Skype Journal: My Skype Business Model: The $50 Cuban Cigar
April 15, 2005 03:12 PMOn the trip back from our Skype Journal meeting in Seattle the fellow I sat beside asked me a difficult question, “What do you do Bill? Retired?”
The word “Skype” returned a glazed look. So I asked the question, “Tell me Ken, about your business?” Ken (CEO) told me about the international nature of his franchise operation. Franchises across Canada, new ones being established in the US and suppliers in Korea, Japan and China. This allowed me to add the follow-up questions, “Do you travel?”, “Are you involved many long distance calls”. Ken’s response of, “I sure do!” gave me the context to explain Skype.
Ken and I determined we lived about 10 minutes apart so he asked if I would mind dropping by his home to help get him started on Skype. I liked the guy and an offer of a glass of Merlot made it easy to agree.
In 15 minutes he was up and running with a SkypeOut account and he moved us out to his deck to let him make a few test calls while enjoying another glass of very fine Merlot along with a Cuban cigar.
His first call was to my cell phone; eyes bugging out of his head as it rang. While talking to his sister in Saskatchewan I whispered, “right click” on “Bill’s Cell” and “select add to conference”. As he did so he asked, “What’s a conference?” as I started talking to him and his sister, while Ken excitedly tells her, “I am on my PC and this is only costing me two cents a minute. Next he set up a conference call to in his father and sister which required him to access the “Dial Pad” so he could access the private phone extension in the hospital he was calling.
Then he was calling his business partners at head office explaining he had hired me to fly to headquarters and help them get set up Skype!
We closed off our session by getting him a SkypeIn number in Seattle and VM subscription. He sent me home with two bottles of rare Merlot and a promise of receiving a few test calls from China where he will be next week. Christmas came early this year for Ken.
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