Finally!

One of the most requested features for Google’s RSS Reader is probably search functionality. I complained about it a few months ago, and someone must have listened!

It’s very simple, and I question if it’s fully deployed to all users yet… however it is very functional. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent digging through past feeds, searching Google Blog Search (to no avail), trying to find some interesting article I read weeks ago…. this feature is long overdue.

Now I can say without reservation in my opinion, Google RSS Reader is the best feed reader online.

I normally don’t track search engine trends or new product releases/updates… however to me, this is important. :p

Edit: Found the official Google post.

Last night I finally got to see a movie that has been recommended to me countless times, and I had been wanting to see for a while, Boiler Room. It was absolutely incredible. If you are in sales, or even business at all, definitely check it out. Twice.

That’s right, watch it once for entertainment, then watch it again for personal gain. Boiler Room has some of the best sales pitches and closes I’ve ever seen. The second time watching it, consider it instructional material. The hardest part of this is you have to separate yourself from the immoral side of what’s actually going on in the movie. Don’t get caught up in the characters or plot, but simply watch the techniques of selling.

Watch Giovanni Ribisi (the main character)’s rebuttals to common objections and excuses. Watch him move the conversation in any direction he wants, always aiming for a close. Watch his psychological techniques, saying lines like “I don’t care how much stock you pick up,” rather than saying “I don’t care if you buy stock or not.”

No matter if you’re cold calling clients, following up on hot leads, or talking face to face with a customer who just walked in the front door of your shop, this movie demonstrates some sales techniques, that if mastered, can prove invaluable to your business.

Now, if you don’t have time to watch the full movie, or if you’d rather have a quick recap, here are a few of the highlights I’ve found on YouTube:

This one isn’t selling to a client, but is a great, persuasive speech given by Ben Affleck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvICN8DNMpY

This video is GOLD. A cold call that appeals to virtually every sales technique in the book with brilliant execution. The end gets a little harsh and pushy, more than I’d personally like to go, however it’s still an amazing sales close.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yunGYX2_uBE

Here’s another amusing conversation of Seth analyzing a telemarketer that called him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW-PHukzdgM

Here are some great quotes from the movie:

“Move around, motion creations emotion.” - Very true. When you’re selling your product, don’t be still. You need to be passionate and energetic, excited as if you honestly believe it’s the greatest product in the world. Stand up, walk around, move, get some blood flowing. Your pitch will increase in power exponentially.

“There is no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can’t. Either way, a sale is made, the only question is who’s going to close, you or him?” - An absolutely brilliant line that I’ve never heard or thought of before. Your job in sales is to disarm any inhibitions and or excuses the other end might have. Consider each call a battle- either you win or they do. If you lose, at least go down fighting. You’d be surprised how many calls that seem hopeless can turn around in an instant.

“I just want you to test me out.” - This is a great quote for closing a new client. It shows you have confidence in your product, otherwise you wouldn’t say it. It’s an indirect way of saying “if I believe in my product, you can too.”

“… you’d be pretty excited about my next idea, right? Of course you would, you’d be out there handing out my business cards, wouldn’t you?” - This line was particularly interesting for me. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s a cool line to add to your book, and pull out at the right time. Often times during a sales call you come around to asking hypothetical questions about how good the outcome of them buying your product would be. An example of this in use, “If my widget increases your productivity by 500%, you’d be happy wouldn’t you? (I suppose so.) Of course you would! You’d be handing out my business cards wouldn’t you?” This is a great line for reinforcing their positive image of your product, while easing the mood a bit and still maintaining a level of professionalism.

Boiler Room, despite it’s immoral plot, is one of my favorite movies to date. Check it out.

Ratings for the new James Bond: Casino Royale are through the roof. Every review site on the internet is hailing it as the best Bond movie yet. I love James Bond, but I HATED Casino Royale.

This post has a bit of spoilers (not too bad though), so if you haven’t seen it yet… don’t. And if you have seen it, don’t see it again.

They killed every aspect of James that made him, well, Bond. When I think James Bond, I think girls, cars, gadgets, and a charming smoothness that make guys watching want to be exactly like him. Let’s analyze these in order. First girls… I’m not going to talk about this one in too much detail for fear of my girlfriend slapping me, but they casted ONE girl in the whole movie that attempted to tackle this bullet point. The second aspect of James Bond is cars. Granted he drove an Aston Martin DB9 Sport, which is a gorgeous car, and in one scene he jumps into the car in hot pursuit of the bad guy, and you expect a wild, explosive, Bond-like car chase. However to my dismay, that scene only lasts 20 seconds and the car is absolutely destroyed. Kinda sad for a car enthusiast. Next in line is gadgets. In Casino Royale there quite simply are no gadgets. There’s a cell phone with GPS and a GPS tracking bug… that’s about it. Impressive. Finally is Bond’s famous charm. In Casino Royale, he simply doesn’t have any. He’s egotistical and arrogant. He couldn’t care less about other people, and is completely sappy near the end. At one part my friend turned to me and asked “Is this James Bond, or a chick-flick?”

And another thing, Daniel Craig does not look the part of a smooth super-spy. Throughout the entire movie, that kept nagging at me in the back of my mind… he doesn’t look the part. Absolutely horrible casting.

This movie has tried to reinvent James Bond, but they’ve destroyed him. If they had not slapped the “James Bond” brand on it, and instead made a completely different movie, with a new name… it wouldn’t have been half bad. However they instead tried to expand on an existing image, and they ruined what was a good series. It almost seems like they made a separate movie, realized it was slightly similar, so they went back and changed a few parts so they could call it James Bond.

One example of how they’ve destroyed James Bond, was a scene where they asked him if he wanted his martini shaken or stirred… to which he replied “Do I look like I give a damn?”. I’m sorry… but James Bond would NEVER say that. He’s always polite, charming, and smooth…. not rough and a jerk, like he came off in this movie. I could go on ranting, but I think I’ve said enough. If you’re a James Bond fan, and you enjoyed this movie, can you PLEASE enlighten me as to why? Because as of now, I think that was the absolute worst James Bond movie I’ve ever seen… and I’d even go as far as saying it’s one of my least favorite movies overall.

Quite sad, really.

I picked up the DVD for Jarhead the other day, and throughly enjoyed it. There were a few parts that were a bit extreme, but overall it was a very intense, well made movie. It makes anyone who watches it NEVER want to be a Marine (as long as you’re sane), heh. Jake Gyllenhaal is a fairly unknown actor (to me at least) who does an absolutely phenomenal performance, especially when paired with Jamie Foxx. I’d be curious to hear from an actual Marine how accurate this movie is, but from my perspective, it looks very realistic (or at least the studio did a good job with it).

And on that note, some links.
- IMDB: Jarhead
- Official Jarhead Movie Site

Let be begin by highlighting the irony in a Google search for John Chow. The second result is his post about the internet’s biggset Google whores. In the past month or two, I’d say John himself has gone a long way to climb that ladder. Most of his posts have at least one or two egotistical “I make more money than you” posts, and he is competing hard with MySpace for the number of ads per square inch of screen space, but you know what? I have a very high admiration for him.

The self-proclaimed “Dot Com Mogul” offers some very good information with a great posting frequency. He’s often giving away freebies, and masterfully creating buzz. I have about 50 RSS feeds in my Google Reader, but there are only a few blogs that I usually read the entire post, word-for-word, everytime a new one pops up… and John Chow is one of those. Which reminds me of another point, John Chow is one of the webmasters who offers a full RSS feed, another great plus. Now, thinking about what I don’t like about John’s blog, I can only come up with one thing. These recent paid reviews make him money, sure, however I wish he’d lessen them a bit. By doing so many dedicated-post reviews, I think it degrades the overall quality of the blog a bit. Aside from that though… keep up the good work John!