I am smiling!!!!

Miracles happen.. and they happen at the least expected hour. One does not know the reason why everything is going in one's favor but the very fact it is happening brings smiles. And when such a rush of things happen, one knows there is someone/something which is making these happen. Savor these unexpected turn of events in April last week and early May:

1. The tatkal tickets got booked so easily as though it was normal booking. Summer time is peak vacation season and IRCTC is notorious for crashing all the while during tatkal hours.

2. Its 6:15pm the train and we are still 12kms away from the Tirupati station. The Narayanadri departs at 6:20pm and there is no way we can make it to the station for the train. We do the next best option, go in the cab to the next station and hope to catch it there. We go at 6:50pm to Renigunta, when the expected departure is 6:45pm. But Voila!! the train is yet to arrive when we reach Renigunta though it started on time at Tirupati. Another 15mins before it arrives.

3. Registering the apartment and going around the Registrar office is a painful ordeal. I still have to adjust for almost Rs.5L for the payments to builder and the Registration process. So with all the glim prospects I go to the apartment builder for negotiating a deferred payment but yet get the apartment registered. Voila!! He agrees with any discussion. The next thing when I go to bank, is that they let me know I can use another 1.75 Lakhs for registration. This blessing came even without asking anyone for help. Next is the date for registration. SBI is notorious for a long drawn processes. Upon request for registering the apartment, I was given a date one week from hence. And I do not have that kind of a luxury. I will be on a honeymoon trip subsequent week and then reporting to office grinding the piled up work. So by only bet was the next day. With a bit of persuasion, the officials accept for getting the apartment registered the next day with a small work around. The registration process itself happens in two hours, and when did Govt. offices become so efficient?

4. When things are looking good, they turn sour a bit, just to indicate that we need to appreciate the Miracles. I get back to Hyderabad (from Bangalore after successful registration of my apartment). The next day I am leaving for Hongkong for the honeymoon trip. Previous day, I kept all the passports, tickets, Android Tablet in my laptop bag which is like a second skin to me. But the morning I arrive in Hyderabad, two hours after reaching home, I realize I forgot my bag in train. Never in a decade of train travel, did I lose a thing. (not even a water bottle). But that day with all the other luggage, I forgot about my shoulder bag. It contained Laptop, Passports, Wallet with driving license and PAN card, Android Tablet, mobile phone. Losing passport means, my honey moon got cancelled, all my bookings are already paid for and more of disappointment. In gist its like losing almost three lakhs worth and  also around three months of running around across govt. offices. In my mad rush I started back to the Kacheguda railway station hoping I have been lucky till date and I need that luck more than anytime now. The moment I reach, the AC coach attender, says he saw the bag but then he lost it again. He connected me to the train bed-roll supervisor, Deepak. After persuading for half an hour, they fetch me the lost bag. Voila!!  Half an hour back, I was thinking my honey moon got cancelled leaving me disappointed, I lost three lakhs in all the bookings, Losing fav gadgets/laptops meant loss of important personal data and now I am planning when I need to book a cab to go to airport. Can this happen in real life?

5. My flight to HKG got delayed by three hours. Now it starts at 4:20am and arrives in HKG at 12:10pm. Earlier when I planned the flight bookings, it was expected to arrive at 9:30am. That would give me enough time to take the visa on arrival, collect baggage, navigate through a new city to go to the cruise terminal. But now by the time I arrive at the HKG airport, the cruise boarding would have already started. The last boarding call for cruise was 2pm. So I have 1hr 50 mins to get visa, collect baggage, buy MTR tickets and reach Kowloon and take a taxi to the cruise terminal. So I was not sure if we will be able to make it to the cruise in time. I gave up the cruise vacation and started planning for the alternatives through the five hour flight journey.We finished all this and also got time to pick a tourist SIM card for mobile and reached cruise terminal by 1:40pm, good 20mins before the final boarding call.

6. When I was telling my newly-wedded wife about the series of miracles that happened after the wedding, she was skeptical about the occurrence. But I being confident of it told her to test it out. She said if the wedding was trigger of miracles, then even our wishes should be granted. And one of my previous small wishes was to spot another ship from the cruise we were on. Given the vastness of the oceans, distance from any land/harbours, the pitch dark night with all the fog around, I had no hope of spotting. Breaking our discussion there we went to grab some drinks and snacks. After half an hour, we returned to the view point on the deck just to have one last glimpse of the black ocean before we retire to our room. Voila!! We can count at least six ships in different directions. Given all above factors even the impossible seems to occur, to prove my point.

7. After the other small "lucky" occurrences, we were finally boarding the flight back to Hyderabad. Both of us were visibly disappointed from the morning as the Honeymoon was coming to an end and after a great time we need to be back at work from next day. The series of miracles, though happened, looked very scary, as they put me to the edge. (I wanted miracles but not when I was at the edge of the seat.). With the mundane life starting the next day, I expected no more miracles to occur. Just at the boarding gate, the hostess tore our tickets and announced she is changing our seats. I got mad, I have done a web check-in the previous day, so that I can get the preferred seats. And here she is announcing change of seats without my permission. I raised my voice and said she cannot do that as we already opted the seats we wanted. And her response... Voila!! She declared, we are being upgraded to Premium Economy. Now that meant a welcome glass of champagne, choice of food, complete privacy and bigger seats and leg space. Now what more can I ask for than that signature sign off to those memorable days?

 

I don't know if it is the luck that the new-lady-of-my-life brought-in or the good wishes and blessings showered on us by the elders or just coincidental. Whatever be it, it brought good times and smiles.  I will cherish these for life-time, while you can debate what made these miracles possible. :)

My List of Excuses to Avoid Stairs

Just like any other 'fat guy', even I need to motivate myself to climb stairs everyday. But sometimes 'laziness' takes priority over 'motivation'. And here are the excuses I use to reason out my laziness:

1. I climbed in morning, so let me avoid now.

2. I need to accompany my friend in elevator, else he will feel bad.

3. I am running out of time, need to be there on 6th floor immediately. So no stairs

4. These leather shoes will be folded and the marks dont go away

5. The lift is waiting here. Should not disappoint it.

6. I will compensate by taking  stairs in the evening, now I will take the elevator.

7. I am not that Fat!!!

My List of 7 Essentials while conducting a Sales Process

1.In-time replies – quick turn around

2.Acknowledging what is possible and what is not possible during the initial meetings – This will set expectations right

3.All rebuttals should have a valid sales arguments (rather than statements/claims)

4.Empathize client’s situation/needs

5.Be Assertive and not aggressive

6.Do not over-commit and under-deliver

7.Get payments at right time

Bottled-Water Economics in Train

During MBA, there was a popular case study in the macro-economics class on how poverty is a vicious circle. The case study demonstrates on how the poor are forced to stay poor. It takes a lot of Government intervention (as regulator and financier), opportunities and luck for someone to break the shackles of poverty and come out of it. The case study demonstrates the fact through an example of calculating the rate of interest/debt pay-back someone had to pay depending on the social class. Mukesh Ambani, because of all his wealth, can get a Rs. 10 lakh loan for a petty interest rate like 10%. (going by the basic interest rate, but actually he might end up getting for a rate less than that.). For him paying this debt back, does not make much of a difference. But a road-side vendor takes a credit (in form of vegetable stock) worth Rs.300 and ends up paying Rs.700 every day. That’s a shocking rate of interest (130%) which he ends up paying because he has no collaterals or wealth.  This Is the reason poor always are forced to stay poor until the government or other institutions intervene to regulate or finance.

In my long list of train journeys, I have seen a very shocking portrayal of this fact in real life. To my surprise I never thought that this big lesson would come from a simple life example of bottled water. A month back, I was travelling in AC 2-tier. It was around 10pm in night, I finished dinner, and needed a bottle of water. When a purveyor was going around I have asked him for two bottles of water. He said he can give me one bottle. I paid him Rs. 15 (printed rate) but immediately I saw that his case has more bottles. I raised my voice and exerted my right that he should sell one more to me. He said that if he will sell more bottles to me, he will lose business. ('Opportunity cost'). I was now curious and asked him to explain. He said he is going to the general-coaches (unreserved coaches) where he will sell the bottle for Rs.30. My first reaction was of shock I wondered how he could sell it at a higher price in a lower economy class. My next reaction was of skepticism, wondering who will buy his over-priced inventory. As though he read my face over the reaction, he began to explain, in General coaches which are cheaper (which most of lower social class people prefer), there is no allocation of seat and people cling to their seats/space which they occupy whenever they get. There is a lot of competition for the seat/space and hence no one would get up from seat to buy a water bottle from en-route stations (even if they were comfortable, buying from stations is difficult, as the train stops for a few mins and sometimes these shops on platforms are not near. Sometime the stations themselves are deserted or worse there are no stations for hours together). They have no option than to depend on the purveyors and buy at the price they sell. Though this cleared my skepticism, but made me furious that this guy is cheating on a poor man. My only consolation at that time was that even the purveyor is poor and he is cheating another poor man to make his living. However it still makes my blood boil that someone buys a general-class ticket to save money but the eco-system does not let him do that. He is always looted to keep him poor.

In this context, the Rs.10 drinking water scheme started by Jayalalita in Tamil Nadu is a welcome move. Many commuters now get access to cheap drinking water at all transit points. Hats Off to you Fat Madam!!

Selling to Clients Outside your Geography

I had a skeptical boss from one of my previous organizations, who never believed selling any-where outside the city we work out of. I had a tough time to convince him to at least start doing so. So I gave up… I gave up not only the idea of convincing him, but also gave up my job with him. Today again, I had a new-joinee who was skeptical about selling in US while sitting in India. Let me say that it is not only possible to build a business but also can build a thriving business on this basis. In fact not just in US, today most countries accept the idea of selling remotely. I go a leap ahead and say it is possible even in India. At my current organization, we have mastered the art of remote selling. (And I am talking about enterprise customers.) These are a few things which I learnt the hard-way which will ensure successful remote selling:

1.       Act, as if he is near you: A customer needs positive validation at all decision points. He wants to understand you, your organization and its processes. So all his small requests (however small) are to be taken as utmost important. Just like someone sitting next to you, you dare not forget his requests (lest you should take-in his sneers, stares and scolds).

2.       Be at his beck and call: No business-contact in this busy world likes to call you just for the fun of it. So if he calls, it becomes obligatory that you talk to him or at least reach out in a meaningful delayed time. That gives him a lot more confidence.

3.       Collaterals are to be speck-less: I keep meeting people who say ‘let’s fill crap in case studies, ppts’. They argument is that no-one looks into them. Mind you in this world of outsourcing, a prospect is just looking for a reason to strike you down. And if your collaterals do not have proper sentences, tone, connotations, images, content, specifications; trust me he will not be impressed by your organization. For him each artifact (whether it’s a website, case studies, docs, ppts) are all his decision-points to make decisions on your process, meticulous nature and the team. If you are not in proper order, trust me you lose the order.

4.       Collaterals are to be relevant: They need to be your extensions of sales arguments. They should understand that you know what you are talking about. Sending irrelevant collaterals just for heck of it, will cast a negative impression. Be choosy in sending artifact.

5.       Every conversation, every resource, every person is important: You might be an excellent orator, a tough sales guy, a near-perfectionist, but if your team is not up to the mark and the conversation involves someone from your team who do not match the client’s expectations, then please strike down the lead immediately after the call.

6.       Meet deadlines: Always meet the commitments or deadlines. I have lost quite a good number of deals just because we could not meet the time line. The moment you don’t match up to the timeline commitments, a client will always perceive it as the time zone difference coming into play (for clients in other time zones) or the remote connect lackadaisical nature coming into play. Both are dangerous for your business.

7.       Keep calling all your clients once in a while: Remote connectivity might turn out dangerous, if you happen to be away from your client’s voice-mails/emails/social-media. He will perceive that you are hiding behind the veil of remote connectivity. The reason will be presumed that you do not want him to see you. Just like you happen to run into a person in office, you also need to ‘happen to run’ into your clients communication channels. A seasoned sales guy knows the importance of this in building long term relationships/businesses.

8.       Access the breadth of the organization on both sides: Try to build relationship across the breadth of the organization. This will help in two ways: a. Help with other opportunities/leads b. Help with getting a second line of contacts, in case the first line moves out. Similarly let your client do the same. That way he will have more confidence on your organization. This is quite common in face to face relationships, then why should it be different in a remote connectivity relation?

9.       References/Testimonials from same geography: Every client needs positive assurances. More so for a remote connectivity client, who does not have the luxury of visiting your office or meeting your team? Sometime even after visiting your premises some customers, like to know how your past clients felt signing you. So references and testimonials from same geography will always help to overcome the mind blocks.

10.   Escalation matrix: A remote client wants to know what if you go absconding on the right time or if you purposefully don’t respond to his communication. So this is one more argument to present your case that you are trustworthy and though he does not sit close to your city, he can reach out to someone higher-up for issues.

11.   Process Driven: Organizations when dealing with unknown entities prefer dealing with a process-driven approach than ad-hoc personal basis. This will give an assurance to the client, that the vendor company has-been-there, done-that, analyzed-the-outcomes and established processes. So project your company as process driven than a free-lancer or a cheap sweatshop. It showcases how the company has matured from past executions.

12.   Virtual Infrastructure: Unfortunately, clients sitting outside your city cannot have a look at your infrastructure or take a call on the organization’s ability. But it is important for a client to get a feel-factor. Here virtual infrastructure like Project Management tools, deployment tools, ticketing systems come handy. Creation of virtual infrastructure needs investment (both effort and time), it surely pays off at the end (just like real infrastructure). The bigger (and better ) the infrastructure created, the more are the brownie points earned. Once created, a sales person should insist that the client goes through this infrastructure. (Just like you show-around your office space to a visiting client).

13.   Transparency: Last and most important is the transparency factor. In (all) long distance relationships, this plays a very important role in creation of mutual trust. If you do not have resources, tell them openly that you do not have, but can recruit. Rather if you say you have resources and then delay the project start for lack of them, it immediately makes clients lose trust.

Happy Selling!!!

Best sales people in the world never sold a thing ..

So goes a popular tenet in the sales circles. While misinterpretations can be many, I like to view it only from the positive perspective which it was meant to be viewed. :)

The day people try to push something very hard, then it is transactional. It will be one off thing, which will not sustain long relationship. And being a sales person, your clients are for relationships for long term, multiple selling and not transactions. So it is better to get in customer's shoes and view things as he wants and advise him as he needs. That is a better way to build ever-lasting relationships than doing one transaction.

As a start-up assess your priorities ...

I have recently met a start-up team. The team is quite an enthusiatic team on verge of launching yet another 'path-breaking' online store in India. They are funded by a popular hotel chain. We were referred to them by our technology partner company, a big cloud player. Three minutes in the meeting, I realized that they are cash strapped. (Most Indian biggies say funding but give peanuts.). I have suggested them options but cautioned that they need to look at their budgets. So while the CEO shied away, the other guys were insisting that I need to work out something for a start-up. I indicated to them my costs will not vary with the client. Irrespective of the client being an American, Indian, Established firm, start up firm, they are same. And in current age the margins are low in IT services industry, so I cant push much. Then I asked the fundamental question here: As a start-up do you need all the services? Thats when they were dumbfolded.

Most start-ups fancy the idea of having big bells and whistles to their core offering. It works fine for a big companies with deep pockets, but small companies should realize that there means are limited. So they need to assess the priorities: must-have; good-to-have; can-do-away. That way they are much comfortable in taking what is needed. In this current case, the start-up needed a 24/7 monitoring for their systems. They wanted this to claim that they can give this on par with other ecommerce stores in market. But they did not realize that when a customer signs, he is aware of the limitations of a start-up. He does not expect everything to be in order from day-1 but expects that his needs/pangs to be heard out. I advised them that they better stay close to their customers and call them on daily/weekly basis to figure out if things were in order and solve them than have a 24/7 customer support team. While it is important for the team to put money in performance tweaking and better tele-support than a monitoring service.