Tag Archives: phone

Reasons Why the iPhone is Inferior to BlackBerry for Business

And Why I’m Ditching my iPhone and Going Back to Blackberry

iphone_trash_300x2991

When I first hopped on the bandwagon and switched to an iPhone, I quickly realized how useless it is for business and that it was much more of a toy.  Sure the iPhone is pretty, has lots of fancy apps and you can play all sorts of games, however the applications for business use are seriously lacking. Yesterday I experienced the last and final straw with this device which pushed me over the edge to toss my iPhone and go back to BlackBerry.  However, before I get to that, I’ll share the other primary reasons why I find the iPhone inferior to BlackBerry for business use.

  1. Keyboard (touch vs QWERTY)

blackberry-classic-QWERTY.0

In business, most of us are used to typing on a computer on a daily basis.  For me, typing out emails on a touch screen keyboard is completely aggravating. Even more so is the autocorrect feature which consistently seems to add the most inappropriate words and makes it difficult to use the words you intended to use.  Furthermore, as a woman who likes to have nice nails, you can’t have them if you intend to use the touch screen keyboard since the screen will not respond to nail tips.   I realize this sounds girly, but I never thought I’d have to choose between being able to use my phone and having a nice manicure.  I suppose I could have invested in a stylus, but I’m sure I would have misplaced that in less than 24 hours.  So, bye-bye manicure it was.

  1. Email Access

nowifiOn my iPhone, in order for me to access my work email (which is an IMAP account), I had to manually disable my wifi and use my cellular data to send and receive email.  Apple apparently has no solution to this problem and nicely told me that if I want to use this “old” email set-up (which I obviously have no say in) that I must routinely disable my wifi to check if I received any new email.  Furthermore, if I sent an email while out of a wifi zone and then my phone picks up a wifi network without me noticing, my sent email could sit in my outbox until I leave the wifi area.  How ridiculously inconvenient is that??? I never experienced this issue on a BlackBerry.

 

  1. Available Travel Apps

BBTravelNotificationI was spoiled by BlackBerry’s Travel Manager app.  With zero effort on my part, this app picked up all of my travel arrangements, put them in my calendar, gave me notifications (some of which were even before the airline itself would announce them) and provided timely reminders for anything I could think of.  When I switched to an iPhone, I was extremely disappointed that there wasn’t and app that was even remotely close to being as efficient as the BlackBerry Travel App.  Tripit, I was told was the “closest” and that is a long shot! All travel arrangements have to be manually inputted into this app. If you are lucky, when you manually forward email your reservation to the app, it will acknowledge it 25-50% of the time.  The other 50-75% of the time it doesn’t understand the reservation and you have to enter ALL of your travel info MANUALLY!!! Who has time for this??? Sometimes I have over 20 days of reservations booked for flights, hotels, car rentals etc. and to have to enter this data manually? Forget it! Even worse is that it will only notify you of a flight change or delay if you pay for the premium version. Did I mention that BlackBerry Travel was FREE?

  1. Battery Life

iphone-LOWbatteryThe iPhone is also seriously lagging in this department.  I have to charge it 1-2 times daily whereas my BlackBerry would last at least one full day if not more. This is extremely inconvenient when travelling where you don’t always have access to a power outlet.

  1. Security

How to lock files and folder with password

To date, I was willing to accept all of these faults I mentioned above and managed to live with them for almost a year, but yesterday I had my last straw with this device.  Yesterday morning I unlocked my phone only to discover that someone was remotely browsing through old files and photos that I had “permanently deleted” on my device. They also accessed my Facebook account (which I could see) and who knows what else!  If this hacker had access to that information, they clearly had access to all of the other information on my device including where I live.  How scary is that? So much for confidentiality! In business, confidentiality is of utmost importance, so why put all of that at risk?  There is a reason the government uses BlackBerry.  All of the information is secure and can be easily encrypted.  The security on a BlackBerry is unbeatable.

BACKUP

The only place to back-up your iPhone data is on the iCloud or on  iTunes. If your account has been compromised, what is the point to putting it back in an unsecure zone? There is no direct secure way to back up files to a PC or encrypt files securely.  This is a very serious flaw!

VULNERABLE APPS

Recently in excess of 25,000 iPhone and iPad Apps have vulnerabilities that allow hackers easy access into your iPhone and your iCloud. You can read more about this massive security flaw here.

To check if any the apps you are using are vulnerable go check this website by clicking here . I realized that I had quite a few vulnerable apps on my phone including but not limited to:

  • Yahoo mail
  • Skype
  • Soundcloud
  • Find my iPhone <-–Yes seriously!!! Thanks Apple!
  • Battery Doctor

So, all of that being said, I got rid of my iPhone yesterday and switched back to a BlackBerry which I love.  Sure it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles but it is a workhorse and it is secure.  Like most business professionals, I need to do work on my phone, not play games and the BlackBerry is the best device on the market for that purpose.

If you are a business professional using an iPhone, make sure to either delete your cloud account or at minimum change your Apple ID and all other passwords weekly, otherwise you run a very high risk of all of your data being compromised.

I hope that you found this information helpful and have an opportunity to make the appropriate changes before your phone and consequently your data is compromised.

The iPhone is a toy.  The BlackBerry is a Business tool.

Keep your data safe fellow business men and women.

 

TSW

Listening to a little Back in Black

Back-in-Black

 

The Do’s and Don’ts of Cold Calling

dos-and-dontsWhether you are just starting out in sales or you are a seasoned sales representative in your field, if you want to increase your customer base and your sales, cold calling is an absolute necessity.  Cold calling is an art which must be mastered in order for you to be successful in sales.

Most sales people dread the thought of cold calling.  I however am elated at the opportunity.  Why wouldn’t I be? It’s an opportunity to take on the challenge of gaining a new account, getting new sales, establishing more relationships and making more revenue! If you’re in sales and you don’t love getting a sale, you’re probably in the wrong field of work. 

Some “experts” say that “cold calling is dead” because we can all connect through social media first before proceeding to make a “warm call”.  Sure, in some cases this is true.  However if you discover a new potential customer who’s ad you saw online or who’s business you drove by and noticed for the first time, are you really going to go home and stalk them on the internet and waste an hour or more of your time Googling their company, looking them up on LinkedIn and seeing if you have any common connections before you send them an email? And what do you do if you don’t have any common connections?

In my opinion, I think that anyone who preaches and practices this is simply  just too chicken &*%$ to pick up the phone and actually do a cold call.  

In Canada, it is also illegal to email any business or individual without their explicit consent.  Our anti-spam legislation here is so strict that if let’s say you look up a potential customer’s email address on their website, send them an introductory email about you and your company, you could personally face a fine of $1 Million and your company could face a fine of up to $10 Million.

So what should you do? That’s right, pick up the phone and make that cold call!  I know you hate to, but when I first started out in sales and was dreading it, I always told myself “Suck it Up Princess!” and that seemed to do the trick.  After all, you have nothing to lose.

If you make the call, you might get a sale (and possibly repeat sales).

If you don’t make the call, you certainly won’t get the sale.

Okay, so you’re ready to make that cold call. Now what do you say?  This is what you should and should not do on a cold call:

DO:

  • Warmly introduce yourself and the company you are calling from
  • Ask the person answering the phone nicely how they are doing and make note of their name.  Keep record of their name.  They may be a decision maker or you can reference their name later when you make that follow-up call or visit.
  • Tell them very briefly (single sentence ) what your company does and how you found about them
  • Ask them if they are currently using any similar product/services your company provides.  At this point, if the person answering the phone is capable of answering your questions regardless of the answer, ask to make an appointment with them AND /or the other person in charge of making decisions in this area.  If they do not know, THEN ask who might be the person in charge of making decisions and if you can speak with them.  If you offer to include the person to whom you have made your initial contact in your meeting request, it is a sign of respect and even if they are not involved in the decision making process, they will more than likely gladly point you in the right direction.
  • Be nice to everyone.  You are not familiar with the company hierarchy and if you want to get to the decision maker and want to establish a long working relationship with a new potential customer, you should be kind and thoughtful to everyone you interact with.

DON’TS

NEVER, I repeat NEVER just call and immediately ask to speak to the “Manager” or “Person in Charge”!!  I cannot emphasize this enough.  You NEVER know who is answering the phone.  The person answering the phone may be the owner of the company, it may be their spouse or their star employee. If you assume the person answering the phone is just a means-to-and-end-answering-service, they will very likely HANG UP ON YOU and deservedly so. That kind of attitude immediately spells to the person answering the phone that they are inadequate and not worth your time. So why should they help you? That’s right, they shouldn’t.  I certainly wouldn’t.

So the next time you’re tempted to run and hide behind your computer screen instead of making that dreaded cold call, suck it up Princess, pick up that phone and be your lovely self.  The sales will come.

Happy Sales!

TSW