eSign Word for Sales Teams Now

airSlate SignNow signNowly streamlines the document signing process for sales teams, allowing them to send and receive eSignatures quickly. By reducing the time spent on paperwork, sales teams can focus more on closing deals and nurturing client relationships. Additionally, the platform enhances collaboration within sales teams, ensuring that everyone is on the same page throughout the sales cycle.

Key features of airSlate SignNow for sales teams include customizable templates, bulk sending options, and real-time tracking of document status. These features help sales teams improve efficiency and organization by automating repetitive tasks and quickly identifying where documents are in the signing process. The solution also offers advanced security measures, ensuring that sensitive client information is protected.

Yes, airSlate SignNow offers competitive pricing plans that cater to small sales teams looking for an affordable eSignature solution. By providing flexible subscription options, sales teams can choose a plan that fits their budget while still benefiting from robust features. This cost-effectiveness allows sales teams to maximize their productivity without breaking the bank.

airSlate SignNow integrates seamlessly with numerous CRM systems and business tools, making it ideal for sales teams. Popular integrations include Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Workspace, allowing sales teams to manage their workflows more effectively. These integrations enable sales teams to send contracts and agreements directly from their existing platforms, enhancing overall efficiency.

airSlate SignNow helps sales teams drastically reduce turnaround time by enabling instant eSignatures and automated reminders. This means that sales teams can get contracts signed faster, leading to quicker deal closures and improved cash flow. Additionally, the ability to track document status in real-time keeps sales teams informed and ready to follow up appropriately.

Absolutely! airSlate SignNow has a mobile-friendly application that allows sales teams to manage signatures on the go. This flexibility means that sales team members can send, sign, and track documents from anywhere, allowing them to stay productive during meetings or while traveling. The mobile capability ensures that sales teams can engage clients and finalize deals promptly.

airSlate SignNow provides robust customer support options for sales teams, including live chat, email support, and a comprehensive help center. These resources ensure that sales teams can get quick assistance whenever they encounter issues or need guidance on using the platform effectively. Additionally, the onboarding process helps sales teams integrate airSlate SignNow smoothly into their workflows.

There are lots of startups going after the incumbents in the business information space.Radius is the largest and best funded, and it's probably the most direct threat. It's raised $129M of funding[1] and has explicitly stated that it's going after D&B.[2] The company claims that to track 30 million companies in its database.[3] That's not quite the 240 million companies claimed by D&B,[4] but it's an impressive fraction of them, especially considering that the head and torso of the distribution are probably more important than the tail.InsideView has raised $76M of funding[5] and claims that over 20,000 customers rely on its 400 million company and contact records.[6]Owler has raised $19M of funding[7] and relies on a crowdsourced model to collect information about over 10 million companies.[8]Zoominfo, has raised only $7M of funding,[9] but its well-SEO'd public company profiles rank the site at 1,368 in the US, quite respectable for its category.[10]Regardless of which company poses the biggest threat to D&B and the other incumbents, it's clear that the proliferation of competitors is commodifying the space of business information. If the incumbents are to keep their place at the top of the heap, they'll have to work hard to innovate and differentiate their offerings.If they don't, they'll see their margins drop as the competition drives down prices. And eventually a younger company, perhaps Radius, will displace them.Footnotes[1] Radius | CrunchBase[2] With Backing From Palantir Co-Founder, Radius Goes After Small-Business Info Goliath D&B[3] Radius Wins 2015 ‘Brand of the Year’ Award from the Internet Marketing Association • Radius[4] About Dun & Bradstreet | D&B[5] InsideView | CrunchBase[6] Why InsideView FAQ - Accurate and Reliable B2B Contact Data - InsideView[7] Owler, Inc. | CrunchBase[8] Owler Database: Now Over 10 Million Company Profiles[9] ZoomInfo | CrunchBase[10] zoominfo.com Site Overview

“They’re actually going to wire $12M into our bank account,” I said to myself.We had just completed the “documents” phase of our initial funding. We had signed all the paperwork. And here were these people that we barely knew about to wire us $12M.I don’t know if that counts as a surprise, but it shows you the trust your investors are putting in you. Your investors know you may fail. And your investors know you may lose all their money.But your investors are willing to wire you millions of dollars. And then they expect you to figure the rest out for yourself.Is that crazy or what?Here are ten other crazy and surprising things that you’ll likely go through when you start your company.A. Every word you speak matters.Congratulations. I don’t know whether you realized it, but you are now an actor.Your stage is your office.Let me give you an example.I was in my office late one Friday afternoon. We had our company meeting lunchtime earlier in the day.Jeroen, our VP Engineering, walked into my office. He said, “One of my guys was worried because you frowned when you answered the question about revenue.”“I frowned?” I said. “I don’t remember frowning.”“Yes, he thought you frowned. And so he thought things were really bad.”I was laughing at this point.But this anecdote just shows you how everything you say, everything you do, every gesture you make, every email you send, all of it will be scrutinized over and over by your team.Your team will look for meaning where there is none. Your team will wonder why you left the office at 4:30 PM?That’s why you are now an actor. You are literally on stage every second. You don’t have the luxury of taking even a second off.B. No, the market doesn’t immediately notice you exist.I think one of the most jarring things for me was just how difficult it is to build a following and a brand for your business. And what makes it even more jarring, in my case, is…I knew going in was going to be hard. And I was still surprised at how hard it was.You’ll be ecstatic the first time you get 100 visitors to your website in one day.You’ll be ecstatic the first time you get a customer. You’ll truly understand why restaurant owners frame that first dollar bill they get.C. Getting to $1M/Year in revenue is really, really hard.I had built several businesses from $0 to greater than $100M before I started my company. So I had pretty high expectations that getting to $100M was the goal.Little did I know how unbelievably hard getting to just $1M/Year would be.You underestimate everything when you start a company. You underestimate how much money you need, and you’ll underestimate how difficult it is building a brand.So is it any wonder that you’ll be surprised at how difficult it is getting just $1M/year in revenue? It shouldn’t be, but it is. But…D. It’s hand-to-hand combat when you’re trying to win a big deal.Martin, one of our best engineers, said to me, “It’s hand-to-hand combat getting a big customer to buy your products.”Martin was right. It can be really difficult getting big customers to buy your products.Think about it: All your competitors want that business too! That’s why it usually is a better choice for startups to go after underserved markets that might be a little smaller.E. Hiring a great VP of Sales is unbelievably hard…And hiring a great VP of Sales is unbelievably important.We cycled through three VP of Sales in four years.The first VP of Sales was a cofounder who would have been great but he just didn’t have the energy and drive necessary to do the job.The second VP of Sales just wasn’t strong enough. He tried really hard, but family issues derailed him.The third VP of Sales came highly recommended, but he was the wrong guy.Why were we so inept when it came to finding a great VP of Sales?I have to step up and take the blame. I was the CEO who hired all three VPs of Sales.The reality is that a really great VP of Sales is not going to be interested in working at your startup until you get to some level of scale. The job isn’t meaty enough for a great VP of Sales, and it’s not worth the challenge.So you’re better off without a VP of Sales until you get to scale. That was a big surprise.F. Expect some sort of power play every time, every single time you are about to close your funding.One of the saddest things to me about my experience building our company was the drama around each fund raising event. And I don’t mean the external drama of dealing with investors because you expect there to be drama dealing with investors.I mean the unexpected internal drama of dealing with employees and cofounders leveraging the fundraising to attempt to get various things (usually more money or power).For example, two of my cofounders (one was a friend for over 20 years) demanded that I create an “Office of the President” with them or they would quit. All major decisions would be agreed to by the three of us.I refused, and they backed down.“I’ll quit if I don’t get what I want,” is the threat. Your answer always has to be no after listening to their grievance. Always.It will take all of your skill not to give in because losing a key employee before you close funding could cause you to lose your funding. It’s tough, I know, but you have to find a way through the abyss.G. Your investors likely will have surprisingly little sense of urgency over you closing your funding,You’ve just signed a term sheet. You’ve been raising money for close to a year and funds are really low.You want to get the money into your bank account as fast as possible before your new investor changes their mind. Plus your new investor is excited to get started putting their money to work.There are millions of dollars at stake, but your existing investors move like snails. You have closing documents that need their attention and they delay signing.A day goes by. And then another day goes by before they sign the documents.All the while you are sweating bullets to get your funding closed. That’s the sad reality that you are the only one with a sense of urgency to close your funding.That’s when (and why) you need to become a polite pest.You have to follow up on every detail with every investor to get the round closed. You’ve got to make the extra call to the lawyers. And you’ve got to send the extra email to nudge your investors along.H. You’re likely to learn what the zone of insolvency means.Have you ever heard of the zone of insolvency? Sounds kind of like the twilight zone, doesn’t it?The zone of insolvency is simply when your company has more liabilities than assets. In other words, you don’t have the ability to pay your bills.You are likely to enter the zone of insolvency as you come close to closing your funding. Your attorney will make a big deal about entering the zone of insolvency.Your investors will just shrug their shoulders. “So what, we’ve been there before. It’s nothing to worry about,” they’ll say.But you’ll worry because it’s an indication of how close to edge your company truly is. And the scary thing is it will not take much to tip it over to the point of no return.I. You’ll learn that 409A valuations are a joke especially early on.You probably never heard of a 409A valuation before you started your company. Essentially, you hire an external person to determine the value of your company.Your attorney will likely start pushing for a 409A valuation a couple years after you launch your company because the common wisdom is that you need a way of setting the strike price of stock options.Your initial option price is usually arbitrarily set at around $0.12 per share. Why? Because everyone else’s option price is around $0.12 per share.But as you get bigger, you can’t just go with an arbitrary number any more, can you? It makes sense until the valuation of your options suddenly jumps from $0.12 to $1.12.Oops.Now your new hires are pissed because the exercise price on their stock options is now a large number. You want to keep that number low, so your employees can make more money.So you nudge your independent expert to come up with a lower valuation of your company. “Ah, that’s better,” you say to yourself when you see the new price of $0.17 per share.J. You’ll find out your team is more resilient than you think.One of the more surprising things you’ll likely learn is how resilient your team really is. I did.The way you build up your team’s resilience is through transparency. Share with your team the bad stuff as well as the good stuff.You’ll likely be surprised at the positive response your team has to adversity.One word of caution before you lay your soul bare: Never show your fear or panic about what’s going on however bad it is.You want to appear to be in control (remember you are an actor) even if you’re scared to death.For more read: 7 Survival Tips For Startup CEOs - Brett J. Fox

Thanks for the A2ALet's look at what's the key ability of the founders of a successful startup before we get to answer this question:Deep understanding of the domain : An understanding which doesn't come from google, which doesn't come from someone else giving you an idea or which doesn't come from " oh...this us Uber of X or X of India". It comes from getting first hand experience of the problem. By talking to various stake holders, as to why the problem is the way it is. Why has no one solved it so far. These experiences and curiosity leads to some insight, which is 'your' insight. This 'insight' is the foundation of your startup.Expertise needed to solve the problem : For example, If the problem requires building a hardware device to solve the problem, you must know how to build it, or you must get a co-founder (not employee) who knows/understands how to build the hardware device. Same applies, to s/w, biotech, medicine or for that matter anything else. Just having an idea, and hiring people to build the solution rarely succeed. Ability to market & sell : Don't mistake of believing that if the product is good it'd sell for it self. NOTHING EVER SELLS FOR ITSELF! Every product needs either marketing, or sales or (most of the time) both. If you don't know how to peddle your product, you have a huge hurdle to cross. Again, hiring is not a solution.There are many more key success criterion for a startup, like market dynamics, team etc, but let's focus on the above with respect to this question. Now, let's answer the original question, is it crucial to work for other startups before starting on your own? Yes & No. If you have what it takes (all of the above) - you are good to go. However, if you are still toying with an idea, then it is best to work for someone else in the meanwhile.Do yourself a favour, do a self assessment and find out if check all the 3 items, then approach an experienced entrepreneur or any other mentor that you trust, let him grill you - you'd know if you are ready to start.All the best

Massachusetts is held as some kind of “model” for gun laws. In this state you have to have a license to even touch a gun. Nearly every gun is registered. The Assault Weapon Ban is alive and well. Basically, every liberal anti-gun dream short of a total ban exists.And when you look at the number of gun deaths, it looks like it is working.Well, you know what they say - There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.Here is how the numbers are fudged.First, when they list gun deaths, they list ALL gun deaths. Nationwide, nearly 2/3 of all firearm deaths are suicide. Here in Massachusetts, firearm s...

This is the dark side of things you have to know. Starting a business for the first time is not for the weak-hearted. The fact of the matter is, lot of darkness is behind every startup story, people hate to share or talk about it. Here is a list of some must-know dark topics:Expect no one to support you and everyone to ridicule and demotivate you. If you get any support, be thankful for it. People are stuck in the job mentality.There is no prestige in it. Heck, even when your daily income is more than the whole cabinet of minister's salaries combined, they will still think of a minister as someone better than you. Heck, a low-level section manager has more prestige than you. Never get sucked into showing off your wealth for respect, it’s futile.Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Have a plan B as good as plan A.Never share your failures with anyone. There, I told you, the crowd is dying to hear it. Share only your success because it will also reflect on your future investor's opinion about you.You have a 50/50 chance of failure, no matter how good your plans are. So be prepared to fail, for success, no other preparation is required.Never take a debt it will slow you down, try again if you failed.Never ask friends and family for investment or loan. You will probably lose it, and they will distract you from doing your thing. Don't burn bridges.Try to do your first business in secret until you succeed. Because people don't trust a person who fails a lot. Neither the investors whom you may need in the future.Do something you enjoy because everyone is demotivating you and this is the only way to stay motivated.Be kind to your employees but don't try to be their friend, they will use you. Besides, when they screw up, you will need to fire them swiftly.Make time for your family, friends, social life and hobbies, otherwise you will exhaust yourself. Remember that you are the cornerstone of your business and it will fall when you do.Be really careful to your customers because bad reviews cannot be deleted from the internet.Everyone wants a piece of your new income, from your mom to your friends, even after they ridiculed you. Do not help anyone. Remember airplane’s emergency instructions, help yourself, then help others. Don’t help anyone on account of your business. Learn to say NO.Again everyone wants a piece of you, from your staff to your suppliers, to your customers, even the government. Protect yourself from disclaimers to contracts.Never cheat your way into anything, sooner or later it will bite you in the ass. Your enemies and competitors will use it against you. Be as ethical and legal as a proper person should be.You are the last to be paid. Once you've paid your employees, your taxes, and your suppliers, and you've reinvested in your business, only then do you take a paycheck (if there is any money left). By Jonathan Johnson.You better learn now, than learn it the hard way.P.S: If you like my writing style and want more support, my educational project is available on Patreon. You can find the link and FAQs in my profile. :)

That’s the worst idea in fact. I share my experience and more or less it is same for everyone. At the end I also explain how to get your money back from them.On August 3rd , 2018 , I attended a presentation made by Country club representatives , named Dharshan , Muneer and RajaShekar at Café Coffee Day , JP Nagar , Bangalore. I came to know later that they operate by the fake names. So you should know that whoever you deal with and know in CC , those are not their actual names.They explained me different plans of Country Club / Country Vacations.On the condition of me paying the membership fee ( Rs. 1,39,054 ) on the spot, they offered me following membership benefits, none of which I received.1. Domestic and International stay for 6 nights, 7 days for a duration of 10 years for 8 people with 1 bhk accommodation.2. Rs. 7000 cashback to the credit card.3. One time all paid international vacation.Towards the membership, I paid Rs. 1,39,054 with my credit card by converting this amount into 12 EMIs with 14.55 % annual interest. While signing the agreement, and not finding the above above offers in agreement, they misguided me by telling it as a generic common agreement and told that I would receive different customized membership documents within 10 days after signing agreement.At the same time, I got a verification call to which the sales team told me it as a mere account activation call and I just need to agree to the questions asked in the call. They told me again that I would get separate membership documents in the welcome kit and deceptively convinced me to agree for the membership period as 5 years in the call.Later on finding online social media full of similar customer experiences and they being duped by the Country Club in a similar fashion, I referred to the point number 34 (cool off period) in the agreement. According to that, I can cancel the membership within 10 days from the signing of the agreement by sending an email to centralcustomecare@countryvacationsmail.com. The paid amount would be refunded after deducting Rs. 3800. Therefore, on August 6, 2018 I sent an email to cancel my membership with immediate effect and asked to refund my money. I received no response except an confirmation e-mail from Country Club about receiving my email. I sent many email reminders, but did not receive any response from Country Club about refunding the money. Please see the copy of the emails attached. I also talked about the same to the country club sales team, they promised to resolve either all my concerns or get my money refunded but nothing happened. To discuss my issues I also tried to call the phone number given in the agreement (040) 67484444, but there has never been any response on that either.I have also sent a legal notice to Country Club on 18th Sept 2018 and yet have not received any response. Now I know that they get such notices on daily basis and that does not mean anything to them. So, do not spend your money on sending the legal notice.This is their modus operandi and they have cheated 1000s of people like that.Now, what you should do to get your money back from them. Before that, One thing I want to share here about the people (CC victims like us). I have talked to 100s of people who got cheated by the CC. And I must say that I am very disappointed by the people. I must say that majority of the people who get cheated and come to get help in getting their money back are very selfish, they just care only about getting their money back and nothing else. They do not respect other person’s time at all and are completely thankless. They also do not want to take any effort on their own part , and behave as if it is someone else’s job to get their money back that they simply gave to CC. Once they get back their money , they do not bother even to talk about it , forget helping others. They are not even bothered to post their experiences on the social media spread awareness about that.Now, what you should do to get your money back from them.Very important , do not get disheartened and just leave your hard earned money with them. Do not repent. Accept that you are being very casual in giving away your money to anyone. Take it as a lesson and in future never spend your money in advance for any kind of plans. Never entertain any aggressive sales, marketing. Be careful , do not share your number to any mall , refuse to share your number when shopkeeper asks at the time of making bills etc. You should even scold the boy/girl if they ask to fill any lucky coupon in any mall.Immediately send an email to centralcustomecare@countryvacationsmail.com and centralcustomercare@countryclubmail.com to cancel your membership citing your personal reasons and get your refund. Also copy all your country club / country vacations representative contacts in the same email. Look into your country club / vacation agreement , search the internet and find out all the country club / vacation customer care emails and copy to those addresses too. Do that immediately.Immediately write an application on paper to cancel membership giving your personal reasons , attach all your documents and send it to their Hyderabad offices and local offices via registered speed post with acknowledgement. Do that , do not just sit back after emailing. It is important and you will understand better it later.If you have used your credit card , then immediately raise the credit card transaction dispute. Fill up the dispute form , attach all the documents above , also take the print outs of all the negative reviews and fraud done by them and send again via registered speed post with ACK. Also email the same to your bank emails etc. After sending the dispute form , talk to your bank manager. They will normally discourage you by saying they want cancellation mail from CC. Explain them all the frauds made by them and how many people got their credit card transaction reversed and explain what all you did in steps above. File a dispute asap. There is a time window in the bank before transferring your money to the company from bank. So leave all your other works and do the steps 1–4 asap. Most likely you will get your money reversed. Even if they reject your dispute , dont get disheartened and raise the dispute again. Collect more evidences and examples of people’s getting their money reversed.If you have 10 days cool off period in your agreement , then you do not need any reason as such to cancel your membership. You do not need to utilize any of their services also. Do not personally go and talk to them about you refund in their offices. They will simply refuse. They will ask you to first utilize their services first. Do not do that. Do not believe on their single words. Do not get trapped . Just follow what I am stating here. If you are in cool off period , then you need to wait for 120 days after sending your mails to them. Just sit back and keep sending reminders to them and to your back and do the step 7 below. Most likely you will get your money reversed in your credit card before 120 days. Even if you have paid using the debit card, they will pay you back by company cheque.Even if you do not have cool off period in your agreement , follow the step above, yo will get your money back. Do it as fast you can.If have passed 10 days time , then go to your local clubs or country club facilities . They are very shady and unusable. Go there , take the photographs and other evidences of the poor facilities there. Collect all the documents , make your case and do the steps 1–4.Prepare all the documents , find out the addresses of following in your state and once in a month send your letters and emails both to following.You can also contact Mass India NGO Karnataka president Mr. Gopal Koteyar ( 9741180793 / 9980025751) if you are in Karnataka and Mr. Shibu George ( 9869839988) for the rest of the parts in country. They are fighting with CC since long time. I and many other people got money back through Mr. Koteyar and Mr. Shibu has made around 400 people’s money refunded till now.a) DIG / police commissioner in your city and DIG / police commissioner Hyderabad.b) Registrar of companies and company law.c) Chief minister of Telangana and Your state.d) Prime Minister of India.e) Reserve Bank of India.f) Enforcement Director of Income Tax.Also keep sending the reminders to CC all offices and your bank by giving references to the above communications. Do not forget that. This process seems slow to you but it works and actions are taken. You will get most likely your money back faster.8. If you have cool off period in your agreement , then after 120 days , you can approach the consumer court. If you do not have cool off period in your agreement , then you can approach the consumer court even before , based on the response from the Country Club. If you have to go to the consumer court , do not take myadvo services , you will repent. In consumer court , you should yourself appear , do not take any lawyer , they will just rip you off. You can find and help of any reliable lawyer in your area in initial filing the case and later you yourself can carry on. I am not recommending but I consulted lawer Pooja Barik from HSR Bangalore and found her helpful. You can find anyone reliable or with little effort can file your own. That is a simple process.This is all pretty much you have to do. Keep faith, I am telling you that you will get your money back.At the last be a good citizen . Upvote and comment in this post and do not let this post take down by CC folks. Help others , connect people in your area to collaborate. Discuss your case here in comments so that other also get information and can help you or get help from your experience . Post your experience on social sites. This is the minimum we should do. Do not just think about yourself only , spread the word.

The 100 Rules for Being a First-Time EntrepreneurIf you Google “entrepreneur” you get a lot of mindless cliches like “Think Big!” For me, being an “entrepreneur” doesn’t mean starting the next “Faceook”. Or even starting any business at all.It means finding the challenges you have in your life, and determining creative ways to overcome those challenges. However, in this post I focus mostly on the issues that come up when you first start your company. These rules also apply if you are taking an entrepreneurial stance within a much larger company (which all employees should do).Just as good to be an “entreployee” as an “entrepreneur”. Either one will help you survive this world of increased economic uncertainty.For me, I’ve started several businesses.Maybe 17 have failed out of 20. I fail quickly. I fail frequently. Entrepreneurship is a sentence of failures punctuated by brief success.I’m invested in about 28 private companies. I’ve advised probably another 50 private companies. I’m on the board of several private companies and one public company. The companies ranging from $0 in revenues to a billion in revenues.Along the way I’ve compiled a list of rules that have helped me deal with every aspect of being an entrepreneur in business and some in life.Here’s the real rules:A)        It’s not fun. I’m not going to explain why it’s not fun. These are rules. Not theories. I don’t need to prove them.But there’s a strong chance you can hate yourself throughout the process of being an entrepreneur. Keep sharp objects and pills away during your worst moments. And you will have them. If you are an entrepreneur and agree with me, please note this in the comments below.B)        Try not to hire people. You’ll have to hire people to expand your business. But it’s a good discipline to really question if you need each and every hire.C)       Get a customer. This seems obvious. But it’s not. Get a customer before you start your business, if you can.So many people say to me, “I have an idea. Can you introduce me to VCs?”There is a HUGE gap between “idea” and “professional venture capital”.In the middle of that gap is “customer”.D)        If you are offering a service, call it a product.Oracle did it. They claimed they had a database. But if you “bought” their database they would send in a team of consultants to help you “install” the database to fit your needs.In other words, for the first several years of their existence, they claimed to have a product but they really were a consulting company. Don’t forget this story. Products are valued higher than services.And almost EVERY major software product company was a service company in the beginning. Don’t forget that.E)       It’s OK to fail. Start over. Hopefully before you run out of money. Hopefully before you take in investor money. Or, don’t worry about it. Come up with new ideas. Start over.F)         Be profitable. Try to be profitable immediately. This seems obvious but it isn’t. Try not to raise money. That money is expensive.G)        When raising money: if it’s not easy then your idea is probably incapable of raising money. If its easy, then take as much as possible. If its TOO easy, then sell your company (unless you are Twitter, etc).(if its too easy, sell your company)H)        The same goes for selling your company. If it’s not easy, then you need to build more. Then sell. To sell your company, start getting in front of your acquirers a year in advance. Send them monthly updates describing your progress. Then, when they need a company like yours, your company is the first one that comes to mind.Don’t be like that guy in the TV show “Silicon Valley”. If someone offers you ten million for a company that has no revenues, then sell it. Not everything is going to be a Facebook. And even the Google guys tried to sell their company for ONE MILLION DOLLARS to Yahoo before they were revenue positive.SELL THE COMPANY.I)          Competition is good. It turns you into a killer. It helps you judge progress. It shows that other people value the space you are in. Your competitors are also your potential acquirors.J)         Don’t use a PR firm. Except maybe as a secretary. You are the PR for your company. You are your company’s brand. You personally.I’ve never had a good PR company. I’ve had good PR secretaries. But they are cheaper. One time I hired a PR company and they accidentally sent me the contract for Terry Bradshaw. He was paying $10,000 a month. How did they do for him?K)        Communicate with everyone. Employees. Customers. Investors. All the time. Every day.Employees want to know what to do. And they want to know you are thinking of their overall career.Customers want to know how to keep their bosses calm.Investors want to be your friend and want to know they can count on you when time’s are tough.L)         Do everything for your customers. This is very important.Get them girlfriends or boyfriends. Speak at their charities. Visit their parents for Thanksgiving. Help them find other firms to meet their needs. Even introduce them to your competitors if you think a competitor can help them or if you think you are about to be fired. Always think first, “What’s going to make my customer happy?”Note: EVEN if that means introduce them to a competitor. If you are the SOURCE, then everybody comes back to the source.M)        Your customer is not a company. There’s a human there. What will make my human customer happy? Make him laugh. You want your customer to be happy.N)        Show up. Go to breakfast/lunch/dinner with customers. Treat.O)        History. Know the history of your customers in every way. Company history, personal history, marketing history, investing history, etc.P)         Micro-manage software development. Nobody knows your product better than you do. If you aren’t a technical person, learn how to be very specific in your product specification so that your programmers can’t say: “well you didn’t say that!”Q)        Hire local. You need to be able to see and talk to your programmers. Don’t outsource to India. I love India. But I won’t hire programmers from there while I’m living in the US.R)        Sleep. Don’t buy into the 20 hours a day entrepreneur myth. You need to sleep 8 hours a day to have a focused mind.If you are working 20 hours a day, then that means you have flaws in how you are managing your time. You can argue about this but it’s true.S)         Exercise. Same as above. If you are unhealthy, your product will be unhealthy.T)         Emotionally Fit. DON’T have dating problems and software development problems at the same time. VCs will smell this all over you.U)        Pray. You need to. Be grateful where you are. And pray for success. You deserve it. Pray for the success of your customers. Heck, pray for the success of your competitors. The better they do, it means the market is getting bigger. And if one of them breaks out, they can buy you.V)       Buy your employees gifts. Massages. Tickets. Whatever. I always imagined that at the end of each day my young, lesbian employees (for some reason, most employees at my first company were lesbian) would be calling their parents and their mom and dad would ask them: “Hi honey! How was your day today?” And I wanted them to be able to say: “It was the best!” Invite customers to masseuse day. W)       Treat your employees like they are your children. They need boundaries. They need to be told “no!” sometimes. And sometimes you need to hit them in the face (ha ha, just kidding). But within boundaries, let them play.X)        Don’t be greedy pricing your product. If your product is good and you price it cheap, people will buy. Then you can price upgrades, future products, and future services more expensive. Which goes along with the next rule.Y)        Distribution is everything. Branding is everything. Get your name out there, whatever it takes. The best distribution is of course word of mouth, which is why your initial pricing doesn’t matter.Write a blog about your industry and be very honest about all the flaws (even your own) that is currently in your industry.Authenticity is the best branding.Z)         Don’t kill yourself. It’s not worth it. Your employees need you.Your children or future children need you. It seems odd to include this in a post about entrepreneurship but we’re also taking about keeping it real.Most books or “rules” for entrepreneurs talk about things like “think big”, “go after your dreams”. But often dreams turn into nightmares. I’ll repeat it again. Don’t kill yourself. Call me if things get too stressful. Or more importantly, make sure you take proper medicationAA)     Give employees structure. Let each employee know how his or her path to success can be achieved. All of them will either leave you or replace you eventually. That’s OK. Give them the guidelines how that might happen. Tell them how they can get rich by working for you.BB)      Fire employees immediately. If an employee gets “the disease” he needs to be fired. If they ask for more money all the time. If they bad mouth you to other employees. If you even think they are talking behind your back, fire them.The disease has no cure. And it’s very contagious. Show no mercy. Show the employee the door. There are no second chances because the disease is incurable.I don’t say this because I want anyone to be hurt. But if you’ve followed the rules above then you are treating employees well already. NOBODY should spread the disease and badmouth you or your customers.CC)      Make friends with your landlord. If you ever have to sell your company, believe it or not, you are going to need his signature (because there’s going to be a new lease owner)DD)     Only move offices if you are so packed in that employees are sharing desks and there’s no room for people to walk.EE)      Have killer parties. But use your personal money. Not company money. Invite employees, customers, and investors. .FF)       If an employee comes to you crying, close the door or take him or her out of the building. Sit with him until it stops. Listen to what he has to say. If someone is crying then there’s been a major communication breakdown somewhere in the company. Listen to what it is and fix it. Don’t get angry at the culprit’s. Just fix the problem.(you don’t want your employees to be sad.)GG)     At Christmas, donate money to every customer’s favorite charity. But not for investors or employees.HH)     Have lunch with your competitors. Listen and try not to talk. One competitor (Bill Markel from Interactive 8) once told me a story about how the CEO of Toys R Us returned his call. He was telling me this because I never returned Bill’s calls. Ok, Bill, lesson noted.II)        Ask advice a lot. Ask your customers advice on how you can be introduced into other parts of their company. Then they will help you. Because of the next rule…JJ)        Hire your customers. Or not. But always leave open the possibility. Let it always dangle in the air between you and them. They can get rich with you. Maybe. Possibly. If they play along. So play.KK)     On any demo or delivery, do one extra surprise thing that was not expected. Always add bells and whistles that the customer didn’t pay for.This is such an easy way to over deliver I’m surprised people don’t do it 100% of the time. They do it maybe 1% of the time. So this is an easy way to compete and surprise and delight.LL)      Understand the demographic changes that are changing the world. Where are marketing dollars flowing and can you be in the middle. What services do aging baby boomers need? Is the world running out of clean water? Are newspapers going to survive? Etc. Etc. Read every day to understand what is going on.LLa) Don’t go to a lot of parties or “meetups” with other entrepreneurs. Work instead while they are partying.MM)    But, going along with the above rule, don’t listen to the doom and gloomers that are hogging the TV screen trying to tell you the world is over. They just want you to be scared so they can scoop up all the money.NN)     You have no more free time. In your free time you are thinking of new ideas for customers, new ideas for services to offer, new products.OO)     You have no more free time, part 2. In your free time, think of ideas for potential customers. Then send them emails: “I have 10 ideas for you. Would really like to show them to you. I think you will be blown away. Here’s five of them right now.”OOa) Depressions, recessions, don’t matter. There’s $15 trillion in the economy. You’re allowed a piece of it:FedEx, Microsoft, HewlettPackard, and many huge companies were started in recessions or depressions. Leave economics to the academics while they leave good business to you.PP)       Talk. Tell everyone you ever knew  what your company does. Your friends will help you find clients.QQ)     Always take someone with you to a meeting. You’re bad at following up. Because you have no free time. So, if you have another employee. Let them follow up. Plus, they will like to spend time with the boss. You’re going to be a mentor.RR)      If you are consumer focused: your advertisers are your customers. But always be thinking of new services for your consumers. Each new service has to make their life better. People’s lives are better if: they become healthier, richer, or have more sex. “Health” can be broadly defined.SS)       If your customers are advertisers: find sponsorship opportunities for them that drive customers straight into their arms. These are the most lucrative ad deals (see rule above). Ad inventory is a horrible business model. Sponsorships are better. Then you are talking to your customer.TT)      No friction. The harder it is for a consumer to sign up, the less consumers you will have. No confirmation emails, sign up forms, etc. The easier the better.TTA) No fiction, part 2. If you are making a website, have as much content as you can on the front page. You don’t want people to have to click to a second or third page if you can avoid it. Stuff that first page with content. You aren’t Google. (And, 10 Unusual Things You Didn’t Know About Google)UU)     No friction, part 3. Say “yes” to any opportunity that gets you in a room with a big decision maker. Doesn’t matter if it costs you money.VV)     Sell your company two years before you sell it. Get in the offices of the potential buyers of your company and start updating them on your progress every month.  Ask their advice on a regular basis in the guise of just an “industry catch-up”WW)    If you sell your company for stock, sell the stock as soon as you can. If you are selling your company for stock it means:a.         The market is such that lots of companies are being sold for stock.b.         AND, companies are using stock to buy other companies because they value their stock less than they value cash.c.         WHICH MEANS, that when everyone’s lockup period ends, EVERYONE will be selling stock across the country. So sell yours first.XX)     Execution is a dime a dozen. If you have an idea worth pursuing, then just make it. You can build any website for cheap. Hire a programmer and make a demo. Get at least one person to sign up and use your service. If you want to make Facebook pages for plumbers, find one plumber who will give you $10 to make his Facebook page. Just do it.Fail quickly. Good ideas are HARD. It’s execution that is a dime a dozen.YY)     Don’t use a PR firm, part II. Set up a blog. Tell your personal stories (see “33 tips to being a better writer” ). Let the customer know you are human, approachable, and have a real vision as to why they need to use you. Become the voice for your industry, the advocate for your products. If you make skin care products, tell your customers every day how they can be even more beautiful than they currently are and have more sex than they are currently getting. Blog your way to PR success. Be honest and bloody.ZZ)      Don’t save the world. If your product sounds too good to be true, then you are a liar.ZZa) Your company is always for sale.AAA)  Frame the first check. I’m staring at mine right now.BBB)   No free time, part 3. Pick a random customer. Find five ideas for them that have nothing to do with your business. Call them and say, “I’ve been thinking about you. Have you tried this?”CCC)   No resale deals. Nobody cares about reselling your service. Those are always bad deals.DDD)   Your lawyer or accountant is not going to introduce you to any of their other clients. Those meetings are always a waste of time.EEE)    Celebrate every success. Your employees need it. They need a massage also. Get a professional masseuse in every Friday afternoon. Nobody leaves a job where there is a masseuse.FFF)     Sell your first company. I have to repeat this. Don’t take any chances. You don’t need to be Mark Zuckerberg. Sell your first company as quick as you can. You now have money in the bank and a notch on your belt. Make a billion on your next company.Note Mark Cuban’s story. Before he started Broadcast and rode it to a few billion, he sold his first software company for ten million.GGG)   Pay your employees before you pay yourself.HHH)   Give equity to get the first customer. If you have no product yet and no money, then give equity to a good partner in exchange for them being a paying customer.  Note: don’t blindly give equity. If you develop a product that someone asked for, don’t give them equity. Sell it to them. But if you want to get a big distribution partner whose funds can keep you going forever, then give equity to nail the deal.III)       Don’t worry about anyone stealing your ideas. Ideas are worthless anyway. It’s OK to steal something that’s worthless.IIIA) Follow me on twitter.Questions from ReadersQuestion: You say no free time but you also say keep emotionally fit, physically fit, etc. How do I do this if I’m constantly thinking of ideas for old and potential customers?Answer:  It’s not easy or everyone would be rich.Question: if I get really stressed about clients paying, how do I get sleep at night?Answer: medicationQuestion: how do I cold-call clients?Answer: email them. Email 40 of them. It’s OK if only 1 answers. Email 40 a day but make sure you have something of value to offer.Question: how can I find cheap programmers or designers?Answer: if you don’t know any and you want to be cheap: use Hire Freelancers & Find Freelance Jobs Online, Elance, or craigslist. But don’t hire them if they are from another country. You need to communicate with them even if it costs more money.Question: should I hire programmers?Answer: first…freelance. Then hire.Question: what if I build my product but I’m not getting customers?Answer: develop a service loosely based on your product and offer that to customers. But I hope you didn’t make a product without talking to customers to begin with?Question: I have the best idea in the world, but for it to work it requires a lot of people to already be using it. Like Twitter.Answer: if you’re not baked into the Silicon Valley ecosystem,  then find distribution and offer equity if you have to. Zuckerberg had Harvard. MySpace had the fans of all the local bands they set up with MySpace pages. I (in my own small way) had Stock Market - Business News, Market Data, Stock Analysis - TheStreet when I set up Stockpickr! Your Source for Stock Ideas. I also had 10 paying clients when i did my first successful business fulltime.Question: I just lost my biggest customer and now I have to fire people. I’ve never done this before. How do I do it?Answer:  one on meetings. Be Kind. State the facts. Say you have to let people go and that everyone is hurting but you want to keep in touch because they are a great employee. It was an honor to work with them and when business comes back you hope you can convince them come back. Then ask them if they have any questions. Your reputation and the reputation of your company are on the line here. You want to be a good guy. But you want them out of your office within 15 minutes. It’s a termination, not a negotiation. This is one reason why it’s good to start with freelancers.Question: I have a great idea. How do I attract VCs?Answer: build the product. Get a customer. Get money from customer. Get more customers. Build more services in the product. Get VC. Chances are by this point, the VCs are calling you.Question: I want to build a business day trading.Answer: bad ideaQuestion: I want to start a business but don’t know what my passion is:Answer: skip to the post: “How to be the luckiest person alive”. Do the Daily Practice. Within six months your life will be completely different.Question: I want to leave my job but I’m scared.Answer: same as above question.  The Daily Practice turns you into a healthy Idea Machine. Plus luck will flow in from every direction.Final rule: Things change. Every day. The title of this post, for instance, says “100 Rules”. But I gave about 70 rules (including the Q&A). Things change midway through. Be ready for it every day. In fact, every day figure out what you can change just slightly to shake things up and improve your product and company.Your business is not your life. When you start a business you also get a cognitive bias that makes you think your business is GREAT.Every day make sure you are not smoking crack. The most important thing is your health so you can be persistent. If you smoke crack you can die.I hope you succeed. Because I really need that smart toilet that sends my doctors text messages after doing urinalysis on my pee every day.Good luck.

Yes, absolutely. I share my experience and more or less it is same for everyone. At the end I will also tell how to get money back from them.On August 3rd , 2018 , I attended a presentation made by Country club representatives , named Dharshan , Muneer and RajaShekar at Café Coffee Day , JP Nagar , Bangalore. I came to know later that they operate by the fake names. So you should know that whoever you deal with and know in CC , those are not their actual names.They explained me different plans of Country Club / Country Vacations.On the condition of me paying the membership fee ( Rs. 1,39,054 ) on the spot, they offered me following membership benefits, none of which I received.1. Domestic and International stay for 6 nights, 7 days for a duration of 10 years for 8 people with 1 bhk accommodation.2. Rs. 7000 cashback to the credit card.3. One time all paid international vacation.Towards the membership, I paid Rs. 1,39,054 with my credit card by converting this amount into 12 EMIs with 14.55 % annual interest. While signing the agreement, and not finding the above above offers in agreement, they misguided me by telling it as a generic common agreement and told that I would receive different customized membership documents within 10 days after signing agreement.At the same time, I got a verification call to which the sales team told me it as a mere account activation call and I just need to agree to the questions asked in the call. They told me again that I would get separate membership documents in the welcome kit and deceptively convinced me to agree for the membership period as 5 years in the call.Later on finding online social media full of similar customer experiences and they being duped by the Country Club in a similar fashion, I referred to the point number 34 (cool off period) in the agreement. According to that, I can cancel the membership within 10 days from the signing of the agreement by sending an email to centralcustomecare@countryvacationsmail.com. The paid amount would be refunded after deducting Rs. 3800. Therefore, on August 6, 2018 I sent an email to cancel my membership with immediate effect and asked to refund my money. I received no response except an confirmation e-mail from Country Club about receiving my email. I sent many email reminders, but did not receive any response from Country Club about refunding the money. Please see the copy of the emails attached. I also talked about the same to the country club sales team, they promised to resolve either all my concerns or get my money refunded but nothing happened. To discuss my issues I also tried to call the phone number given in the agreement (040) 67484444, but there has never been any response on that either.I have also sent a legal notice to Country Club on 18th Sept 2018 and yet have not received any response. Now I know that they get such notices on daily basis and that does not mean anything to them. So, do not spend your money on sending the legal notice.This is their modus operandi and they have cheated 1000s of people like that.Now, what you should do to get your money back from them. Before that, One thing I want to share here about the people (CC victims like us). I have talked to 100s of people who got cheated by the CC. And I must say that I am very disappointed by the people. I must say that majority of the people who get cheated and come to get help in getting their money back are very selfish, they just care only about getting their money back and nothing else. They do not respect other person’s time at all and are completely thankless. They also do not want to take any effort on their own part , and behave as if it is someone else’s job to get their money back that they simply gave to CC. Once they get back their money , they do not bother even to talk about it , forget helping others. They are not even bothered to post their experiences on the social media spread awareness about that.Now, what you should do to get your money back from them.Very important , do not get disheartened and just leave your hard earned money with them. Do not repent. Accept that you are being very casual in giving away your money to anyone. Take it as a lesson and in future never spend your money in advance for any kind of plans. Never entertain any aggressive sales, marketing. Be careful , do not share your number to any mall , refuse to share your number when shopkeeper asks at the time of making bills etc. You should even scold the boy/girl if they ask to fill any lucky coupon in any mall.Immediately send an email to centralcustomecare@countryvacationsmail.com and centralcustomercare@countryclubmail.com to cancel your membership citing your personal reasons and get your refund. Also copy all your country club / country vacations representative contacts in the same email. Look into your country club / vacation agreement , search the internet and find out all the country club / vacation customer care emails and copy to those addresses too. Do that immediately.Immediately write an application on paper to cancel membership giving your personal reasons , attach all your documents and send it to their Hyderabad offices and local offices via registered speed post with acknowledgement. Do that , do not just sit back after emailing. It is important and you will understand better it later.If you have used your credit card , then immediately raise the credit card transaction dispute. Fill up the dispute form , attach all the documents above , also take the print outs of all the negative reviews and fraud done by them and send again via registered speed post with ACK. Also email the same to your bank emails etc. After sending the dispute form , talk to your bank manager. They will normally discourage you by saying they want cancellation mail from CC. Explain them all the frauds made by them and how many people got their credit card transaction reversed and explain what all you did in steps above. File a dispute asap. There is a time window in the bank before transferring your money to the company from bank. So leave all your other works and do the steps 1–4 asap. Most likely you will get your money reversed. Even if they reject your dispute , dont get disheartened and raise the dispute again. Collect more evidences and examples of people’s getting their money reversed.If you have 10 days cool off period in your agreement , then you do not need any reason as such to cancel your membership. You do not need to utilize any of their services also. Do not personally go and talk to them about you refund in their offices. They will simply refuse. They will ask you to first utilize their services first. Do not do that. Do not believe on their single words. Do not get trapped . Just follow what I am stating here. If you are in cool off period , then you need to wait for 120 days after sending your mails to them. Just sit back and keep sending reminders to them and to your back and do the step 7 below. Most likely you will get your money reversed in your credit card before 120 days. Even if you have paid using the debit card, they will pay you back by company cheque.Follow the above step even if you do not have the cool off period in your agreement. You will get back your money. Do that as soon as you can.If you have passed 10 days time , then go to your local clubs or country club facilities . They are very shady and unusable. Go there , take the photographs and other evidences of the poor facilities there. Collect all the documents , make your case and do the steps 1–4.Prepare all the documents , find out the addresses of following in your state and once in a month send your letters and emails both to following.You can also contact Mass India NGO Karnataka president Mr. Gopal Koteyar ( 9741180793 / 9980025751) if you are in Karnataka and Mr. Shibu George ( 9869839988) for the rest of the parts in country. They are fighting with CC since long time. I and many other people got money back through Mr. Koteyar and Mr. Shibu has made around 400 people’s money refunded till now.a) DIG / police commissioner in your city and DIG / police commissioner Hyderabad.b) Registrar of companies and company law.c) Chief minister of Telangana and Your state.d) Prime Minister of India.e) Reserve Bank of India.f) Enforcement Director of Income Tax.Also keep sending the reminders to CC all offices and your bank by giving references to the above communications. Do not forget that. This process seems slow to you but it works and actions are taken. You will get most likely your money back faster.8. If you have cool off period in your agreement , then after 120 days , you can approach the consumer court. If you do not have cool off period in your agreement , then you can approach the consumer court even before , based on the response from the Country Club. If you have to go to the consumer court , do not take myadvo services , you will repent. In consumer court , you should yourself appear , do not take any lawyer , they will just rip you off. You can find and help of any reliable lawyer in your area in initial filing the case and later you yourself can carry on. I am not recommending but I consulted lawer Pooja Barik from HSR Bangalore and found her helpful. You can find anyone reliable or with little effort can file your own. That is a simple process.This is all pretty much you have to do. Keep faith, I am telling you that you will get your money back.At the last be a good citizen . Upvote and comment in this post and do not let this post take down by CC folks. Help others , connect people in your area to collaborate. Discuss your case here in comments so that other also get information and can help you or get help from your experience . Post your experience on social sites. This is the minimum we should do. Do not just think about yourself only , spread the word.