DragoBlog

The COVID-19 pandemic has caught us all by surprise but has especially affected the world of travel . During these unprecedented times, governments around the world have urged their citizens to stay at home and take precautionary measures. Companies are forced to innovate at a high rate on ways to keep their customers safe in a litmus test that could prove fatal to their survival. A new form of "normal" is rightfully taking shape and the travel industry is molding it. As a passionate follower of the ground mobility sector and an active participant, I have been taking notes of how the new normal might look like. An early statistic shows that the highest risk of death from COVID-19 affects the drivers and the chauffeurs who are regularly exposed to the risk of contracting the virus. Therefore, the safety and well-being of the drivers and guests are of utmost importance. Below, I included a list of measures that the ground transportation segment has implemented in order to a...

Regardless if you are a newbie or a veteran in sales, there will always be new ways to improve your daily workflows. Seeking for refinements is a duty we owe to ourselves and our clients. Below, I have compiled a list of my favorite extensions that boosted my productivity. All of them follow a Freemium model which means that they can be used for free in a limited capacity or be upgraded to a paid plan.  1. Alexa Traffic Rank "What is the value of this lead?" is a question that often echoes in the sales department. Qualifying a lead has become increasingly complex as one-man businesses and hackers can now easily create beautiful websites and misleading social media profiles. One thing that is tougher to control is the popularity of the websites created. Alexa provides a global rank that is calculated from a combination of daily visitors and pageviews on a website over a 3-month period. A higher rank is typically a strong indication of a valid opportunity that sho...

A popular statistic that dates back to 2015 states that on average there are about three small businesses launched every second in the world (Guibourg, 2015). This is an incredible growth rate and the interesting part is that this number might be higher in present days. For example, Bloomberg U.S. Startups Barometer shows that in 2018 it is has been an increase of almost 55% of new startups compared to the previous year. One may think that this incredible boom of new small businesses must be attributed to high success rates. However, this can not be further from the truth. According to the  US Bureau of Labor of Statistics about 51,4 percent of small businesses in 2015 failed in the first four years (Entrepreneurship and the U.S. Economy, 2016). The leading causes of failure can be attributed to incompetence and lack of managerial experience (Mansfield, 2018). Since the success-failure rate of a startup is pretty much equal to flipping a coin, an entrepreneur might ask what is the ...

Sales is a profession that requires assertiveness, confidence and a natural ability to be sociable. This is not a job that can be done by everyone, however, there are certain techniques that can be taught to increase higher sales efficiency. Since there are many internships and entry-level jobs in sales, many graduates follow this path having limited knowledge in the art of selling. It is not unusual for companies that offer sales positions or internships to have outdated sales training or no training at all. There are a number of books that offer guidance and excellent advice in mastering the ability to sell. I have hand-picked three of them that have helped me achieve higher commission at the end of the month. While I encourage to read the books entirely, I have also highlighted some concepts that offer quick tips and will help you interact better next time you are on a call. Sales is a competition where the winner is not the one who can dial the fastest but the one who dials the r...

Out of all the systems that organize human activity on this Earth, Capitalism is by far the most efficient system in terms of economic growth and flourishing. The system advocates for a free market economy, private ownership and pursuit of self-interest. It creates the belief that everyone can make it up to the social latter. It gives people the hope that anyone can be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. However, working for the last six months in a start-up in Berlin made me highly doubt the opportunities capitalism has to offer to the average middle-class man. The start-up I worked for was co-founded by a husband and wife both in their early thirties with little previous work experience. He was Danish, she was Romanian and they both invested their earnings (of tens of thousands of euros) to form this start-up. I was never suspicious about the origins of the start-up but soon enough I realized this was a big mistake. A bootstrapped start-up, co-founded by a young couple witho...

A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research states that graduating in a recession leads to large initial earnings losses. Due to economic stagnation, the majority of students are forced to enter the workforce immediately after taking their bachelor diploma, instead of having the chance of pursuing higher education opportunities. The jobs they chose are often in industries that require entry-level positions, and not necessarily the job opportunities the graduates would like to pursue in their carrier. This leads to lower job satisfaction, higher chances of job-hopping and initial earning losses. I have graduated from LCC IU in April 2016, and I was lucky enough to land a job in sales in one of the most dynamic cities in Europe – Berlin. I was so excited about the new job that I decided to take no break to rest and recover from the last four years of intensive studies. They say sales is more art than science. With no previous experience and with no theoretical backgr...