Happy New Year 2017 - Bid Adieu to 2016

Time flies by very fast and it is no wonder that it is a precious entity. It seems just yesterday that 2016 had started and it has come to an end today. From tomorrow, it will be year 2017. It had been an wonderful year 2016 and it is time again to say good bye to year 2016. In doing so, I would like to recall all my supporters who supported us through the daily challenges. As always, there might have been mistakes on our part, some challenges which we might not have been able to complete. And there are other reasons for which we would like to Thank You.

This is time when we bury our past mistakes and look for the brighter opportunities where we could do better. It is a time when we want to laugh and bring cheer to our family, our friends and our associates. It is time when we make new resolutions. Just add zing to your life and enjoy.

Wishing You A Very Happy & Healthy New Year 2017.

 

As Per Promise... A Few More Tips

However successful you might be, you need inspiration & motivation at different times. We also need to have knowledge about new things, new concepts happening out there. To do so, you need to read different books, see different videos, hear audios if they are available & good, see inspirational movies, hear music giving inspiration or whatever feels good. Music has the ability to change mood & inspire. There are many minds in this world and some of them might be really Super. To understand their concept, you need to read their concept papers or books.

You have to constantly look for habits or places which are distractions for you. These are such places or things where you would go automatically due to your habits or the good temporary feeling you might get. These small distractions may take good amount of productive time and your productivity or efficiency comes down. You need to be wary of that.

On the road towards success, make a companion called failure. There is no success without failure... I must say temporary setbacks instead of failure. You can fail only if you stop trying. And until you fail in your mind, you are going to win. The rest failure/setbacks are only temporary out of which we need to find ways. 

Every big project comes out of a small step. Break that big project into small modules and complete the modules. Your big project will be completed in no time.

Get More In The Coming Year 2017 Using These Tips

If you have reviewed your last year and are happy that you achieved your targets. Congratulations. And all the best for the new year targets. But if you are wondering what went wrong and how you have not achieved what you wanted, then here are some tips that would help you in the coming year. The tips are to use your time so that you are on track to achieve your target. Even if you lag behind, the technique of reflecting on what you have done will help you get back on track.

1. I know many of you are not morning persons. One of the first things that you need to do is to get up earlier than what you do. You might be able to do so by getting up earlier by 10-15 minutes gradually moving towards getting up about  1-2 hrs early. You might ask - should we sleep less? No, you need not sleep less. You just sleep early. You should also have your morning schedule. Unless you have one, you might not actually pick up the habit to get up early.

2. Watch less TV. If you are not watching, great. If you are watching only news, some comedy program to de-stress, good. But if you have habit of watching movies and sitcoms daily, you really do not value your time. These things are worrisome as they are addictive. And if they are addictive, you would really waste your time doing nothing.

3. Focus. Focus is of great significance as it might be the only difference between achieving targets and not achieving them. If you focus, you get different paths of reaching your target and eventually reach at your goal.

4. Exercise. If you are getting up early, then give time to exercise. First you may want to meditate or write that book that you have in your mind. But do give some time to exercise.  

I think the list can be bigger and I will come back tomorrow. I want to keep this blog smaller as too much sweet things might make you diabetic ;) (On a Lighter Note).

Reflection - How The Year 2016 Went By

Finally, the year 2017 is about to end. This is the last week and only a few days to go before new year 2017 comes along. New Year, New Goals, New Targets. But what about the past? Any time is good time for review of our acts. If you can review it daily, weekly or monthly then it is better. Review of your actions and achievements till date give you fair idea about the next actions that you need to take. We also get to know whether we are on the right track or do we need to change some things. At the end of our period, we must be able to be near our target. If we review the same, we will know if we will be somewhere near it. If we are not there on target, we need to change our course of action and take appropriate steps so that we again come back on road towards our target. The more number of times we do reflection, the better.

Most of the time we are too busy in our work. So, traditions have been created in India and new festivals are there. So, we clean all our places before Diwali. We see that many scrap things come out. Similarly, we have Year Ending / New Year Eve. We can use the year ending to reflect on the targets that we had agreed to achieve in this year. What are the things that we did right? How can we improve upon some of the things. We can also take this time to Thank all the stake holders, customers, staff, suppliers and our friends to be with us all this time. We need to tell them that it was all due to their support that you are on the position that you are and that you look forward to the continuing relation with them.

Take some time and reflect on the past activities and also plan your targets for the new year. Hopefully, you will get some medicine / tonic, so that you are strong enough next year.

People And The Company They Keep

Strong minds discuss ideas, Average minds discuss events, & Weak minds discuss people. Or so said Socrates. It is true. And not just that. If you live with people of strong minds, you will become one. If you leave with people of weak minds, you will become one. The company you keep will influence you, unless you are a strong influence on others.

Even the way people speak are different. If you speak to a royal person, you will know it just by the language he uses. Similarly, if you speak to some laborer, you will know it by the language. If you are staying with people who are active, you too will become active in their presence. You can judge for yourself if you see how your teen years affect you. If you fall in good company, you will just move with your friend in good colleges or for great career. But instead, a bad company will earn you bad habits; habits you may not be proud of. May be your performance will come down. It may not be entirely due to you. But here your company plays an influence on you.

Even the great author Napolean Hill has dedicated quite some time in discussing the influence of good company on your mind and your actions. Try to make good companies and soon you will see that your success will be on different level altogether.

Dangal - Do The Most Unpleasant Task First

There is Dangal everywhere. Since there is no major release, all theaters are screening Dangal Movie. The reviews of the movie is also great. And why should it not be? After all, it has Bollywood Mr. Perfectionist in it. Aamir Khan has truly given the word Mr. Perfectionist a new definition altogether. He has altered his body and in a way that no one could think of. The last movie that we saw of Aamir was PK. In PK his body was normal. If you see Dangal, you will see that in the first half of the film, Aamir is well built for wrestling. Only in the later part, he is shown overweight. And for the most of the part, he is shown overweight. 

Now you will think that the movie was shot sequentially. First came the starting part and the film is progressively shot, meaning that the first scenes were shoot first and then gradually the later scenes came into picture.But it was the other way round, 

Aamir shoot the overweight part first because it was the most unpleasant one. He gave the genuine feel to the character. By increasing the weight of his body, he also felt the way overweight body behaves and changed his body language accordingly.Once he had finished the shooting for the overweight body part, he began working on his body in his 'Fat to Fit' program. And he did a lot of work for that. Once he was fit, he shoot for the first part of the movie. In Aamir Khan's word, if he had shoot Fit part first and then the Fat part, he might not have had any reason to get fit soon. Hence he did the reverse way.

It also tells us that we should do the unpleasant task first. Once this is done, our mind is free to work on other things. For that, 'Eat the Frog in the morning' theory was developed. Frog is not one of the most delicious things to eat, but rather very bad taste. So, if you eat the frog first, then you would be happy to finish the remaining meal. Isn't it?

P.S. (On lighter note): If you have been invited for lunch or dinner, you should not follow the above idea. Think of it. If you eat the thing you dislike, then the host might think that you like that the most. They will serve you that thing. So, if you are going to some host, eat what you like first.

Dangal - Remove All The Obstacles Coming Between Your Goals

Watched Dangal today. Really Inspiring Movie. Really a Movie to show you the path on how to reach your goals. Especially the starting part of the journey in the life of Geeta Kumari Phogat. Mr. Mahavir Singh Phogat, very well played by Aamir Khan, has a goal in life. To win a Gold Medal for India in Wrestling. He is not able to do it in India and hence, he wants his daughters to do it. It is really tough in the initial days for the girls. At one point, they are so fed up with the training that they go to their father cum coach to tell the different problems that they are facing. Other problems are okay, but the genuine problem seems to be the hairs. 

The dialogue by Aamir Khan is inspiring. I will remove all those obstacles which come in the way of the goals or which distract you from the goals. 

That needs to be truyly written in Bold & Gold. If you have some goal, you will truly go all out towards it. People who laugh at you will not matter. He changes the food and goes towards non-veg so that the girls are strong by eating protien. There are no players. So play the girls with the boys. Voila. What "goal-keeping" - I mean way to keep moving towards your goal. At one point, he also leaves his job, so that he can give enough time towards the coaching of the girls. Even when Geeta is international player and he is barred from training her, he manages somehow by getting the videos and then analyzing them. No obstacle is big enough for him in getting Gold for India in wrestling. 

You have to see the movie and take lessons in Goal keeping, if you truly want to achieve something. 

Focus On Customer Experience To Grow Your Business

Customer is not only an important stakeholder in your business, it is the only purpose. They are the heart of your business. You should not take for granted for any of the customer. Even if there is a small customer, it's experience with you should be good. There are two reasons for that:

1. This small customer can become big - you never know.

2. This one customer can become your advertiser. He will refer your name if somebody wants what you manufacture or sell. He will also take your name with good will.

Good will is very hard to create. It takes years to make an positive image but this will erode in a matter of few hours or days. For great experience to a customer, listen to him. First you must listen to his problems and offer solution. You must never use rough language when with customer. In fact, your language should always be soft because if it is rough, you cannot underestimate the power of habit. The rough words will come out in midst of an important meeting. The packaging of your products must be good enough to give a good feel to a customer. If the quality of your product, packaging of your product and the delivery of your product - all these things are right, then no one can stop you from growing your business. Because ultimately these three things are important and become a package to give a experience to your customer. 

All your customer facing executives & staff should be trained in soft skills. They cannot simply behave outrageously with customers. At the end of the day, it is the customer who gives business and hence the training to the customer facing staff is very important. When you send someone for quality complaints, your personnel should be with sufficient knowledge. Even if your products are to the specification, the problem of customer should be understood. If you become a part of the solution, you will win the trust of the customer. The experience you are giving will be good.

Grow Your Confidence To Grow Your Business

Will you do business with people who do not seem certain? Will you do business with people who do not seem to be sure of themselves, are confused? If no, then how will other people do business with you, if you seem to be same. Your business growth will be directly proportional to what confidence you can give to your prospective client. 

You should be certain with your thought pattern and not get confused with what other people might say. You might have some other thoughts about the subject, but understand and then think over it instead of seeming to be confused. You should be fluent in your talk; if you have stammering problems while talking, your thought clarity must be seen by other people. If you take small challenges and complete them, your confidence will grow and you will be ready to take on bigger challenges. When your confidence grows, so will your business. Customers do not like to put their money on confused people. They want to work with confident people, because they know that their money is safe. You should give that confidence to your customers about your ability to do the work.

Confident people will often take risks wherever they see an opportunity. They will not let it pass. They will not pass judgement on others. They will be happy with themselves. They will also be willing to help others and will not be insecure with the success of others. If you exercise daily, your confidence will improve. You have to do it to feel it.

Go Out and grow your confidence.

Negotiation Tactic - How To Get Good Offer From Sales People?

Negotiation is very important part of business. Not just business, even general life. Just as you need to market yourself in our day-to-day life, you also need to negotiate in your family, at office, with colleague, with boss, with your customer, with your supplier. When your kid is not studying, you have to show her carrot of something, so she studies. At some point, you also have to negotiate with colleague to do certain things. You have to negotiate with your boss for that extra good remarks so you can get good increment. 

While dealing with supplier, you should have one thing in mind. You should not show that you are the final authority. You should get all the good offer that you can get and tell the salesperson that you are not the final authority and you will need to discuss it with the final authority. In case, he has better offers, you can get that by taking some time. This way you may also pass on the blame for not taking the decision in salesman's favor.

As a rule, you need to shot down the first offer. Normally, when the first offer is given, there is scope for negotiations. Also, you can ask for the cost break up and see where the cost can go down. You can just delete some head and ask to revise the price on offer.

Mindset: How Much Can It Affect You?

How important is mindset? People say that he was born rich and so he is rich. People may give n number of reasons, why that person is super successful or rich. I remember the joke - What will a beggar do if he wins a lottery of 1 Lakh? The answer was, he will buy a car and beg in that car. The moral of the story was that beggar has a particular mindset and he cannot come out of it. 

If you take a rich man R and a poor man P. Exchange their souls so that the rich man R soul is in the body of poor man while the poor man soul P is in the body of rich man. The whole property & bank balances of R are now owned by P's soul while R's soul is now penniless. Give them a year and you will see the original rich man is rich again, while the original poor man is poor again. The moral again is that the rich man has a mindset. It cannot live the way it is. He takes matter in his own hands. He will do anything. He will trade his time or use his brains to gain the riches and after some time he will be rich again. 

The reverse is true. Even if P gets so much of wealth, he is not able to handle it. Instead of investing or increasing business, he is there using the luxuries and wasting his time. Thereby, by the end of a year or whatever days, he will be poor again. 

You can know the differences between men by seeing how they walk. Some might be very slow. Whatever work they want to do, it will be as if it is too much for them. While the other persons body language will be such that it will look that he is always in hurry. If you have decided your goal, your entire mindset changes and you do not look at the obstacles, but only at the opportunities and the target. 

Change your mindset and you will change.

Credit - An Important Part Of Your Business

Doing Business is simple? You get machinery, you get raw material, you manufacture, you sell. Simple. Or is it? 

In between these, you have overheads - mainly fixed. If you are manufacturing - you have to have place. Main overhead would be Rent, Labour/Staff payments, Electricity, and others. You have to manage these overheads. So, it is simple. You buy 100 worth material and sell it worth 150 and manage the overheads in that 50. Whatever is left is yours. It is not that easy though. Finance is an important part of business. In fact, very important. Even the best running businesses can fail if your finance is not good. By not good, I mean, if your cash flow is not good. 

Normally, you get raw material on credit and after manufacturing sell the material on credit. If both the credits match - say you get 45 days and you give 45 days, then most of your things are in balance. If you are big brand or company like Bajaj, then you get the raw material on credit, while you sell on advance payment. This makes you cash rich.

When you start anew, you have two main problems. You do not have history, so you do not get credit. Second, you are in need so you need to give credit. This increases your working capital needs. You can manage only limited turnover in the limited resources that you have. You need to work your way with your suppliers, with payment commitments that you need to honor. If you honor those commitments, a few months down the line your credit will be extended. Getting credit is very important as it is like you are getting a short term loan. Instead of going towards your bank, you can just rework your credit terms with your suppliers to get 15 to 30 days more. If you get that, consider that you have got a loan of that amount. Similarly, if you try to give cash discount for immediate payments, that may help you in generating more business and in turn more turnover in same resources. 

Extend your resources with honoring your payments to suppliers and keeping good quality & giving cash discounts to your customers. You may just do more within your limited resources.

Make Space By Throwing Waste Out

We have limited space in office. To utilize this space effectively, we must be able to take time each week or month to throw away the unwanted things. There are many things which are not of much use but we still keep thinking that this will be of help at some time. But most of the time you will see that it is not being used. Best way is to have your parameters for different items. If this item has not been used in six months or one year then probably you don't need it. If it is some eatable then it might have expired. Throw that out.

Similarly, you have habit of buying new things be it bags, clothes, shoes, utensils, new gadgets which we do not use after some time. Each & Everything in your house, office or your plant takes up energy. The lesser the things, the better. Keep limited space for things until you expand. Once things are limited, make it a point to First drive out older unused things and then get new things. Or if it is not possible, first buy new and then throw out older stuff.

Take The First Step & God Will Help You

We think about different things which we can start but fail to even start. For some, it is procrastination, for some it is inertia. There is lots of inertia that people have. And this inertia stops them from keeping their date with the starting of the project. According to Newton's law, a thing with no motion will try to be motionless & a thing in motion will always try to be in motion, until external forces act.

If you are already doing something, then the momentum will be with you. But if you want to start something, you will need external forces so you come into motion. This force need not necessarily be external, it can be your internal will power, it can be your drive to do something, it may even be circumstances in which you want to run your home. There can be different situations for all.

The thing you need to do is, Take the first step. The moment you take the first step, you will come to a situation where you will gain momentum. God will help you at different steps. You need to have patience. In fact, a lot of it. With time the momentum will increase and you would soon be running good show.

Go out today & take that first step.

Don't Begin Your Day Until You Finish It

Don't get confused with the title. If you are confused read it again and try to find meaning. When you do anything, you first do it in your mind. For example, you are making tea. When you think of making tea, you do everything first in your mind. You will take water, tea powder, sugar, etc and it is finished within seconds. Then you make it physically. This is for all major activities before doing it. Even for your day to day tasks. Only difference is you don't plan the tasks earlier.

When you start your day, what do you do? Do you start your activities immediately or do you take some time to meditate, think, about short term & long term future. If you plan your day, you will have accomplished what you need to do. But if you just go about it, you will be driven by problems. Instead, take out some time, and plan your day. Finish most of the planning and only then start your day physically. Of course, you need to count on the other issues that crop up like there is new or old customer and he wants to meet urgently. Or there is supplier or some production or marketing issue. But if major part of your day is planned ahead, you will reach moon if you want.

Do You Take Vacation?

For most of the Indians, work is workship. And we cannot leave our workplace. Even if we do, we are constantly thinking about the work & workplace. More so, if it is small company or shop where you cannot leave your seat.

You work all day long and deserve a break in between. Weekly off is different ball game. You should take bigger break. You should plan 8-10 days and go to different places. The break will give you enough time to rejuvenate your mind & body. Rejuvenated mind will give you fresh ideas & your relaxed body will be eager to execute them. Taking breaks is no way lesser than the habit told by Stefan Covey, where he describes seven habits. He tells us that it is extremely important to sharpen your axe after some time otherwise the time taken to cut the trees will increase with passing time.

The productivity increases tremendously after the break. You can even have some short term targets after completing which you can go for a break. You can also take along some different groups for different places.

Short Term Effect Of Reading Books In Your Life

You must take time out of your busy schedules to relax your mind from the stresses of business. However successful you might be, you will have some small troubles which take your time. These troubles sometimes take the shape of stress. You need to keep some hobby to keep off these stresses. Reading Books might be just that hobby which turns up into yet another thing of giving you new words, new views about world. 

Reading non-fiction book is another good habit that will do lots of good to you. Reading positive message giving books creates some positive images in your mind which later help in your life. The subconscious mind takes up the small nuances in the books and will imbibe them slowly in your life. To understand the effect, just go back to your college days and see how films and the characters in these films used to bring change in your behavior. For example, if you see Three Idiots or Dil Chahta hai or any other movie whose craze was great, you will notice that people behave like those characters for a few days until some other movie with strong character comes up to take up their imagination. Soon, the older mannerisms are changed to suit the new character. 

It is similar effect when you read book. If you read books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based on the famous detective - Sherlock Holmes, your daily language will change a bit and you will probably speak and think differently. You will also begin to look for those subtle little things and extend your logic to come to conclusions, however erratic they might be. You should make a list of marketing books, strategy books, biography books, great fiction stories which will leave short term positive effect in your life until you read another book to create another effect.

How To Hammer Your Goals Into Your Daily Life

There are two types of people - people who do not bother what's going around and go about their life as usual. The other type - will not be satisfied with what they are getting and are target oriented and these are the people who go ahead in life. They take the risk and are rewarded accordingly. They will not worry about their comfort zone and will go out of their way to achieve what responsibility they have undertaken. There are some kind of people, who will give hundred reasons why some thing cannot be done. The other type of person will say yes and will go about finding a way to do it.

There are people who set goals. But those goals are there only for a few days. They do not have burning desire and so the goals remain in background. There is method to achieve goals. You should go about setting goal and then keeping it in places where you see them daily. Make some related pictures and then keep them in front of you - at your home, at your office, in your car, etc. When you see it daily, it begins to infiltrate in your sub-conscious mind. In fact, you should write it daily a few times. Writing does two things. One - you get the habit of writing. Two - When you write, it is hammered on to your mind because it is done daily. Three - 85 % of your brain cells are used when you write. When you write, the third effect is the greater contributor to the hammering of goal in your mind. Just do it and see for six months. You will find ways to achieve your goal and will not leave it midway just like you leave your resolutions each year.

Don't Take Decision Out Of Emotions

There are moments in life in which we are very excited, happy. Moments ago you have got news or results for which you have been working. Out of happiness, you take some decision. After a week, probably you regret it. Have you faced the situation? Or take another situation. Something happens and situation is out of control and in the heat of the moment, you do something which you regret whole life.

These are real situations and you will observe that there are times when you should not have taken decision or you should not have given your word. For people who change their minds & action anytime, it might be easy as they might not give much weight to their words. But for people who follow their words, it is good very tough.

It is advised that you should not take any major long lasting decision when you are very happy or very sad or very angry or super excited.

Diary - A Notebook Journal

We live in a digital world. Almost everyone is making new website and ask us to create account on their website. A simple way to do this is to keep one username and password on all general websites and different at places where your security might be compromised. Previously it was easy, as simple password was enough. Even 4 letters would be enough. Due to security, many general websites also push for complex password like having capital & small letters, numbers, symbols, etc. This becomes confusing to our minds. We put in older password & reset new one. After a while, we try to login again and find ourselves putting wrong password again.

This is the reason why maintaining a book is good option. As soon as you create new account or email I'd, it will be entered in book. Everything is documented.

How To Save For A Rainy Day?

Napolean Hill's Book - Laws Of Success - fields one interesting habit - Habit of Saving. Habit of Saving is such habit, which can make a difference between success & failure. There is one example in the book - that of two worker, working in same company. One of them has a habit of saving. So out of the 100 that he gets, he will save around 20 and work with the 80 that remains. The other one is the person whose 100 become zero at the end of month. Our habits are so designed that we will spend most of the money available with us until we are bound to stop. The little savings that the first one does becomes significant enough. The second one develops some instrument which is very good, but he does not have any money to make instruments and sell. 

The first one gives his savings and they make some 100 instruments and go for selling. After sometime all are sold. They make a 50:50 partnership and start a company of making those instruments. Soon, it is big enough and they make some million dollars by selling the stake of the company. This windfall might not have come for the first worker, had he not had the habit of saving. 

But how do we save? The best way to save is to take out some amount of money from your earnings and deposit it or invest it somewhere so that it is not liquid money and you are not able to spend it. Our spending habits makes us spend all the money that we have and if we put a habit of separating 'x' amount of money each month before spending, soon it will be 12x in that year. If you invest it in some good scheme, it will increase by the day/month. You can use this money when there is a Rainy Day and you need it. But until that time, let it be safe from you.

Implementation Speed - Direct & Indirect Benefits

What do you do when you get one good idea? Sit on it & forget it or Implement it? If you look at the successful people near you or people who you see in news, you will see that they do not waste time in implementing what they like. They will just catch hold of the thing they like and implement it in their life or business. That is the reason someone said that if you are implementing what you preach others, you would be a more successful person. 

I have been reading many books. I have read some books on Business Leaders/Moguls in India - right from Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj, Aditya Birla & others who belonged to that group of people who have changed the landscape of India. I have also visited Jamnagar and the Reliance colony that is in Jamnagar. While there and also in papers, I read how Reliance is able to build such big projects without any delay. First they will list out what things are needed to complete the project. Once the steps are identified, they will give all the resources needed right at the start of the project. Mukesh Ambani had implemented many of the projects run by Sir Dhirubhai, before time. 

There are direct & indirect benefits that you get if you are completing the project before time. The direct benefit is of course that the project is complete and there are no cost overruns. The delay in projects are often accompanied by the cost overruns, which increase the budget or the cost of the project. The indirect benefit is that the plant can become operational on time and can immediately start production and hence the revenues. The delay in projects not only increases the cost overruns, but also delays the revenues which is not counted as the project is not complete. Say, if the project cost is 100, the delays make the cost to 120 or more and if there is revenue generation of, say 10 units per month, then this should be added to the cost of the project. This way, the actual overrun cost of the project will come. 

And if you consider all this, you will learn that the implementation speed of a person is critical importance.

Brand Name - How Much Weight Should We Give To It?

After you have registered your business, you begin to think of production & marketing. In marketing, you think about the different names that you give to your products, the new logo, the visiting card, et all. How much money or time should you spent on it. It is rather tricky question. What matters really are the 4 P's. Product, Placement, Price & Positioning.

If you go out there or read the Brand Equity or other marketing publication, you will see that there is no perfect name or logo. You will find both simple & complex names. Some have meanings, others are just symbols or names. For example, Dove & Tresemme, both are hair brands. But while Dove truly signifies the softness of shampoo, Tresemme does not do anything. But Dove does a lot of advertising, it is hammering it's name, it has positioned itself as top end of softness and truly distinguished itself with its price. I have even seen some use Dove just on face, just because of the cost. Would it have mattered if Dove name would have been, say LirVa. Not really. It not only has good quality, good advertisement, good Positioning, but also good distribution. You take any of it away from Dove & examine if Dove would have been as successful.

Your name should be unique, no doubt. But name should be last thing on your mind. I know that Good things without name can be as successful as some thing with carefully thought out name. If you don't believe me, just remember the most successful car of India which had no name. It's engine cc became it's name - Maruti 800.

Change Small Things Regularly

Inertia is a very big word. Inertia is the resistance to change your current position. Everyone has inertia. It takes great energy to come out of inertia. Nobody likes change. Everyone likes to be in his own comfort zone. When you are in comfort zone, your progress is limited. That is the reason why you should always challenge your status quo. Challenge yourself and try to come out of comfort zone.

It may be difficult to change all of a sudden. Instead you can engage your brain by confusing it ( sorry for the word). By confusing, I mean you should change your small habits. If you are combing your hair with right hand, use left hand for a week. Write a note with your other hand (use left hand if you are right handed). Wear your watch in right hand. You can change the pocket where you keep your wallet. You can just see how awkward it is at start, but 2-3 days later, your mind/brain adjusts to new inputs and you feel comfortable.

These are small things which you practice in life. You can practice similar things in your business/ professional life too.

How To Increase Bottom Line In Business

The basic measures of business are top line & bottom line. Top line is the total revenues that you generated in a business in particular year. Growing top line indicates that your business is growing and not stagnant. It is basically a multiplication of number of units you sold with the unit price. When top line grows, there is increase in at least one of them.

Bottom Line is the basic profit that you made. This comes from top line minus the expenses & purchases. Whatever your top line is, you should have healthy bottom line. Increasing Bottom Line is the basic purpose of business. If you have constant top line i.e. sustainable sales, you can increase your bottom line by decreasing the expenses. If you are not able to increase sales, you should control expenses. You can control them by use of automation, decreasing repeatable tasks, reducing raw material costs, extending credit period thereby decreasing finance cost, think of capital investments so your running costs come down.

Other way to increase bottom line is to increase top line keeping the expenses at current levels.
T.L. - E = B.L.

Above equation will ease your outlook. To increase B.L., increase T.L. or decrease E.

Negotiation Skills - An Art

Negotiation skills are very important in business. The impact that a seemingly small decision can have on your business cannot be undermined. A small difference in paise/cents can give you a telling figure if you just multiply with high quantity & calculate over year. You need to be very clear on how much you can give.

When negotiating you need to understand that there are certain points which you can cede and some which you cannot let go. You should also be clear about the complete picture that the proposal brings. For example, if you are sticking to small/ trivial issue and overlooking big one, you can be in trouble. You cannot overlook the big complete picture and should not consider only short term gains.

Many a times you fall weak in discussion if you show desperation. If you are in need, then you cannot negotiate much. Normal follow up is OK, but if you are following up aggressively, then you show desperation. Even if you have desperation, you should not show it & rather let the other person take action. You should just remind him about yourself so he remembers topic.

Setting Up Business? How To Register?

Having confirmed that you are taking on Entrepreneurship, let us see the first step of Registering the business. You have options of Registering as Proprietorship, Partnership, Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) & Private Limited Company. It all depends on how you are viewing your business in coming years. If you want to keep it small and independent, you should keep it as Proprietorship. If you are having a partner with whom you want to go, go for Partnership firm. But Proprietorship & Partnership firms have one drawback. Just in case you are bankrupt, creditors can claim your property too. You & your business are one entity & not separate. Second, if you are thinking of taking bank loan or venture capital or private equity, you should rather go for Private Limited Or LLP.

If you want to go for supply to big companies or looking for investors then better go for Private Limited company. Since the accounts are audited, investors are willing to invest looking at balance sheet. If you are not willing to make it big, do not go for Private Limited registration. For small businesses LLP, Partnership or Proprietorship is best as accounting costs are also low.

LLP is best combination of Partnership & Private Limited company. Unlike Partnership, the firm & persons are different entities. The liability of partner is Limited to the firms liability. Creditors cannot force you to pay legally. Of course these things come only when you are not genuinely involved in business.

Why Wait For Breakdown?

The topic that I want to focus on is Breakdown.  Though this is primarily important for manufacturing units, it may also be taken up by other firms - be it software, finance, trading, small shops, etc. This is because almost every field employs some or other kind of machine. We are very engrossed in day to day running of the business and hence we are not able to plan a shutdown. If there is no planned shut down, then there will be breakdown. When breakdown happens, there is no option but to correct the machine at the earliest and start the work again. 

What happens in Breakdown? Breakdown is sudden. It will disturb all your planning. You have planned everything pre & post production. Especially if the raw material feed to the machine is perishable in few hours. The manpower will also be idle for the time that the breakdown takes to clear. If the maintenance team is in house, then it is easy. But if you have to call external help then it may take time as they are not in your control. The most important thing is your production loss. That cannot be covered. Man hours are also lost. You may have to bear many losses if everything is put together. And the important thing is that you have to start running the show at the earliest. This gives very less time for repair or maintenance and hence the work is not done as it ought to have been done. 

Can these all things be avoided. Partially, yes. Why I am saying partially is because there are certain breakdowns which might be sudden and out of control. But 80% of the things can be controlled by use of Preventive Maintenance. You have to make a list of all the machines and a daily, weekly & monthly plan for those machines. If you have this plan ready, you will plan for the shutdown and many of the production losses that occur during the breakdown can be prevented. For traders, finance, software people also there are computers and other items which need attention. You can keep a record or outsource it to some third party. They will clean your system from time to time and keep it in order.

Dilemma - Start Early Or Start Late

Have a great business idea in your mind? Waiting for right time to start up? Should you start early or late? Frankly there are no rules and even if there was any rule, there are always exceptions to it.

When you are very young, you do not have any experience of how a business is carried out. You are so raw that people might not believe in you at first. Money is also important. All in all, I must say that if you are just out of college, then you must spend some quality time with some industry so you are familiar with it. You can also accumulate some money so you have some seed money. You also get some time to think more on it and can plan a few things before playing out.

On the other hand if you are more than 40-45, then you are sufficiently experienced and have seen industry from close quarters. If you have been planning for the same, you also have time in which you can accumulate seed money by keeping your lifestyle below what you can afford & by investing in assets which can be liquidated in needy times. At the same time, it is also tricky. Since you have grown senior in your company, you might be getting fat salary and your family has grown big now. If you start up, your salary will stop & your expenses will be pretty high. You must plan so that your savings are there for about 1 year or so.

But if you are in 25-35 group, then time is great for you. Your family is small so you can spend more time with company. You have experience as well as low expenses. Your salary might not be that high when compared with what you might have got after 10 year. I consider this as golden period.

Detach Yourself From Business

Watch the next time when you are watching a cricket match. When some players commit mistake, immediately you say he did it wrong way. Probably he should have played it other way. But the player has been playing the game more than you. He is expert. You are a third person who is not in that situation so you are not bogged down with the responsibility that the player has. You are able to analyze situation better because you are outside it.

The same situation is with your business. We have been running the show for so many days. We begin to think that we have tried all that we could do. You are unable to think the solution of the problem at hand. Imagine a situation where you have a friend and has come to you with problem. You will hear & may be you will give him a couple of possible solutions.

When you are facing a problem, the more you think the more you are stressed. Instead take a break. Go to a pleasant cool place. Detach Yourself from you. Now imagine that some third person has the same problem that you have. Believe me you will immediately come up with 2-3 solutions to your problem. Try this next time when you are facing some problem.

Value Of Customer Retention

Customer is the most important part of our business. He is the reason you exist in the business. If Customer is not there, you simply cannot exist. It is not very easy to gain customer. You have to keep many things right before the first customer comes in and if he is happy, your things are working. You have to keep the customer happy. A happy customer will tell two others and they will come to you to buy the product. But remember that an unhappy customer will tell 100 others and they will not come to you. They may also tell others and your name will simply come down as a supplier.

You have to understand that it is very hard to retain a customer. But if you are able to retain him, you do not have to look further. He can be your regular customer and you just have to serve him each time, so that he is satisfied always. You can find other customers while retaining this one. This will help you increase your business. For example, if you are doing a thousand dollar per month business with one customer and he is happy. You should understand that your 12000 dollar per year is genuine business opportunity and if you retain it, this business will continue. If you add another 20000 dollar per year customer after six months, your 32000 dollar per year is fixed. So, if you find new customer while retaining the older ones your business will grow year-on-year. But if you are running behind new customers and make the older ones suffer then you will lag behind on both the counts. The regular customer may look elsewhere and leave you, while if new customer is not satisfied, he may not continue with you.

Do all things possible to retain the new customer.

Business Idea - Local Coupon Specialist

Just 4-5 years ago internet had not penetrated too well in India. That time there were some websites that were operating coupons. But these websites/coupon books offered coupons for very costly things. Like Yellow Pages - had a coupon book where it would list some of big hotels, restaurants, etc. I have also seen some other coupon books, which will list Hotels in Hill Stations and offer some 40-50% discount on the prices. Mainly the listed things would often be services like spa, massages, beauty salon, organized hair cut shops, etc.  

I think that this sector has not been tapped to its potential. I will explain. If you are supposed to start some small business then you can tap this business idea. There are different models. In one model, you charge merchants for advertising, while distributing the coupons free of charge to the public. In another model, you do not charge merchants, but charge public for the coupon book. You can opt for the second one because most of the time the merchants may not be willing to spend the money. You can charge them for premium spots like Front page, second page, back page, etc.

You go to the local merchants first and then take their permission for overall coupon - like 10 % for purchase of over 1000 bucks & second coupon would be 5 % for purchase of over 500 bucks. They can give some item specific coupons. Once your book is ready, you can think of limiting the number of coupons per merchant. If you have located some 20-30 local merchants with different businesses, you will have enough coupons. Now, if you look at it each coupon can provide Rs. 50 value to the user. If you have such 50 coupons, the total value provided would be Rs. 2500/-. This is considering small ticket coupons. You can have some big coupons too like from furniture merchant. Furniture costs go anywhere between 2000 to 50000 bucks, so if he gives 10% discount, the potential coupon value could be 200 to 1000 bucks if it is capped at 1000. 

The potential value of the coupon book can be anywhere between Rs. 5000 to Rs. 10000/- for the user. How much should the book cost to print? Not more than Rs. 20/-. If you use glossy paper and good packaging, then Rs. 40/-. You might have to print 500 copies. Cost would be Rs. 20000/-. But you can sell it for Rs. 100/-. How many could you sell? To cover your costs you need to sell 200 books. 

User - If the user sees a definite value of Rs. 200/- in it, will he not buy book for Rs. 100/-. He will easily save Rs. 100/- by buying his normal things. If this is the case, the books will easily sell out. 

Merchants - They will continue to advertise in your book because if they do not advertise his competitive merchant will. The book would be popular and who ever has coupon in the book will get more customers. 

You - The coupon book will bring value to User as well as Merchants. This should be able to help you recover the costs and also sell out all the books and make profit. You can limit the coupons use for a month and come out with monthly editions. This project would be for masses.

Scaling Up

Once you are comfortable at one location, you can go at other locations and set up merchants there. You can learn different things from different places and apply at other places. You can also have tie ups with different merchants in tourist places. These coupons can be placed at any of your location 'coupon books'. 

Engage The Family

This is one thing that I watched when I was working with big group. The owners had big vision and they were building world class company. The factory location was not in city. They had build whole self sufficient town where their employees could reside. The factory was very near from their residence and hence employees loved it. Still there would be some attrition because of the location or due to higher salaries offered by competitors or mere family pressure. To tackle this, they made a good arrangement. 

First of all, they brought one good school in the town, so that employees children studied there. Then they also made arrangements for their wives to work in their factory. The roles were small, and there was flexibility in working. For example, roles like documentation, secretary, planning, HR, etc. These roles would be light one and would be done easily for wives who were graduates but did not work till then. The flexibility of time offered convenience to the wives so that they could make tiffin or could pick up their kid, etc. The work also gave extra money to the wives. Consider the scenario. There is this whole family shifting to this factory location. The chief earner has a salary of say - 50000. The wife would be given a salary of 10-15000. The total salary for family went in the range of 60-65000, depending on the role that the wife got. Now, if he has to look for better option, he will not look w.r.t. 50000, but he will have new benchmark of 60-65000 and then will have his options cut out. 

Thus, the owners, with their beautiful vision decreased the attrition rate dramatically, improved lives of the families and increased the confidence of the ladies too.Sometimes, you have to think beyond to make change.

Understanding The Power Of N & T

In one of the last articles, I had talked about the power of compounding. We saw how the number of turnarounds per period is important than the interest/margin rate that we are getting. Some might still not be able to visualize the power of compounding and would undermine it. Some people still give more importance to the discount or margin or profit that they can get and hold their material for larger profits. It might still be good in markets where the demand is limited. For example, there might not be demand for some article, even if the rates are slashed from, say, 500 to 200. In such markets, people should stick to the margins. 

But there are markets, where demand can increase if the cost of the product comes down. In those markets, the idea should be to lower the margins so more and more products get sold. For individuals, the example of Savings Bank Account & Other investments would be easy to understand. For example, you have Rs. 10000/- in your account. The Savings Account gives you interest in 6 months period. If they give monthly interest, then the same amount will increase after year end. If you invest in mutual fund, then the compounding is  good since your unit price increases daily.

The adjoining formula for Accumulated Amount has 4 elements. Principal is constant. You can vary the r & n and see how the A varies. If you look at the formula, A is very sensitive towards n. The Power of N is very high when compared to the power of r. If you increase the margins or interest by 1 %, it will not make much change to the outcome. But change in N will immediately make you notice the change. Another element in the formula is t. T is the number of years or periods considered. If your compounding is done per year, your n is 1. But for quarterly compounding, it becomes 4. The power of T signifies the value of time. If you start early in your savings or in your business, then the power of T will take you that much farther. 

Understand the formula and apply it in your life. It will help you in long run. We often forget small things in life. And small things can sometimes make big difference.

Starting A New Business? How To Start Up?

In our early days in business, we had gone to meet one of the successful business man. He was actually friends elder brother. He shared different aspects of the business. One of the aspects was that when you start your business, either start very small or very big. His main reference was w.r.t. money that you put in business. We have seen several businesses trip over despite showing good signs in business. The major reason in those cases can be Cash Flow problem. Cash Flow can trip down any good running business. If you are going great and having good sales figures but are also tight in finance and credit, then God save you. Often the aspect of Cash Flow is forgotten and people expand very fast. Once they sense that there is good demand for their product, they start expanding. When they expand, it is like big overheads and if the cash inflow from new expansion is not coming, then the cash flow problem occurs. Your outflow is more than the inflow. 

This is what he meant, when he said that. If you do not have huge financial back up, then you must start slow and stabilize the business first. Once the cash inflow is there, you would be more confident and then go to the next step. It happens that when we are making business plans, we factor in the business that we would be getting and also the cash flow. But the stabilizing of your product or selling of your product takes time and this delays the cash flow. This may unsettle your business if you had not factored that in or do not have reserve funds. When you go other way round; you have enough deep pockets and have already stabilized your quality & product, then you are ready to go big. You can advertise, keep big launch program and invite the Page 3 people and you have launched yourself in the minds of the people. 

Recognize The Opportunities

There was heavy flood once in a city. The water level was continuously rising. Power had tripped down due to strong wind. People had started to leave the place. There was one old age man. His neighbor asks him, 'I think the flood will increase. I am leaving the place. You too come with me.' Old man says that My God is with me. He will take care of me. After some time, evacuation is ordered. One soldier comes near the house. He asks old man to come. The old man says, My God is with me. He will take care of me. The soldier leaves. After some time the water level Increases and a boat comes near old man's building. He again says that My God will take care of me. Then the water level increased so much that help comes through helicopter. When a rope is thrown at him the old man refuses to come. He says that My God will take care of me. After some time the old man is dead and is in Gods' court.

He asks God that I had so much trust in you that you will save me. But you let me die. Why? God first slaps him and says that it was He who had sent the neighbor, the soldier, the boat and the helicopter. But you did not take my help.

God is always creating opportunities. We just need to train our mind to recognize that. We should take note of the opportunities and take action. If we wait for right time, it may never come.

Perception-A Step To Build Your Brand

Have you heard someone ask for particular brand? Even you must be using only particular brands. Does the quality of different brands really so much different? Many a times the answer will be No. Most of the time the quality is same. But the brand is written all over your mind. No matter what you will buy only those product.

This is due to the perception in your mind about the brand. This perception is not created overnight. It takes long time to create the right image or perception in minds of user. You have to keep the quality consistent every time. The quality is best but along with it is packaging. The packaging changes your view about the product immediately. Visualize the pair of clothes given in simple plastic bag and that in a proper colorful box. The box packing will immediately change the perception of product. You can spend 10 on packing & ask customers 100 and they will happily give it.

You can similarly work towards perception image of your product. This will create brand awareness among consumers.

Focus One Thing At A Time

You have decided a goal and it is quite far away. How do you reach it? For example, a child wants to become great archer. Should the child try to hit the bull's eye directly? If the target is at good distance, would it be able to shoot the arrow so that it reaches the target. No. First it will need to focus on gaining strength in the muscles. The muscles should have enough power so that it is able to throw the arrow to the length where the target is kept. The very first training should focus only on strength building. Once it is able to throw the arrow to the target length, the first step is clear. It can now focus on hitting the target and then the Bull's Eye. 

When the child is trying to play cricket, it is not just about playing the shots or throwing the ball. It always starts with strength training. First, the child should get the strength in its muscles and gain the stamina to last enough in the match. It should be able to run on the field without getting tired. Then it starts with throwing of the ball. It should be able to throw the ball long enough. It should be able to pick the bat and move it easily. Once these things are done, then the training for the shots or the bowling starts. 

The situation is similar when we do our business. The ultimate aim of the business is to earn money. But, it has to make investments - both time & money, so that it has the strength to play along and earn money. You must always focus on one thing at a time. First focus on quality because that is the most important factor. Without it you won't be able to achieve success. Then try to increase the business and then think of the margins. When you have enough business, you can focus on money making & efficiency.

Don't Give Undue Importance To Dogs

Hey, you might be saying that earlier I wrote about Dogs being pretty pets and stress relievers and today I am writing that you should not give undue importance to dogs. But here I am not talking about the actual dogs, but the proverbial dogs. There is a saying that Haathi Chale Bazaar, Kutte Bhouke Hazaar. This was in Hindi. I will translate for you. It says that When an Elephant takes a walk along the market, all the dogs will bark at it. But does the elephant give any heed to the dogs? No. 

Our Entrepreneurial journey is similar. When we take a leap of faith and start on our own, there are many mouths which will say different things. But should we pay any heed to them. There is another proverb, saying Listen to Everyone but Do What your heart says. If you have set up goal and you are following a path, you cannot just throw stones at every dog that barks at you. If you do so, they will only waste your time. Do your job and people will slowly come to you. Your belief is the single most important factor that will take you towards your goal. There is a famous dialogue from film Guru based on Business Legend of India - Dhirubhai Ambani. It says - When people begin to talk behind your back, consider you are successful. "Jab Log Tumhare Khilaf Bolne Lage, Samajh Lo Tarraki Kar Rahe Ho".

Do You Want To Improve Yourself? Here's What You Can Do.

If you want to improve your life, take it in writing that you won't be able to do it at one stroke until there is some flash point. Flash point like somebody has humiliated you and you have decided at that point that come what may, you will show him what you can do. There can be some point like you feel from within that some known person has done so much and you can do it too. You may hear some motivational seminar and are deeply motivated to do something and you carry that motivation until you achieve your goal. These are flash points and these turn your life upside down.

But you might be living a normal life and still want to improve your life. For that you need to do it one step at a time. If you try to run marathon directly, you won't be able to do it without being injured or without exhausting yourself. You need to practice daily and build your stamina. Similarly to improve your life, you need to have some positive readings daily. It might be in some articles or summaries of the books or books itself, so that you learn daily from it and eventually apply it in your life. You can set up some exercise routine. You can get up early - at least in 15 minutes steps. Find something to do when you wake up. Quit some bad habit each week/month. Don't watch TV or at least don't be addicted to it. You should surround yourself with positive people or free yourself from negative energy people. You need to find where your energy is sucked and try to be away from such topic or place or person.

Apply any one of them and let us know how you improved your life.

New Exercise to Move You Fast

Yesterday I wrote about how we need to take care of our health. We should be ready to do that else we will lose ourselves soon enough. If we do not take care of our body now, our body will demand more attention later. And that attention will not let you live in peace. It is always better to start early.

I have started to do some experiments. Some days ago, I bought a ball for my daughter. The ball is of the size of a foot ball, but it is plastic ball which is very light and filled with air. It is not like the volley ball or foot ball or even the basket ball. These balls are heavy and may hurt someone if hit hard. The ball I am talking will not hurt anyone.

The ball is a hit at home / ground. We play many games with it. We can play foot ball, basket ball, tennis (with hand), cricket (small - indoor and outdoor). I even play squash with it. And squash or tennis is quite intensive when we consider our levels of stamina. Squash is best as you can play alone at home and with big ball or with small Table Tennis ball and bat. You can play as hard as you want and as slow as you want without hurting yourself. The balls are so light that there will be no spots on your wall too. Of course, you have to take care that the ball is not wet.

Out you go today and buy that big air ball and start to play with yourself. Show your procrastinating self that when it is play and fun, no one can come in between. You can even go for a walk with the ball and see how the ball will make you take that fast steps.

Remember the Old Saying - Health Is Wealth

I dedicate today's blog towards health. We are too busy with our activities. We become tired at the end of the day. We decide daily that we will start with exercise or walking today. Your inner self wants to start it immediately, but your other procrastinating half always finds some ways to push it to tomorrow. And as you know tomorrow never comes. So, I suggest you do at least some small things to start with.

If you are travelling by car, park your car a little farther, so you have to walk towards your office or home. Go to the market without vehicle, If you leave on higher floor take the stairs. If you stay too high, then take the staircase for 2-3 floors and then take lift. This way you will increase your stamina day by day. Due to our lifestyle - more stresses, more fast food eating, luxury, etc. - our body has lost its stamina. If you want to check it just try walking for 1-2 km or running for about 100-200 m. If you are not already doing it, trust me it will be very difficult. And by doing these small things, you will feel that your stamina increases.

First start walking then intermittent running, until your body is comfortable. Play some games - outdoor of course. And yes, if you have crossed 35-40 years, then you must also regularly check up for Cholesterol, Diabetes, and other things. These checkings are important. These may remind you that indeed you need to step up yourself and start something physical.  

Don't Fight With Pig

Pigs are altogether a different genre. It is one symbol for small savings. Children often refer it as piggy bank. Pork is often eaten in some countries. But when we visualize a Pig, we often refer to a dirty animal eating out near big dust bins or in dirty water with mud over it.

When you visualize this animal, will you dare to go near it? Even the thought is dreadful enough. And to fight with it. What will happen? If at all it happens, you both will get dirty. And it doesn't affect the pig at all. In fact, he will enjoy it. So, it is your bad luck that you got in scramble with pig.

There are situations in our day today business when such situations come. At times, we have to avoid the situation of fight despite provocation. By getting entangled in fight, it is you who would get dirty. I hope you have got message of what types of pigs we are talking about.

How To Create A Simple Website With Own Domain Name At Least Price?

Last time I had written in one of the blogs that you should have your own website. Some people asked me that it is a lot of cost and how come we can just do it at Pocket Money Budget. I can have a free website using different platforms like wik.com, weebly.com and many other sites. You can have mostly a full fledged website. At least, you can have a website with different pages like About Us, Products, Contact, etc with 4-5 pages. But there is one disadvantage that you will have there. You will have to use their web address like - www.weebly.yourname.com. When you print your visiting cards and give all the details, the above web address will embarrass you. It does not look professional. And other way round, you do not want to spend money because you are not depending on that. The website will just give you some credibility and people will know about you. 

If you give it to some external designer then he will charge about Rs. 5000/- & more depending on what you want. There are two different charges for website - One for domain name which has to be renewed each year and second is web hosting program & designing, The designing might be one time, but web hosting is also annually charged. If you go for any other web hosting program, it will also have some annual charges like Rs. 99/month or little more than that. It will be around Rs. 1200/- minimum. When you go for a domain name, for the first year they will give it free if you buy their web hosting program. So, effectively you will get domain name & hosting for around Rs. 1200/- for first year. Some might even give you you@yourname.com email id free. 

If you want to settle it at minimum cost for year after year then I will give you idea. The first part is absolutely necessary. Domain name - Yes. If you want to print yourname.com or yourname.in on your card then you need to purchase the rights for that Domain name. For first year it will be anywhere between Rs. 200 to 500. But if you renew it for second year, it will be around Rs. 600/- odd. You cannot compromise on that. Yes, you can get the other part free. How?

You can go to any of the free website providers listed earlier. Design the website you want using the many templates they have on their website. Editing is okay if not very easy. Once you are ready with the website, you just go to your Domain name and just add your address - www.weebly.yourname.com as forwarded address on your yourname.com. So, if someone clicks or types yourname.com, they will be redirected to www.weebly.yourname.com. Once, someone is on your page, very seldom do they check the address bar.

Go and develop your website today.

Leave Me Alone - Leaving Bad Habits

We all have different types of habits. While good habits will take you far, there are other habits which tend to hold you back. We have to identify those habits. Bad is a very subjective term. For some, smoking, drinking, etc might be bad, while some will consider procrastination, time pass, etc as bad habits. Leaving bad habits is as important as forming new Habits.

I remember one story that I heard in my early years. One man went to a Wise man and told him that I have these bad Habits and I am not able to break them however hard I try. I have done many things but this habit is not leaving me. The Wise man asks him to come next day. Next day when he reaches there, he finds that the Wise Man is holding a tree. The man asks him if he has found solution to which Wise Man tells in affirmative. But, He tells the man that as the tree is not leaving him, He cannot come & tell solution. The man tells Him that it is He who is holding tree and not the tree that is holding Him. If you leave the Tree, dear sir, you will be free.

The Wise Man immediately leaves the tree and comes near the man. He says that it is similar to this. You say that the Bad Habits are not leaving you, when it is in your hands to leave bad Habits.

Team Work

It is very important that you have a great team in place when you start your own business. Of all the things, team is the top most important thing for the success of your start up. Whatever your idea is, the execution is important and it will be the skills of the team that will talk about your success.

All the great startups coming up in India have more than one founders. Right from Infosys to today's flipkart, it is a team which has started and stayed together. The team also has its responsibilities divided very finely between the people. And more than on any idea, the investors often put money on the founders. And even if you are alone at the top, you should have core team on which responsibilities & trust can be put. You cannot run a one man show and still be big.

Talk About Customer Interests

When you go to customer for your marketing/sales activity, he should be at ease with you or rather the atmosphere should be of ease. Rather than pushing your products, understand his concern. Talk about things that interest him and he will be in you and later in your products. I distinctly remember the incident described in book of Napoleon Hill where he tells us about one saleswoman who had come to sell some magazine.

Of particular interest was thing that she was not getting appointment. But somehow she managed to get an entry for 5 minutes and in that five minutes she was able to sell the subscription of magazine which he had no intention to buy. How did this happen? When she met Me. Napoleon Hill, she did not talk about the subscription or her magazine to start with. She just admired him for his work and later noticed other magazine and began to talk about it. This was of interest to him and he became interested in conversation. By the time it ended, conversation veered towards her magazine and then to the subscription.

Whenever you speak to your customer, speak about the benefits he will have. Of course you will talk about the properties of your products, but in the end you have to highlight the benefits.

Risk Vs Reward

Risk & Rewards are related to each other. Higher the Risk higher is the reward. Safer the bet, you stay where you are. This can be seen in almost all the fields. If you continuously look for safety, you might be living in your comfort zone. You will not be able to leave your comfort zone. If you are not leaving your comfort zone, how do you reach the heights? I remember reading about Ramesh Chauhan, the man who created the Brand Bisleri. When he first came with the idea of selling Bottled Water, distractors were laughing at him. They said that Mr. Chauhan is trying to sell Water in a country where it is available aplenty. How is someone going to sell water when it is availabhle everywhere? But he was not the one who would sit in the comfort zone. He was the one who created the brands like Thumbs Up & Gold Spot. In fact, when Coca Cola bought these brands from him, they tried to kill. But in the end they had to revive Thumbs Up. If Mr. Chauhan had been sitting there in his comfort zone without taking the risk to sell Water, India would not have known Bisleri the way it knows it today. Today Bisleri is a generic name for Bottled Water.  

If you too have to achieve success in whatever field you are, you should go out and take risk. It is said that the biggest risk is not taking any risk. The world is changing very fast and you have to be on your toes. Do you remember the Pager machine? There was one instrument just like mobile phone, which you could take with you and you can give messages on it. It did not change fast enough and it has become history. You should take risk - the only thing I would add is that you should have a complete vision about what you want to do and what is the risk. If you can know the depth that you can fall to, 50 % of the time, you will take the decision to take the risk.

Do Special Or Do It In Special Way

Whenever you start something on your own, you take your entrepreneurial journey, remember one thing. You have to Either Do Something Special - like Special/Different product or Service Or You can do some old thing in a Completely New/Special/Different Way. You can either focus on the product/service or the process or the customer satisfaction. Like the famous saying, Winners do not do different things, they do things in a different way. 

You can take the McDonald's Burger for example. If you consider the Recipe of Vada Pav of Maharashtra, it is similar to Burger. A Potato Patty sandwiched between two Breads. It is very handy. But you go to any McDonald's all over the world and get the same taste in a same way. They have so standardized the processes that you can bet with anybody that you will get the same quality of that Burger and it is famous for its similarity. So, you see that the Burger itself may not so great, but the experience, the taste that McDonald's offers is Special. And so we love it.

It is similar with Vada Pav. People have built buildings on a simple product like Vada Pav. How? They simply do something different with the simple Vada Pav. Some will vary the size, some will put different ingredients in the patty, some will give accompanying chutney. I have seen some stalls, where people like the chutney more than the Vada Pav itself. So, you see here that they are giving different experience with the same product.

Adjust Your Sails When You Cannot Change The Direction Of The Wind

There is one story. A story about a King who has some serious health issue which does not get healed despite different cures from various experts. One day there comes one Swami who tells the King that the problem is related to your eyes and that you should see Only Green so that your eyes feel soothed. The Minister orders everybody around that all things in the Palace should be Green. The Palace is painted Green, all the clothes are changed to green, all the food that was given to him was colored green. There was lot of expense that goes into this. After a while, the King begins to feel better. The Swami returns after many days and is stunned to see all the palace turn green. After hearing everything he gives the King a pair of Green Goggles and says that you could have saved all the money if you had changed the way you see it rather than changing the whole World around you.

Something similar happens in our Business World. As I said earlier, we have Circle of Influence & Circle of Concern. We cannot do much about the Circle of Concern. But what if we just change our position in the Circle of Concern so that you shift yourself to the Circle of Influence. When we have external hostile environments, you just need to adjust yourself so that you are always the winner in long term. 

If there is a situation due to which you have problems in business, just see if you can tweak your project so that your output or your customer or the process - something changes and you remain safe.

Even a Long Journey Starts With a Single Step

When we set ourselves a target, it may seem very far at the outset. We take a target which we think is 5 or 10 years down the line. Even so, if the target given is by external party, like when you are in pressure or as a challenge, the target may overwhelm you. But if you look at the consistent working, you will find that the results after a time period will be imaginative. You can look at how the Insurance plans or the SIP's (Systematic Investment Plan) are marketed these days. They do not say that you have to pay Rs. 20000 per annum as fees. Instead they will say that can you not afford to pay Rs. 55 per day for an insurance of this value. 

Or better still they will market the Rs. 500/- SIP as Rs. 17/day expense. But at the end of the year, it will be about Rs. 6500 or so. Instead if you had said, that take a plan of Rs. 6000 or Rs. 60000/- at once, there will be less takers. 

Similarly, when you look at your goal, do not look at it as one figure or single achievement. Break it down. And always keep it in your mind that every long journey begins with a single step. It is only that the steps should continue. But the thought of long journey often puts our mind off the journey and we procrastinate or do not take the step itself. Take that step and keep your eyes on your target. You will be enthused along your journey and will reach it far early than you thought. 

Getting Organized in Office

When you start up, there are not many papers in your office. But once you are settled, there are different papers that keep coming in. There are visiting cards, brochures, payment advice, duplicate delivery challan, request letters, introductory letters, magazines, etc.  If all these documents remain unorganized at your workplace, chances are that you yourself might be unorganized. As a thumb rule, the more organized you are, better the efficiency. This is because, you give subtle messages to your mind that you should be organized. The craze for getting organized might help you to sort out things either by giving some time in day or in week or doing it as it comes in.

For making your task simpler, you need to make up different categories. Like - Yearwise, monthwise, document wise, purchase, sale, transport copies, magazines, papers, etc. Once you have organized the category, it will be much more easier for you. Whenever something comes, you can just put it in that file. Have different files, or compartments or drawers for these things and let the things go into that very file, compartment, etc. This way you will save a lot of time in organizing the documents as well as retrieving them. You can use different colors, different markers, etc. At one place (at our customers place), I also saw one good thing. They have series of documents and for each series there are different box files. The total documents are like 7-8 box files. They are kept vertically besides each other, so horizontally a size of about A3 or A4 sheet is covered depending on number of box files. They could have simply kept numbers like 1, 2, 3,... posted on them. Instead, pictures speak louder. So they have this big picture of a car or a horse or house which is cut into 6-8 pieces and pasted on these box files. When you look at the cup-board, you will see one big picture and numbers posted above them.