15052011

Influence.

In early 2001, F-Secure recruited Kalle Korpi from Siemens Networks in Finland to run their ISP business. Kalle had extensive experience working in the telecommunications industry and selling equipment and solutions to network operators in Northern and Eastern Europe. He brought to the job strong and extensive business connections and a deep understanding of operator's businesses. Korpi immediately began contancting ISPs. Because F-Secure was not well known among European ISPs, Korpi had to first 'sell' F-Secure as a trustworthy company and a potential supplier. He also had to sell the whole idea of security as a service and demonstrate the business case for selling security services through the ISP's customer channel. (Austin, Lyytinen, Penttinen, Saarinen, Applegate, 2009)

I won't quote the results here because they are quite self-explanatory. The new guy ended up being a key factor in F-Secure's success through the years of 2003 and 2008.

I admire this person. He comes in with a load of background knowledge, lots of information and most of all, business connections. He takes his new job under his wing seriously and starts selling - one of the only things Finnish people are not good at in the business world. That's something I'm aiming for. To be good at what I do and even more importantly, to be good at selling things. My current lifeline in working with customers is derived from the book by Dale Carnegie, How To Win Friends And Influence People. The book has quite of lot of information and tips on social skills but what I picked up from it was it that it all comes down to one thing. There's only one key factor when socializing with people - be it selling, marketing, discussing, conversating casually, greeting them, talking to them over the Internet - and that key factor is to smile.

.into the beyond.