Online Presence with Website

If you are having a business, especially for product or services which are location wise irrelevant I.e. your products can be given all over state or country, then you must have online presence. I have seen quite a few business who don't have online presence at all. Online presence of business brings some credibility to it. If certain customers want to check about you, it would be always positive if they can find you by searching about you.

You can put your business on IndiaMART, tradeindia, justdial, etc. Without spending any money. Though your page will not appear in product searches, but if someone is specifically looking for you, they can find it. It would be even better if you have your own website. Some of you might think why to spend money if you are well off. But you must also see, how much you are spending. You can start with Rs. 200/yr for first year & actually pay only Rs. 600 odd per year. This is just for renewal of your domain. Once domain is yours, you can just redirect it on other site, like your page on IndiaMART, for example. You can have full fledged website with different pages with feedback form, virtually free of cost, with your control & only with price of domain name.

So go ahead & register your website without pinching your pocket.

Diagnose Your Problems Correctly

Our day to day work is about solving problems. We look for solutions so we do not have to look at that problem again & again. For this, it is extremely important that the diagnosis of problem is correct. It should not happen that we have stomach ache & we eat medicine for cough.

And sometimes it goes very wrong when we diagnose wrongly & invest heavily & at the end of it find that the problem still exist or was due to other reason. I got the below mentioned story which will explain you the situation & also make you laugh. Just remember the Moral of story.
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One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route.

No problems for the first few stops-a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.

At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on.
Six feet height, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground.
He glared at the driver and said, "Big John doesn't need to pay!" and sat down at the back.

Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was.!

Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't happy about it.

The next day the same thing happened-Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down.
And the next day, and the one after that and so forth.!

This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.

Finally he could stand it no longer.
He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff.

By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what's more, he felt really good about himself.

So on the next Monday, when Big John once Again got on the bus and said, "Big John doesn't pay!," The driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, "And why not?"

With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, *"Big John has a bus pass."*

Be sure of what is a problem in the first place before working hard to solve one.

*Quite often in life we over-evaluate the problems and start working on huge solutions spending time, money, efforts, energy and focus, whereas, in actual, problems eventually are not that big!*

Most of Our life is actually as above story !

How to Manufacture at Low Cost

We were researching market for some product - automotive - three wheeler. The product was assembly of 3 PC & weighed almost 100 gm. We could buy this unbranded product in Rs. 10/-. We thought how is it possible? The part is steel part & also hardened. We got to know that this is from Ludhiana. We heard a lot about Ludhiana after that. We thought that we have to visit the place to see for ourselves.

We set out for Ludhiana. We went around the place & found that at one small place 2/3 machines were there & they were machining some part. They were making a spherical shape. Then we met one person & told him that we are interested in buying. We also asked him how they manage to sell at so low prices. He told us that his main work was packing & marketing. He bought raw material & gave to some households or such small workshops which were entirely run by families. There was no time based job here. It was result oriented. When job is result oriented, they will be paid as per the production. Even the rejection was deducted. The result being responsibility. People worked with responsibility & worked hard. The whole family would work on one machine. The volume of work would be so much that they didn't have to change setting. They did only one part. Normally there are two cycles of heat treatment in steel- one hardening & other tempering (stress relieving). These people did only hardening for a solid pin. Cost saving.

I will not say that all people/ manufacturing in Ludhiana work like these. But I am making a larger point. First, high volume & only one type of job. This makes easy special purpose machines which can be operated by less skilled people. Margins less, but high volume. Second, contract manufacturing. Instead of employing people, if you give contract or buy from outside (even on job work), results will be better quality & lesser hassles.

I have been to China. Among other things that make cheap production possible, is cluster manufacturing. There are several industrial clusters, which develops an ecosystem and makes process costs lowest. High volumes help it.

Magic of Giving Free

There are many posters around in a city. Each is trying to grab your attention.   You will see ads like 'Buy a home without paying anything'. What message does it give? These ads are only to increase foot falls, so they can then shortlist some customers. Please remember, you cannot buy house without paying anything. Even if 100 % loan is there, there will still be charges like Registration charges, vat & service tax.

But in this cluttered world, there is something which can engage people. This has been shown by Swami Ramdev. He started advertising for products only recently. But he started engaging people way back from 2004-5 days. He gave free training of Yoga to people. He genuinely cared for people. He taught them Yoga way to get fit & that too free of cost. He helped millions of people. Even to this day, his programs are there on TV daily morning. This increased his & in turn 'Patanjali's' popularity. If he spoke about Bottle Gourd in his program, many of them would buy & it would disappear from market in some time.

This free teaching gave him the popularity which helped him launch an attack on bigger FMCG behemoths. He filled vigour in Ayurveda related products. The moral of the story is you too can do some social work or social service by which people will come to know about you. This free thing has helped Baba reach 5000 Cr turnover in hardly 6-7 years. If not to that extent, but you too can apply this to your field.

Accidentally Found Business/Product

It happens sometimes that great things are discovered/created  accidentally or by failures. Imagine that you have started your journey to go to a beautiful hill station. You have heard that it is beautiful & are in full mood to enjoy. Suddenly something happens & you end up in a place near it. But this place is just as beautiful, as serene, as cold and as silent as what you had heard or imagined. In fact, you enjoy this place so much that you recommend this to your friends & relatives. You see, you discovered it accidentally.

Some of great products have been discovered in this way. Daily examples include the never boring Jeans. It was actually a failed product which they were making for tent. But it was not as hard as what they had wanted. Then just after some thought they made it into Pant & rest is history.

Similarly, 3M product- stick notes. They were actually making a glue, but something went wrong. Again it was not as sticky & they got it wrong until they discovered another product using same failed glue- Post it- sticky notes.
It is not necessary that you continue to do what you do. If you find some different product, application, service in your present business area & holds more business potential, you may consider that. One of the best example is that of Chik shampoo. This small company took a behemoth like HUL and created a market which has become the order of the day today. They started giving shampoo in small sachets @ Re 1. It ran very well and they are considered as pioneer in small packaging. Now, you get everything in micro packets - washing powder, shampoo, hair oil, Masala, Chip, kurkure, etc.

You can take a lesson from failure also, & by thinking differently.

Moving Bird Scarer- A Business Idea

Once we noted a Bird Scarer in a small farm. A bird Scarer is nothing but a statue like figure made out of bamboo, old clothes, pot, grass, etc. Which is made to make an impression of a man being present in the farms so the birds will not come. My friend noted that the bird Scarer is stationary, so it is ineffective. He also pointed out that if there is a Moving bird Scarer which can be directly bought & installed in field, people will buy it. People will buy it provided it is sold in range of 250-300 INR.

I asked my cousin who is farmer and he too said that stationary bird Scarer is very ineffective. I again asked him if he would buy one if it was moving and directly available & at what price? He said, he will buy 5 if the are moving and for Rs. 500/- each. So, I thought indeed this can be a market.

For the prices to be kept low, it should be made out of light & hard polymer, just like the dolls. You can observe the light plastic bat & ball, dolls, etc which are easily available in villages. These different body parts will move continuously if attached with a spring. You can also use one big string / thread with bird shape paper or plastic tied at other end. It should be so light that the bird shape paper will fly if there is good wind, this further scaring real birds.

Some fluorescent type of colors (with silver or gold color particles) can be used for body of Scarer, so it shines and scares away the birds.

Build some model for exhibition and may be you will have some business idea.

Thinking About Future

We are very busy in day today work. So busy that we fail to look things closer to us. Things like the small plant that has grown up in the garden and a beautiful flower has come up there. We will be able to appreciate it only when we notice it. We might be missing the new teeth of our child because we have not noticed it. Life is running fast and we are just going where it is taking us. It is said that you do not require a watch when you live in Mumbai, because the moment we are out of our house we get so busy that there is no time to notice time.

If you do not want to flow with the life where it takes you, but instead want to go where you want to go, then you must come on the bank of river where you can stop and see where actually you would have gone; where life was flowing. You should take such small breaks from your routine. Do not mix this time with family time, but give this time to yourself. This might be a couple of hours or if the thought process sets in, may go along for half a day. But believe me, it is going to take you only upwards.

And yes. You should note these small things. You may not have time to enact your idea, but if you fail to note it, it will be gone forever. In long term, only thinking will not give you much. You have to Act to get what you want.