Sell Blankets to Eskimos This post requires you to think a bit. Might be difficult on a Friday night, but do give it a thought over the weekend. We all know how challenging the life of a salesperson can be. Unrealistic sales targets, unwelcoming prospective customers, unending follow-up calls and meetings. And then demoralizing posters outside offices and the crushing…
Just Like That I have always disliked the idea of businesses buying, and friends forcing ‘Likes’ on Facebook. The number of likes really skews the picture. It makes it difficult to differentiate between a business that has bought 300 likes from one that has earned 200 likes with quality business and customer delight. Surely, Twitter, feedback, and public reviews…
We all remember the notorious financial meltdown of 2007-08 that washed away a lot of dreams. We all know why it happened. Some wise (read greedy) people built a huge structure on an extremely very weak foundation (sub-prime mortgage). And then went ahead and added floor over floor to their fantasy at the cost of the…
Here’s a first. A product review. Several weeks ago I was at a Raymond’s store picking up a suit I had given for altering. On one of the display sections, a number of beer bottles caught my eye. Looking closer, they read “Beer Shampoo”. Hmmm.! Now I’ve heard that beer’s really good for the hair,…
Sure the Tatas have had their share of tough n’ rough times with the Nano, and they buggered up with the advertising as well. That means there was extremely insufficient advertising, and never at the right time. It just struck me, what stopped them from making a kick-ass tv commercial for the monsoon season. Am…
“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.” – Peter Drucker We recently bought a cordless telephone from Croma (for the uninitiated, Croma comes under the Tata umbrella). Took it back home and it was not working. Late next…
If you got to start your business, you can’t always wait for real estate prices to be right. Sometimes, you just start..Wherever.! (Saw this on some random inner road on the outskirts of Pune) For those still wondering, that is a car covered with clothes that a man is trying to sell to passers by….
The Seat Next To The Lady Recently, the latest player in the online travel business, Travelyaari.com brought in the option of “block your seat next to a lady” on your next bus journey. Yeah, I know. My eyes lit up too for a moment there. But no, buddies, your lifelong dream of getting a seat…
The entire buzz in the recent past about Starbucks coming to India reminded me of this question that popped up in my head when I was at a Starbucks at a mall in New Jersey last year. It was probably a weekend, the mall was crowded. There were a good number of people queuing up…
Ever realized how much time we spend each day either building a thick layer of ‘unnecessary’, and/ or scraping a thick layer of it. Rather than build quality products and services, we tend to build our own imaginary features, declare our products/ services to be the absolute best without the real stuff to prove it. Facts…