Last night's guest speaker in Innovation Teams was Ken Morse, Senior Lecturer and Managing Director of MIT Entrepreneurship Center. As usual, Morse with his highly animated presentation style engaged the entire class with his pitch on successful entrepreneurship and sales in the hi-tech business. Here are some notes on entrepreneurship:

• One of the most important constituents in starting a company is the people
• Recruit people with ambition not ego
• Installed base is a barrier to market entry - consistent with the business adage "Find a niche, build a barrier (or FANBAB)

Notes on sales:

• Any important person is busy. The thing they hate most is wasting their time. So make economic use of their time with you
• Along the same note, always follow up with a "thank you" note but make it short
• Start with Mr. or Ms. and let them them decide to let you use their first names or nicknames
• 6 ways to make people like you:
1. Be genuinely interested in other people
2. Smile
3. Remember your customer's name
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
5. Talk in terms of other person's interests
6. Make the other person feel important

10/4/2005 8:02:25 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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