CrawfordTimes 16 online (1)

FEATURE ARTICLE
MIMECAST
In 2003, two gents in the UK launched
Mimecast – a new approach to
email security and management.
One of their very first hires was a sales
rep with massive self-confidence and
an inexhaustible ability for cold calling.
For the first four months he cold-called
for nine hours a day, week after week. His
rejection rate was 98%, but because of the
volumes of his calls, the 2% successes built the
business to several hundred clients. This rep had a
neat little trick with accents; if he called and was
denied, he’d simply call back later with a different
accent.
Mimecast became an international business with
an annual turnover of R1 billion!
Whoever said cold-calling was a thing of
the past?! Source: ExpertHub
THOMAS A. EDISON
Poor Thomas Edison was
pulled out of school after
teachers called him “stupid”
and “unteachable”. He spent
his teenage years working and
being fired from various jobs,
culminating in his termination
from a telegraph company at age
21. His true passion, though, was
inventing and throughout his career
he obtained 1,093 patents. Some
were so successful, including the
light bulb, a stock printer, phonograph
and alkaline battery. Many more, however,
were a flop. Edison is famous for saying
that genius is “1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration”. Source: growthink.com
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain
way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” –
Thomas A. Edison
J.K. ROWLING
The author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, is
currently the second-richest female entertainer on
the planet having sold 450 million copies worldwide.
It seems fictional that 12 different publishers
rejected the first Harry Potter book in 1995.
When writing the original Harry Potter book, Rowling
was going through a divorce, grieving the death of
her mother, and living in a tiny flat with her daughter
and surviving on government subsidies. She turned
these negatives into a whopping positive by
devoting most of her free time to the Harry Potter
series. The result is a book you probably have at
home … and a brand name worth nearly
US$15 billion. Source: growthink.com
J. K. Rowling achieved billionaire status; however, she
is no longer a billionaire because she donated so
much of her fortune to charity. In 2011, she donated
16% of her total net worth, equal to about US$160
million. Source: Borgen Magazine
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live
so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which
case you have failed by default.” – J.K. Rowling
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE
SOUL
Jack Canfield is the
creator of the Chicken
Soup for the Soul series.
He and his co-author
Mark Victor Hansen
pitched the original
concept to more
than 130 different
publishers. But
none of them were
inspired or interested
and said that “nobody wants
to read 100 inspirational stories”. After 100+
pitches, their agent dropped them too.
Maybe it was their inspiring stories that kept
them going, but they never gave up and
continued to persevere until their book was
picked up by a small publisher in Florida.
Today there are more than 250 Chicken
Soup for the Soul books and 500 million
copies sold worldwide.
Source: inspireyoursuccess
“Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no
matter what is going on around them.” – Jack Canfield
30 | Crawford Times