Sign Word for Sales Teams Myself

This is like magic. Thank you. Finally a question made for me. I don't even need a belt to fit this question around my waist. First, I have some credentials. I've failed at 17 businesses. I've succeeded at a few. But failed at most. I've also run a $125 million venture capital firm and I'm currently invested in about 30 companies, many of which I advise or on the board, etc. Oh, one thing before I answer the question: the companies that NEVER call me are always the ones that are doing the best. I made lots of mistakes as a first time entrepreneur. In every possible way. And I see a lot of those mistakes repeated in companies I'm invested in. I keep telling myself to remember these. Maybe this answer will be a good way for me to remember. Note: these are MISTAKES. So they are like double negatives. A) START YOUR BUSINESS WHEN YOU ARE BROKE Don't start a company if you're broke. This is not the same as "having no money". If you are fine staying on the floor of a friend's house and living on nothing then you are not quite broke. You have food and shelter. But if you have kids and a wife and a mortgage, etc (the other extreme) don't go broke and start a business. When I started my first business, I stayed at my full time job for 18 MONTHS before I left to become CEO of my startup full-time. We had 12 employees by then and almost as many clients. In other words, I knew I could replace my salary and still pay my employees for at least six months even if everything went down hill. Which leads me to.... B) IF YOU ONLY HAVE MONEY TO LAST YOU SIX MONTHS THEN YOU ARE ALREADY OUT OF BUSINESS I was on the board of a company once and when I read the monthly financials I realized the burn (the monthly loss in cash) was such that we would run out of money in six months. I called the other board members. They hadn't even looked at the financials. I called the CEO. He said, "but we have six months!" This is really really important: if you have six months, IT IS ALREADY SIX MONTHS FROM NOW. What that means is: no matter what you do: you will not be able to raise the money, do the legal, find the customers, do the work, get paid, or whatever you need to do - in six months time. You are the walking dead and you don't know it. Here's what we did. I called an emergency board meeting. We explained the situation to the CEO. He refused to believe it. I called him separately and gave him ten different examples. He finally got it. We fired a lot of people to reduce the burn. Somehow it didn't reduce enough. We hired a bank. We went to all the usual players. Everyone said no about buying us. They all were waiting for us to die. And then they would scrape us up for nothing. Finally, someone bought us for a good amount 2x what we put in a few months ago. I don't know why did it. I just thank god they did. The CEO, who didn't even realize he was going to go broke, made $6 million and moved to another country. We officially sold the company the day before the company was going to run out of money. Six months after that first phone call to the day. C) SMOKE CRACK We have a cognitive bias to think that our own ideas are great ideas. It's hard to admit that they won't work. Profits are the purifier of a business. That's the best way you can tell you have a good idea. If people give you SO MUCH money that you have money left over. Revenues are the next bests thing after profits. And users are the next best thing after that. If you are having trouble with any of the above three and this situation lasts more than a few months then you are smoking crack. You have to come up with a better idea. This doesn't apply to biotech or scientific companies that need to raise a lot of money. But it applies to every other business. D) UNDER PROMISE AND OVER DELIVER Yes, this is a MISTAKE first-time entrepreneurs make. Your competition is over-promising. Here's what you can go wrong if you under-promise and over-deliver. First off, anyone who over-promises is going to win the business. They might do a bad job but possession is 9/10 the law. They have the client and they can do things to fix the relationship. Second, you might under promise and UNDER deliver. Then you're just a bad vendor and they will eventually switch to someone else. What's the solution? One thing: Over promise....and over deliver. Now you're amazing. And the client is there forever. E) DON'T COMMUNICATE Here's the magic rule: talk to a new customer every day for 100 days. It doesn't matter what you talk about. Just call them and say, "how's it going?" Some customers might look at this and say, "I don't want to hear from my vendor for 100 days in a rule." They are lying. They do. And they don't know it. This is often called, "following up". As soon as you meet a potential customer, have an entire system in place to follow up. As soon as you deliver a proposal, follow up, as soon as you deliver a product, follow up. Even when you are in the middle of completing a project, follow up. FOLLOW UP You call and just say, "I always want to make sure I'm doing my best for you. Is all ok?" And then listen. And then say good-bye so you don't waste their time. Do that and you have a client for life. Trust me trust me trust me. F) HIRING PEOPLE Most startups don't need to hire that many people. Like, don't hire a secretary. Or a head of HR. Or even a head of sales. If you're the CEO, then you are the head of sales, the project manager, the secretary, and the head of HR. Wait, in each case, until you absolutely overwhelmed before you start hiring people. Once you hire someone there is a world of S**& that you have to deal with. Personalities, fights, politics, disagreements, gossip, etc. And, the most basic - they might do a bad job. A worse job than you would do because you are the OWNER and they are not. By the way, being overwhelmed is a good thing. It means you have revenues, profits, or users. Then you are allowed to hire people. The best business I've ever started is when there was only one other person besides me. We started our first product for $2000. We sold eight months later for $10,000,000. We outsourced almost the entire business (by the way, the one bad thing about this is that Google wouldn't buy us because of this). It's not as good as it sounds. I'm an idiot and lost a good chunk of the money later. But at least I didn't hire anyone. G) CLEAR ROLES A lot of partnerships fail because there are no clear roles defined. Like, the two partners are "co-CEOs" so nobody knows who to talk to. This is BS. There have to be clear rules. I have a lot of examples. I'll give one I'm dealing with right now. These are the roles of the founders: one person is a scientist - he makes the product. one person is an accountant - he does the books one person is a good business guy and has been involved in startups - he makes the deals and finds partnerships one person is good at raising money - he raises money and I forget who is CEO. One of them. It doesn't matter. Each is the final world on what he is good at. You can even divide up equity equally according to categories like this (and so some people might fit into more than one category so they get more equity): - made product - raised money - made sales - manages people - had the idea That's a sample. Not every business is structured so neatly but many are. When I was in a business where we did not have clear rules over who made the final decision, it was a mess. We ended up selling that company but now NONE of the original partners speak to each other anymore. We got lucky we sold that one. H) DON'T TEST If you have a product idea, and you love it, and all your friends tell you its great, don't forget to test. Let's say your product is "protein water" - clear water that has zero calories and 30 grams of protein. BAM! Seems like an amazing idea. Put a Facebook ad up, with the design of the water bottle and say, "30g PROTEIN WATER". Simply see if people click. If noboody clicks, then you have a bad idea. If a lot of people click, then it's a great idea. This is one example. But this is a very important side-rule that most people don't believe: GOOD ENTREPRENEURS ARE RISK-ADVERSE Before you risk, test. Before you leave your job, have customers. Before you hire people, have money in the bank. Before you even create you product, test it. Smart people test. Smart people don't take risks. I) WORRYING ABOUT STUFF YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT Too many people think they have to hire lawyers and accountants and make a logo before they even start their company. Don't do BS stuff. Start your company, make your product, see if people want it, repeat. That's it. One company I don't think I even incorporated until they day before I sold it. Don't have too many meetings. Don't debate forever your list of values. Or your marketing slogan. If you make something people want, then the sale is easy, and you have a company. Period. No matter what your slogan is. So many people ask: but should we be an "S" Corp in Delaware. I don't care. It has nothing to do with how much money you will make. Believe in your product. Believe in helping your customers. Believe you can do it cheaply and always over-deliver and (repeating) HELP. Be risk-averse. Hold onto your money. I can throw some stuff in here about don't get bad investors but that's really a different topic. If you avoid all the mistakes above, then you will have a good shot at having a good business. Trust me on this. I've seen a thousand businesses. You will have a good one if you follow the above ideas (or I should say, avoid the above mistakes). Oh, one more. J) HAVE SEX WITH EMPLOYEES This is a really bad idea. Employees are there to help you get customers, deliver to customers, follow up with customers, and handle the running of your business. Once you start having sex with them, all sorts of bad things happen. I'm not even kidding here. You might fall in love with them. You might have to deal with legal stuff. Other employees might get upset. And once one employee gets upset, that "upset-ness" spreads like a disease. Whenever an employee gossips badly about you, you have to fire them or the disease spreads. This is what starts to happen once you start having sex with employees. I've seen great startups totally blow it because of this. Don't do it. ----- There's a lot of other things that can go wrong, but this is the top. For instance, did you know its important to have a great relationship with your landlord? How come? Because he has to approve if you sell your company. Because suddenly he has a new tenant. But this is a small thing. There are many small things. Running a business is hard. These are the top 10 out of 100 (or 1000) mistakes I have seen. Good luck. And, seriously, don't do what I would do.

Yes and Yes!!! The problem is that it was me losing it on my boss. This happened 15 years ago so I would like to think I can look back and say when I was right and when I was wrong. So you be the judge.I was the sales end of a group for high net worth clients. At the time is was 5 million dollars in investable assets. What I need you to know is that the “sales team” was paid based on business closed within the year. So January 1, I started at Zero. Also the more business you close in the year pushes your payout up. The first $150k in business you bring in gets zero pay out to you. Then $150–250k you get 25% of the 100k and it increases the more business you generate. The kicker is as you hit the next pay level you get retroactive bonus on the early business. So let’s say that I have done $300k in revenue.The first $150k pays nothing$150–250 pays 25%$250–400 pays 30%$400–750 pays 35%As I hit $251k I am in the 30% payout and I get 5% of the first $150–250 as a retro bonus which is 5k. So hitting these numbers can mean a lot of cash. Now these numbers I am showing are not exact but just to demonstrate the importance of hitting the bogeys.So in November I meet a prospect and we agree to terms in December. The fee on the account is $180k and we are very close to the end of the year. Christmas will eliminate 6–7 days of business and closing this deal will pay me $75k. If I cannot close the business until January I am only paid $7500. So my interest is to close the business before end of the year. Also the firm that the money is being transferred from wants to close the account on their books December 30th or 31st.So I go to my boss and tell him about the deal and my desire to close it this year. He tells me that I am already the number 1 person in the area and 3rd in the company. He recommends we push it to next year.I tell him that not only do I want to close it this year but so does the client. I have in my possession a letter from the client and her current trustee saying the deal needs to close this year. This stuff NEVER happens. The other side wants to give us money and a lot of it and we don’t want to go by their timeline. In fact the client tells me if we cannot get it done this year she will look elsewhere. This is a 1 in a million opportunity.So I tell my boss what the situation is on December 15th. He tells me he is “gonna do everything possible to close it this year. He says he will speak with the back office and do everything he can. I get all the paperwork signed and reviewed by the account opening group and now need it signed off to accept the transfer. However I am told I need to get my boss to sign it.I do not work in the same office as my boss so I call him and tell him I am coming down to get his signature. He tells me he has a meeting and to come near the end of the day which I do. However he has left for the day and won’t be back until after Christmas. So I decide this deal is worth giving up my vacation so the following Monday I call my boss and ask him if he can sign the paperwork. He tells me that he can’t because the account needs a special trustee. He says he is meeting with that team at lunchtime and he will call me as soon as he is done. So I decide to head down to the office and wait for him to get out of the meeting. I am sitting outside his office waiting when the head of the special trustees walks by. I ask her how did the meeting go with my boss?She says “what meeting?”He had not even told her about the account. So now i have proof my boss is lying. I never got along with him but didn’t think he would do something like this.So I tell the special trustee boss about the account and I find out my boss is also trying to steer my business to another group. I was pretty friendly with the head of the special trustee group and asked her to call my boss to move this along. Now she also has an interest in the account because it is supposed to go to her team and it’s a lot of revenue. But I now realize that she couldn’t care less about me she just wanted the account.My boss calls me later and asks me why I discussed the account with the head of the other group(call her Lynn)? I said “you told me you had a meeting with her to provide an update on the account.” So I assumed you had done what you said you were doing. That pissed him off. He asked if “I was calling him a liar?I told him that my only interest is doing my job so the rest was on him. It was clear he had no intention of helping me. I asked him if I could come down and get his signature and I would get the special trustees signature myself. Two days in a row he snuck out of the office early to avoid me. My good friend was next door to his office and they had thin walls. So I gave him one more chance to do the right thing and he never came to work that last day instead said he was working from home.So I figured “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission!” So I signed the forms and submitted them to the back office. The business came over on December 31st and I finished number 1 in the whole company.On January 3rd my whole team met to go over numbers. My numbers also help the team get bonuses. I had submitted my deal and was getting accolades from the CEO in the meeting. My boss was fuming and as the meeting broke he said “I need to see you in my office now!”I walked in and he asked me what I thought I was doing when i signed the paperwork?I told him I couldn’t wait any longer and the client wanted it done. He told me that I was not authorized to sign for the account and he was thinking of taking the deal away from me.This is where the fireworks began. The entire office was packed since it was the first work day after the New Years holiday.I told him if he even tried to do that there would be issues. I told him if he had not lied to me, hid from me for a week and done his job, his signature would be on the account. He then called me a “liar” and I lost it.I told him there was a liar in the room but it was not me. That he was too chicken shit to face me directly and snuck out of the building like a coward. He asked if I was “calling him a liar” to which I said “Yes I Am!” I had a few more choice words for him on his “management style” and if he tried to mess with my production numbers I would pay him a visit outside the office. He just stood there as I walked out to about 20 people with their jaws wide open but smiling . I had hated this guy the whole time I worked here and now I had the “juice” to screw him.I walked right out the door and went up to see the CEO. I told him the entire series of events which helped that I kept the emails my boss sent. He looked at me and said “take the rest of the day off I will handle this.” As I was leaving he buzzed his assistant and told him to get my boss upstairs immediately.The next day my boss was no longer my boss. And i was moved to the other team. My boss also lost credit for the revenue I generated for the entire year. He would have received almost $30k in bonus had he just done his job and supported my efforts. Six months later he was downsized out of a job. He never said good bye.To those of you who think I was out of line, you are correct but it was just the final straw that broke my back. I was succeeding despite this guy. My team relied on me to get them their bonuses and I was not letting them or me down! This is just one incident out of many and the only difference is that at this point I had built a strong case as a top tier sales person. No one shed a tear for this asshat when he walked out of the office under security escort. He made his bed and well you know the rest.

“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

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. :)

Oh you mean 80% of my days spent here???THE DREADFUL ARRIVAL:I arrive at my workplace and I need to park my car.We don’t have a parking lot, so I try to find the closest place to park the car.Every possible spot is occupied.I have to park my car on the sidewalk now. *disclaimer, I do not live in a first world country… Do not give me shit*My car back up to the sidewalk and BAM, I scraped the bottom of my car.Fucking fantastic, just yipee-ki-fucking-yay.THE SATANIC BIO-METRIC SCANNER:8 AM I walk in through the security gates and I have to use the finger print scanner to check in.I place my finger on the finger print scanner and…“PLEASE TRY AGAIN”Again…“PLEASE TRY AGAIN”There are now people behind me saying come on.“PLEASE TRY AGAIN”I think to myself, “fuck you”. I let the guy behind me scan his finger and I hear.“YOU ARE AUTHORISED”THE FUCKING DOCK STATION:I walk into my office in the morning and set my bag down and take my laptop out and try to dock it into the docking station.It’s not clicking.I push some more.People are now looking at me aggressively attempt to dock my laptop.I start sweating and after the third time this piece of worthless shit tech is now docked.I turn it on and sit.THE SLOWEST INBOX OF ALL INBOXES:I check my email and wait for my inbox to update.It takes longer than expected.20 minutes have gone by.Still nothing.IDIOTIC TRANSPORTERS:Transporters come in and they are rude and angry.They want their LTIs (land transport instructions).There is a mistake on the document—but I am not responsible for it.Yet, they sit and criticise my work.I hold in my anger and smile, but in reality, I secretly want them to eat a bison’s dick.THE WALK TO THE FUCKING GATE, WHAT IS THIS? A GYM?:I get called down to bring in the suppliers for the tender that I launched.The distance from my office to the gate itself is a 4 minute walk.(people are not allowed to enter our office without someone escorting them in and out).I bring them in.*PHONE RINGS*This guy just arrived, come get him too.I have to walk down again…We now talk about the tender I launched.They begin to ask me trivial questions that were already answered in my specific as fuck email.They don’t want to read, instead they want to ask you.MATE PLEASE FUCKING SHOWER:The smelly guy at work is now walking past my desk left and right.My nostrils are dying.I can’t handle the smell anymore.I cover my nose.I begin to sweat nervously.STAHP SPITTING DEM LUGIES:Smelly guy decides to sit down at his desk which is pretty far from mine.I can now smile and enjoy life’s wonders.His face looks puzzled and yet very annoyed.I can sense it.It’s coming.Oh fuck… Here we go.“KHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ARGHHHHHHHHH UGHHHHHH KHOOFHJSKAFFFFFFF”My eyes tighten shut behind my monitor.The aggressive sounds fade with a single “Tfooooo”.He spits his lugie into the trash bin.I left out a sigh that carries my soul.ME BEING SINGLE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE HUMANITARIAN CAUSE:My stupid co-worker who has too many questions about my personal life walks in.I am 24 and he is around 50.He wants to know why I came back from the USA.I am not interested in answering this question.He tells me to be nicer otherwise marriage is out of signNow.I smile and say, “lovely chat, same time tomorrow?”.PLEASE JUST SCAN MY FINGER:It is now time to leave work.I walk out and have to scan my finger again.“PLEASE TRY AGAIN”*Sigh*“PLEASE TRY AGAIN”Please just please work.“PLEASE TRY AGAIN”I try a few more times and it works.R.I.P. BUMPER AND A LOT OF OTHER THINGS DOWN THERE:I walk to my car and try to get it off the side walk when all you hear is *SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAApE*Then you hear “BOOOM”Ah, yes… I hit the back bumper on the sidewalk.Lovely.

Copy pasted this answer from: http://managementconsulted.com/c...I haven't heard all the lingo used before, but it's pretty spot on.5,000 mile view: a phrase used to describe a high-level, summary view of the situation. 5,000 can be replaced by any large number to indicate the same thing80/20 rule: belief that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes; in consulting, this term is used to imply that 80% of an assignment can be finished in 20% of the timeadding value: quite simply, that value is being added. See also “value-add”AOB: Any other business – Term generally used in developing a meeting agenda. Denotes time scheduled to discuss miscellaneous topics in a meeting.at the end of the day (EOD): a phrase used to attempt summarization, introduce an air of finality and perhaps close off certain avenues of discussion; since most consultants’ days do not end with the setting of the sun, at the end of the day most of them are still workingB2B: business to business, referring to a company’s primary audience for sales and marketingB2C: business to consumer, referring to a company’s primary audience for sales and marketingbandwidth: capacity, free time, ability to do (additional) work; generally used to indicate that speaker cannot or would not prefer to do additional work, as in: “I don’t think I’ll have any bandwidth this Friday”beach: the consulting equivalent of sports’ being on the bench, it is viewed with worrisome anxiety by junior consultants and relieved gratitude by senior consultantsBig 3: McKinsey, Bain, BCG aka “MBB”Big 4: Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopersBird’s eye view: high level viewBoil the ocean: as the name states, clearly an impossible task. Generally, a project manager or partner will say “Let’s not boil the ocean” as a pretext for suggesting a ton of analyses that in effect, often ends up boiling a very large lake, if not exactly the oceanbottoms-up: expression meaning to look at the smallest units possible to initiate analysis (eg, bottoms-up analysis of a company would start with its lowest-level employees and then work its way to upper management)buckets: categories; this is the extent of this word’s definition, so it remains a mystery why people choose to employ the former term; also used as a transitive verb to mean ‘categorize’buttoned-down: see buttoned-upbuttoned-up: to indicate that a particular piece of work or analysis is comprehensive, accurate and capable of withstanding close scrutiny; this is an example of opposite terms with identical meaningsbuy-in: agreement, support; it is unclear why ‘buy-in’ has come to supplant these terms, as no actual purchasing occursCAGR: compound annual growth rate. If you don’t know it, you won’t get very farcampus hire: a consultant hired directly from undergraduate or business schools, as opposed to “experienced hire”capacity: your available time and energy for additional taskscharge code: a unique code provided with each project/assignment to which you can charge work-related expensescircle back: to follow up with indicated individuals at a later point in time, usually to review progress on the current topic of discussion; this phrase is somewhat redundant, as it is impossible to trace a circle that does not connect back with itselfcore client: a client with a long-standing firm relationship, and one in which there is continual dialogue between senior executives even if there are no ongoing projectscrisp: an adjective indicating that the referenced work or analysis is thorough and complete, perhaps by gastronomical allusion to food that is fully prepared; it is duly noted that crisp objects, while ostensibly finished, are also far more brittle and prone to shatteringdeck: your Powerpoint slides, sometimes referring to the master “deck” for the teamdeep dive: similar to “double click”, this means a thorough in-depth exploration of a particular topicdeliverable: anything that is owed by you to your manager/team, or owed by team to clientdouble click: similar to “deep dive”, this means a thorough in-depth exploration of a particular topicdue diligence: comprehensive study/survey of a business model with an aim to set clear expectations, risks, dependencies, etc as part of a business proposalEBITDA: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortizationelevator test: a test of one’s ability to explain concepts in a short-period of time (typically 60 seconds or less). The elevator test represents a hypothetical situation where you are sharing the elevator with a VIP and need to give them a quick summary/presentation during the rideengagement: also known as a project or a caseexperienced hire: a consultant hired from another company, typically with a higher starting position and salary than 1st year consultants. See also “parallel hire”fact pack: typically a “pack” of information that provides the essential “facts” on a project/industry/companyGantt chart: type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule with start and finish dates, deliverables, etcGMC: Global Management Consultancy, sometimes referring to just the Big 3, sometimes referring to the Big 3 plus the Big 4 accounting firmsgranular: a detailed level of abstraction; often used in the context of increasing the fineness of the analysis, as in: “We need to get more granular here”hands: often prefaced with ‘client,’ indicates the interpersonal skills of an individual in relation to a particular group of people, as in, “That manager sure has great client hands”hard stop: used to indicate that after the time indicated, the listeners are on their own, because the person stating that they have a hard stop sure isn’t going to be around to help after thenhigh-level: similar to 5,000 mile view, but high-level can also mean a very rudimentary analysis (often lacking in detail)hope you’re doing well: a generally well-intended but insincere interpolation used at the beginning of most voicemails to replace the standard pleasantries that would be present in verbal communications; use of this phrase does not indicate actual interest in the well-being of the recipient; also found with alarming frequency in electronic mailI need someone who can hit the ground running:really means, “I am screwed.” Because no one can hit the ground running. You need to at least assess what race you’re in and who else is running.I’m calling to touch base:“I want something from you but I can’t say it up front.” Or “I am worried that you are lost and I’m sniffing around for signs to confirm my hunch.” Or “I’m calling because you micromanage me.”keep this on your radar:“This will come back to bite you. or me.”key: critical, essential, required, important, central; the key analysis is generally the linchpin; often used as a noun, and with such frequency that its significance has been diluted, since everything is now ‘key’let me play this back: said when the listener wants to refract and color the conversation through his or her own perspective, under the pretense of reviewing the transcript of what’s been said; in this manner the listener can pretend he or she is a tape recorderlet’s close the loop:“Let me make sure I’m not going to get into trouble for this one.”let’s hit a home run: “I’m desperate to look good. Even though the odds of a home run are slim, I’m banking on one because it’s the only thing that’ll save me.” Something for all your sports fans to remember: If you have a bunch of solid hitters you don’t need a bunch of home runs.let’s run the numbers and see how they look:“I know they look bad on first blush. But the true use of Excel is to keep changing the formulas until you find a format that makes the numbers look good.”let’s think out of the box: really means, “Can you creatively anemic people please come up with something?” The person who says, “Let’s think out of the box” is usually desperate for a new idea and surrounded by people who are not known for generating ideas. So the phrase is actually an announcement that says, “I’m in trouble.”let’s touch base next week: “I don’t want to talk to you now,” or “You are on a short leash and you need to report back to me.”leverage: a fancy way of saying “use” as in “Let’s leverage this set of data”low-hanging fruit: the initial opportunities, areas of exploration, etc. that are easiest to cover; intended to evoke visual imagery of fruit-laden trees, suggesting that much remains beyond the lowest boughs; syn. quick winMBB: McKinsey, Bain, BCG aka the “Big 3″MECE: mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive. A term originating at McKinsey and common across management consulting firms, it’s a grouping principle that in the words of Wikipedia, “data in a group should be divided into subgroups that comprehensively represent that group (no gaps) without overlapping”my plate is full: “Help I’m drowning,” or “I would kill myself before I’d work on your project.”on board: the status of being assigned to a case, engagement, or projectopportunity cost: basic economic principle that describes the “cost” of the next best alternative foregone when making a decisionparadigm: consulting-ese for “pattern” or “model” or “framework”parallel hire: a consultant hired from another company, typically with a more senior position position and higher starting salary than 1st year consultants. See also “experienced hire”ping: synonym for “contact”; originated as an onomatopoeia for the sound that is emitted when someone receives an instant message, but nowadays can refer to any form of contact including email or even tapping someone on the shoulderPIOUTA: pulled it out of thin air, also see “WAG” or “SWAG”pipeline: typically used to reference the current and upcoming list of client engagementsPOA: plan of actionproduction: in noun form, a department (either internal or outsourced) of the consulting firm that assists in producing the materials needed for presentations, meetings, etcprogress review: a periodic meeting (either internal or with the client) to review the progress made in the preceding periodprovide color: a directive that translates roughly to “This is perhaps the most boring thing I have ever read, with the possible exception of certain lengthier legal disclaimers, and even then it’s pretty close”; this bit of jargon is nevertheless somewhat of an advance, since, back in the early days of consulting, people were encouraged to provide black and whitepush back (verb form) or pushback (noun): formerly the sole domain of airplanes leaving their gates, this term is now used to indicate resistance and/or disagreement, without actually using those terms; this phrase attempts to avoid any negative connotations of controversyQC: Quality control, typically referring to need to check for typos, grammar mistakes, calculation errors, etcquick question: the answer will be anything but; bizarre since the adjective ‘quick’ is intended, by implication, to be transferred to the answer to said question and does not necessarily have any bearing on the length of the questionright sized: euphemism for downsizedrock star: an individual whose performance in a given area or success at specific endeavors is highly impressive, unique and/or admirable; this appellation is generally used sparingly; although the term is sometimes used frivolously to express purportedly extreme gratitude, as in: “Thanks for picking up my mail for me, you’re a rock star”sandwich method: a structure for providing feedback that resembles a sandwich – one positive comment, then a developmental critique, ending with a positive commentscope: the agreed-upon list of deliverables and boundaries that underpin any client engagementsea change: in between lake change and ocean changesniff test: as in evaluating food for rancidity, this term is used when gauging the viability or reasonableness of a particular analysis; var. smell testspace: a market, arena, field of endeavor, or general area, not to be confused with the area beyond Earth’s atmosphere; use of this term usually adds nothing in the way of descriptive value, as in “I don’t think there will be many opportunities in the technology space”stand up call: a ‘quick’ round table team call to update status from each team member/lead. Usually no longer than 15-20 mins.straw man: a construct presented purely for the sake of argument, with the implication that it is not designed to withstand repeated attackssummer: abridged noun form of summer internSWAG: some wild-ass guess. See “WAG”take the lead on: a clever phrase often used by more experienced consultants when they wish to delegate a menial task, as in: “Why don’t you take the lead on putting together this document,” which may translate to, “I’m lazy and probably not smart or energetic enough to work on this, so go do it”; often appears in utterly irrelevant settings, as in, “Why don’t you take the lead on making dinner reservations for the team,” a manifestly silly request, since one is asked to “take the lead on” something which doesn’t require leadership of anyone and on which they will certainly be working solotakeaway: in other settings a British term referring to carry-out food, here this word has been transmogrified to indicate the salient point that should be retained upon the conclusion of the discussion, often prefaced with keyto be transparent: in indication that what follows will be particularly revelatory, although it often is not especially so; the troubling implication of this usage is that the speaker has heretofore been opaqueup or out: employee promotion policy where if you’re not promoted “up”, you’re counseled “out” of the company. Many consulting firms use up or out but not allupward feedback: the process of providing feedback “upward” to more senior employees, from managers to partnersutilization rate: client service hours vs. time on beach. If below 50%, prepared to be “right sized”value-add: quite simply, that value is added, mashed into a hyphenated noun form. See “adding value”WAG: wild-ass-guess. See “SWAG”wordsmith: to make trivial or generally unnecessary edits to text that may only subtly change the meaning, if at all; incorrectly implies that one is a craftsman on the order of a blacksmith or goldsmith; sadly, wordsmithing rarely involves the deletion of jargonworkstream: a group of tasks that make up a project. Usage – “The team was developing various workstreams to complete the client deliverables”You and I are not on the same page: “Get on my page. Your page is misguided.” No one ever says, “We’re not on the same page, so let me work really hard to understand your point of view. If you want to understand someone else, you say, “Can you tell me more about how you’re thinking.”