132 lines
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132 lines
6.6 KiB
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<TITLE>Commercial Port Advocacy mini-HOWTO: The art of cold contacting</TITLE>
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<H2><A NAME="s5">5. The art of cold contacting</A></H2>
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<P>What you will be doing is known in the fund-raising business
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as "cold contacting." This means that your "target" company
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won't have known that you'll be contacting it, and won't have
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been primed to hear your message. A 1% response rate is
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considered normal. You should be able to do better than
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that.
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<P>In a sense all target companies will be slightly primed to
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hear about Linux due to the remarkable amount of publicity it's
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been getting of late. In that respect your contact won't be
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completely cold. That's good.
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<P>The first thing to do is to identify someone in the company to
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contact. It's always best (if possible) to identify an actual
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individual rather than a job title. Depending on the size of the
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company and its organizational structure, your best bet is the
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head of program development. If that isn't a possibility, try
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for the head of whatever technical section the company may have.
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If <EM>that</EM> isn't possible, read over whatever bios might be
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available in the "about the company" section of the company's web
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site (they almost all have something like this) and pick the
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person who seems most likely to be intrigued by Linux and to
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become an internal advocate for a Linux port. Finally, if none
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of the above things works try contacting the head of the company.
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Incidentally, it won't hurt to contact more than one person in
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the company if your bio research shows somebody other than the
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head of program development as the most likely person to be
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interested.
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<P>Your initial contact should probably be via email. First,
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email usually goes directly to the person addressed rather than
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being filtered through various layers of the organization as
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postal mail and telephone calls are. Second, with email everyone
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starts equal. Physical presentation and elocution don't enter
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into the contact, so the logic of the message may be more
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apparent.
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<P>The subject of your message should be understated. "Make
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Millions Easily!" will just get your message deleted as spam.
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Try something like "A good new market for your programs," or "An
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overlooked market for your software."
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<P>The first sentence in your message should probably be a
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conditional apology for sending the message to the wrong person
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if the person receiving it is the wrong person. The next
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sentence should request that the message be forwarded to the
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right person and that that person's email address be sent back to
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you for future contacts. This has a few effects. The apology
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establishes that you're not a know-it-all and that you are
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polite. The request reinforces the politeness and quietly lets
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it be known that this won't be a one-time contact. That's
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important. It's a lot easier to blow off a message if you don't
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think you'll ever hear from the writer again.
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<P>That brings up another point. If things work out right, you
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won't be making just a one-time contact with this company. You
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will be signing up to be an outside contact for them, a source of
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information about things Linux. As such, there are some
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guidelines to follow in all your contacts. Be polite. Be
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patient. Be truthful. Be helpful. Stay apart from internal
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politics.
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<P>Be polite means responding civilly to all messages, even if
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you consider them insulting or moronic. Remember, "A soft answer
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turneth away wrath." Besides, it's just possible that you may
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have misunderstood the message. Asking for a restatement of the
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message to clear up its meaning can't hurt.
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<P>Be patient means answering what you consider obvious questions
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calmly and clearly, and answering them as many times as
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necessary. Email isn't real-time; you can take a jog around to
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block to cool down before answering yet another, "But doesn't a
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Linux port mean we'd be expected to give our products away?"
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message.
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<P>Be truthful means answering each question to the best of your
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ability, and saying "I don't know" when that's the correct
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answer. However, "I don't know" is only the first part of that
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answer; "but I'll find out and get back to you" is the rest of
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it.
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<P>Be helpful means going beyond just answering the immediate
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question and trying to address the reasons the question was
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asked. For example, one company asked me how it could publicize
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the existence of a Linux port if it did one. I mentioned the
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standard places (comp.os.linux.announce, Linux Weekly News,
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Freshmeat, Slashdot, Linux Journal). Then I brought the question
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up in the seul-dev-apps mailing list. The discussion there
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eventually started the development of the
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<A HREF="http://linuxunited.org/projects/news/">lu-news system</A>.
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<P>Stay apart from internal politics means keeping a little
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distance between yourself and your company contact. However
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friendly your exchanges are, your role shouldn't be one of
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confidante but one of outside expert and advocate. You won't
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force the company into supporting Linux. You can only make sure
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they know about the opportunity and help them find the best way
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to take advantage of it.
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<P>You should probably be prepared to answer questions about why
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no one else in the target company's market niche is developing
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for Linux (if that's indeed the case), and what capabilities are
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available in Linux, such as multimedia. Are the available media
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players exploitable commercially? Do they run efficiently? You
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might also make the point that a port to Linux of a graphical
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program will mean a port to the X Window System and will mean
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that the program is much easier to port to any other OS that uses
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X, such as Solaris, AIX, or HPUX.
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<P>Andrew Mayhew brought up this point to me, and it makes a lot
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of sense:
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<P>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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It has been my (albeit limited) experience that
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structuring the
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email/letter sent to companies with the idea that I or one of my
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clients is actually interested in their product at the beginning
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(or as
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closely as reasonable) of the document gets more results. Now,
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this is
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only really applicable is you mean it.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<HR>
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<A HREF="Commercial-Port-Advocacy-6.html">Next</A>
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<A HREF="Commercial-Port-Advocacy-4.html">Previous</A>
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