Recently, I met one entrepreneur. He was into one related product to what we manufacture. And he had given us one enquiry. In relation to that, we met. During talking I liked the one thing that he said. He had several salespersons moving around the country. There were expenses that he incurred on them. And he thought that his company has come to a saturated level in terms of the market. Meaning that as per him, the market was only as big and he did not see any scope of further improvement in his business. What he hoped for was that if he could secure some back end manufacturing, he could extend his sales and take some percentage on that. He said that during all these years, I have laid down the rails. Now, I hope to run as many trains on these as possible. What he meant was that he has his network of salesperson and now if he could increase the sales through each of them by increasing the product line (mainly trading), he could benefit through it.
This is similar to the parable of the pipeline that we hear. To take you back to the pipeline story if you have not heard it, it is a story of a village where there is water problem. Outside village there is a river from where water has to be brought. The contract was given to two persons - A & B. A is traditional person who carries water on his shoulders. As long as he is healthy, he carries the water. The more water he carries, the more he earns. But his earning had limitations as he could work only so much as his body allowed. Mr. B was long term in his thinking. He installed a pipeline and connected the village to the river. Then, without moving from his home, he could bring in water without sweating. He could bring as much water as was required and was able to earn more and longer than A.
This is what entrepreneurship is all about. It is about building a system, so that it could be milked later without much fuss.
No comments:
Post a Comment