Reach out and touch someone
One service we provide at my company, Charisma Sciences, is phone coaching. Guys call us from all over the world and we used to just give out our cell phone numbers. This worked for some time but we were losing some international customers. Then I discovered Skype.
Skype is a piece of free, peer-to-peer software that lets you make calls over your computer. And it works really well. Said Michael Powell, Chairman of the FCC, “When the inventors of KaZaA are distributing for free a little program that you can use to talk to anybody else, and the quality is fantastic, and it’s free – it’s over. The world will change now inevitably.”
Unlike KaZaa, Skype does not make its money off of adware or spyware. This is the cool part - you can buy numbers in places like the U.S., London, Hong Kong and the Netherlands, for about $4.50 a month, that will all ring to your computer. You can also buy credits to make outbound calls from your computer to anywhere in the world for something like 2 cents a minute. Skype-to-skype calls sounds exceptional - its like talking to Jeff and Rich right in the radio booth - and Skype-to-phone calls sound better than regular phone calls. I also spent an extra $15 for software called HOTRecorder that lets me record all of the calls and convert them into MP3s, so our clients have archives of our conversations.
Sometimes I discover these little tools that make it so much easier to do old business in new ways. If you know of any such tools, I’d love to hear about them!
May 17th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Looking for your opinion or help;
I am a independent film producer/16 other hats film maker. I am trying to raise funds for a full length feature film.
I came up with a concept to raise capital through the internet my having people join a web site for a small annual fee that gave them something in return. Lesson of film making. Once on line t they will get up dates of the film project, video downloads, contest, and many other features to make the small membership or "gift members". Basically the web site long term goal is to become a way to truly learn how a film is made from A to Z. This will allow many to experience film making from the eyes of others, to promote and expose the arts to everyone within and outside the US.
What I need is advise to how one would construct the best campaign to get this concept out there. To spread the word of this mission and of course figure a way to do it quickly without to many copy cats coming on line faster then I can achieve the goals I have laid out. From my concern you probably already accessed I have no funds left.
I have a business plan and all the information along with it. I even have many small and large companies wanting to join the effort once it has a proven track record.
Naturally I have tried to capture small start up funding (less then 125K) in many different ways but have failed, but not all discouraged. I have 12 excellent screenplays ready to go with four of them being possible big hits hits. All of the screenplays are within my 5M budget. So you can tell from the math I would need x amount of memberships at $50 a head. Any advice from a very successful person like yourself would be greatly appreciated. Any other advice or leads would also be appreciated to the fullest. I hope you consider a few minutes of your time to help another reach his dreams and to create many more.
Best Regards;
Thomas Womack
May 20th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
Hi Thomas, sounds interesting. Send me an email and let’s discuss.