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Jason with Business Explosion!

Today I got to talk, briefly, to a nice young fellow named Jason (probably not a reader, but "hi Jason" if you're out there).
Jason's company was not really called Business Explosion, but it was something similar to that.  I can't really remember the exact name.  Here is a transcript of the call:
Jason: "Hi this is [...]

Countersales!

Today I had another very satisfying countersales success.  For those who are just joining us, countersales is a technique for combating time-wasting solicitor calls and visits.  The technique is essentially a bluff: act like you have all day to talk to them, even though you are not the least bit interested in their product.  This [...]

Countersales

Poor Phil… I don't know Phil personally, but he came to my office to sell holiday coupons for a day-spa.  I told him I didn't have any use for such a thing, but also proceeded to tell him all about insurance for salons, day-spas, and medi-spas, and the unique risks that advances in cosmetic medicine [...]

• welcome

  You have entered 'start your head on fire,' housed at www.robertbeverly.com. 'start your head on fire' is the blog of Robert Beverly. It is not a very serious blog. Mr. Beverly writes most of the news items, but you will also see us (Debbie and Secretia) posting from time to time to clarify things. We are his "blog secretaries."

• View Robert Beverly's profile

• who?

  Rather than publish a biography or ask Mr. Beverly to record his memoirs (which would be dull), we thought we would post a summary for anyone who was wondering. He said we should do something like this because that's what other people's blogs have on them. Mr. Beverly goes by Rab, which is a common name for Scotsmen and their dogs. We call him Mr. Beverly in person because we're trying to talk him into a raise, but you can really call him Rab. Rab drinks gallons of coffee daily and makes jokes that we usually don't understand. We laugh politely because he writes the paychecks for Debbie and I (he hired us both as blog secretaries back in October 2006... we didn't even know what a blog was before this). Mr Beverly goes to the gym a lot, which is why he doesn't have time to type in his blog entries, and he does all kinds of weird exercises like Kung Fu and Yoga (NEVER ask him about this unless you want to hear all about martial arts). He enjoys literary analysis and esoteric reading and games like "Go" (the ancient Japanese strategy game) and chess, not to mention those weird "role playing" and "strategy" games he designs himself, all of which account for why we do not to start conversations with him. (Secretia here... what the hell was wrong with Yahtzee, I ask you?!) We like talking about peekapoos and the best grocery store sales, but we don't get to talk about that here.

• Categories

  • 13th of the month
  • baby
    • vomit
  • Business and Investing
  • Consulting
  • Cool Technology
  • countersales
  • culture
  • exercise and martial arts
  • fitness and medicine
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  • health
  • In all seriousness
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  • Mundane Mondays
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  • Saturday Satire
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  • Thursday Thamauturgy
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• starting your head on fire

  Delivers oxygen to your brain faster than all other methods! Proven in double blind placebo controlled studies.

• Places to Go

  • The Cato Institute
  • The Florida Insurance School, Tampa and Tallahassee, FL
  • All County Insurance, Tampa FL
  • Florida Insurance School Continuing Education, Tallahassee FL

• Blogroll

  • Cato @ Liberty - Cato is a libertarian research foundation. If you wish to stay informed on public policy, you can not ignore the Cato blog. Pay them a visit.
  • Greg Lincoln
  • Modo Vernant Omnia - Tampa local with many topics of interest to my readers. As you might imagine, I could not resist blogrolling a site that has tags as diverse as: economy (with views similar), spinning (as in wool), ancient Greek stuff, and occult.
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness - The Economist turned me on to Mr. Taleb, a trader turned philoisopher (as described by Forbes). His writing and his thinking are quite interesting, and certainly more worthwhile than anything you will find here.
  • Ouralexander.org - Site discussing informed consent in pediatric medicine, by a family that experienced the worst possible tragedy.
  • RiskProf - An Insurance Blog - A truly marvelous blog. I know risk & insurance are less interesting to most of you than organizing your sock drawer, but this is excellent writing. Besides, if you understand insurance you have the right to complain about it.
  • Schneier on Security - This will be your favorite security blog. Bruce Schneier exposes “security theatre” and proposes realistic problems and solutions. Stay up to date on security policy and IT risk management with CRYPTOGRAM, his email newsletter.
  • The Goodly Mr. Plotkin - My excellent friend Richard Plotkin. Read his musings and insights, or wander through the social network of MySpace users. Several of his blog-friends are people I went to school or knew other ways… I wonder if they will Google me and say ‘hi.’
  • Worlds Healthiest Foods - I love this website. It is all about the nutritional value of foods that are considered ‘healthy,’ with tons of sources cited.