Importance Of Team In Reaching Big Goals

One & One makes Eleven. Ek Aur Ek Gyarah. One man can achieve only so much. You can understand the difference between Self Employed & A business. Self employed is a business where the business will not run when the person is not there. For example, Doctors, Lawyers & Consultants. These are self employed businesses. But these businesses can too achieve Big Goals if they develop a team. The person can take the main decision while the other lesser important tasks can be taken care by their team. 

However, business in concept tries to develop systems so that even if the owner is not there, it will run without any hiccups. Napolean Hill, in his books, Law of Success OR Think & Grow Rich, describes developing a team as an important law if you need to be successful. He terms it as 'Master Mind'. When two or more minds meet, it creates a Master Mind and bigger successes can be achieved if there is a group or team or Master Mind. Call it whatever. 

What a team brings to the table is the strengths of the individuals. One man cannot do everything. A visionary needs a executing team so that his visions are executed well. Different persons have different skill sets. They have their own network, their own methods to do things. If one of them stops, there is always other to give support. Though the world may remember only the leaders, but behind each and every leader, it was the team that was successfully chosen by the leader who did all the important tasks behind the screen. Take anyone. You may take the Kings, Akbar or Shivaji or for that matter any business person or political leader. Leader is important and he knows that he cannot do anything alone. He needs a team. 

If anybody wants to achieve big goals, he must develop a team. Remember the break up of Team.

T-Together

E-Everyone

A-Achieves

M-More.

That means sum of 2 & 2 is not 4 but 5. 

Choose The Right Time To Do Tasks

What is your time zone? I am a morning person. If I get up in the morning, I am most active. As the day progresses, the energy dissipates at the different tasks. The mind is fresh in the morning and so the thinking. It is literally running. And when it is afternoon, it slows down a bit. On the contrary, my friend is different. He rarely gets up in the morning and he is most active during day time. It is a difficult task for him if he is asked to show up in the early hours. 

Have you identified your type? It is very necessary to identify your time and align yourself with that time. If you are a morning person and are doing work which goes on late in the day, then it might be difficult for you to cope up. You can plan your tasks and go about them at your own time. The most important thing in the efficiency to do anything is the will of the person doing it. If it is your time, you will be most willing to do it and if it is not your time, then you will drag yourself. Dragging yourself is not good for your work or you. For a task that may need half an hour, you may take two hours if it is not in your timezone. 

Your productivity will quickly improve if you identify your time zone and schedule your tasks accordingly. And in that if you can add some tanginess of the music, then you will be super efficient. Sometimes you need to make a list of the things that you need to do and delete all the time wasting jobs. Once you delete the time wasters, you will automatically increase your productivity. 

Use Breaks To Increase Productivity

All the people on this planet have been given the same amount of time. Time is a limited Resource. Once gone, it never returns. It is best treasured when used properly. When anyone wants to achieve more in the same time, the productivity must be at its best. It is not for nothing that people with proven productivity credentials are given more powers so that they can bring in results. Research proves that the optimum lecture time is 45-50 minutes. After that time, the mind roams elsewhere and its attention in the lecture slips. Lectures are designed hourly in the universities, keeping in view that the breaks will give people some energy and they will be fresh for another lecture. 

It is true that with time the efficiency decreases unless a break is taken to resharpen the mind or get some energy and refresh. In view of the same, breaks are designed in the company timetable for workers who have a monotonous job. Other than lunch breaks, there are tea breaks pre & post lunch hours. These breaks rejuvenates the workers and they are ready to get back to their work. Unless the work pressures are very high, the focus tends to lose and hence a break is needed. People feel tired while working continuously. Unless there is passion, work is tiring. Owners can work continuously because they are passionate about the business, about the work. But when workers do the same job, at the back of their mind, they have that it is their 8 hour job. They are doing it for money. Unless it is brought to their attention and unless they are trained, they are not as passionate nor interested to do it continuously. In such a scenario, a break works perfectly.

A break gives them some time to speak with their colleagues, take some tea, go to toilet, drink water, etc. Once they have taken the break, they will be faster in their work when they resume. Take breaks, make life easy and increase your productivity.

Discipline - The Biggest Missing Link To Success

What exactly is discipline? And what is wrong with it? Why is it so hard to follow discipline? Discipline is nothing but doing what you need to do regardless of whether you want it or not. All know that getting up in the morning is good. How many do it? The reason is lack of self discipline. We do not want to do it even if it is good. How many know that walking is good? All. How many actually do it? Few. Lack of self discipline. I will give you an example. Last year, my daughter's school was at 8 am. And it was with great difficulty that she used to reach at 8 am to school. This year the timing of the school changed. The bus arrives at 6.30 am. Does she miss it? No, everything is aligned so that she can catch the bus at 6.30. Her tiffin is ready, she is ready and guess what. She is actually at least 5 minutes early waiting for the bus. 

Now, what changed. The changed thing was that attending school is the priority. You cannot miss the bus. So, catching the bus is a priority and with it came the discipline. The discipline to get up early in the morning and catch the bus. If it is difficult to go for a walk, you can join some class. The class will initiate a habit in you to get up and go for it. You get a group there and you want to be among them to enjoy the benefits of the class. 

If you watch closely, it is at the thought level that the self discipline takes place. You have to master your thoughts. In reality, if you are not able to control the thoughts, how can you control what you do. After all, whatever we do, we first do it in our thoughts. You make a tea. Immediately, your thoughts will flow of how to make tea. And then you will make tea. If you are not able to imagine how to make tea, how the hell would you even attempt it. And it is very important in discipline that you keep small targets and then make them big. If you achieve the small targets, your confidence improves and you will be able to improvise on your target.

Make Video Presentation Of Your Business

Videos have become very common now. Especially after all this internet penetration with Broadband services, wifi services and the 3G/4G connectivity. There are many things going around in whatsapp - that may be audios, videos, photos, pdf's or even simple words. Whatsapp has quickly taken down the mantle of doing business easier. More than the email, people are comfortable on whatsapp. Take a quick picture and post it. Take a quick video and post it. And since it is on phone and app, it is the most accessed one and the most preferred one. In this day and age, it will be a good idea if you make a video presentation of your business. 

First, don't get nervous thinking that the video making is a very costly activity. You can simply do video with your presentation also. You just have to record some voiceover or if you are not comfortable, just have some good corporate/instrumental music in the background and the presentation in the forefront. In presentation, you have to scroll through the file. In video, you need not do that. You can also add on some clips of your products so that people can also view the product. You can show the features of the products or its fitment and its advantages. It is said that photos speak louder than the words. But in today's world, videos speaks volumes more than the photos. You can actually feel the product and your clients will appreciate it.

How to use the video? You can post it to your clients on whatsapp. You can upload it on youtube and post the link to your clients, so they have a look at the presentation of your products / company. You can also send the email to your clients about the video. You can upload it on your website. You can upload it on your indiamart site. You just have to make one video. After you make and post it, just try different things to better the video. Once you make a new video, you can post it. You should always make it a point to have your email id, your name, mobile numbers and your web address, on your video.

Finish It Today At Any Cost

Has it happened to you that there has been one task and you fear it the most? It might be due to boredom, difficult vendor, tough customer, enormous task, very frugal to be given attention, etc. This has happened to me many a times. I decide to do the task and then the Giant 'Procrastination' creeps in. Then again I decide and some other small task come up. My mind reasons, Oh! I need to do that first, and again the main task remains. Has it happened to you? I guess this happens to all unless you are a big task master. When this happens, the tasks remain to be done and sometimes pile up. What do you do in this situation? Sometimes, your mind is so occupied with the thought of this task that you will be half as enthusiastic about doing any task.

One fine day, decide that - Today I am going to finish this pending task at any cost. Once you give this message to your mind, then you will surely do it. When this is decided, it is immaterial if the costs are high, if you have to do hard work, you have to do things which you have avoided. When these things are considered, the task will be done and at the end of the day your mind will be free. Trust me, your mind will feel so free that it will literally feel like party mood. That task is over after all. 

There are some customers who will be delaying the closing of the deal. There will be some suppliers who won't back. You are waiting for that supplier who does good task but is full with his own work. In such situations, it is necessary to push all the limits and close it once and for all. If one vendor/customer/contractor is not ready, go for other people. Should you stop because one vendor is not working? That is the question that needs to be answered. 

Whenever faced with such pending tasks, decide - I will finish this off Today/Within week or so.

Do Not Take Major Decisions In Haste

In one of my earlier articles, I have said that you should not take any decision when you are very happy or very angry. In very happy or angry stage, it is not you who are taking the decision, rather it is the situation that has forced you to make the decision. And it often happens that after the dust settles down, you will be upset with yourself taking the same decision. As a corollary / extension of the same, you should not take major decision in haste. When you take a decision in haste, you often tend to overlook all the facts or the things.

I heard this story early in my childhood. One couple had a beautiful pet Mongoose. It was with the family since many years. Recently, there was an addition to the family - a small child was born to the couple. The Mongoose also used to play with the child. It happened once, that the couple had to go to other village and it was not advisable to take the child with them. They explained the Mongoose to take care of the child for some time until they come back. After a while, they came back and after opening the door, saw the Mongoose in the front room with its mouth soaked in blood. The lady implied that the Mongoose had killed the baby. The lady immediately took the big knife and killed the Mongoose. She then went in the other room to see the baby. She was shocked. She saw that the baby was sleeping in the cradle and below the cradle was a black cobra which lay dead. 

The lady was so shocked and cursed herself for killing the Mongoose who saved the child by fighting the black cobra. In the heat of the moment, due to misunderstanding, she had killed her beloved pet. The same pet whom she had brought many years ago. The same pet whom she loved as though it were her kid. But it was of no use to curse herself. Cursing would not make alive the dead pet. 

Similar things happen when we do not think and take decisions in haste. It is in best interest of you that you keep a cool mind and take decision only when you are sure that what happened was wrong and not misunderstanding.

Walking Is A Great Exercise But It Has Other Benefits

Walking is a great exercise. It is great if you walk for about 45 minutes in a day. It is in your best interest that you start your day by walking. Even in crowded cities, pollution is at low level in the morning because most of the city is sleeping in the morning. And if you have any place close to nature, then it will be like you are walking in a heaven. There will be natural sounds of birds and the surroundings are beautiful. You can feel the beauty of the nature early in the morning. Even if you don't jog, walking will be good enough. And if you can have longer walks, it will be better. 

But this is not the only benefit of the walk. If you are walking free of your headphones while walking, it will be free time during which ideas can struck you. Suddenly something will appear in your mind and you will find a solution. You may remember about a very famous personality who used to take long walks and take important decisions during those walks. He is none other than the famous Steve Jobs - Apple Co-founder. Be it brainstorming, or negotiations or sharing the passion or his personal life problems, he used to solve it while taking a walk with the concerned person. Our mind is quite free during walk and it will set the flow of creative thoughts. Since we are not sitting at our desk, no one will be disturbing us during the walk. The connection with the nature during the walk will also be a plus to get some creative thoughts. 

You can take a walk during anytime of the day, but it is best if you take it early in the morning. This will set the tone of the day. Invariably, you will try imagining either any problem that you are facing and what could be done to solve that. Else, you will think about what would be done in the day. If you could get any friend or any partner for the walk it will help you even more. The mind frequency increases and you can talk about other things while walking with the partner. So, get set tomorrow to unplug yourself from the bed, the mobile and set your mind and body free while you take the walk.

Have You Done Your Art Work Today?

Agreed that we all are very busy with our activities and do not get enough time for fun activities. These fun activities are nonetheless very important. Immerse yourself in one of them and find the zest of life. Have you seen the Aamir Khan Film - Taare Zameen Par? I have seen it many times and each time I like it. No, it is not that I have not understood the film. Joking. I just like the film. And especially the climax scene in which all the characters right from Principal to teachers to students are invited for Art examination. At first it was a surprise. Wow! Drawing and painting. Then the fun time beguns. Many of them had not touched the drawing paper for ages. And when they do touch, it is all comedy. Each time I see the film, I cannot find myself stop laughing. And though it was a competition, everybody took it in a fun way. There were lot of creative things that came up. All the strictness of the staff went in the air and they were seen joking with children.

This is the thing that Art brings out of you. Creativity. You can do so many things with simple paper and colors. You can do different kinds of imagination. And for you guyz who want to grow your business, this can be one of the most helpful thing to you. If you cannot visualize your goals normally, you can always use this Art time to draw what you visualize. This will make your goals clearer. You will be able to see what would it be like if you are able to achieve your goals. It will also bring the creativity in you. You can draw on the same topic in different ways. A drawing describing children playing in the rain can be drawn in so many different ways. Each time you draw this, your creativity awakens and you go stress free for that much time. You become engrossed in the drawing. 

Don't look at the imperfect things that the drawing has. Look at what it looks like. Enjoy your day.

Pulse - Only One Product

In the recent past, Pulse has become the best performing candy. Made by DS Group which also has brand like Rajnigandha & Catch spices, it has become the first in its category to cross Rs. 300 Crores within a short span of two years. Now, this is incredible. You cannot get better than this. It has become so successful, that it has become a case study. DS Group has a very good distribution network. So, distribution was not its problem. There problem was the product. And they zeroed on it in a fabulous manner. After survey, they found it that the most successful candys in hard boiled segment were the kachcha aam and the mango bite. Both were mangoes and it gave them fair insight that they should have a mango candy. The next part was harder. Their logic suggested that they should go with mango, but it should be different than the other two. During brainstorming, it was discussed that the raw mango is best eaten with some tangy spices. They had to go with this. After they had decided that, it was the format of the candy. They decided that it was best to keep the tangy spices in the middle of the candy, which would give the lasting taste, rather than the regular sweet taste. And this was the best decision as has been proved by the success of the Pulse. 

What this case study teaches us is that even if you have one product, but if it is a different product and a very innovative product, something which will give the customer an immense satisfaction, then this one product itself will take you to great heights. However, if there are n number of products, but all are copy cats & without any differentiation, then it is not necessary that it will be successful. The first important point is that you should have a great product. And the second most important point is that you should have a great distribution network. Something very good without any distribution network, will not win the game against something common with a very good distribution network. You need to work on both - the  product and the distribution network.

Contract-based jobs Vs. Time-based Job

It is normal to employ people to do work on a monthly basis. Employees work daily for fixed time and at the end of the month they get their salary. When the employees are given responsibility, then they work better. But many a times they have to be haggled with to go about their work, speed up their work. Unless, there is a motivation in them - motivation like he wants to keep the job badly or motivation to do better, motivation for heavy incentive, they will have to be pushed around. We have an experience of the same. Sometimes when there are urgent works and workforce is less, we need to bring some labors from outside who do it on 8 hour basis. They do not have any training, but even for simple jobs they will have to be supervised constantly. But once we got different types of boys. They worked on contract basis. They need to be told work, they will agree and they will work accordingly. It was a surprise to see them work. What would have easily taken some two days for two men to complete the task, these boys did it in hardly 4 hours. And they were gone. 

This is the difference that comes up between contract based jobs and time based jobs. We had heard a lot about Ludhiana goods being cheap. We first thought that they must be doing some short cuts. But their quality was also good. We checked out to Ludhiana and roamed around to find something. To our astonishment, we found there were many companies who mainly did the packing and distributorship work. They did not have any manufacturing facility. Upon enquiring, we were told that they were outsourcing the job. They gave machine to some family and this family will be given contract. The price is fixed for per component basis. The onus is on the family to produce the maximum number of components. Instead of just about going to work, these people will focus on their work and take turns so that all the family members are contributing. The total income of the family must also be good as they are working for themselves. They will be paid on how many components were produced and not on how much time they were on the machine. 

This type of contract based jobs are win win for everybody. If the component prices are low, then there will be more demand. I would advocate such a thing rather than the time based job. 

How To Brainstorm?

Taking time to upgrade yourself is the most important thing if you need to move ahead. You have to accept the fact that if you want to do bigger things, you need to give some time to plan. In between, you may get training on different things/aspects of business. You may also take out some time with yourself or with your colleagues so that you can think ahead. There are different things that you would want to look up to. We do think about the present problems, which is no doubt necessary. But it is firefighting. Much of the firefighting can be avoided if you are proactive. 

I remember my days with earlier Steel company, where it had planned to upgrade its capacity. They had called people from different teams. There were people from raw material side, maintenance side, process side, finish side, marketing side, etc. All these people were called and then divided into different groups which were a cross section of different sides. Now, the task of identification of plan were divided into two stages - One was the incremental thing. How one can take out more output from the existing capacity? These are often efficiency things or de-bottlenecking of some sections. Since people from cross-sections are in the team they do understand the problems faced by other sections. Nothing should be stopped from noting. After identifying the incremental thing, it was turn to think about the capacity addition. All the things were listed and then people were called upon to submit and read about their teams solutions. When all these things are collected together, the management can go through them and select the worthy ideas. 

For smaller firms, often there are no teams. In these conditions, it would be appropriate for us to take out some time off and then go to a different place than your office. It is better to have one big piece of paper - of the size A0 or A1. You can list different things on these. You can do mapping of production things, product things, HR things, marketing things and finance things. After you identify things, it will be time for action. Mostly, if you have identified the critical things, it is easy to put them into action.

Use Of Technology For Traditional Businesses

In last two decades, the scenario in India has changed completely - businesswise. Technology has taken the centrestage and many a businesses have been based just out of technology. IT became prominent by providing services and products. Then there were bazzee.com earlier, which was bought by Ebay. There is Naukri.com which assembled all the vacancies available on the platform and also the resumes. Many market places mushroomed which basically filled the gap between the receiver and the giver. There were real estate sites, there were job sites, there were car sites, there were marriage sites, there are olx & quickr which list things for sale for Consumer to consumer. There are platforms for old vehicles, books, etc. This technology has created whole new businesses. Then came the biggest of them all - e-commerce. 

In all this technology play, traditional businesses (SMEs) are mostly run as usual. They have taken what comes to their strides. They make websites, list on some trade sites, etc. But more than that they seldom do more. The trade sites that are famous in India are tradeindia and indiamart. Globally, though the Alibaba is famous. If you list on these sites, you will be doing better than just keeping a website. This is because it is very expensive to do all the SEO work for your website. But, these sites, especially IndiaMart have SEO done on their site. Of course, they do have different packages for their customers and the most premium customer gets listed first. But still there are chances that your name may appear on the front page of Google Search if your products are unique. But you need to treat these sites as you are treating an Sales employee. You need to keep a tab on your salesperson. Similarly, there are many facilities that are available. Recently they have also introduced the Payment facility on the IndiaMart website. In case, people want to purchase on Indiamart, they can do so. You need to spend time on this webpage. You need to update your products, your product photos, need to give replies to your customer. They have also in built reminder for maintaining leads coming through their site. 

You need to 'exploit' - yes exploit is the right word. You have to exploit by taking advantage of the features that are on offer. You need to spend time. It would be good if you can give a couple of hour in a week or day depending on your type of business.

How Can Email Marketing Bring In Leads From Far Places?

As New Year Starts, people start to make goals for the next year. The goals are bigger now than the last year and to achieve targets some things must be done. How do you identify the targets? It really depends on the type of business that you are in. If you are in Manufacturing B2B type, then you must look for customers which are business types. If your product or service can be pan-India, then you need to market your business accordingly. If your product or services are local, then you need to market your business locally. For local business advertisements, you have Justdial, Yellow pages, Maharashtra Directory, Sulekha, Olx, Quickr, etc. You can also look in for local phone / email id data, so that you can do cold calling. 

However, if your business is for specific kind of businesses and you can reach pan-India, then you have to advertise differently. Firstly, you can register yourself on TradeIndia & IndiaMart. There are other websites too, but these two are more famous. Have one website. This will take care of the basic needs. People can find you if they want. But if you want to reach people pro-actively, then you must do email marketing. There are lots and lots of email datas available. These datas are also sorted target industry or city wise. So, if you are interested to email to jewellery owners, textile owners or stock brokers, etc., you can use the related data and directly go bang on for the target audience. Email marketing actually saves a lot of time. Its Return on Investments are some of the best in the advertising. You can not only have industry wise data, but also area wise. This will be of help to you to target in specific manner. Due to better target marketing, the ratio of conversions will be higher. 

You can always repeat the marketing 3-4 times in a year to your target customers. Even if you hit a few right buttons, all the investment in email marketing will be covered in no time. And there is no such investment. You can freely email to many customers daily and you only need internet for that. Of course, data and content are also needed. That you need to develop yourself or you can buy it from somewhere. 

View Point

Is it possible that same thing has different meanings for different people at different times. I know one example which can explain this in a very simple manner. New shoe company wanted to expand in different village. They sent 1 salesperson do this village. His work was too survey the demand for the shoes. He came back after sometime and give his report. In his report he mentioned that there is no scope in this village for shoes. Actually No one was wearing shoes or slippers in this village.

After some months the company sent different salesperson to the same village. This sales person was the topper in his company. He brought in more sales than anybody else. Company thought it fit to send him to this village for survey. He returns after few days and submit the report that this area has full scope for shoes. This is because no one in the village wear shoes. It is then forgone conclusion that everybody in the village can by the shoes if offered by the company. The company immediately sent him with the mission of establishing a store in that village. Short time after he created a record in sales in that village.

You can now appreciate how one thing can be seen in completely different way by different persons. The positive mindset person will see everything positive in any situation. They will fine opportunity in adversity and this is how heroes are created. When we get up in the morning it is in our hands whether the day will be good or bad. They will create their own day - a very good day and they will be successful no matter what the situation.

What Can You Do To Increase Your Business?

You have been running your business and it has not picked up decent pace. It is time you now revisit the things. Have you been running around your business, daily? Have you ever sat aside in peace doing nothing but thinking about business? It is very normal for a small business to find itself very busy doing activities. Often it happens that it is difficult to keep more staff due to limited business. But if you look at it, it is better to appoint person and give responsibility. If you are able to give someone the responsibility of your day-to-day things, then you can become free to think business. This one person must be long term. It will take a few days to months for him to adjust to you or your business. After that, it may not be necessary to tell each and everything. It will be rhythmic after that. 

Once you become free, think about different points of your business. Can you identify a different customer base? How can you identify the target customers? Where do they go? How can you reach them or they reach you? You can visit some expo or take a part in expo. You might also buy some database using which you can call or email your prospects. One of the unexplored thing might be Justdial or Tradeindia/Indiamart. If you are supplying to B2B industries, then Tradeindia/Indiamart may help you. If your products are more customer facing, then Justdial will help you. You may need to find a dealer who can distribute your product. All these things can be put on a big piece of paper and then you may approach the identified prospects. You can target segment by segment. 

You can also meet different supplier base. Supplier base should also be strong in case you are too dependent on them. You can think about how to bring in more capable staff. You can also think whether people know your name. How do people reach you? Are your websites / contact points updated. All these things can be done once you are free. If you are not able to make yourself free, then there is another thing that you can do. Dedicate 2 to 3 undisturbed hours to such things. The results will be great.

How To Convert More Leads Into Sales?

There is a process of Sales - A scientific process - called as SPANCO.
(i) Suspects
(ii) Prospects
(iii) Approach
(iv) Negotiations
(v) Closing
(vi) Order
We have to find Prospects among suspects. Bringing in Prospects and approaching them is what is called as lead generation. When we approach for the first time, normally we will know whether the clients are interested and willing to buy. But normally after the first meetings, hardly any follow up is done. It is estimated that it is here that many of the leads are lost and fail to convert into sales. Hardly, 2-5 % of the sales that are closed happen because of the first meeting. As no follow up is done, the client also forgets about you.

If you are eager to convert more leads into sales, FOLLOWING UP is the most important factor. If some client asks for some time, you need to call them at that time so that he is reminded about you and your product. When follow ups are done, the client also knows that you are serious. It does help when you are in a market where buying is on recurring basis. Every day, Every month, Every Quarter OR Every Year. If you are in touch with the prospect round the year, a time may come when there are some problems with the existing suppliers or they need to develop some other products, etc. They will be ready for giving business to you.

There are also Negotiations happening, once the client decides to buy from you. You should be clear about your costings so that you are not at a Disadvantage. You should know your limit so that the moment something comes below your level, you quit. You can still be in touch with the client, though. After all, you know he requires things that you have.

Look For The Big Fish

Haven't you heard about the Pareto Principle? It is one of the greatest principles to have come. What it says, if understood, can make you stand in good stead. Read carefully. The Pareto Principle says that 80 % of the results are due to 20 % of efforts and vice versa. While the percentage may vary a little, but it is true in every field that the biggest amount of results come due to least amount of effort. This Pareto Principle can apply to many different things. Like, 80 % of profit is due to 20 % of profit. Ratio might be 70-30 %, but this is true. The Pareto principle looks at the impact rather than the overall thing. If you are working for anything, you might just put all of your efforts on the 20 % efforts, which will bring in the maximum 75-80 % results. This is the Big fish and it will come with least efforts. But for this effort too, you have to work hard. 

Though I do not remember the exact example of things, but the story goes like this. There was one CFO in Cognizant. He was too young. But when he came, he did not focus much on the work. But he made different fish bone diagrams. The average delivery time of a project used to be more than 150 days. Just by making these fish bone diagrams, he was able to identify the bottlenecks and in a short time, made the average delivery time of a project to 34 days. Now, imagine that at a scale at which Cognizant is working, what must be the savings. This 1 % manpower or effort has been able to impact in such a way that the whole business cycle changed. 

The fish bone diagram is nothing but a loose structure where a horizontal line is drawn and other slanting lines are made. The horizontal line is the problem that we are looking at. The slanting lines are the components of the problem. Here all the reasons, all the parameters affecting the problems are identified. And at the end of it, reasons are identified. Action plan is made and by executing the actions, solutions are found. When you work with different reasons, we have to first find the big fish - the big reason by which we can achieve the best result. Because may be less efforts will be required there. 

You Cannot Be Everything To Everyone

When we think of probabilities, they are big. Even playing the what if... is great. When we think about the product that we are dealing / making, we think about wow! The market is so big. We think, wow, we can supply to them. Low cost, no problem. Then we look at the high margin product and think. Wow, this is good. It is very difficult to be high margin and low margin at a time. Both things have different mindset. For marketing, we have to look at HUL. It is a school where marketing is taught. They can do this. They have Wheel as well as they have Rin / Surf Excel. They have Lifebuoy as well as they have Dove, the extreme end of high margin. 

HUL has a clear strategy. They don't sell this high margin and low margin product together. These brands are managed separately. The people (except for the senior management) behind the brands are different. They don't advertise the Dove and Lifebuoy at a time. They do it separately. HUL has the wherewithal to do this. Not SMEs. They do not have enough manpower. And mindset is the most important thing. If they get into the mindset of costing less, then it will be really difficult to come out of it. 

We need to identify a section in the market whom we can serve. Once this section has been identified, then you can tailor offering accordingly. If you identify a volume based part, then you should be very low cost. In fact, so low cost that competitors will hardly come near you. Once the zone is identified, you can target them. Like whether your target is school going children, college going children, young woman, married woman, middle aged people, old people, etc. Once this is identified, then it becomes easier. If you make everything for everyone, then your resources will have to be divided. This increases the resources that can be put to work and hence, the cost increases in near term. Of course, if you consider this as cost. Actually it is an investment. Isn't it ?

Spoon Feeding OR Teaching?

I had once heard a story / joke of a race where three little children were participating. One was American, Other was Japanese while the third was an Indian. The children were very small, may be about year and a half or so. There mothers were besides them. The three children had to complete the race one by one. It was a small distance. First the American child went. Midway it fell. American mother asserted, 'Get up and go' and the child got up and walked and completed the race. Then it was Japanese mother's turn. The Japanese child too stumbled midway. The Japanese mother ran to the other end and called her child 'Come on, Baby'. Seeing the mother, the child went up to her and completed the race. Then it was the third child's turn. The third child started and fell midway. It began crying. Immediately, the Indian mother came, picked up the child and ran with it to complete the race. 

There are teaching methods. Sometimes, we get too emotional. There are two things, spoon feeding and teaching how to eat. I hate the first thing - Spoon feeding. Spoon feeding is there where someone is dependent on you. It will not eat nor will learn to eat. It is a different matter, too young child or too old people or patients, have their own problems. I would love to spoon feed them. But, for others they know that they can eat themselves. But they are not willing to do that. They are more than happy that they are spoon-fed and they do not have any inclination to learn how to eat. Giving alms to beggar, I consider, is one such thing. Personally, I hate giving alms to beggars. But sometimes, I find myself helpless seeing the person in front. 

I would rather help them get employment or do something fruitful. Something, with which they can actually earn money and learn to eat themselves. This aspect is very important as the other person's dependability on others comes to an end. Even if I am not there tomorrow, others should be capable of eating by themselves. 

Remember - Healthy Body & Healthy Mind

At young age, we can work for any number of hours. We have the passion, we have the energy and we can run after work. But after a certain age, our body starts to give up. You feel like there is tiredness even if you don't do any physical activity. This will happen if you don't take care of your body. Remember that even though you love your passion much, you can take care of it only if you remain healthy. For remaining healthy, you need to take care of yourself. 

If your heart says, to take a break - take it. Believe me, you will feel fresh. Go for a walk or jog in the morning. Do some brisk exercises, even if they are for a couple of minutes. The briskness in the exercises bring in an rush of blood and you will feel energetic for the whole day.  You will feel better. Do deep breathing. Calm your mind. Meditate. Hear soothing music like old songs or ocean sounds or some mantras. Remember Prof. ViruS from '3 idiots'. Also remember his 7 minute powersnap. Yes, it helps in regaining the energy. 

Healthy body will help in keeping healthy mind and vice versa. Good food will help you in keeping healthy mind. For health of your mind, you can also try solving some sudoku's. It will stimulate your mind and it is like an exercise for the mind. Like our body needs exercise to remain in shape, so our mind too needs that. For a change, surprise your mind. If you are going by x route, take a Y route to your destination. If you are wearing watch on left hand, you can wear it on right hand for a change. This will help your mind to be ready for surprises. 

You can also take a walk to the top of the hill or go and visit the temple on the top of hill. Tell your mind that you need to visit that temple on some particular day, so you will do it once in a week at least. Play some sport - there are many of them. If you are alone, then you can play squash. You will need a small Table Tennis bat and ball and your home becomes the squash place. You will be surprised at the effect. If you get a partner, play badminton or cricket or football. It will take a lot of stress out of you and make you cheerful.

  

Adaptability To Market

Personal life and Professional life are similar in a way. Most of the fundamentals that apply to a professional life, a business are more or less applicable to the personal life too. One such trait is that of adaptability. When we join any industry to start working, there is a different environment from what we faced during our school and college. Even when we join some college from a school there is cultural change. What will make you stand in good stead is your adaptability to these situations. If you are adaptability is good, you will make the minor or major adjustments that you need to make to counter the present situation. When we go from college to work and from one company to other company or altogether another industry, it will be your adaptability which will decide whether or not you are accepted by the new opportunity. 

There are cases where people cannot adjust to the new company culture and leave the job sooner than expected. A similar trait is very important factor when you think of your business. Not long ago, there was a huge business of Greeting Cards. People used to buy greeting for any birthday, anniversary or other situations. Slowly, internet came, email came and all that stopped. There was a time when businesses couriered Greeting cards to customers. But a recent meeting with a courier person reveals another story. He says that courier business was booming at one time. Of course, it is booming today also. But the situations are different. Previously, the major chunk was the greeting cards and the cheques that company used to send. But due to the whatsapp and internet, this greeting cards have disappeared. And in this times when banks are aggressive with the online banking platform, many companies have stopped giving cheque payments. Instead of couriering the cheque, the money is transferred through the bank by NEFT or RTGS. Still the courier companies adapted beautifully to the E-commerce model. Due to the e-commerce, many things are couriered and this is where the business is booming for the couriers. 

Then the internet cafes which mushroomed in the last decade are disappearing now, because people have got 3G and 4G internet. The Jio from reliance has provided a deciding jolt to the internet cafes. They have lost most of their customer base. People have got the internet in hand then why would they go to the Cafe. Just a few days ago, SC gave a directive that there should be no Alcohol sale within 500 meters of Highway. Where will all this businesses go? This is the point where adaptability comes into picture. You must be ready with a backup plan. 

Hire The Best

Men make or break a team. Most of the founders of SME businesses should focus on this. There are some founders, who will make it a point to meet every new selection however big the team is. It is to ascertain the quality of men that are employed in the organization. Founders have a vision, a passion about their company and they want to share it with their employees. Nothing will beat a passionate employee. Shivaji was able to build the empire from scratch and it was not just on the basis of paid soldiers. The soldiers were willing to do anything for their King and this is the best that can happen. If we could share our vision with the employees and they become a part of it, then the team that comes up is the best.

There are often considerations of remunerations that come up before making a decision and it is often preferred to get a cheaper employee. It is often considered that money saved is money earned. While this is true, you must not underestimate the long term picture and the value that the employee will bring in the long term. Often the long term value that the right candidate can bring in is great and it will beat the cheaper option 'hands down'. The employee cost has to be considered as an investment rather than expense. 

Better employees bring in better systems, better work culture and this helps in the growing of the company. Ford said, 'Honesty does not come cheap' and it is true. How can you expect honesty from a hungry person? If the employees are satisfied they will take care of your company like their own. I have seen some employees, who cannot hear another word about their company. You can also look for good placement agencies who have a big database of employees. Instead of looking at the cost to be given to agencies, you should look at the value they offer.

Finding A White Spot On A Black Board

'I am thankful to all of those who said no. Because of them I did it.' This is a famous sentence from none other than Albert Einstein. He does not focus on the thing that all of them said 'NO'. He focuses on he DID it. It is not an easy trait. Being right is very normal. It seems nobody notices it. It is only the wrong things that many notice. 

Once an artist had drawn a big beautiful painting. He was so happy with the result. One morning, he kept it in one of the city squares and wrote a note below it saying, 'Please point out if there are some mistakes'. He came in the evening to find that there were many pointers about the correction in the painting. He was quite dejected. At that point, his guru comes there. He understands his pupils dejection. He could see that the painting is indeed very good. He asks the artist to make the same painting again and place that again next morning. When the artist came next evening to see the painting, he could see that no body had pointed any correction on the painting. The artist then looked at the note below the drawing. It read, 'If you find any mistakes in the painting, please correct it'. 

It is a surprise that none of them had any suggestions for the correction in the same painting the next day. Actually, if you look around, there are many who may laugh at you or point fingers. But there are no doers or very few of them. People can criticize even the slightest thing, but they do not understand that it is very difficult to make things happen. When you find yourself in such a situation where your plan has failed or your project has failed, it is very difficult to get back to regular work. In such times, you should look for the silver lining in what has failed. It is not the good times when we know who are real friends, it is rather the bad time which tells us who are our real well-wishers. Who stands with us and who leaves us. 

1 From 100 Rather Than 100 From 1

This is famous line of none other than the legendary Mr. Warren Buffet. As per Mr. Buffet, we should have rather 100 income routes with low income rather than having one income route having a very high income. This is to say that when you have more different incomes, it is safer because even if you lose some routes, you will have decent income from other routes. The same idea can be applied to your business. Rather 'can be', it 'Should be'. 

If I were to put it in numbers, you should have no customer having bigger than 20-25 % business share. This is very important. I have heard of many businesses which were doing great, but were dependent on only one or two customers. When such a customer backs off due to internal (part going obsolete, etc) or external factors (your competitor offering lower cost, etc), you are the lone sufferer. You cannot do anything but lose business. And things may come to an extent where you may have to shut shop. Another thing is that if you have one such customer, he may become very dominant. It might go to such an extent that you may be forced to accept most of the clauses or else you may lose business. It goes without saying that if you have no customer bigger than 20 %, you will not be threatened and will be safe even if some of your customer goes off. 

This is not to say that this is a pleasant condition. You should do whatever is in your hands to retain customer. But, you will not have any negotiating position for that. If you have such a business, where you are dependent on only one or two major clients, please take the steps now itself to increase your customer base. If any customer is now 50 % or more than 50 %, then add so many customers that the same big customer share is only 20 %. Your business will also increase and your risk will be mitigated.

Acceptance IS Very Important

There are setbacks. Everybody has it. Ask the most successful man and he will tell what struggle he has faced. The important part which separates rest from the best is how the successful people bounce back from the setbacks. Setback is the most important time. Many a careers break due to a setback they suffer either professionally or personally. Some people are just not ready to accept the setback and it is very difficult to come back to normal life. For some, the guilt or the fear or the grief that they faced is very hard to overcome and it changes their life in more ways than one. 

This setbacks don't let us think the way we should. It would cloud your mind with darkness and you would not be able to think positively. Instead of thinking about solutions, you will think about the situation and will be under tension, under guilt or under fear. To think ahead, you have to first accept the thing that has happened. 

It is for this reason that it is very important to accept the setback. When you face a setback - it might be due to any problem - the first message that you have to give to your mind is of accepting the setback. If the customer on whom you depend has been giving you tough time, give the message to your mind that - Yes, I accept that I am having a tough time because so and so customer is upset. I accept that there has been a situation which is not good. Once your mind accepts the situation, half of your tension will erase immediately. You will feel lighter. This step is very important, As this happens, you need to give message to your mind that 'All is Well'. Everything will be alright. While giving this message, you should be confident yourself that All is Well. Once your mind has accepted this, you will get the solution earlier than later. 

If you can practice the step of acceptance by lightly tapping on your chest or just between neck and chest, you will get better results.

Turnover Based Loans

For a trading unit, mainly dealers, the main business is to buy ready made stock and sell it at a margin. They mainly buy by giving upfront payment and giving credit to retailers. For manufacturer, business consists of converting the raw material into finished goods by adding value. For smaller manufacturers, it is difficult situation. Suppliers don't tend to give credit and customers don't give advance. As the production increases, their money gets stuck in the business. As the business needs money to sustain itself, the cash flow is extremely important. Fast Growth can also be one of the reason why cash gets stuck and the cycle stops. 

When we take a loan, the thumb rule is 20 %, i.e. you should have an annual turnover of 5 times your CC loan account. If your company has increased the turnover, you can approach your bank to increase the CC limit. You can also approach them to take a Temporary Overdraft facility which you can get once in a month. This is a sort of bridge loan and you can get it for one month. It depends on your bank whether they renew it for the next month. If your requirement has increased, then it is better that you approach for increase in CC limit only. 

In case there are problems due to the profitability and other balance sheet issues, then you can approach other banks. There are banks which will consider giving you loan despite your low profitability just because your turnover has gone up and you have hope to bring the business back on line with increasing the business. One of those NBFCs is Tata Capital Finance. Of course, this will again depend on case to case, but you will have hope if you can contact them. The loan though might be at a higher cost, as the risk is high.

Business Idea - Subscription Based Model

There are many new business ideas that are coming up. The e-commerce has sped up the launching and the business ability of many. Due to the rapid rise in e-commerce websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Shopclues, people have become more and more aware about the use of debit card or credit card for online payments. Previously people were not very comfortable. But nowadays, people are more comfortable in doing the payments. People have also warmed up to the idea of buying online. 

There are two models in any business. First is the one-time buyer. The other is the repeated buyer of more or less same product. For example, grocery items, puja items, sport items, etc. The second model can be based on subscription model. For example, a subscription of one month, three months, six months or annual basis. Subscription model is a better one and should be attempted. For example, when you get a order from some OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) like automobile, home appliances, etc., you get a schedule each month. This makes it easier and needs only production planning with minimal marketing efforts. But this model can also be there for retail businesses. If you have heard the name of Flintobox or Magic Crate, these are the subscription based models for quarterly or six months where you can have a newly designed kit of play or models which makes concepts easy for kids in a fun manner. Then there are also puja kit items. If you are doing some specific puja, you need to order the kit. You do not have to run here and there. 

There can be any number of such kits. You can have food kits which would be hyper-local. You can plan food according to the type of customer and can have one month or two month subscription from them. You can also design a specific kit of fruits for people. You can have recipe kit which people will make. You can also have some grocery kit. You just have to get more wild in your thinking about the kits. You can have different set of customers and design a kit accordingly. The main advantages of subscription based models are that you are assured about the orders beforehand. You get more time to get new customers to subscribe to your kits. You also get all the money beforehand (if you plan to do so). You also get time to think what more you can do to make the kits better. Magazine, newspaper, milk are best forms of subscription based models. Have you ever heard someone giving buttermilk along with milk in the morning. You can offer that to your customer. 

Think about new ideas and new kits.

Connection With Colleges

In the last article, we talked about recruiting interns for some projects during their one / two month internship project. This would keep you in touch with some college teachers & professors. You can have your contact with Diploma, Engineering or MBA colleges. In fact, it is good if you have your network with a couple of colleges where students can come down to your factory for some industrial visit to get a real life experience with how industries work. The students are excited to see have first hand experience. You can also have some internship or summer project opportunities for students. You can invite students / professors with their own projects or you can have your own projects which these students might do. These students also have a final year project and it is considered good if they do it with some industry. When students do some project with your company, they will take your name in their college. This would make your name known to the students along with what you do. 

You never know when these students will come back in contact with you. It might be after a few years when they are looking for job or they are in either supplier or customer team. The connection with colleges can also come in handy in case you need some raw talent for new job at your factory. There are sandwich course opportunities wherein students could spend 6 months to a year with your company learning things. When you need man power, you can also put a word to these professors so that they can tell some of their students about the vacancy. 

From your side, you can also go for some guest lectures or as an external examiner for some of their oral exams. This will just create a bond and network with colleges and teachers / professors. After all, these very students are the future generation who will be a part of Make In India campaign. You need to guide these students.

Interns! How They Could Help You?

Summers have already started and it is very hot weather in March end itself. This is also a time when most of the MBA and Engineering colleges start getting holidays and have 1/2 months of projects with different companies. Normally many big companies are giving opportunities to students for doing internship. This is a good opportunities for small & mid-size companies too, to offer internships to such students. These students can be given a small task based projects like survey or opportunity lookout or marketing / launching of new products. 

What you can do is to approach some colleges so that whenever their students are ready for internship, they can come to your place for internship. Once the students have come, give them a clear guideline. First explain them the basis of the project. If you are launching a product, explain them the complete use of the product. Tell them who can be the target customers. And how to explain the value to the target group of customers vis-a-vis its cost. If there is some installation involved, the training should be given to them. These students do a good job if you have to do some survey about the competing products or if you are thinking of launching a new product based on the survey. 

If you want to use this opportunity to provide internship, then it is better to plan these projects quite early. You can plan a slew of projects so that whenever such students come for internship, your projects are ready. If the projects are not ready, it might not be as beneficial for either you or to them. It is also a good thing that you guide to such young students and give them some takeaways which they can keep for professional life. It is an opportunity to give something to society. Overall it is a win-win thing for institute, students as well as you.