DEV Community: Sam

Overcome Client & Sales Objections Without Conflict

Sam — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 11:50:49 +0000

Sales objections are part of the job when working in the sales industry. The reality is that no matter how amazing your product or service is, there will always be someone who doesn’t want to purchase it. For salespeople, this can make work stressful and even lead to increased conflict with clients and prospects. Don’t let this happen to you; learn how to overcome client and sales objections without conflict by implementing these tips into your business strategy today!

**The cost of not asking questions
**Every interaction with a client or potential customer offers an opportunity to get closer to your sale. If you’re not asking for what you want, you’re letting something precious slip away. The art of sales is about getting clients on board with what you do. If your product or service is truly a good fit for their business goals, then they’ll come around eventually — but not without a little push from you. Clients need guidance and reassurance, so speak up!

**The value of asking questions.
**We like to think we know what’s best for our customers. But more often than not, there’s a good chance we don’t have their best interests at heart. Asking questions gives us insight into our customers — what they want, what they need, how they think — and it brings us closer to understanding them on a human level. It also helps us develop better solutions that ultimately benefit both parties.

**How to ask questions about what you want.
**If you ask for what you want, you’ll get it. If you don’t, then most likely, you won’t. And asking for what we want doesn’t mean always getting it (or even being successful), but people rarely say no to a question; asking creates engagement, opens communication, and builds relationships — and over time it will lead to more yeses. So make sure to do it! Here are some ways to ask questions: The What if? Question: What if I were to…? What if I did…? This is an open-ended question that allows your client or prospect to answer in any way they choose. It can be used as a way of simply exploring an idea or solution with them, or as a way of putting forth an alternative proposal.

**Answering objections with objections.
**When a client or customer says no to your product or service, they’re not always saying that you can’t be of help. Most often, when someone responds with an objection, it means that they’re interested but are just trying to find a way to buy from you. It may sound counterintuitive, but it pays to ask questions that encourage objections when you sell.

**Perfecting your objection handling skills
**To improve your objection handling skills, you need to know what objections are. In general, an objection is a reply to any form of persuasive message that says no to what you’re saying. This could be in person or online, it could be expressed directly or indirectly. An objection is nothing more than a statement that says. I don’t want to do X right now; I don’t believe Y, or I think Z isn’t possible.

**Advanced objection handling strategies
**As a salesperson, it’s your job to overcome objections and keep your clients on board. But when your client objects, don’t just accept it; get more information about why they think that way. When you identify their concerns, you can tailor your pitch to overcome those objections and close the deal. Here are six different types of sales objections you may hear, and how to handle them.

Phone Number & Email Extractor With Python

Sam — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 22:50:13 +0000

Phone Number & Email Extractor With Python

Imagine you have the boring task of finding every phone number and email address in a long web page or document.

... You manually scroll through the page(s) and it might take a long time. But if you had a program that could search the text in your clipboard for phone numbers and email addresses, you could simply press ctrl-A to select all the text, press ctrl-c to copy it to the clipboard, and then run your program. It could replace the text on the clipboard with just the phone numbers and email addresses it finds. Let's plan this out:

Get the text off the clipboard.
Find all the phone numbers & email add
Paste them onto the clipboard

Now we can start thinking about how this might work in code. The code will need to do the following:
Use the pyperclip module to copy and paste strings.
Create two regexes, one for matching phone numbers and the other for matching email addresses.
Find all matches, not just the first match, of both regexes.
Neatly format the matched strings into a single string to paste.
Display some kind of message if no matches were found in the Text.

Table 1: Shorthand Codes for Common Character Classes

Shorthand character class	Represents
\d	Any numeric digit from 0 to 9.
\D	Any character that is not a numeric digit from 0 to 9.
\w	Any letter, numeric digit, or the underscore character.(Think of this as matching “word” characters.)
\W	Any character that is not a letter, numeric digit, or the underscore character.
\s	Any space, tab, or newline character. (Think of this as matching “space” characters.)
\S	Any character that is not a space, tab, or newline.

Create a new python3 file, save it (for me it will be PhoneAndEmailFinder.py) and write the following:

import pyperclip, re # Importing the libraries(this case: regex and pyperclip)

# Create phone regex.
phoneRegex = re.compile(r'''(
    (\d{3}|\(\d{3}\))? # area code
    (\s|-|\.)? # separator
    (\d{3}) # first 3 digits
    (\s|-|\.) # separator
    (\d{4}) # last 4 digits
    (\s*(ext|x|ext.)\s*(\d{2,5}))? # extension
    )''', re.VERBOSE)

# TODO: Create email regex.
# TODO: Find matches in clipboard text.
# TODO: Copy results to the clipboard.

The TODO comments will be replaced as you write the actual code.

So it's time to explain the previous code; the phone number begins with an optional area code (indicator) with a max digit of 3 (that is,\d{3}) or three digits within parentheses (that is,\(\d{3}\)),
you should have a pipe joining those parts.

The phone number separator character can be a space (\s), hyphen (-), or period (.), so these parts should also be joined by pipes. The next few parts of the regular expression are straightforward: three digits, followed by another separator, followed by four digits. The last part is an optional extension made up of any number of spaces followed by ext, x, or ext., followed by two to five digits.

You will also need a regular expression that can match email addresses.
Make your program look like the following:

# Create email regex.
emailRegex = re.compile(r'''(
    [a-zA-Z0-9._%+-] + #username
    @                   # @symbole
    [a-zA-Z0-9.-] +     # domain
    (\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4})   # dot-something
    )''', re.VERBOSE)

Step 3: Find All Matches in the Clipboard Text

# Find matches in the clipboard text.
text = str(pyperclip.paste())
matches = []
for groups in phoneRegex.findall(text):
    phoneNum = '-'.join([groups[1], groups[3], groups[5]])
    if groups[8] != '':
        phoneNum += ' x' + groups[8]
    matches.append(phoneNum)
for groups in emailRegex.findall(text):
    matches.append(groups[0])

There is one tuple¹for each match, and each tuple contains strings for each group in the regular expression.

Step 4: Join the Matches into a String for the Clipboard
Now that you have the email addresses and phone numbers as a list of strings in matches, you want to put them on the clipboard. The pyperclip.copy() function takes only a single string value, not a list of strings, so you call the join() method on matches.
To make it easier to see that the program is working, let’s print any matches you find to the terminal. And if no phone numbers or email addresses were found, the program should tell the user this. Make your program look like the following:

if len(matches) > 0:
    pyperclip.copy('\n'.join(matches))
    print('Copied to clipboard: ')
    print('\n'.join(matches))
# TODO: Pasting the content --> txt file.
    s = pyperclip.paste() 
    with open('phone&emailfinder.txt','w') as g:
        g.write(s)
    g.close()
else:
    print('No phone numbers or email addresses found.')

(as bonus it will automatically store it in a txt file)

a data structure consisting of multiple parts. ↩

Planning process for Middle-sized Projects

Sam — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 17:12:17 +0000

Any business project (reducing energy costs, or improving efficiency) needs to be planned, and time spent planning will save far more time later on. The Typical stages in this planning process are explained here:

1~st~ Task: Is to spot what needs to be done. Examine your firm's current position, by (maybe) making a SWOT Analysis (==is a strategic planning technique used to help a person or organization identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to business competition or project planning==)

2~nd~ Step is to decide precisely what ==aim== of your plan is. In a single clear sentence, to ensure that it's clear and sharp in your mind. It will avoid wasting effort on irrelevant issues.
Next, you should work on how to do it. It is tempting just to grad the first idea that comes to mind, but considering a wide range of options is better (so that you may come with less obvious but better solutions).
After you have explored the options available to you, the selection of which option to choose (use) is the next step. depending on time and resources you have, you might decide to evaluate all options, carrying out some planning, like costing, for each (Normally won't have this luxury).
Now you already have a board idea of what your project will consist of. So it's the time to work on full details, identifying the most effective & efficient method of carrying it out, including answering the questions of who, what & when.
6~th~ Step: is to review your plan and decide whether it will work satisfactorily, this evaluation enables you to change to other option that might be more successful, or to accept that no plan is needed.
Once you have finished your plan an decided that it will work satisfactorily, it is time for ==implementation==. You plan will cover how this is to be done.
Last but not least, Once you have achieved a plan, you can close the project. at this point it is often worth assessing the project to see whether there are any lessons that you can learn.

Introduction To Data Encryption With Python

Sam — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 20:35:41 +0000

Summary:

Cryptography

Definition

Terminologies of Cryptography

Reverse Cipher

Example

Python Basics

Coding a Reverse Cipher program

Algorithm of Caesar Cipher

Coding Time

Getting the Caesar cipher key

Using the key to find the password

Algorithm ROT 13 Cipher

Definition

Creating A Cipher

Installing the library

Testing the library

Generating a key

Encrypting

Decrypting

Bonus

Generating a Key From A Password

Encrypting and Decrypting Files

1. Cryptography

1.1 Definition

Cryptography is the art of communication between two users via coded messages. The science of cryptography emerged with the basic motive of providing security to the confidential messages transferred from one party to another.

The pre-fix "crypt" means "hidden" or "vault" and the suffix "graphy" stands for "writing".

Cryptography is defined as the art and science of concealing the message to introduce privacy and secrecy as recognized in information security.

1.2 Terminologies of Cryptography:

Plain Text (Texte Brut):

The text which is readable and can be understood by all users.
Cipher Text (Texte Chiffré):

The message obtained after applying cryptography on plain text.
Encryption (Chiffrement):

The process of converting (from plain text to Cipher text).
Decryption (Décryptage):

The process of converting (from cipher text to plain text).

(Drawing a schema)

2. Reverse Cipher

2.1 Example:

Let’s examine the following examples of Plaintext and Reverse Cipher

Every skill acquired in cyber security is hard won. It includes a wide array of prerequisites (even) to get started.

edrtarts teg ot setisiuqererp fo yarra a sedulcni now drah si ytiruces rebyc ni deriuqca lliks yrevE.

With statement (1), anybody can read and understand it clearly. What about statement 2 — it’s absolute gibberish, or so it seems like it. However, a cryptanalyst may be able to decrypt the concept of statement (2).

In the examples above, statement (1) is plain text, while statement (2) is a reverse cipher text. Thus, cryptography is defined as the art of manipulating or scrambling plain text into cipher text.

2.2 Python Basics

Python is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language. Created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991, Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of significant whitespace. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach aim to help programmers write clear, logical code for small and large-scale projects.

# Printing a "Hello World!"
print("Hello world!")

# Declaration of strings is shown below:
variable_name_string = "Variable content string"
print(variable_name_string)

# He lists of python can be declared as compound data types, separated by commas and enclosed within square brackets ([]).
list = [ 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'rocky', 70.2 ]
tinylist = [123, 'rocky']
print(list[0])
print(tinylist)

# Python dictionary is a type of hash table. A dictionary key can be almost any data type of Python, which are usually numbers or strings.
thisdict = {
  "brand": "Ford",
  "model": "Mustang",
  "year": 1964
}
print(thisdict)
print(thisdict["model"]) # Note the difference

# Printing the values
for x in thisdict:
  print(x)

# Printing the keys
for x in thisdict:
  print(thisdict[x])

# Printing keys + values
for x, y in thisdict.items():
  print(x, y) 

# adding a key and its value
thisdict["color"] = "red"
print(thisdict)

# removing the first item (here it's brand)
thisdict.popitem()
print(thisdict)

# The del keyword removes the item with the specified key name
del thisdict["model"]
print(thisdict)

2.3 Coding a Reverse Cipher Program:

(Making a suitable algorithm for this case) -> Cipher type = Reverse Cipher.

message = 'This is program to explain reverse cipher.'
translated = '' #cipher text is stored in this variable
i = len(message) - 1

while i >= 0:
   translated = translated + message[i]
   i = i - 1
print("The cipher text is : ", translated)

3. Algorithm of Caesar Cipher

The algorithm of Caesar cipher holds the following features:

Caesar Cipher Technique is the simple and easy method of encryption technique.
It is simple type of substitution cipher.
Each letter of plain text is replaced by a letter with some fixed number of positions down with alphabet.

#A python program to illustrate Caesar Cipher Technique 
def encrypt(text,s): 
    result = "" 

    # traverse text 
    for i in range(len(text)): 
        char = text[i] 

        # Encrypt uppercase characters 
        if (char.isupper()): 
            result += chr((ord(char) + s-65) % 26 + 65) 

        # Encrypt lowercase characters 
        else: 
            result += chr((ord(char) + s - 97) % 26 + 97) 

    return result 

#check the above function 
text = "CIPHER CAESAR ENCRYPTION"
s = 4
print ("Text : " + text) 
print ("Shift : " + str(s)) 
print ("Cipher: " + encrypt(text,s))

3.2 Getting the key

message = 'GIEWIVrGMTLIVrHIQS' #encrypted message
LETTERS = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'

for key in range(len(LETTERS)):
   translated = ''
   for symbol in message:
      if symbol in LETTERS:
         num = LETTERS.find(symbol)
         num = num - key
         if num < 0:
            num = num + len(LETTERS)
         translated = translated + LETTERS[num]
      else:
         translated = translated + symbol
print('Hacking key #%s: %s' % (key, translated))

3.3 Hacking the CAESAR cipher using the Key

import string
from time import sleep

alphabet = string.ascii_lowercase # "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

def decrypt():

    print("Welcome to Caesar Cipher Decryption.\n")
    encrypted_message = input("Enter the message you would like to decrypt: ").strip()
    print()
    key = int(input("Enter key to decrypt: "))

    decrypted_message = ""

    for c in encrypted_message:

        if c in alphabet:
            position = alphabet.find(c)
            new_position = (position - key) % 26
            new_character = alphabet[new_position]
            decrypted_message += new_character
        else:
            decrypted_message += c

    print("\nDecrypting your message...\n")
    sleep(2) # give an appearance of doing something complicated
    print("Stand by, almost finished...\n")
    sleep(2) # more of the same
    print("Your decrypted message is:\n")
    print(decrypted_message)

decrypt()

4. Algorithm ROT 13 Cipher

4.1 Definition

ROT 13 cipher refers to the abbreviated form Rotate by 13 places. It is a special case of Caesar Cipher in which shift is always 13. Every letter is shifted by 13 places to encrypt or decrypt the message.

5. Let's Cipher

5.1 Installing the library

pip -m install cryptography

5.2 Testing the library

import cryptography

5.3 Generating a key

from cryptography.fernet import Fernet as fn

test_key = fn.generate_key()
print(test_key)
file = open('test_key.key', 'wb')
file.write(test_key)
file.close()

5.4 Encrypting a message

from cryptography.fernet import Fernet as ft

message = input("\n Veuillez entrer le message que vous souhaiter crypter: \n").encode()

file = open('test_key.key', 'rb')
key = file.read()

f = ft(key)
encrypted_message = f.encrypt(message)
print("\n", encrypted_message)
file.close()

5.5 Decrypting a Cipher

from cryptography.fernet import Fernet as ft

encypted_message = input("\n Veuillez coller le chiffrement à décrypter: \n\t").encode()

file = open('test_key.key', 'rb')
key = file.read()
f = ft(key)
decrypted_message = f.decrypt(encypted_message)
print("\n ", decrypted_message)
file.close()

6. Bonus

6.1 Generating a Key From A Password

If you want to base your key of a string that the user can input or some other form of input, you can create a key using this input.

import base64
import os
from cryptography.hazmat.backends import default_backend
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives import hashes
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.kdf.pbkdf2 import PBKDF2HMAC

password_provided = "password" # This is input in the form of a string
password = password_provided.encode() # Convert to type bytes
salt = b'salt_' # CHANGE THIS - recommend using a key from os.urandom(16), must be of type bytes
kdf = PBKDF2HMAC(
    algorithm=hashes.SHA256(),
    length=32,
    salt=salt,
    iterations=100000,
    backend=default_backend()
)
key = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(kdf.derive(password)) # Can only use kdf once

6.2 Encrypting and Decrypting Files

We can also encrypt files using this method since files can be read as bytes. Simply open the file, read the bytes, encrypt the data and the write them out to a new file. To encrypt:

from cryptography.fernet import Fernet
key = b'' # Use one of the methods to get a key (it must be the same when decrypting)
input_file = 'test.txt'
output_file = 'test.encrypted'

with open(input_file, 'rb') as f:
    data = f.read()

fernet = Fernet(key)
encrypted = fernet.encrypt(data)

with open(output_file, 'wb') as f:
    f.write(encrypted)

# You can delete input_file if you want

And then to decrypt a file:

from cryptography.fernet import Fernet
key = b'' # Use one of the methods to get a key (it must be the same as used in encrypting)
input_file = 'test.encrypted'
output_file = 'test.txt'

with open(input_file, 'rb') as f:
    data = f.read()

fernet = Fernet(key)
encrypted = fernet.decrypt(data)

with open(output_file, 'wb') as f:
    f.write(encrypted)

# You can delete input_file if you want