Packaging Your Brain: Martin Mosho
Working From Your Deck Now Do-able
Corrections or additions?
These articles edited by Kathleen McGinn Spring were prepared for
the July 23, 2003 issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
The Book Club That Tackles Business Titles
A quick look at Amazon.com’s list of best selling
business
books turns up some interesting titles. There’s “Moneyball: The
Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” a book about the business of
baseball;
“Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others
Don’t,” the title outselling all others this summer;
“Performance
and Personal Renewal” and “Execution: The Discipline of
Getting
Things Done,” two books whose titles promise results in areas
high on every businessperson’s wish list; and, for anyone curious
about the more unsavory implications of making fat and salt pay big,
“Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal.”
So many titles — including a new entry in the “Who Moved My
Cheese” series — and so little time.
“Reading business books is one of those things most of us put
off,” says Kim Rowe. “We know we should read those business
books, but..” she says, letting her sentence trail off. Between
running a business or meeting deadlines on a job, making sure milk
finds its way to the refrigerator and the kids get a ride to camp,
there is not a whole lot of time left over for even the meatiest new
“Cheese” or “Fish” book. Especially when it has to
compete for space in the beach bag with the latest from Janet
Evanovich
or, for heaven’s sake, that big-as-a-bread-loaf must-read, “Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
For the past three years or so, the New Jersey Association of Women
Business Owners (NJAWBO) of Mercer County has been finding a way to
slip business titles into its busy members’ schedules. The
organization’s
book club, now run by Rowe, meets on Wednesday, July 30, at noon,
at Rowe’s home to discuss “Seven Secrets of Successful Women:
Success Strategies” by Donna Brook and Lynn Brooks. Anyone
interested
in joining the book club is urged to attend the free book club
meeting.
For directions and more information, call Rowe at 908-359-9665.
As of press time, Rowe had not yet read the new book club selection.
“I always read it in the last week,” she says with a laugh.
Book clubs, it seems, retain elements of the classroom. Some members
get the book and read it right away, while others “cram” at
the last minute. A crammer, Rowe is also one of three partners in
Agentive Sales and Marketing Solutions, a company that designs and
conducts training sessions for employees of pharmaceutical and medical
device companies. Agentive, Rowe explains, is a virtual company. One
of her partners operates from Long Island and one is located in
Atlanta.
Rowe, a graduate of the University of West Virginia (Class of 1976),
got into the contract training business after stints in marketing
with C.R. Bard and with Bristol-Myers Squibb. She left the corporate
world when her daughter, now a teen-ager, was a baby. “I was
traveling
all the times,” she recalls. The life was not a good fit with
her parental responsibilities, so she opted for the flexibility of
the entrepreneurial life, taking good wishes — and her first
contracts
— away with her when she left Bristol-Myers.
After working on her own for a number of years, she joined with her
partners, contacts she had retained from her life as an employee.
The trio most often conduct training for groups of salespeople, or
for groups of sales or marketing managers. The pharmas’ employees
spend a lot of money flying into a central location, says Rowe, and
contracting with a company, rather than with an individual, gives
them a level of comfort. If one of the partners has an emergency,
and can’t make it to the training session, another is always available
to fill in.
Summer is the slowest season for Rowe’s company. With fewer training
sessions to lead, the partners turn their attention to marketing.
“If you’re going to be successful in business,” says Rowe,
“you have to sell.” Like most business owners, she would
prefer
to concentrate on her area of expertise, but Rowe says 70 percent
of her time is spent marketing, and she suggests that a similar
percentage
is what it takes for many entrepreneurs to thrive. That is one reason
that one of her favorite NJAWBO book club reads was “Discover
Your Sales Strength.” Another reason she likes it is that it was
written by Benson Smith, with whom she worked at Bard.
“Most of the people in the group had not been salespeople,”
she says of the NJAWBO book club. “But in their current role,
they have to sell. The book helped them to get over the stereotype
of salespeople as fast-talking, slick, sleazy types. They saw that
to be successful you don’t have to be like that.”
The club meets four times a year. At the upcoming meeting, the club
will decide on its next four books, giving everyone plenty of time
to order and read them. “Everyone comes with suggestions,”
says Rowe. There tends to be lobbying, she says, with everyone pushing
for the finds they have turned up. Are there ever any hurt feelings?
“No,” says Rowe, “everybody can deal with it.” Often,
at least a couple of the choices are books a member has read, enjoyed,
and learned from. In book clubs, as in business, a personal
recommendation
carries a lot of weight.
Such an imprimatur also helps to cut through the
ever-mounting
Everest of business titles. Amazon.com lists 17 separate categories
of business titles, including biographies and primers, business life,
careers, economics, finance, international, investing, management
and leadership, marketing and sales, personal finance, and small
business
and entrepreneurship.
“There is a book or six for everything you can think of,”
says Rowe. “It’s hard to sort through what’s good for the
group.”
Favorites, she says, tend to be “books you can really use.”
A book the group put in that category is “Positioning: The Battle
for Your Mind” by Al Reis and Jack Trout.
“We had such a great discussion about that one,” says Rowe
of the book about marketing. Another favorite, “Bold Women: Big
Ideas,” a book about the venture capital industry by Kay
Koplovitz,
did not have the same teaching quality, but, nonetheless, Rowe says
the group found it to be a fascinating look at an important business
engine.
About 10 women show up for a typical meeting. “A core group of
six or eight are always there,” says Rowe, “and two to four
come and go.” The group finds noon, a time when many are getting
up to stretch anyway, a good time for the meetings. Everyone brings
a bag lunch, and the hostess provides dessert.
There has been discussion of holding the meetings at a fixed location,
possibly a restaurant or an office, but Rowe says that members, who
take turns hosting, enjoy visiting one another at home. The informal
ambiance lends itself to a secondary book club purpose, the
opportunity
for members to come to know one another better. Everyone is welcome
to attend a meeting to see if it is a good fit, but newcomers need
to join NJAWBO if they want to become book club members.
Rowe says she decided to take on the book club because it has been
her experience that pitching in at an organization is the best way
to reap the benefits of membership. She observes that the people who
come to the book club and to other NJAWBO events, and who volunteer
to work on committees or projects are the women whose businesses are
most the successful.
Surely that observation could be the seed of a business book. Maybe
“To Move Up, You’ve Got to Pitch In” or possibly
“Volunteer!
Ten Ways to Enrich Your Professional Organization — and Grow Your
Business”
Top Of PagePackaging Your Brain: Martin Mosho
No matter how brilliant your great American novel or
wizardly software, no publisher is going to pry it out of your desk
drawer. And despite your unequaled sales, techie, or managerial
expertise,
the odds are slim that a Fortune 500 CEO will hammer at your door,
begging for the precious pearls of your consulting prowess. Like any
other commodity, expertise must be aggressively marketed or it rots
on the shelf. The successful consultants realize this; the other 90
percent never quite catch on.
For any entrepreneurs striving to push his consulting business into
that profitable 10 percent, Mercer County Community College offers
“Consulting Made Easy” on Wednesday, July 30, at 6:30 p.m.
Cost: $45. Register by calling 609-586-9446. The course is taught
by independent consultant and 40-year marketing veteran Martin
Mosho.
Following a boyhood in a Lower East Side tenement, and a move up and
out to the Bronx, Mosho earned his business administration B.A. from
Brooklyn College. In addition to the required curriculum, Mosho took
dozens of related night courses. “Your most helpful courses always
came in the evening,” he says. “I had one advertising course
taught by the president of Seagrams. The information was fresh and
it was a great way to make contacts.”
For Mosho, both the advice and the contacts worked. He began selling
ads for the New York Times, then the New York Post and Mademoiselle
Magazine. He later directed ad sales for U.S. News and World Report.
Branching out on his own, he bought a Snelling Personnel franchise,
and recruited executives. In addition to teaching, he now runs a
consulting
business, which specializes in sales and marketing techniques.
“Every consultant needs to be selling himself, more than his
skills,”
says Mosho. “And you need to be very aggressive about this
selling.”
He has seen that consulting contracts consistently go to the
individual
with the sharpest sales technique, rather than the individual with
the greatest skill.
Slipping around the gate. “Most companies have veryeffective gate keepers,” notes Mosho. “These secretaries willnot switch you through to the director of personnel on a coldcall.”You must have that individual’s name, and they are unlikely todiscloseit. Trade magazines and the Sunday newspapers are still your besttools here. When you read that Mr. John Smith has just received apromotion to vice-president of production, you have found both a name,and an opportunity. New executives are less tied by loyalty to oldvendors. They are most often the ones seeking new clients and newideas and even new full time employees, Mosho points out.A simple, short letter congratulating Mr. Smith on his newappointment,and listing very briefly your credentials is usually well received.This should not be a sales letter, warns Mosho. Don’t overwhelm theindividual with the patter of your little feats. Merely greet him,introduce yourself, and promise an upcoming phone call.Phone follow-up. Re-introduce yourself and mention whatyou are capable of doing. It may be a good idea to have parts of thisspeech pre-scripted and teleprompting you on your computer screenas you launch into the call. First, talk about yourself and yourcapabilities,but downplay his need for your service. “Your potential clientwill decide if the need exists for your services,” says Mosho.Second, know that persistence pays. Being turned down once is nota refusal forever. Keeping this customer on your active list andre-callingevery half year should be part of your business process. For Mosho,frequently the six or seventh phone call has proved the charm.The personal visit. If a firm’s executive invites youin for further discussion, value his time. Promise that yourappointmentwill only run a set number of minutes; and keep the promise. Onceyou get inside the door, strive above all to be a good listener.”Listenintently and find out this person’s problem. If you cannot solveit,”states Mosho, “thank him for his time and leave.”If indeed you can solve this company’s problem, you may inform theinterviewer that you can. You may even tease him with some of yourinitial analysis plans. But do not spell out the solution. Not yet.”It’s very easy to get your brains picked,” laughs Mosho.If you wrap up a client’s solution in a package and present it tohim upon first meeting, he’ll simply have no need to hire you.The business end. Negotiating time and fees is a tightropeat best. Price yourself too cheaply and you will be valuedaccordingly.Set too high a fee, and you may price yourself outside of the client’sbudget. Your best bet is to initially find what others in your fieldare charging, and set yourself in the middle or upper-middle range.In this buyer’s market for information specialists, you can almostdepend on a low ball client counteroffer. The statement “it’sour company policy to pay consultants $350 a day” can be anegotiatingploy or a true fixed limit. At this point, you must choose. Is $350a day fair value for your time? And if it isn’t, is the job stillworth taking, perhaps because you sense an opportunity to win a placeon staff that would suit you through the short-term assignment?Once the new consultant wins business and negotiates his fees, hemust decide whether to retain an attorney and an accountant. Moshofavors simplicity, yet he says that certain contracts require legalreview. “More and more businesses are getting fanatical aboutnon-disclosure agreements,” he says. “Some outfits haveeveryonefrom top scientists to secretaries signing these things.”If you are developing a product for sale, such as software, yourclientwill frequently require that any resultant patent is the propertyof the company, or that you sign a non-compete agreement which wouldkeep that invention out of their competitors’ hands. However, if yourservices are less tangible, for example offering managerial adviceor a sales production program, you may be able to protect your ideasand methods by packaging them into set packages and copyrighting eachpackage.Beyond direct client contact, Mosho suggests that consultants keeptheir selling tentacles fully outstretched at all times. Publish andselectively mail a newsletter. It can mention new clients, and providenews and trends in the field. Giving talks at business gatherings,including meetings of chambers of commerce, and teaching courses allshowcase your expertise and build a network of contacts. In an agewhen over 5 million Americans are listing themselves as independentconsultants, the feeding frenzy for corporate dollars is frightening.Successful consultants will be those who gain those preciousinterviewsand keep their names circulating in the community.— Bart JacksonTop Of PageMedia Watch: PCG and BeckerLarry Krampf has just cut his commute. The founder ofthe Princeton Communications Group has moved his offices from NassauStreet to 112 Titus Mill Road in Pennington (609-818-9800; fax,609-818-9213).”It’s a mile and a half from my house,” he says of thecompany’snew digs.At the same time, Krampf, whose plans for expansion and a change ofscenery were derailed two years ago, has more big news. His companyhas merged with Nancy Becker Associates, the Trenton-based lobbyingfirm.”She does lobbying and we do the creative side,” says Krampf.While the synergies between advertising and lobbying may not beimmediatelyobvious, an example he throws out clears up the picture. “ForCapital Health,” he says, “we came up with the branding andwe do the advertising.” And when the healthcare organization needssome legislative help, perhaps when it wants to expand into a newarea of medicine, which, in New Jersey, requires state approval, NancyBecker works to make it happen.”We’ve been referring business back and forth for 15 years,”says Krampf.His outfit now has 33 employees, and Nancy Becker Associates has 8.Nancy Becker will retain its Trenton office, and Krampf will havea small office in the capital, too. Each company will keep its ownname.Two summers ago, Princeton Communications was headed for the pool— the outdoor swimming pool that comes with the unique, 1702farmhouse/officesat 88 Orchard Road in Skillman from which the American List Counselhad just moved.”Then 9/11 happened,” says Krampf simply. Advertisers —along with everyone else — became paralyzed, and he decided tostay put while waiting to see what would happen next. “We hadmade a down payment, but we wanted to hold back,” he says. “Wesaw the economy going down.” Now the future — at leasttemporarily— looks more clear, and the availability of modern offices nearhis home has given him the confidence to move forward.Princeton Communications’ new offices contain 15,000 square feet ofInternet-ready space, about 6,000 more than the group was to haveused in the old farmhouse. (The remainder of Krampf’s 23,000square-footbuilding is occupied by Health Answers, formerly Hastings HealthcareGroup. Rob Lyszzarz of Re/Max Properties Unlimited on Route 206 haspurchased the farm property for $1.3 million.)In addition to the lobbyists from Nancy Becker, the offices are hometo the staff of HR Innovator, a new human resources trade magazinebeing published by a separate group, which is a partnership betweenKrampf and Bill Corsini, who was most recently group publisherof HR Executive magazine.Corsini is the publisher and Matt Damsker the editor of the 66-pageglossy magazine. The May and June issues each have a dozen articles(features and one-pagers) and a couple of dozen full page ads, rangingfrom software to gift baskets. Their cover stories were interviewswith the HR directors of the Borgata casino and AMS, the IT consultingfirm. The June issue also featured the new Executive MBA program runby former Bristol-Myers Squibb HR chief Charlie Tharp and Rutgersprofessor Dick Beatty — and threw in an interview with Beatlesmentor Sir George Martin for good measure.While he is enjoying all the easy parking and the short commute hiscompany’s move has brought, Krampf says he is not sure how long thenew space will contain his business. “It’s okay for a shorttime,”he says, “but we’re growing.”Media Watch: Oxford CommunicationsBill Hartman has been named studio director of OxfordCommunications, a full-service advertising, public relations, andgraphic design firm with offices in Lambertville. In his new role,Hartman manages the day-to-day operations of the department, wherehe oversees eight artists.A resident of Abington, Pennsylvania, Hartman, a Drexel alumnus, hasbeen with Oxford Communications for three years.Top Of PageZipcar Gains MomentumIt’s spreading. The Zipcar phenomenon, after gettinga start at the Institute for Advanced Study, has crept up UniversityPlace and into downtown Princeton. Soon to appear at every trainstationnear you, the Zipcar is a car you don’t own, but that will open upfor you after you click your mouse a couple of times and then swipeyour plastic membership card through its EasyPass-like entry sensor.The brainchild of two Cambridge, Massachusetts, entrepreneurs, whosaw the share-a-car concept at work during a trip to Berlin, Zipcarpromises to impart mobility minus the shackles of car ownership.Marvin Reed, mayor of Princeton, first saw the Zipcar concept inEurope,too. Interested in promoting pedestrian-friendly downtowns, especiallyin his own town, he was intrigued. Upon learning that Zipcar had cometo the Institute for Advanced Study, he contacted the company aboutplacing some of its cars in Princeton. Now a VW Beetle in a pale limegreen hangs out at the Dinky Station and a hybrid Matrix Maggie makesits home in the parking garage at the corner of Hulfish andWitherspoon.Two more cars may soon join the first two Zipcars.”There are people who live downtown who would like to do withouta car,” says Reed. “They commute to New York, they don’t wantto be bothered with a car.” Most of what anyone needs is withinwalking distance in Princeton, he points out. A number of residentsjust want a car for the occasional drive to Sam’s Club, to a movienot playing at the Garden Theater, to the shore, or to visit a friendin Pennington or Westfield.Future residents of the 77 apartments being built near the new librarymight well be interested in living a car-free life, Reed suggests.”I would hope people wouldn’t feel they have to have an auto,”he says. “It’s a win for the borough. Even if we encourage onlya dozen to live without a car.”Other possible Zipcar candidates are visitors arriving by train.Insteadof driving to town because their final destination is not withinwalkingdistance, they could just zip into a Zipcar and be on their way. Reedsays that NJ Transit is in the process of adding Zipcars to itscommuterlots.”I think the students will use them too,” says Reed. “Youhave to be 21, but enough students are 21. And, of course, they aregreat for graduate students.””I don’t know that it’s a system you would have put in place 10years ago,” Reed continues. “It’s totally dependent on theInternet. It’s all done electronically without human beings, unlikea car (rental) agency, where you have to see an attendant.”This is how Zipcar works.Become a member. To become a Zipcar member, fill out anapplication at www.zipcar.com. There is a one-time application feeof $30. Members choose between two plans. Under the monthly plan,a credit card is billed $30 a month. The money is put into a Zipcarbank, and drawn upon according to car usage at a rate of $8 an houror $65 to $85 a day. The money piles up if the car is not used much,but it is nonrefundable. The alternative is to pay a $75 annual fee.Reserve a car. To reserve a car for a particular day andtime, sign up online. “The car will be expecting you,” Reedexplains. “Just swipe your card, and it opens.” The only thingexpected of the driver, he adds, is that he fill the gas tank —using a credit card found in the glove compartment — when it dipsto a quarter full.Calculate savings. The zipcar website has a calculatorto help potential users decide if the signing up would be a moneysaver. Plug in car payments, insurance payments, garage fees, gasand maintenance costs, and typical number and duration of car tripsduring a month, and it will tell you if you would save with a Zipcar.Examples on the website are for people living in cities, where ratesare higher than they are in Princeton, but they give a good idea ofhow the costs work out. In one example, Lauren, a Manhattan mother,uses the car once a month for a two-day weekend trip. Her Zipcar costscome to $203.85, a fraction of a the fee required just to park inthe city. In another example, Josefina, a Cambridge mother, uses aZipcar to run errands 17 times a month, averaging 4 to 12 miles oneach trip and taking 1 to 3 1/2 hours each time. Her monthly costis $128.52. In a third example, Gail, a Capitol Hill professional,used the car to attend 16 meetings a month, traveling an average of7 to 9 miles and spending 2 to 4 1/2 hours at each meeting. Hermonthlycost is $328.76.Tell your boss. There are a number of Princeton-areaworkerswho arrive at their jobs via train. For many, the biggest drawbackto the arrangement is that they cannot get very far during the day,whether to meet with a client, to run an errand, or to go out forlunch. A Zipcar could make all the difference.Corporations can get their very own Zipcars by paying a one-timeset-upfee of $100, and an annual fee of $20 per driver, which comes with$20 worth of driving time.Zipcar thinks green, and its cars are small. While they are wellsuitedto taking a couple to the movies or to a dinner party, the littlecars would not haul too many 24-packs of paper towels from Sam’s Clubor easily accommodate a family off on a ski trip. Still, as MayorReed emphasizes, getting even a few cars out of the traffic mix isa good thing. The very presence of a Zipcar option could cause anumberof car-expense-weary Princeton residents to stop and wonder just howmuch they really do need a car — or a second car, or a third car.Top Of PageWorking From Your Deck Now Do-ableSit on your deck with a laptop and connect to youroffice?It’s the latest thing in networking, says Scott O’Brien of O’BrienConsulting Services (OCS).O’Brien says interhouse wireless networking is a hot service ticketthese days: “People want to bring laptops home to work on a homenetwork, and because wireless has become inexpensive people have beencoming in droves.” To hook up wirelessly to the Internet costsjust $400 for one laptop and one PC, including the hardware.OCS installs a box with two antennas as a plug-in access point. Withina range of several hundred feet you can then connect to either theInternet or to your office computer over the Internet.To connect directly to your office computer is easy but requires someextra steps. First you need high speed access like DSL or cable anda laptop that is wired for wireless. The B standard is the mostcommon,but the newer G standard runs five times faster on the same frequency.Then you get software such as PCAnywhere or the program built intoWindows 2000 to connect to your office computer over the Internet.O’Brien just moved his home-based business from East Windsor toLanghornebut plans to open an office in East Windsor soon. A Rutgers graduate,Class of 1996, he started doing Novell networking when he was in highschool and is also certified in Windows 2000. With six employees,plus contract workers, he does general computer consulting but focuseson hard-wired or wireless networks. His clients range from homeownersto international firms (474 Blue Bell Avenue, Langhorne 19047.215-757-9747;fax, 215-757-9748. Home page: www.ocsconsulting.comCaution: You may need multiple access points if your sightlines areblocked by walls or stairs, or they are interrupted by environmentalvariables such as fluorescent lighting. Environmental variables?O’Brienneeded just one access point for an 8,000 square foot home made ofmarble and wood, but a 1,000 square foot townhouse, plush with carpetand draperies, required two.— Barbara FoxCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
