The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

November 1995

Technical Perfection (Con't from page 6)

business to be conducted, the payment terms, any

warranty information, and a very clear definition of

what are your responsibilities versus those of the

client. A non-disclosure statement or a paragraph

regarding the responsibility for site preparation or

computer equipment might be appropriate. Wording

should verify all the reasons for the client to make

the purchase decision, and should address solu-

tions to every problem issue uncovered in meetings

with the client. When presenting the proposal to the

client, bring two copies so that both of you can sign

and keep a copy.

Closing the Sale requires dealing with the human

nature of the selling process. People can be inse-

cure (to one degree or another) and can make

decisions based on emotional needs as often as

not (see esteem, above). People can be afraid of

making the purchase decision, to spend the money,

and can procrastinate in making the final decision.

Your strategy in closing a sale will be to have

addressed a client’s fears and needs throughout

the selling process so that they will clearly see that

their decision is the right decision. If you don’t close

the sale, use the opportunity to review the entire

process to determine why you failed, and where

you could have handled the client differently. Your

learning curve in this area needs to be as short as

you can make it.

In summary, your success as a consultant will

depend as much on your ability to recognize and

address sales and marketing concerns as it will on

your technical expertise. Those of us with interest in

the sales and marketing areas may want to take

further steps by suggesting LAFOX speakers on

these topics.

Savannah’s List.... ( from page 4)

Benjamin/Cummings. ISBN 0-8053-2572-7

Developed at IBM’s International Technical Support

Center in San Jose, CA. Covers the current state

of object technology, including available object-

oriented design notations, visual programming

tools, team programming issues, and object data-

bases. One of the few books to give an overview of

the woks of the various standards committees, such

as the Object Management Group (0MG). Very

easy to read.

Voss, Greg. “Object-Oriented Programming: An

Introduction.” Osborne McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-

881682-3

Introduces the core concepts of object-oriented

programing and shows working examples in C++,

Object Pascal, Actor and Smalltalk.

Winblad, Ann L.; Edwards, Samuel D.; and King,

David R. “Object-Oriented Software.” Addison-

Wesley. ISBN 0-201-50736-6

Explains the key concepts and benefits of object-

oriented technology. Gives a “big picture” view rather

than concentrating on a particular language. Unlike

other books, this one also discusses emerging meth-

odologies and aspects of the technology that are still

evolving.

White, Iseult. “Rational Rose Essentials: Using the

Booch Method.” Benjamin/Cummings. ISBN 0-

8053-0616-1

Provides an easy reference for those interested in

using the methodology and notation described in

Grady Booch’s “Object-Oriented Design with Applica-

tions.” Comes with a cut-down version of Rational

Rose. Unfortunately, the “cut-down” aspect refers to

the inability to save class diagrams.

Wiifs-Brock, Rebecca; Wilkerson, Brian; and

Wiener, Lauren. “Designing Object-Oriented

Software.” Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-629825-7

An easy-to-read guide to object-oriented design, with

extensive examples. Also covers the use of CRC

cards. Language-independent.

It Can’t Get Any Easier.

We’ve come up with an easy way to submit articles to

the LA Fox Developer Newsletter one that has

been overlooked for a long time.

You can submit your articles to either Chuck Williams

(72330,2326) or Barry Lee (72723,3422) on

Compuserve.

These articles can be on any FoxPro-related topic,

whether it concerns a new technique you’ve discov-

ered, a certain development technique you may favor

over others, book reviews, etc.

The quality of this newsletter really depends on the

members that support it, not just read it. And I think

we’d all be surprised by the useful information that

could be circulated around the membership.

So.

How 'bout it?

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