KSA OR Reverse of ASK

During one of the corporate training, one of the speaker talked about the KSA theory. The theory talks about how employees can contribute to the work culture of the company. K stands for knowledge, S stands for Skill & A stands for attitude. When anyone fresh from college joins any work, he may not have the knowledge & skill of the job that he is taking. Everything is new to him. For an experienced hand, they may have the knowledge and the skill when they join a same industry competitor. When some employee joins an organization, he may not have knowledge. The knowledge can be imparted to him through various training program. After getting the knowledge, he might know how to operate the tool or the operations, but he may not have the skill to do it. The skill might be given after practice. Lots of practice can make people skilled. Thus, the employee gets ready for the work as he has got the knowledge & skill, both of which are required to do work. 

Yet, if you see that the employee is not working as per desired results, it may be because he does not have the attitude to work. Attitude is such a thing, which can make or break a man. The person with the right attitude can go to any extreme because he is willing to go. It does not matter whether he has the knowledge or skill to do it. If he has the attitude, he will be quick to seek knowledge and very fast to upgrade his skills. It is only a matter of attitude. Watch a person who does not have attitude. A person who has knowledge & skill will not work if he does not have the attitude to work. He will waste his time. They will act as if they are working. They just do not understand that it requires lesser energy to actually work than to act. They are just happy that they are getting paid without working. 

Mind you, knowledge and skill can be imparted. But the right attitude is difficult to be imparted until it comes from within. While recruiting, it is important to look for attitude rather than knowledge & skill. They can come anytime, not the attitude.

What Can You Do To Be More Creative, Innovative?

The moment people hear Creative, Innovative, they think about a BIG change. Things though do not work out that way always. True, your first step might be Innovative like Uber. The idea to make a platform for booking cabs was innovative. It was a true runway where the Uber flight took off. But after that Uber had to do small things to execute the operations. These small things may be incrementally creative & innovative. But it need not be like the first big step of Business concept. The Big innovation lies only up to the first step. While executing, it is always small things that matter. One famous example is always given in case studies. In one of the fan factories, once a box went without a fan. There was a customer complaint. A big team then sat for brainstorming on deciding a way by which this does not happen again. The company had an assembly line and the product came out directly without any human intervention. The fan would be assembled and slowly, it would come to a line where it is filled with the box and then packed and come out for shipping. As there was no intervention, there was no checking. Many people suggested different techniques like manual intervention in final stages, weight balance to check weight, etc. One trainee sitting in that meeting room said meekly, why don't we put a powerful fan alongside assembly line. If the box is empty, it will simply blow away under the powerful wind. It clicked. The trainee was quite creative, innovative. 

You too can be. You just have to believe that some big things can also be done in a cheaper and simpler way. For that you need to wear thinking hats. You need to see the problem from different perspective. If you have a cross-functional team, it would be better. You can also start to take the problem step by step. Often you would clear everything until you find the real problem - the real bottleneck, which created problem. Whatever you or your team thinks, write it down to think about it on other day. Think about different ways that the problem can be solved. Einstein build the bulb after failing for 10000 nos. of time. He tried that many times so he succeeded. Why to stop thinking & trying. You should also share your problem with people from different background. May be they have some idea about it. Don't ignore any idea because it had been stopped a few years back. The situations then & now might be different. Always check the impact of the things. Take action if the impact of the things are big. There might be no point in working on 0.0001 % of the problem and keeping the project completion at bay. First launch the project and see. 

Small Business - A Curse?

Being a small business owner is not an easy task. Ask anyone. Until you find systems to be put in place. One of our vendor says in humour, 'if you want to take revenge on anybody, make him start a small business'. Small businesses cannot afford to keep personnel for the different tasks that are needed to be done. For example, accounting, tax filing, HR things, marketing, purchase, etc. Their main focus is production. While focusing just on production has no alternative, you need to produce to sell, you have to take care of other tasks. If you do not take care of other tasks, business will suffer somewhere. Forgetting to make an invoice is like working for free for anybody. If it is job work, it is still okay; but imagine forgetting to make an invoice for a job with material. It may make your two days of work go waste. Making invoicing is just as important as accounting for it. If you make an invoice but forget to account for it, you will again lose that money as you may forget about the work completely. 

Similarly, you also need to file your taxes and pay them on time. Not doing this will attract fines and penalties and interests. It is a different story if you are not able to pay it on time due to financial reasons. But imagine not paying it because you were not able to track it or put all the papers in place. A big fiasco. There are similar tasks which need to be done but due to small business nature, proper persons cannot be recruited. The best thing is to keep a consultant who will be doing all these works. But you cannot depend on consultant for that work. You have to follow up with him so that all the tasks are completed on time. The next best thing is not keep pending work and complete it immediately. Making an invoice as soon as the material leaves your place is a good habit. It does not take much time. If for some reason you cannot make invoice at that time, make a delivery challan - the least you can do. As soon as purchase invoice comes, file it. 

Doing things immediately does not take much time. In case you have focused on some job on that day, put all the coming things in one tray and clear it before you leave office for the day. These habits will take you far and will be beneficial to increase your business.

Keep A Board In Your Cabin

The first thing that takes you on success path is deciding on your Goals. As soon as you decide your Goals, the next things are the steps that you need to take to complete them. When your Goals are long term, there will be some steps that you need to take. The first thing that you should take when you reach your office is to decide action for that day & list them on a Board in you cabin or on a notepad on your table. The trick is in writing it in such a place where you can see it.

Writing the things that you want & keeping it in front of you, reminds you every moment about the task at hand. There might be distractions that may deflect your attention, but this board will act like a steering wheel which will bring your goal vehicle back on track. You would be fortunate to come back on track, while others get distracted easily. You just have to clear all the things written on board. Writing also makes you focus on important tasks while doing your daily activities.

If you do not have this habit already, then you must try it. Go & get a board or keep a space in front of you where you can keep your list of to do activities.

Hanumanji At The Sea Shore Moment!

In Ramayana, Sita is kidnapped by Ravana and then Ram starts the search for Sita. Sugreev & his team along with Hanuman meet Ram and join the mission of finding Sita. They come to know that Sita had been kidnapped and their air vehicle had gone somewhere south. After searching all the southern region, they come to the south sea where they see an island located at the other end. The question comes that who among all those will go to the other side of sea, on the island of Lanka and find Sita. Everybody is discussing and Hanuman is sitting quite as he does not know anything. It is at this moment, that Jambavan the bear in their team comes and tells him that Hanuman is capable to do so. But Hanumanji is oblivious to this. He is not able to remember any incident where he can do such impossible tasks. It is then that Jambavan tells him his childhood story. Though Hanuman was a very powerful in his childhood, he is given a curse because of which he forgets all his powers. This curse was given because he teased and harassed many Rishis during their meditative activities. 

Jambavan then reminds him all the things that he did while he was a child and how he has the ability to go to Lanka in one jump. Jambavan brings belief in Hanuman that he is capable of doing all these things. And once Hanuman got belief of his own powers, he was the most powerful one out there. He then goes alone to Sri Lanka and finds Sita. Not only this, he alone burns Lanka and comes out unscathed. If he so desired, he could have alone made full ashes of Lanka, but he did not do so. 

Our mind is also as much powerful as Hanuman if not more. We too could do many things which we find it impossible to do. And this comes out of the belief that we give to our mind that we are really powerful. It needs unwavering belief in yourself, which will take you to the other end where you will find success. You just have to believe in yourself. 

And if you tell your mind the same thing again and again, however untrue it might be, your mind will form a conclusion that since it is repeated so many times, it must be true. And it sets out to find ways on how that thing can be brought in reality.

Cut Off That Loss And Feel Good

There are a lot many companies in a corporate group. One of the companies is bleeding. The group company Head is under constant stress to stop the bleeding of this company. As soon as he gets up in the morning, the news of that company comes, the mood turns and the whole day makes a worst turn. This happens day in & day out. Until one day, the Head takes the decision to sell off the company at a loss. Once he has taken that decision, it will be a pain. But that pain will last for about a couple of days. The decision has to be taken, if there is no improvement even in remote future. When there is a pain in your mind, your mind will not able to work properly. As the mind thinks about the deficiency, it begins to attract more. And these deficiencies will be attracted in the other group companies which are till now well run assets. 

But imagine your life after that liability has been taken care of. 

As soon as that liability is over, the full focus shifts on the task ahead. Whatever is balance needs the attention because they have that much potential which can be utilized. But until you get the time to convert that potential into reality, you will not get. Selling of that liability will give you that time. You will also get peace of mind. No longer will your morning start with the bad news that you have lost money. Your mind will begin to think about the gains that you are making in the group companies and will attract more business towards you. Thus you will become a better person again. 

Sometimes, a few bad employees also are like rotten mangoes. They are not only rotten themselves, but will also try to rot the other mangoes that are put up with them until one fine day you take a decision to take out that mango. You will no doubt face pain in the short term, but in the long term you will be happy. 

Come Out Of Viscious Circle

In the last few years, there were many down cycles / recession periods than before it. In fact, there was a period in 2012-13, where experienced Plant managers said that there is no fun in working. Everything is so slow that you don't feel like work. Mind you, the momentum is very important thing. When market is good, orders are full, the speed of people churning out goods is also higher. There is momentum in production units, everything is moving, efficiency is up. But when the same orders reduce by about 50 % or so, everything is slow moving. There does not seem to be any interest in working and taking out production. 

There is one story I had heard about. An old man was having his shop of Hot dogs / Vada Pavs and it was running nicely. It was a hit among its customers. He used to run different schemes like 1 free on 5 & there was a sweet salty sauce / chutney which was the attraction point for many a customers. Customers came from far corners of city to eat that Vada Pav. One day, his son came from a college after studying for 3-4 years in a Metro city. Immediately after coming, he told this old man that the market is down. It is very slow market outside. How can you afford to give free Vada Pav? The old man thinks that his son has studied in big college, big city. He must definitely know more than me. I have never gone out of my shop. He must be trusted. He cancels the scheme of 1 free on 5. The closing of the scheme deters some college students who used to come with their friends or ate two vada pavs instead of one only because it was coming free. The sale reduced. The old man thought, my child was right. The market is slowing down. Next, his child tells him why should you give that chutney free when none of the other shops are giving. They first dilute the chutney and then stop giving it. The chutney was the major attraction and once it was gone, sales came down. Again, the old man's trust in his child increases. Then the child tells to reduce the size of the patty / vada. The sales come down again. 

All in all, it was not that the actual market was slow. It was a viscious circle that the old man falled into. Market was slow, but quality serving people are always in demand. You should not disturb your quality because if it goes out, then your sales will collapse. You need to take care of it. 

Be A Consultant

If you follow all the advises given to others, you will probably be very successful. Being a consultant is very easy. Remember the times when friends came to you with sad face and after lot of prodding told you why he is sad. You immediately tell him about the possible solutions. And surprise! One of the solutions clicks with him. Actually when we are facing some situation, we are blinded by the things around us. We are not open minded. We think only in one or two possible direction. Worse still we think only about that moment or short term. You think that there can be no solutions to your problem. But try telling the problems to a consultant or your dear friend. They will come out with the barrage of solutions. 

A consultant looks at your problem objectively. He does not know any limitations that you might have. So, he is able to come up with different kinds of solutions. You have been working in your area since long and hence feel that you are the boss in that area and you probably know all the solutions. But you also tend to think only in limited mindset. The consultant does not have all these limits, or he does not know. Then while talking with him, you get different types of solutions and you discard the options that are not possible. Suddenly, you get an idea to make different solution from a combination of two or more ideas. And you get the solution to try. 

This is a real life situation. When you get into some problem, for a while just think that your dear friend has come to you with the same problem and you have to suggest him some solutions. You can be a consultant to yourself. Or you can get into brainstorming activities. You can also go to any friend and without telling it is your problem, you can tell explain the problem and ask for possibilities. Just like Dear Zindagi's Alia Bhatt, who goes to Shah Rukh Khan and tells her own problem as her friend's problem.  

Reserve Fund - Why This is Necessary To Survive?

Times are good. Business is good. There has been a growth from last year and everything is sailing smoothly. Until, your boat hits an ice rock. The ice rock will create an emergency situation. The situation which 'Maggi' got Nestle into. They did not saw it coming. The Maggi problem became so big and so soon, that before they could react to the controversy, their sales dipped. Not only they dipped, they had to destroy hundreds of tons of material only because of that. 

What has happened today? Do you hear Maggi? Yes. Similar problems were faced by some big giants like Cadbury, when worms were found in their chocolates. Any lesser company could have died a natural death. But Cadbury didn't. They bounced back. What is that which makes these big giants resilient against any emergency situation. It is their reserve fund. These biggies have large reserve funds. They are sitting on cash piles. The reason is that their brand is famous. They get credit from all the directions. And they don't have to give credit to anyone. This makes their cash flow positive. The positive cash flow is a huge plus to any company. 

This reserve funds are important when these catastrophic situations are created. They need to react to it. One thing is that in such situation, their normal revenues are affected. For a small company, this becomes a matter of life & death. Because their cash flow is not as positive as that of the big companies. If you do not get oxygen, you will die. In times when you are flying, many people will come forward to give you credit. But, when situations are worse and you have the need, may be many people will move back. Secondly, to end the controversy, many steps have to be taken. And these all steps need money. It becomes necessary then that you maintain a healthy reserve fund. If you do not have surplus cash, you set a target for any minimum amount which you have to keep aside. And gradually increase that amount. 

How To Stay On Track When Goal Seems At A Distance?

After hard work of months, the target still seems too far away. The distant target tends to take out the energy that our mind / body has. It starts to tell that Oh! the target is too faraway. Should we continue? Would we be able to get on to the target ever? And these thoughts take the target much farther than it actually is. If we do not gather our wits, it won't be far that we actually quit the project. This quitting habit is a far important aspect when it comes to the successful vs unsuccessful entrepreneurs. You need to know when to quit. Sometimes, all the hard work goes down the drain because of quitting when the target was actually very near. 

To keep on track, you need to look at the bigger picture regularly. When you look at the bigger picture regularly, you can forget all the tiredness and get refreshed. Sometimes, you also get to feel new ideas, new ways on how you can improve on the work that you are doing. 

The importance of positive energy around us can never be underrated. It makes a lot of difference whether you are surrounded by positive people or negative people. Negative people will keep on reminding you why you cannot win. They will constantly put in your mind that you will not be able to complete the task and it is better to quit than continue. However, positive people will constantly keep the energy around you and keep on motivating you to do your job. If positive people are not around you, then you can read inspiring, positive & motivating things.

To take some mind off business, you can also have some hobby. Take a break in between to energize yourself. When you rejoin after the break you will be rejuvenated and will double your force on actual business. 

Disagree Gracefully

There are moments in our day to day life when you have a conflict with someone. Sometimes it may be more powerful than you. He may be your biggest customer. He might be some officer in your big customer's company. He might be your superior. There are situations when they tell you something and there is no option but to disagree. Disagreeing to their thoughts is not a crime. But how you do it will define whether it is the right way. Many a times there are things when we know what we are saying is right, but it matters more on how you say it. You might be at the other end of the problem too. There might be someone who you know is right in his place, but the way he has put things has not gone down too well with you. 

Similar things happen. It is okay to disagree; but sometimes the situation is very difficult. The other person may not want to hear 'No'. There is a classical example of Steve Jobs being too demanding. Many of his staffers thought that his demands were unreasonable. He looked for great designs, simplicity in use and perfection. Until he achieved it, he won't let go any body. Behind that there were different thoughts that he would be going through, which his staffers were absolutely not aware. They were simply in denying mode to whatever was suggested by Steve Jobs. This is the reason why before we disagree, we should have thought about it fully. We should know that the person before us might have thought about several aspect before coming to these suggestions. He might have known several facts which you do not know. 

Therefore, it makes sense that when you disagree, you may as well take the permission of that person to put some of the reason why you think that the suggestions given by you are not possible. If he is open about it, he will allow you to tell your suggestions and even be encouraging to hear from you. But if his situation itself is non-negotiable, then it might not be a good idea to disagree. Many things started with a no, but were possible because of thought of other men who thought, 'YES, THAT IS POSSIBLE'.

Scarcity - Road To Successful Product Launch

When products are launched, there is marketing involved. There is huge marketing budget and accordingly the product is advertised at different places. What I believe is that if you have some stock ready for the products, the chances of selling it are higher. The reason is, not all customers are willing to wait. This is not about bigger projects like installation of equipment, etc. where everything is made as per the need of the client. Client decides what he wants, gives advance money and then that work is installed at his place. I am talking about the smaller product. There are some customers who can plan their purchase and so will wait for the order till it comes. This specially happens where there are long queues. If the customer wants the product now, then there is a good chance of a sale if it is readily available. 

But a waiting list is a different ball game. When a perception is created among the prospects that the product is in scarcity, then the demand actually rises. I will give a couple of examples. Take the case of Honda's Activa. It is the best scooter available and it has at least a couple of months waiting. Still people go for it. The fact that there is a waiting period actually works in Activa's favor. It is having a waiting period, means it is in high demand which naturally gives impression that it is of high quality w.r.t. the pricing. a value product.

Take another case. Mi phones. The company Mi should get a PhD degree to use the 'Scarcity' card. Whenever they launch a phone, they announce and keep some date and time as a slot when it will be available. And only limited stock is available. 'May be this "limited stock" is more than the regular stock of another brand phone'. But the word 'limited' works wonders. Each time there is a sale of Mi phone, people go gaga over it and scramble to buy because they are very limited. The scarcity card is at play here. The card of fear of loss. If you do not buy now, you will not get another chance. This is the card which compels people to buy the product. If it does apply to you, you must try it.

Come Out Of Boring Life Once In A While

Following up daily schedules can be boring at times. The work pressures that we take for the whole week are increasing day by day. And it happens that sometimes we do feel that doing the same thing again and again are just taking a toll on our mind & body. There are long term effects of leading a stressful life. It is therefore, necessary to come out of that boring schedules once in a while. The next question that comes to mind is 'what should we do'? There are many ways how you can do this.

Have you gone to the railway station or the bus station. Going there and watching people will also make you feel lively. You can watch different things - the dress designs, the color combination the people are wearing, the different buses or trains that are coming or even how some younger ones are giving a tough time to their parents. Or you can just take a Sudoku and solve it. If you have a partner, take a chessboard and play a game. Like cricket, go & play with your friends. If alone, you can try to bowl at one point by bowling against wall. Or you can play informal squash. You can also play carrom if you have somebody to play with you.

You can also do some artwork, painting or some craft work. There are mandalas - intricate shapes - which you need to color. The intricate shapes needs you to focus on the task, thus taking your time off your stress. If you have some piece of furniture, you can try painting it (Just beware that if it doesn't look nice, it may become a source of stress with your family ;) ). One of my friend has this hobby of painting or drawing daily. And he is pretty good at it. Once upon a while, he even exhibits his artwork. You can also do your hobby of gardening. But gardening is something that needs to be done on a daily basis, unless you have somebody else to take care of your garden.

You can also try some new recipe. You can just watch some odd recipe on internet and try your hand on it. If it turns good, you will be happy. And believe me, more often than not, it will turn out good. (It is very normal to like what we have made, as we have taken efforts to make it.) Try other hobbies to get out of the boring schedules.

Daily Stress Buster - A New Way

Meditation is a good way to start your day. Meditation is nothing but closing of all the other thoughts and focusing on the One Thought. Pranayam or alternative breathing is a technique which will aid you in meditation. You take breathe in with the thought that all the positive energy is taken into your body and after some time you breathe out with all the negative energy being thrown outside. Soothing music also aids you in meditation. Meditation de-stresses your mind from all the tensions that you have. It actually makes you think about other spiritual thing, so that you forget the physical / emotional tension. 

Om is a specific word / sound which is very powerful in certain vibrations. Nevertheless, just closing your ears & eyes using palm and humming the Om sound itself will give you high bouts of energy. The Om dhwani / sound will quieten your mind & renew its energy. I tested with one of this OM techniques and you might also like to give it a try. 

During your bath or better still after your bath, take the bucket (bigger size - 15-20 lit). The bucket should be empty. It would be good if it is plastic bucket so that it will be lighter. Now, invert that empty bucket over your head, so that your hairs on top of head touches the bottom of the bucket from inside. Now sit still and produce the sound of OM. The echo effect that the bucket gives you will be great to hear. The closed small room that the bathroom is and the fact that you are fresh from the bath will just add to the special effect that the humming of OM inside a bucket will do. You can do it in your garden too, provided you do not feel shy. 

I hope that you will try this experiment at home and will let me know about this. 

Exercise - A Way To Avoid Decreased Productivity

Everybody has been allotted same number of hours in a day. Some make good use of them, some just pass it for entertainment or move around. To make good use of the time, you need to get up early in the morning. If you make it a ritual to wake up early in the morning, you will have more time to use. You will get a head start to the day that others won't. You decide to wake up early, but fail. If this happens, then it is not your mistake. The problem is that you have not decided what to do. One fine day, you wake up and find nothing to do. You take the remote and watch tv. Next day you think, what the hell! Why do I wake up early in the first place? To watch the TV. 

The solution to this problem - the problem of not able to wake up early - is that you develop a morning ritual. When you get up in the morning, freshen up and take a glass of warm water with a spoon of honey and lime juice. With this your body organs would also wake up and your metabolism gets started. After that, go for a walk around the nature. Feel the nature. Sometimes you will notice things in your area which you might not have noticed despite living there for years. You can rather jog for some time and then exercise. Walking will make you feel good. Jogging will make you feel better. Exercise will make you feel BEST. 

Doing exercise at any time (before food) would make you feel best. You can explore different types of exercises. When you feel lighter, you feel fresh. You feel so fresh that your each breath gives you energy and you feel very active. If you are not exercising, your body will also slow down. You will feel tired and your productivity will decrease. After doing work for some time, your body will exhaust and you will feel like taking a break. Develop a routine where you walk, jog or exercise different types, play physically active games. Doing this will help you establish a habit, a routine so that you would look forward to getting up in the morning. 

Start Producing Reduce Consuming

I have not seen any advertisement of Mercedes, Volvo or BMW on Television Entertainment channels. The reason is that their target market is not watching it and they know it. Their target market are the persons who are in business. Ordinarily, it is difficult for a person to splurge on a luxury vehicle unless they are earning far higher than that. Unless of course, there is a windfall for someone. Even the actors who earn very high amounts have to work hard for their money. It is not easy to give day in and day out performances which will win everybody's heart. It requires a team, a team which can manage to bring out good content, good enactment and good marketing so that their stuff is accepted and viewed widely. 

If you really want to get to that high levels, you need to change your mindset. From early childhood, we are pampered and are highly tilted towards consuming entertainment. We read books, we saw movies, we saw matches, we saw television, we ate in restaurants, we went in water parks. Hardly did we have time to produce some content for the content consumers. Ever thought about it? This needs a mindset change. Instead of consuming things, we need to think about how things are made. There was very nice program on Discovery/Nat Geo channels - Food Factory. American food industry is very modern and revolutionized. In the program, they visit different food factories and show how foods are made. There are different types of food right from sauces to cheese to chocolate to bread, etc. You can learn from it and may be you get an inspiration to make something like that. There is another program - How it's made? They show different things and all of these things are not automated or mechanized. Many things they show are manually made and hence are great to watch. 

You need to make a mindset to watch the product packaging, their distribution, their actual costs, their feel. Look at different packages and see which has per unit cost low or high. When you get into that things, you automatically get into mindset of reduced consuming. You will not be interested in television anymore, but you would rather read something on producing / marketing. You will be able to delink your income from time. Yes, to get rich fast you need to delink your income from time.  

SWOT Analysis

Before starting any business, it is necessary to analyze the market conditions. Whether there is market for the products that you would be manufacturing? Or are you manufacturing as per the need of the market? How is the competition? Analysis is important, whether it is in exploring stage, start up stage or for an established company. The structured way of doing this analysis is 'SWOT' method. This SWOT method is nothing but putting all the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats in one place. Ideally, it would be better if you take a big sheet or a big white board. If you are doing this along with your team, it is ideal to use a white board. 

What you need to do?

You need to divide the white board into four quadrants. In the Left hand side Top quadrant, write Strengths that your company, your team, your product has or how you can improve those. Here, you can list all the strengths like the location of your company, the speed in the development, the product quality, your team & how it brings experience to the table, etc. In the Top Right quadrant, write all the weaknesses that you might know of your product, company or your team. You might know that there are some weaknesses like your financial strength is less, you don't have all the facilities, your distribution network which is non-existent. In the bottom left quadrant, you need to write all the opportunities that you have. You may list all types of opportunities that you have like B2B market, B2C market, regionwise, productwise opportunities, etc. And in the bottom right quadrant write all the threats that you have. You may know that you are starting anew, so you may not get easy entry in the market. You may know that your facilities are not so big that bigger companies are attracted by you. Such all threats come into one place.

Now, once you have analyzed the whole situation and put it in one place, you know where do you need to strike to gain momentum and where you need to work to keep the threats away. All such things, where your weakness and threats are there need to be worked upon before they become big enough to gobble you. And all those opportunities need to be taken up so that you strengthen yourself. 

Know Your Potential

Potential. What is a potential? If you are thinking of a business, think about it's potential. Depending upon where you are or what your background is or what your thinking limit is, you will need some potential field to work on. For some self employed, a potential business might be about Rs. 1 lac. For others, it might be Rs. 10 lac. Some may think in crores, while for elites these may not be worthy figures at all. For them to enter business, the business must have a potential of more than 10 crore or 100 crore, etc. While entering business, you must know the potential that it may have and whether it suits your time and energy requirements. 

After you have started your business, you must map your business potential. It can be the upper limit of the overall market, it might be the upper limit of your financial strength, it might also be the upper limit of your production capacity. Depending upon which one is your limiting factor, you can chose that upper limit as the business potential that you have, that is possible. Now, look at the potential that a mango seed has. Do you see that the seed has the potential to become a big tree giving good mangoes. 

But leave it and see after six month whether it becomes a mango. The theory of probability will tell you that it is highly improbable that it will be converted to a tree if the seed is not provided due necessary things. If you do not give it good soil, timely water, fertilizers, sunlight, etc, the seed will not realize its true potential. It will need all the things on time and only then will it be able to achieve its potential to grow into a big tree giving good mangoes. 

Our life is like that. Our business is like that. Once we map what its potential is, we need to work around that. We need to give the business what it needs. It may need good workmen, it may need good marketing stuff, it may need machines, it may need sales, it may need money. Give it and you will see that the business achieves its true potential.

You Get What You Focus On So Focus On What You Want

Have you observed that until a baby cries, mother will also not offer it milk. How will you get what you want? Of course, by asking for it. You cannot get anything without asking for it. You ask for it when you make it your goal. You ask the universe, your subconscious mind that you want it and so others will work to oblige you. When you decide what you want, you should focus only on that. It is very important to decide what you want to do so that you can separate or delegate out all the other things. There are many things that you can do, yet you have to focus on only the chosen few tasks. 

The picture gives a complete picture. When you decide what you want, initially there are many things that are not under your control, but yet you need to do it to get what you want. In that scenario, Of all the other things that you can do/ are under your control, you should only focus on the things that really matter to achieving your goals. You should forget all the other things. No need to focus on all the things that you have under your control. Delegate, delegate and delegate. By doing this, you will get more time towards achieving your goal. 

You have infinite potential in yourself. But that potential will only remain potential unless you really bring it to reality. Even Hanuman could not do much because he had forgotten his potential due to a curse. But as soon as his potential is explained to him, he turns powerful. You are also a Hanuman in that sense. You too have potential like sunrays. But until you focus the sunrays, they will not burn the leaf. Similarly, you cannot do anything special, unless you focus upon what you want and use your true potential. Remember, FOCUS is nothing but Follow One Course Until Successful.

Effect Of Doing Things Daily

Have you seen an advertisement which suggests you to take that insurance which will cost you Rs. 4/day. Effectively this means that you have to spend Rs. 365 x 4=1460/- towards the insurance premium for the year. And this ad is just to get the footfalls. Once you are in, you will be told that this insurance amount is applicable only for persons starting from age 21, for 30 years period and for minimum amount of say Rs. 5 lac. Don't mind the exactness of figures, but just get the idea. If the advertisement is using the word per day, then this 'Daily' expense should have some power. Let us explore the power. 

If you walk two km daily, you will have walked 700 km in the whole year which will be akin to walking from Pune to Nagpur. If you are writing 1 page per day any how, you will have written around 350 pages in the whole year, which is equivalent to writing a whole novel. If you are putting Rs. 100 in your child's piggy bank daily, you will have saved Rs. 35000/- for them in the whole year. If you are working in a big company and saved Rs. 1000/- per day because of some machine or innovation, you will have saved the amount where annual salary of one or two person can be adjusted. If you are meditating for just 10 minutes per day, imagine the amount of confidence that it will give to you. If you repeat something to someone, however unbelievable it might be, that someone will begin to believe you. And the greatest of all the secrets is that the 'someone' can be you or your sub-conscious mind. This is just the power of repetitive suggestions that you give to your mind. 

This power of doing somethings daily, the power of accumulation is something which will give you great returns with time. You just have to give some thought to it. May be the next idea lies somewhere there. 

The Pomodoro Technique - Focus Redefined

You might have heard of 80-20 principle which defines that 80% of your tasks will contribute towards 20 % results and the balance 20 % of what you do will directly impact into 80 % results. Similarly, if you want most of your tasks like that 20 % which will maximize your results, then you need to do that tasks will full focus. Most of the time, our attention is diverted due to many small small things which will not let us work on what we actually should do. In such times, it will lead to your important tasks being postponed. 

Then comes the Pomodoro Technique. What is Pomodoro technique? Pomodoro technique is a technique of time management. It teaches us to focus on a task. In one of my earlier blogs, I had mentioned, how students can concentrate for approximately 45 minutes and hence the lectures are designed around this time. The break they get in between allows them to refocus themselves on the next lecture. Similarly, it has been observed that it is difficult to focus on to a task for more than 25 minutes. After that, the focus is lost and the efficiency gets down. What the technique suggests is to start your task and just while you start, keep an alarm of 25 minutes. You can disconnect yourself from everything for those 25 minutes and just focus on the task. As soon as the alarm goes off after 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break. The alarm gives you the convenience to focus for those 25 minutes without worrying about anything. since you have set an alarm, your mind will also be relaxed about other things and only focused on the task at hand. Do whatever in the 5 minute break. Make a mark for the first break. Resume again after 5 minutes. 

After four such rounds, you need to take a bigger break, say of 20-30. You can use such breaks until your work gets completed. Such breaks allow your mind and body to focus on things on which you are working. Rather than working to distract you, your body will know that you will be getting a break in a short while and you should concentrate on the job. 

Goal & Prioritization - The Two Steps of Success

Of foremost importance among all things to become successful is to set a Goal. Because only those can go ahead in life who decide to go. Only those can attain success, who decide to do. When we set a goal, we become active towards its achievement. Whatever goal you chose, even if you go closer to it, you will be happy. After setting goal, there should be Goal Review System (GRS). If you have set a 10 year goal, you should work backward. Sometimes it takes time to set things. You may not get results for 2-3 years, but once things are set, everything will flow into system. You just need to work towards building of the system. Once goal is fixed, you will have the steps to reach there. In GRS, you have to see whether those steps are being followed. 

After setting up the goal, everything else which will take you away from the goal should not be given importance. The first thing that is important among two things is the thing which will take you towards the goal. Among the work which you can do, do only those work which take you to your goal. You have to prioritize the work. The fixing of the goal will automatically help you in prioritizing the work. All the other work can be delegated to others. Once the tasks are prioritized, try to give them time by which these should be completed. Giving some time to end will make that task urgent. And urgent tasks will always get done before other tasks. 

If you have not done the first step of Goal, you might not do the second step as well. Before setting a goal, take a pen and paper beside you. Sit in upright position and sit still for two minutes. Once your mind has calmed down, write down the three things that you want to set as Goal. Stepping on the first step will automatically lead you to the second step.

How To Create Great Video Presentations?

Earlier I dedicated one blog to emphasize that how in this digital world Video Presentations are great way to market your company. In today's age of whatsapp, youtube and facebook, email has rather taken a slight beating and other means have become more 'instant' like. You can share text, photos and videos on whatsapp & facebook. Videos naturally have become more likable and more likely to be viewed than a boring presentation. Nevertheless, you can convert even your presentation into a movie. You just need some imagination. 

When you make a video, keep in mind that shorter videos are preferred over longer videos by the viewer. If there is an option to make ultra short videos, then it might work better to share more ultra short videos than a longer one. You can spray your video in between to your clients to generate interest in your business. When your video starts, it should be remembered that as it happens in any message or presentation, a video will generate interest only if the starting is good enough. There are many videos which are closed in the starting itself. The text that you would put in the video should be readable, the photos that you put should be clear. 

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I would like to make one point here which is very important. When communicating, you should always be clear and audible. The very purpose of communication is to tell, give a message. If the message itself is not clear, or it is told in such a tone that it is not audible, then the very purpose is not accomplished. When you are showing a photo or a video, then it must communicate for what it was made. I request all of you that you should tell even children and young students to be always clear and audible during any presentation or whenever they speak.

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When you make a video, make it a point that it is mobile friendly. Yesterday only we talked about the use of smartphones and videos too could be viewed on it. So, make it a point that your videos are good to view on smartphones too. The presentation should not be boring, if you could put photos, videos, animation, etc., then it would be better. You can also use a professional voice over or at least a clear voice over which does not stammer in between. You can also put on a music which will suit the presentation. Whenever making a presentation or a video, make it a point that you should include the contact number, email id, website, etc. There should also be a call to action. It would be another feather in your cap, if you could add a clip of your satisfied customer who would tell how your product has been good and how you have been supportive over the period. 

With this in mind go and prepare a video.

Use The SmartPhone - Not Just As A Phone

Do you use smart phone? I guess, you do. But how many of you use the phone more than that of a phone use. I mean, do you use phone only for receiving and making calls and messages. Your smart phone can do a lot many things than that. Only if you use it. For example, do you know your phone has a calender. Yes. You know it. But do you use it? No. Why? Never thought about it. In business, there are number of things that we have to take care of. And in these things, we often forget things. If you call a customer - for anything like payment or order, he might tell you to call after a week. Immediately tell google to put a reminder to call client X. Suppose, you have to give call to a vendor regarding the follow up, put a reminder. You have an appointment with client, put a reminder. When you put reminders, your phone will alert you half an hour before and you will be ready for that work. 

You are going somewhere and suddenly you get some idea. You have a thought to do something which might be of some use in production. You check for pen & paper and you don't have it. You put it off till the next day and the completely forget about the idea. Welcome to the app - Notes /Evernotes, etc. There are apps which will be like post-it notes. You can go on the app, open new note or randomly scribble ideas on the open note. You can also put a reminder to read it sometime later. 

You have many apps like indiamart or tradeindia, where you can showcase your product. You have olx and quickr where you can put your product so somebody can look for it. You can also go through the number of furniture and other services offered for a small business. You also have different apps for business purpose. You also have camera with you. With it you can take photographs of your product and immediately post it to your customer. You need to become smart to use your smartphone smartly. Believe me, you will be very happy. Don't use youtube for general entertainment. Use it for inspiring and motivating videos. Use it for learning new things. 

Business Idea - Part Time Work At Companies

There are many small & medium businesses around us. Though they are less glorified, but it is the class of businesses which provide maximum employment. When we think of big businesses, their employee to turnover ratio is very low. They have many a systems that are in place for big companies and hence many things are automated. Against that small and medium businesses are more labor intensive. Main reason behind that being less knowledge of systems and availability of capital. High capital investment facilitates automation and systems. This is not available to the SMBs and hence they are more labor intensive. 

SMBs also are always production oriented and hence they hardly have any team, skill and view to have some systems. When these SMBs approach bigger companies for supply of parts, they are not prepared. Bigger companies have some criteria above their normal requirements. They look at the companies and see if they are quality conscious, whether they will be able to supply in the quantity and quality that they want. Behind all these, they look whether the SMBs are ISO certified. Iso certification will be achieved if systems are in place and the needed filework is done. For facilitating ISO certification, a particular grade of manpower is needed which might be costly. All SMBs cannot keep so costly people. They will be willing to keep a part timer. This is the opportunity which can be tapped by the Consultant. Instead of working at one company at x payment, these consultants can work with 7-8 companies for part time. Each company will be willing to give up to 1/2 x payment to a consultant. If you are able to tap 4-5 companies, you will be well off. You will also have more free time, as instead of working for 6 days and whole day per week, you can work for either 1 day per week or half day per week at the company. As you are consultant, your attendance will also be less important than your work. Once your work is done, you can leave. 

This is just one type of job. You can also think of accounting, HR, marketing, etc. You just have to get imaginative and have to have more confidence in your abilities to take over the role. You also have to remember that you need to give good performance and satisfaction to your customer, so that he is happy and not willing to let you go. This will happen only when you work so good that he depends on you. 

Should I Leave My Job & Start Up Something New

This is a question that quite often comes up. Many a times this happens when somebody has lost job or are looking at a flat career or they have got an idea and are looking to give it a shot. My first question is what is the motivation to start up. If this motivation has come because he has lost job and his next one is taking time, then it is a difficult one. When you consider to start up, the main difference to be considered is - whether you would be able to do without getting continuous salary. Though it depends from type of business to your speed in doing it, it may not be before six months that you would be able to draw funds from the business. You must have enough funds to tide over that period. 

Secondly, you need to locate the type of business that you want to do and whether you have that many funds with you. You either want to do business because you want to do something challenging or you want enormous growth in what you are getting. You have to decide that whatever you want to do, whether you want to do it full time or part time. If you just want some extra income, then rather than going full time, you might just invest in other's business by being a sleeping partner or you can invest in such assets where the growth rate will be higher. If you have discipline to control your expenses, then automatically your asset class will increase and you will become wealthy. And if you want to do something part time, then you must ensure that you would be able to give enough time daily to it. Because if you do not give any time to it, it will bring you nothing. 

Thirdly, if you are thinking of doing full time, then you are dead serious about the start up. You might need capital now. When you are ready, you must have enough capital with you not only for your project but also for your personal needs. Even if you have budgeted for x amount, you should have at least 1.5 to 2 times money. Once you have decided that whatever it takes, you will start up and succeed at that, then you will. 

Resources - How to make the best of them?

How does a David beat Goliath? Start ups have one thing in common. Resources or rather the lack of resources. Start ups always are behind the established Goliath's when it comes down to resources. When any small company is compared with the big company, it is the resources that comes into picture and that is often the reason why the big company is the favorite. You don't have to go decades back, it was only recently that Reliance showed all the mighty resources to launch the Jio. Such was the affect that it has changed the landscape of the industry. Before launching Jio, there was dearth of 4G smartphones. Due to the offer, the 4G handsets sold like hotcakes. There are talks of mergers among the industry. Someone will have to come up with good utilization of the resources if they have to tackle the Jio. 

History notes the fact that Shahji Raje, father of Shivaji Raje, fought with the Mughals and Adilshahi at a time and still defeated them twice. The one fight is a very famous one where Shahji Raje's army of 20000 defeated an army of 2 lac soldiers which were the combined forces of Mughals and Adilshahi. The battle is the famous Bhataudi battle. Since the army of 2 lac personnel required large amounts of food and water, they were located near the dam. Shahji knew he lacked the resources, but came up with a brilliant idea, which was in line with his Guerrilla warfare tactics. He engineered the cracks in the dam and broke the dam thereby drowning the whole army with the water coming out of the dam. This was amazing use of resource. This was real. 

What is not real but still a very good example of use of resources is the fight of Bahubali in the Kuntala kingdom where the army of Pinjaris attack them. It was a completely surprise attack and no one in the Kuntala kingdom were ready. Even then Bahubali used the resources available to him like the oxen and the dam which is ripped open apart so that the water drowns the Pinjari army away. 

If you are still not sure about the use of limited resources, then you must study the case study of Nirma vs Hindustan Unilever which now is converted to Ghadi vs Hindustan Unilever. Jyothi Laboratories had also used the resources well to sell their product - Ujala. You should not get disheartened by the fact that you have less resources. Remember that hard work and persistence will make you a king, just like it did for Dangal girls despite lack of resources.

Read The Books - Learn From Them

Other than word of mouth, it is the books that have transited the knowledge from one century to other century. If we know what happened 1000 years ago, it is because of the books which have the documented material. There is also word of mouth which mainly translates into a tradition sooner than later. This is because of the lack of proper communication through words of mouth. Previously also I did write about the game where word of mouth is transmitted and how the final delivered message might be completely different than what had started. I will leave that topic here. Lets go to the books. 

Books are things where people have written their experience, their thoughts, fiction, non-fiction, etc. and through this the knowledge has passed on to the other generations. There are religious books like Bhagwad Gita, Quran, Bible, etc. Then there are books written by different authors. In the recent perspective, there are many self help books and the business related books that are coming up day in and day out. Out of that there are some books which become an instant hit and run for generations. In my earlier days when I had just joined industry, I came through a book called The Goal written by Godratt. The book beautifully run a parallel story between a manager's personal and professional life. How his both lives were under ruins and how he sees a parallel of Theory of Constraints and bottlenecks working in them and then removes the bottleneck to increase the productivity and achieve the Goal. There is 'Think & Grow Rich' by Napolean Hill whose other book 'Laws of Success' is equally wonderful at more than 1000 pages. It takes you through the 16 laws which if you follow will give you success. The most famous law among them is 'Work more than what you are paid for'. 

Reading these kind of books will give you knowledge and insights into different things. Our world is so small that we cannot actually come across new things until we meet new people and read new books. We will come across new ideas only in the open space and hence it is necessary to update yourself with new books, new blogs, new magazines.  

Fulfill The Promises Made To Yourself

When we are happy or sad we make promise to ourselves or to our Diety / God. Or at times we think that if this happens, I will do this. If I get money, I will do this. If I am able to achieve this target, then I will visit this mountain. If I am able to close this deal, I will be going to the desired location / restaurant, etc. There are whole range of promises that we make. We make to ourselves, we make to our staff, we make to our family and we make it to our God. When you make these promises, you give a message to each that when such and such task is completed then I would be so happy that I will do this thing (to please you or in celebration). Many a times it happens that once those tasks are completed, we have already forgotten those promises. We even forget to acknowledge that we have indeed achieved something or that something has been through due to good luck. 

The first thing I would like to say is, promise yourself or anybody only those things which you will be able to fulfill, do easily. Never promise so much that it would be impossible for you to do and complete. Take an example now. You go to some vendor and tell him to do certain task. And you tell him that you would pay him after the task is completed. When he tells you that the task is completed, you refuse to pay him. After six months, you again have some work with the vendor. You tell him to do the task. Will he do it? No, he won't until you have given his last time's due. 

That vendor is the third person. Must you not hear your heart and fulfill the promises given to it. If you fulfill the promises you have given to it, your subconscious mind will be happy. Next time when you promise it something, it will use all its energy to take your task to completion. Do you find the logic as to why you should fulfill the promises you give. If you are not able to fulfill it, please do not make it in the first place. 

Unless The Only Option Closes, Other Options Won't Open Up

I am looking for ways to increase my sales, but I am not finding many ways. How many time it has happened that though we are looking for something, we are not able to find many solutions and it is often the only one or two options that we can come up with. Our mind is clouded by the different obstacles and we are not able to find the opportunities. Unless the clouds are cleared, we won't be able to find the opportunities. You might have read my earlier blog on perspective. How one salesman does not see any business for shoes in the village where no one wears shoes and how the other salesman sees 100 % opportunity for business as no one has shoes. The thing is the same, only the other salesman has cleared his clouds to see the opportunity. 

I want to share one experience of mine. Often my hair raise when I share this experience as this was one valuable lesson we learnt in our earlier stage of business. When we started our business, we were new and we did not have much exposure. The project was conceptualized when economy was great and when the project realized, everything had turned upside down. The American banks were in the dumps and the economy was shaken. No banks were willing to fund new projects and they were guarded against giving loans. Ultimately a stage came when we are short of funds and there were sure death signs for a business. Unless there are funds for raw material, you cannot make products & sale and ultimately your business will close. We had only one hope. We went to our biggest investor and narrated them how there was business but no money. Once / twice they did help out, but next time when we went, we were very clearly told by our investor / mentor. He was a successful business man and it was not that he could not help us. But he told us clearly that if I help you, you won't find another way. I won't help you and I am sure you will find your way to steer clear of the difficulties. 

And truly after that moment, we did not go to him. And we are still up and running nicely. IT is from experience that I learnt that unless the only option closes (because till that time we think that it is the only option), the other options won't open up.