status updates.  Maybe I’m just a person that has too much to say.

If we are talking about just branding of companies, celebrities, money making phenomenons, then I can see how Twitter is great.  You have a captive audience who wants to hear what you say.  Not bad.  Twitter for personal reasons, hmm, not sure about that.  No one cares that you’re brushing your teeth!

Women making dough with their clothes…on!

I read a couple of articles talking about how women are making money in this tough economy.  Now now now, don’t get ahead of yourself and assume you know what.  Women are selling their clothes to other women.  The way it works is that a woman will invite her friends over to check out her clothes which are usually on display in a room in the “seller’s” home.  Some “sellers’ hang up their clothes on racks like stores do and provide bags to take home your goodies.  You must remember that your purchases are final sales, no returns.  So why would a woman want to buy used clothes from her friends.  Well, you could get a good deal on barely used clothing or couture items (depending on your friend’s style).  Perhaps you can convince your best friend that her Louis Vuitton purse is so out of style and sell it to you at a bargain.

Related, some women are doing clothing swaps in their homes instead of selling their clothes.  I can see this being more attractive since all women can participate and exchange clothes with one another.

Could this idea be applied to other things?  Toys?  Tools?  Pantry items?

Mr. Photographer, you could have made money at this event

Real quick, I’m back blogging.  I just took a break.

Tis the season for Halloween photo ops.  I attended an event where a local photography gave attendees a free 5×7 picture.  I stood in the long line like everyone else and took a picture.  Then I waited in another line to get the printed picture.  I put my name and email address on a sheet and the photo number that was printed.  Then I received my pic with no copyright printing on the back.  The photographer did put out some fliers out about scheduling a Santa photo session, but not a lot of hard selling or upselling of photography services.  A few days later, I received an email saying thanks for stopping by and the digital copy of the photo with permission to print.  Being an MBA graduate, I just didn’t understand why he would not ask me about buying more prints of the photo and why give me the original digital photo.  It puzzled me.  I am for free work, but I just thought this photographer is crazy.  I even wanted to buy more copies when I was there, but no one asked me so I just didn’t ask.

Here is my tip to the local business that wants to reach out to the local community.  Go ahead and volunteer and give away things, but don’t forget that you’re in business to make money.  If someone is receiving something for free, they are more likely to be open to hearing to some sort of sales pitch.  Nothings for FREE!

A business based on anonymous confessions

I’m sure most of you have heard about PostSecret in which people send in postcards with your confession.  I came across another website called TruuConfessions.com targeted towards women.  I thought it was interesting actually in that women definitely do love their gossip.  When I read the About Us section which I always do on new startup websites, the founder talked about anonymous confessions as being therapeutic.  OK, I can maybe buy that.  Now, when someone posts a confession, she can categorize the confession into a category and then others can comment or say “me too” in response.

I like the general idea, but I don’t think the website layout makes it easy to contribute.  For instance, the confessions start halfway down the website, so I have to look down and then scroll down to see even more.  Just about all of the confessions are anonymous which they should be in my opinion, so why give the option of having a profile that can identify yourself.  What factors indicate that a confession is popular?  How do you distinguish the juicy gossip?

I’m thinking that there’s probably a twitter confessions website out there too.

Try out a VC pitch feedback event

I have a friend who decided to attend a VC pitch roundtable event for the first time.  He asked if I knew anything about that event and to be honest I did not know anyone who had attended such of an event.   BUT, I said, look it’s $60 or so, just try it once, worse case you get to network with some VCs.  So he went.

Before the event, you get the bios of the VCs so that you get an idea of what each VC’s expertise is in, possibly even cater your pitch based on this.  If you want to sign up, you can pitch for 90 seconds to a panel of 5 or so VC judges otherwise you can be a spectator.  The judging is based on whether that particular VC would fund the venture on a scale of 1-5.  Apparently, the 90 seconds was not enforced so my friend ended up feeling cheated hahahaha.  It’s OK because it takes more skills to sell in 90 seconds than it does in 5 minutes.  Eleven “companies” pitched in front of 30-40 people and my friend ended up in the middle, not bad, not good.  He really enjoyed the experience and even said that I need to do a pitch feedback event too.  I’m up for it.  Next time, you’ll see me. 

To find a VC pitch feedback event near you, try going to http://upcoming.yahoo.com and search on “startup pitch” and then your geographical location.  I did a search and came up with these bay area events:

• SVASE First Impressions Funding Pitch Feedback, with DFJ, ONSET Ventur…
• SVASE Funding Pitch Preparation Workshop
• SVASE Startup-U SFO: PPT Pitch