1. In any discussion, make sure the problem statement is well defined
2. Do not deviate from the topic
3. When you have some experience in a domain, you tend to become very
aggressive because at the back of your mind you think- you CANT BE
WRONG about it.
Wrong attitude.
4. Learn not to get PERSONAL
Lets get one thing straight at the very outset -
No matter what document you make and send to the client - you are always selling.
That document might be the last thing you ever send / say to the client - albeit in the written form.
So, it better be the best thing that you could have possibly said.
And to come up with that 'BEST' thing that will appeal to the client / final reader - you need to be very sure of the context.
1. Why are u sending what you are sending?
i.e. What's the purpose? What's the objective?
What is that one thing that you want to achieve?
2. What message do you want to convey through that doc?
Come to think of it - at the end of the whole thing - if you say -
'I wish I had done this better' - it is totally not worth it.
You wasted an opportunity. You wasted your time.
Now - how will you be able to answer all the above questions?
Only if you know the context really well.
So, whenever you start any work - ask for the context / brief
And context would include (and not be limited to) -
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Only yesterday over lunch, we were discussing the security policies in office-
There were many nay-sayers who said its not worth it
It was then that I commented-
Having security policies is like having a police force- u'll never
appreciate its importance till a screw up. Peace times make you forget
their very existence
But fact is, they make it possible to live peacefully
Yest evening Mumbai was attackd & 15 policemen have been martyred so far
Are you maintaining your contacts well enough?
Are you in regular touch with the people you like?
Make sure you keep a pulse on what's happening with the people you like
Lots of activity sometimes means that you get carried away in the moment...
Think abt it- some weekends there's no time to breath and some
weekends there no one to share stuff with.
Why?
Work it out...
The last weekend was a really hectic one-
Football
Meeting neighbours
Going out with office colleagues (initially SOUL and then Barista)
Night out at Y's place
Guitar class
...
Lots of (sometimes mindless) activity... very little time spent thinking...
its great to live in the moment- but it is advisable to spend some
time everyday strategising about the future-
thinking does throw up some uncomfortable questions- but they are
worth answering.
No matter what you sell- toothpaste or patent services, sales is never
really easy
If you think toothpaste is easier- cos the end customer is easily
reachable, think again- the customer is as easily reachable to u as ur
competition- killing all the supposed advantage
on the other hand- sellin patent services needs contacts, BIG
contacts- such calls are mostly taken by senior mgmt. U need a good
intro which almost always comes with a good reco.
1. Things to do everyday - a live list... something which i should
refer and update regularly
2. make it a point to re-read some of your old posts... they will
surely add value to you... its just like the lesson you learnt from
your JEE prep... its important to learn/think new things everyday...
but its IMPORTANT to revise... or you might realise you have forgotten
some of your OLD fundas
3. Yeh kaisi bheed hai bas yahan tanhaaiyan mile...
Traditional job requirements: show up, sober. Listen to the boss, lift heavy objects.
Here's what I'd want if I were hiring a marketer:
You're relentlessly positive. You can visualize complex projects and imagine alternative possible outcomes. It's one thing to talk about thinking outside the box, it's quite another to have a long history of doing it successfully. You can ride a unicycle, or can read ancient Greek.
Show me that you've taken on and completed audacious projects, and run them as the lead, not as a hanger on. I'm interested in whether you've become the best in the world at something, and completely unimpressed that you are good at following instructions (playing Little League baseball is worth far less than organizing a non-profit organization).
You have charisma in that you easily engage with strangers and actually enjoy selling ideas to others. You are comfortable with ambiguity, and rarely ask for detail or permission. Test, measure, repeat and go work just fine for you.
You like to tell stories and you're good at it. You're good at listening to stories, and using them to change your mind.
I'd prefer to hire someone who is largely self-motivated, who finds satisfaction in reaching self-imposed goals, and is willing to regularly raise the bar on those goals.
You're intellectually restless. You care enough about new ideas to read plenty of blogs and books, and you're curious enough about your own ideas that you blog or publish your thoughts for others to react to. You're an engaging writer and speaker and you can demonstrate how the right visuals can change your story.
And you understand that the system is intertwined, that your actions have side effects and you not only care about them but work to make those side effects good ones.
The cool thing about this list is that it's not dependent on what you were born with or who you know. Or how much you can lift.
November 10-
1. I was spending quite some time trying to figure out new clients.
When i realised, that maybe spending even more time trying to get just
that ONE big client would be worth it! This insight made my day..
2. Dhiren bhai's bday. Had called London. Spoke to Bhabhi and Dhrumi.
Felt great.
Some actionable items-
1. In every action, when in doubt, ask yourself a question?
What do i gain or lose by doing this?
2. What is my final objective in doing this?
3. Stop yourself before you utter any NEGATIVE comment. See if the
negative comment is required- and if it can be framed in a better way
4. You are always selling. Learn to be DIPLOMATIC
Set some time aside everyday...
Think about the day that was...
1. What special thing did you do today? Work-wise and personal life wise
2. What was the best thing about today?
Plan for the next day-
1. Kal Kya special karna hai?
2. Plan for the work next day
Human tendency is that you normally dont blogg when you are feeling good...
You tend to blog only when you are down...
It is important to blog everyday so that you capture your thoughts
everyday. Someday you will look back and it might help you analyse...
Think about it...
1. Switching off and switching on - got this thought for the first
time in the gym...
While doing the exercise, focus on it. Once the set is done, focus on
the people around.
This is true in general-
Develop the capacity to consciously focus on thing 'A' and then
shifting it to thing 'B'
Cultivate this trait...
From Seth Godin's blog -
I try hard not to keep a running tally of big-time failures in my head. It gets in the way of creating the next thing. On the other hand, when you see failure as a learning event, not a destination, it makes you smarter, faster.
Some big ones from my past:
The Boston Bar Exam. My two partners and I spent a lot of time and money building this our last year of college. It was a coupon book filled with free drinks from various bars in Cambridge and Boston. The booklet would be sold at the bars, encouraging, I dunno, drunk driving. Lessons: Don't spend a lot on startup costs, don't sell to bar owners and don't have three equal partners, since once person always feels outvoted.
The Internet White Pages. This was a 700 page book filled with nearly a million email addresses. It took months to create and IDG, the publisher, printed 80,000 copies. They shredded 79,000 of them. Lesson: If the Internet Yellow Pages is a huge hit (it was), that doesn't mean the obvious counterpart will be. A directory that's incomplete is almost always worthless.
MaxFax. This was the first fax board for the Mac. It would allow any Mac user to hit 'print' and send what was on the screen to any fax machine. We raised seed money from a wealthy dentist, built a working prototype and worked to license it to a big computer hardware company. Lessons: Don't raise money from amateurs, watch out for flaky engineering if you're selling a prototype, think twice before you enter a market with one huge player (Apple knocked off the idea) and don't build a business hoping to sell out unless you have a clear path to do that.
I have a dozen more. The first wireless Sonos-like device. A nationwide game show using 900 numbers. A fundraising company that offered lightbulbs for sale to high school bands (lighter than fruit!). Not to mention classic book ideas like, "How to hypnotize your friends and get them to act like chickens." I'm not using hyperbole when I say that in 25 years, I had at least 20 serious career-ending failures.
I guess the biggest lessons are:
"He can't be a man because he doesn't smoke [syncopated pause] the same cigarette as me."
When your product becomes the badge for a tribe, you sell a lot of products. The Stones don't mean "a man" in the sense of a homo sapien. They mean "a man" in sense of "someone worthy of my respect." Not in my tribe, not worth it...
Brooks Brothers was the badge for a generation of grey-suited men. Che t-shirts are the badge for a cadre of activists. The Allen & Co. retreat is the badge for a tiny cabal of media titans.
It's not easy to become the badge, but it's a worthy destination.
Key truth: you can't be the badge for everyone. In order for the tribe to exist, it must have insiders. And you can't have insiders without outsiders.
1. If you want something really bad, never give up on it. And of
course, take the boost when you are offered one.
2. Do not ask one word questions..
- Be more specific. It helps you to organise your thoughts better.
- Evokes better answers
- As Bagchi explains, a leader is usually a good writer
- All you have to do is ASK
- Everyday, make a note of the best part of your day. A new blog about
it perhaps? :-)
Two distinct (???) thoughts...
1. be great at whatever you do
2. do only what you like
This place is almost as good as any other place to achieve your
dreams. for eg- Swati
Zaeem's concept- Do not give up on a place until you have squeezed out
everything that you could have learned from that place
When in a discussion- decide what you want
1. Do you just want opinions from people?
2. Do you want to convey an Opinion?
When you are conveying ur opinion, it is as good as SELLING it to someone.
You need to influence ppl for that.
Always be aware of
1. What are you SELLING? Whatever you sell, do it with drama
(remember- diff things drive diff ppl)
2. What's ur OBJECTIVE?
+ regularly bolster ur message or time & distance will take their toll
Every time you communicate something, you might be SELLING something.
So you always have to follow the basic rules of selling..
From an article in CD
1. Your ppt was logical and systematic. But it didn't connect
EMOTIONALLY- so it was a waste
Your ppt lacked drama. Your words did not inspire. People did not feel
the need to change from the old ways
2. Why all the drama in the ppt? Cos the drama conveys the PASSION. It
directly touches d heart
It was then that I commented-
Having security policies is like having a police force- u'll never
appreciate its importance till a screw up. Peace times make you forget
their very existence
But fact is, they make it possible to live peacefully
Yest evening Mumbai was attackd & 15 policemen have been martyred so far
Are you in regular touch with the people you like?
Make sure you keep a pulse on what's happening with the people you like
Lots of activity sometimes means that you get carried away in the moment...
Think abt it- some weekends there's no time to breath and some
weekends there no one to share stuff with.
Why?
Work it out...
Lots of (sometimes mindless) activity... very little time spent thinking...
its great to live in the moment- but it is advisable to spend some
time everyday strategising about the future-
thinking does throw up some uncomfortable questions- but they are
worth answering.
If you think toothpaste is easier- cos the end customer is easily
reachable, think again- the customer is as easily reachable to u as ur
competition- killing all the supposed advantage
on the other hand- sellin patent services needs contacts, BIG
contacts- such calls are mostly taken by senior mgmt. U need a good
intro which almost always comes with a good reco.
2. make it a point to re-read some of your old posts... they will
surely add value to you... its just like the lesson you learnt from
your JEE prep... its important to learn/think new things everyday...
but its IMPORTANT to revise... or you might realise you have forgotten
some of your OLD fundas
3. Yeh kaisi bheed hai bas yahan tanhaaiyan mile...
Traditional job requirements: show up, sober. Listen to the boss, lift heavy objects.
Here's what I'd want if I were hiring a marketer:
You're relentlessly positive. You can visualize complex projects and imagine alternative possible outcomes. It's one thing to talk about thinking outside the box, it's quite another to have a long history of doing it successfully. You can ride a unicycle, or can read ancient Greek.
Show me that you've taken on and completed audacious projects, and run them as the lead, not as a hanger on. I'm interested in whether you've become the best in the world at something, and completely unimpressed that you are good at following instructions (playing Little League baseball is worth far less than organizing a non-profit organization).
You have charisma in that you easily engage with strangers and actually enjoy selling ideas to others. You are comfortable with ambiguity, and rarely ask for detail or permission. Test, measure, repeat and go work just fine for you.
You like to tell stories and you're good at it. You're good at listening to stories, and using them to change your mind.
I'd prefer to hire someone who is largely self-motivated, who finds satisfaction in reaching self-imposed goals, and is willing to regularly raise the bar on those goals.
You're intellectually restless. You care enough about new ideas to read plenty of blogs and books, and you're curious enough about your own ideas that you blog or publish your thoughts for others to react to. You're an engaging writer and speaker and you can demonstrate how the right visuals can change your story.
And you understand that the system is intertwined, that your actions have side effects and you not only care about them but work to make those side effects good ones.
The cool thing about this list is that it's not dependent on what you were born with or who you know. Or how much you can lift.
1. I was spending quite some time trying to figure out new clients.
When i realised, that maybe spending even more time trying to get just
that ONE big client would be worth it! This insight made my day..
2. Dhiren bhai's bday. Had called London. Spoke to Bhabhi and Dhrumi.
Felt great.
1. In every action, when in doubt, ask yourself a question?
What do i gain or lose by doing this?
2. What is my final objective in doing this?
3. Stop yourself before you utter any NEGATIVE comment. See if the
negative comment is required- and if it can be framed in a better way
4. You are always selling. Learn to be DIPLOMATIC
Think about the day that was...
1. What special thing did you do today? Work-wise and personal life wise
2. What was the best thing about today?
Plan for the next day-
1. Kal Kya special karna hai?
2. Plan for the work next day
It is important to blog everyday so that you capture your thoughts
everyday. Someday you will look back and it might help you analyse...
Think about it...
This is true in general-
Develop the capacity to consciously focus on thing 'A' and then
shifting it to thing 'B'
Cultivate this trait...
From Seth Godin's blog -
I try hard not to keep a running tally of big-time failures in my head. It gets in the way of creating the next thing. On the other hand, when you see failure as a learning event, not a destination, it makes you smarter, faster.
Some big ones from my past:
The Boston Bar Exam. My two partners and I spent a lot of time and money building this our last year of college. It was a coupon book filled with free drinks from various bars in Cambridge and Boston. The booklet would be sold at the bars, encouraging, I dunno, drunk driving. Lessons: Don't spend a lot on startup costs, don't sell to bar owners and don't have three equal partners, since once person always feels outvoted.
The Internet White Pages. This was a 700 page book filled with nearly a million email addresses. It took months to create and IDG, the publisher, printed 80,000 copies. They shredded 79,000 of them. Lesson: If the Internet Yellow Pages is a huge hit (it was), that doesn't mean the obvious counterpart will be. A directory that's incomplete is almost always worthless.
MaxFax. This was the first fax board for the Mac. It would allow any Mac user to hit 'print' and send what was on the screen to any fax machine. We raised seed money from a wealthy dentist, built a working prototype and worked to license it to a big computer hardware company. Lessons: Don't raise money from amateurs, watch out for flaky engineering if you're selling a prototype, think twice before you enter a market with one huge player (Apple knocked off the idea) and don't build a business hoping to sell out unless you have a clear path to do that.
I have a dozen more. The first wireless Sonos-like device. A nationwide game show using 900 numbers. A fundraising company that offered lightbulbs for sale to high school bands (lighter than fruit!). Not to mention classic book ideas like, "How to hypnotize your friends and get them to act like chickens." I'm not using hyperbole when I say that in 25 years, I had at least 20 serious career-ending failures.
I guess the biggest lessons are:
"He can't be a man because he doesn't smoke [syncopated pause] the same cigarette as me."
When your product becomes the badge for a tribe, you sell a lot of products. The Stones don't mean "a man" in the sense of a homo sapien. They mean "a man" in sense of "someone worthy of my respect." Not in my tribe, not worth it...
Brooks Brothers was the badge for a generation of grey-suited men. Che t-shirts are the badge for a cadre of activists. The Allen & Co. retreat is the badge for a tiny cabal of media titans.
It's not easy to become the badge, but it's a worthy destination.
Key truth: you can't be the badge for everyone. In order for the tribe to exist, it must have insiders. And you can't have insiders without outsiders.
2. Do not ask one word questions..
- Be more specific. It helps you to organise your thoughts better.
- Evokes better answers
- As Bagchi explains, a leader is usually a good writer
- All you have to do is ASK
- Everyday, make a note of the best part of your day. A new blog about
it perhaps? :-)
This place is almost as good as any other place to achieve your
dreams. for eg- Swati
Zaeem's concept- Do not give up on a place until you have squeezed out
everything that you could have learned from that place
Always be aware of
1. What are you SELLING? Whatever you sell, do it with drama
(remember- diff things drive diff ppl)
2. What's ur OBJECTIVE?
+ regularly bolster ur message or time & distance will take their toll
From an article in CD
1. Your ppt was logical and systematic. But it didn't connect
EMOTIONALLY- so it was a waste
Your ppt lacked drama. Your words did not inspire. People did not feel
the need to change from the old ways
2. Why all the drama in the ppt? Cos the drama conveys the PASSION. It
directly touches d heart
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