LEADERS - DO what they love and love what they DO...!!!

Every individual is born with different instincts and different identity. You may never be able to judge the potential of the fish by it's ability to climb the tree or the caliber of the monkey by it's ability to swim underneath the water beds. Likewise all individuals are born with different potentials levels and different mastering areas. Just to give you a few examples - the dwarfs in the earlier ages and the marwari's/ gujarati's in the present are blessed with high levels of business acumen, the bengalis with knowledge assimilation, the Punjabi's with the culinary skills, the Khan's with the acting skills and so are many others. BUT the real challenge lies in identifying THAT HIDDEN BLIND SPOT and striking it hard times and again.

There are born leaders, there are made leaders, there are curated leaders and there are so many other forms of leaders which exists in todays world. But the Real, Original, True and Remembered leaders are the one's who follow their instincts and have the courage to follow their GUT FEEL. They are the ones who follow their instincts and end up doing what they Love.

Sachin Tendulkar - the legendary Indian batsmen failed to score big in his school exams but he scored biggies on the cricket field. Leo Messi - the football icon did not have sufficient amount to buy new pair of shoes to shape his goals for a football career but he had sufficient potential to score goals which mattered. Abraham Lincoln - the charismatic leader of United Nations -had suffered multiple nervous breakdowns but finally he made it to the position where he could have made everyone else nervous. Narendra Modi - the present Prime Minister of India - sold tea in the railway compartment when he visioned Made in India could sell so many things to the other nations. 

The rule of the game is not to follow what every one else has been doing for rising the stairs of success but the rule is to set and curate one's own path of success, to follow that inner self which sets us free and makes us happy with what we are doing. The basic funda is assimilation of the good habits of people who have inspired us, building up ourselves around those habits, using those habits for building up our strategies and using them to extract the meaning of our dreams. And stopping not till we are able to hammer down our dream - our BLIND SPOT of success.

Humans are emotional and sensitive - they always connect to things which they like. So if you are doing what you like you will end up speaking directly from your heart and will end up convincing people who think in similar lines as you thinking. You will create a environment of like minded people who can be easily connected to and easily explained to do what is desired form them.

But in the process of building up yourself always remember - enjoy and do something which makes you happy. Leaders must ALWAYS do what they enjoy and keep on doing what they enjoy else they will perish sooner or later. Do not make yourself feel as a shrub planted in the wrong soil cause you will never grow up then. Always seed your dreams in the right soil and garner them constantly with right ingredients so that they flourish up good, healthy and fruitful. 

What you SHOULD DO to make yourself as a strong and happy leader:-

• PLAN: Set up serious and practical bullet points for achievement but do not be too serious about them. Learn to relax and enjoy. Learn to party and pat your back every time you tick off one bullet point.
• TEAM-UP: Set up the right macro-plan, formulate a team, assign them their work, do regular monitoring and then micro sharpen the activities. Learn to engage the team in engaging them in a happiness drive and keep them pumped up for newer targets.
• BE UPDATED: There will be newer things coming up everyday. Learn to invest time in assimilating them, updating and upgrading as per your liking and necessity of team building. Remember even the old versions of the softwares are rendered useless by the companies which have created them.
• BE FLEXIBLE: Life is a new experience everyday. Remember the pareto principle - the 80/20 paradigm. Invest 20% of the time in planning what the rest of 80% is going to be all about. Things will not always work as you have planned, take up opportunities to amend as and when the time demands. It's the trees which stay stiff even in the cyclones which gets uprooted, but the green flexible stems dug deep into the soil wields the storms.
• FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTH : Remember your capabilities, your strong zones and your pit falls, always keep on attacking and challenging your strength limits, while shying away from your weaker points. A forward No-9 footballer cannot be a good goalie for the team- learn and find what is the best in you and then keep on sharpening those skills.
• BE HAPPY: A Havard's review suggested that people are 83% more motivated to do stuffs that they usually would not do if they are internally happy and boosted. Imagine 83% more client - 83% more boost in revenue and that circumvents to 183% boost in profit chart - WOAOOOO - isn't it? 
• CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: Nothing is more merrier in any business/ enterprise/ sports if you are able to keep your client/ critics/ fans happy and cherry.You can only satisfy them if you are happy and have the ability to solve their questions with happiness. 
• SHARE: Remember things that are unused will rot in times. Always share what you know and uplift people as you keep on moving forward. I quote Dr APJ Abdul Kalam here " Be nice to people while you go up, as they will be there on your way down". 
• 

So remember if you want to attain that supreme point of success - follow your instincts - QUIT from those daily instruction of "Do this do that" - follow your heart, find your strengths and do what makes you happy. Remember only people who love and enjoy what they are doing will end up climbing higher and higher.

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One of my stories on a person who was successful but decided to Quit and failed because he tried to follow his heart only in the shorter run to achieve that Supreme success in the longer run - HOLD YOUR BREATH and READ THIS :-

Overnight Success - a Reality or Myth?

Why you should always keep on WORKING

One does not attain freedom from the bondage of Karma

by merely abstaining from work.

No one attains perfection merely by giving up work

Because no one can remain actionless even for a moment.

Everyone is driven to action, helplessly indeed,

by the Gunas of nature

The deluded ones, who restrain their organs of action

but mentally dwell upon the sense of enjoyment,

are called hypocrites

The one who controls the senses by the mind and intellect

and engages the organs of action to Nishkam Karma-yoga

is superior, O Arjuna

Perform your obligatory duty,

because action is indeed better than inaction.

Even the maintenance of your body

would not be possible by inaction

-- Bhagwat Gita.

( Word's as told by Shri Krishna to Arjuna )

The Leisure Valley

This one is my Fav as I write FROM my heart and FOR my HEART

Ek ENGINEER ka LOVE ANTHEM

Kal jab mile the,

to dil mai hua ek sound.

Aur aaj mile to kehte hai,

Your file not found.

Jo muddat se hota aaya hai,

wo repeat kar dunga.

Tu na mili to aapni zindagi,

ctrl+alt+del kar dunga.

Shayad mere pyar ko,

taste karna bhool gayi.

Dil se aise cut kiya ki,

paste karna bhool gayi.

Laakho honge nighaho mai,

kabhi mujhe bhi pick karo.

Mere pyar ke icon pe,

kabhi to click kart.

Aisa bhi nahi hai ki,

I don't like your face.

Par dil ki storage mai,

No more disc-space.

The Tiger called SALES. Who will get the larger pie?

Life moves in a sea-saw pattern and especially in business, life never stays in a stand still position, there are crest and troughs of different forms. The difference being that in some cases the gap is wide and in some its very marginal, but yes the gap do exist. And the most important factor creating all those waves of crest and trough is SALES.

Sales is a nightmare, the dè-facto for existence of all companies, it is the Tiger of all business which needs to be tamed before setting up the stage for the show.

For all start-ups as well as the established business the major chunk of the budget pie is allocated for generating SALES. Some go via the marketing route, some via branding and some entrepreneurs of small organisations do it by person-to-person contact but the most important result expected from all those tactics is to generate good sales.

Ever wondered why the e-commerce companies give you gift vouchers, some 'x' amount of money if you sign up with them and make the first purchase? Ever wondered why you are given a loyalty card at different stores and you are instructed that spending 'x' amount of money will earn you 'y' amount of credits and you can then use it to buy new products of your choice? Ever wondered why organisations/ models have such beautiful home (landing) pages ? Ever wondered why while speaking out to a new enterprise/ new shop owner he always sounds so cool and enthusiastic about you - before the terms get a little harder? All these are done to get the attention of a potential new buyer and to convert a potential lead i.e you to a sales opportunity. 

Steps of moving into the funnel of generating sales:-

1) Creating a strong brand image

A women who walks with attitude looks more attractive than the ones who have carry themselves sluggishly. The same is applicable to business - to create that aroma, that attitude of Business means styling it. It may be in the form of creating a stand out logo, pinning down a statement of what does your business do, getting the public involved in the stuffs what business do. Major soft drink companies like Pepsi co does it by spending millions and millions to just get the right fonts for making it specially unique - wonder how many of us actually know this fact. 

The general exercise which large firms do is that they write the objectives of the companies in about 300 words, then they try summing it up in a paragraph, then in a sentence and then a single keyword. Mahindra does it with the word "RISE", the sports channel Star sports does it with the word "BELIEVE". It's getting the objective tied down to a single word. 

All this have a direct and very powerful impact on generating Sales. It's just like making the Tiger wake up from a deep tight sleep and making it ready to stare at you.

2) Spend time/money for acquiring the customer

Companies always have a COA - cost of Acquisition budget where in they actually spend some 'x' amount of money to mature their first sales from a potential customers. It's been a common strategy that most of the companies seldom make any profit, rather they shelve out money from their pocket to acquire that first customer just in expectation that the person will become their loyal customer and step in times and again for buying new products, it will be then that the company will make profit from them. THIS IS THE POINT OF MAKING TRUST SALES WITH THE BUYERS. As the objective is to make the buyers believe - yes this is the correct thing/ company for me.

Large organisation's invest millions and millions of dollars for acquiring new customers. Recently in India where we have seen the burst of e-commerce ruling the roads of Indian sales and there has been a war for customer acquisition - Flipkart came in with a budget of $ 1billion to be invested in this sector and then amazon jumped in with the announcement of pumping in $2 billion to the rapidly expanding network. 

Normally a large organisation pumps in 80% of its funds in acquiring the first sales from the customer. 20% of its funds are used in retaining the customer and hence the loyalty programs etc. If you do the right step at the first time there is 80% chance of retaining the customer hence companies should focus on creating the right image at the very first interactive point with the customer.

It's just like showing the Tiger it's favourite food items and getting it ready to bite it's first piece. So dress up the meat with more fat than thorns so that it is ready to be bitten at the very first attempt.

3) Providing full and efficient after sales service

This is specially for hardware/ software companies who have to deal with after sales services. This is the point which has direct implication to generating WORD OF MOUTH (WOM) sales. IS THIS IMPORTANT? I mean companies can do it by outsourcing the services to any XYZ companies and leaving all the service prospective to them? Doesn't it sound good? Doesn't it save money/time/ energy?

No doubt it saves a lot but if the services are not given at the proper time and in the proper manner it breaks the cycle of sales exponentially. The WOM has a very very deep inclination to the sales process. The better the integrated service level better will be the customer feedback and better will be the sales which grows positively based on the feedback of the clients. There is one basic rule of mankind which rules in generating this sales - EMOTION. 

It is a common perception that people will believe their friend(s) and family members more than what the companies have to say. A common example is a food discussion website "ZOMATO" where people just write reviews based on their experience on how the food tastes like in a particular restaurant. Their friends and family members read those reviews and generate sales for the restaurants. Many more companies including "Trip advisors" etc generate sales on this principle of WOM. 

If there is a strong knitting between the sales and the service post sales the graph of sales shoots up more drastically. 

And it is like giving ample rest and taming the tiger and preparing it for the next kill.

4) Making recurring sales 

Now since we have done enough investment in acquiring the customers and providing them adequate service it becomes essential to make regular sales to the same customer. And this can be done in 2 ways 

i) Selling the same product in bulk quantities. 

ii) Selling different product of higher margin to the same customers. 

Business is all about making suitable profits of every transaction. But that profit must justify the sales/ service you have provided to the customer. Hitting the sales regularly to your already existing customer requires lesser efforts than pitching in for newer sales but it requires a guided approach - strategies like loyalty programmes which allures customers for repeated buying so that they can accumulate sufficient points and redeem it for making necessary purchases in their subsequent visits also prove efficient. Retail apparel stores all across the nation follow this simple strategy. They also send in gift vouchers time and again just to remind the customers that yes they do exist. Large organisation also have the strategies of inviting the clients to a gala meet up to discuss the things they expect from the organisations in mutual development of both of them.

This is called training the TIGER for superior performance and adequate responses. 

All these are little rid bits in helping you demystify sales and approach it with an easy mode. Remember that a bird sitting on the branch may not trust the branch but it trusts it's own wings.

Stay confident stay merry there will always be a suitable time to fly. Keep the TIGER tamed and easy.