TGIF was the name of a restaurant in Koramangala in Bangalore (not sure if it still exists). When I first saw that restaurant back in the mid-’90s, I asked my friend what’s the meaning of that! Quite a naive question but then I was a small-town boy and didn’t have much understanding about such stuff.
He answered it’s the small form of “Thank God It’s Friday”. So basically it was a youngsters‘ joint attracting the young folks to come and enjoy the weekend. Fridays are always attractive because you get two days off from work after that.
Bangalore being a highly cosmopolitan setup, Fridays used to be party nights for young folks. The MG Road/Brigade Roads used to chalk a bloc on Fridays and Saturdays. Now, this culture is across all cities and towns and people let their hair down on Fridays.
But the bigger question is why do you love Fridays? Why do you look forward to the weekend? Is it because of two days of no work or two days of running away from the job? Or two days of fun with your family?
Whatever may be the reason you should ask this question to yourself! Why do you look forward to Friday evenings?
If you are thinking that you are happy that Friday is here because you can be away from your work desk for two days then believe me you are in the wrong job! You need to find a way out of that jam.
One thing that I suggest is that utilize part of your weekend in a side gig. I have a friend who works as a Distributor of AMWAY. I find that he looks forward to the weekends so that he can spend time on his side gig which is to make more sales in his AMWAY business to get financially independent one day. He keeps himself extremely busy during the weekend and he is as happy as any other day.
What’s important is to find your purpose and the goal of life. What makes you happy and how do you want to be remembered? Your off days should be spent on that. Everyone does not have the choice of working in a job where they want to. People make compromises and it’s quite natural. Opportunities are not abundant for everyone. Everyone has various problems because of which they have to stay in a job which they don’t like but if you enjoy and party on weekends to run away from that frustration then you are doing yourself a disservice.
Do what you love to do – your passion – your hobby on the weekends. You might be struggling today but you will have a brighter tomorrow if you can work on your passion during the weekends.
One of my friends loves paintings and enjoys teaching. But his day job doesn’t allow him any time for both those activities. He spends some nights in his painting activities and uses his weekends teaching kids. He has had amazing success with his students. That’s how I measure his success. Not by the money, he draws from his job but by the way, he gives back to society through his passion.
So the next time you say that you are bored with your job think about how you are spending your weekend! If it’s spent by watching movies, web series, and get-togethers then you are not helping your cause. You are not walking the talk. If you have to change your current situation then the power lies within you. Utilize your free time on that hobby of yours. Utilize your weekend on that gig that you have passionately yearned for. Nobody can push you in that aspect because here the choice is yours.
Remember your life situation 10 years down the line will depend on the choices you make today and the decisions you take today.
I wish all my readers good luck on their ride towards a better and brighter tomorrow.
Keep smiling and God bless!
Human minds are wired for shortcuts!
We are always on the lookout for shortcuts!
But shortcuts don’t get you sustained success!
You should be ready to put in the hard yards!
One important part of a salesperson’s job is to generate leads. As a B2B sales professional it’s the hardest job in the sales flywheel!
Flywheel was evangelized by Jim Collins through his exemplary work in his series of books starting with Built to Last, Good to Great, Great by Choice, and How the mighty fall. He brought all these studies together in a final book called Turning the flywheel. If you have not read these books yet, buy them and start reading them now!
For a long period of time, we have spoken about the sales funnel when it came to talking about sales and pipelines, etc. but I think the apt way to look into this is by the Flywheel concept. There are 6 important clogs in the wheel and when you remove these 6 clogs the wheel starts moving fast and then it flies off and when it flies off, your business will be the rock star business of the town. So what are these 6 clogs which I also call the 6 angles of a hexagonal diamond?
I spoke about qualifications in one of my earlier blogs. Today I will speak about the most important clog in a flywheel or angle in a diamond and that’s “leads”.
There are various ways to generate leads and some of them are:
Advertisements are the costliest and easiest way to generate leads. If you have the money power then that’s the best way to generate quick growth but today I am not going to write about that. My target is to see the various ways we can generate leads through the other 2 channels.
So let’s start with Cold Calling.
This is the oldest method of generating leads. This is still used and used quite effectively by many businesses. It works effectively by Credit Card companies, Real estate businesses, etc. It’s also used in B2B sales but quite sparingly these days because, with the advent of Social media, prospecting has become a touch easier. So, though cold calling is used in B2B business prospecting it’s punched with social media prospecting. Let’s see how it works.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest Business Networking site. So quite presumably you have a LinkedIn profile. If you don’t – then stop everything and get one done right now.
LinkedIn has a very good advanced search system. Go and search for the specified business domain for which you are targetting.
Say, for example, you run a Digital Agency and you want to connect with Digital Agencies in Australia. In the search text box, write digital agency and select the country. You can select the city too to narrow down the search further. Now, you will get a list of companies. Go to each of the company pages and when you visit that page, look for the “employees” button. Click that and it will take you to the list of people associated with this company. As a B2B business you will be interested to connect with the senior management, so go to their top designated people and check their profile and follow them. Do not send a connection request straight away.
Check out the posts he has posted or the activities he has been doing on LinkedIn over the past few weeks. See, if you can contribute to his content or engage with him. After doing that for a few days, you then send a personalized connection request. A personalized connection request is very important. You are unknown to him but if you have posted comments on his posts then the chances of him accepting your request are high. That’s why I ask you to first engage with his content and then send your connection request.
It’s important to keep a goal in front of you. Your goal is to connect to relevant decision-makers. So don’t hurry, go slow. You won’t get a prize to connect with a hundred people. Your prize is when you generate business from one of them. When your connection request is accepted, the first task is to thank him and write another small note informing him that you look forward to interacting with him and learning from him and you hope to add value to his network. Don’t push your sale. Every day I get spammed by at least 5 people on Linkedin, I always ignore them.
Keep up with his updates and keep checking what he is posting and also keep an eye on how you can connect with him with your business offerings. But the target is “Pull” not “Push”. So patience is the key.
Once a week, greet him and ask him what is the biggest bottleneck in his business. If he is in a happy space, he might not answer you – don’t get disappointed – people can be busy. Leave a note or if you have seen or written a blog that is related to his business, give that link to him. Always try to add value. This is a game of patience.
Many connections have their phone number visible to their 1st level connections. If that’s the case with your connection then you are in luck. Chances are that the number will be on WhatsApp. But that doesn’t mean you will start calling him right away. You need to do proper background research – why should he solicit you and how are you going to add value? Chances are that he is already happy with his current vendor, how do you pitch your value proposition – first of all, what is the guarantee he will pick your call?
If you are from a calling background, you might be itching to call him. If you are confident about how to make him interested go ahead but my advice would be to first track him on social media and keep a close watch on what he is posting and where he is commenting. You will of course have to call if he is not active on LinkedIn.
If you have to make a call, be sure of two things.
This is the same tactic that you need to use for Cold Emailing too.
In the ’90s and at the start of the new millennium, cold calling and cold emailing were rampant because “spam” was still not a dreaded word. But as more and more people jumped the bandwagon, people started getting too many unsolicited emails and calls. With the advent of mobile phones and low-cost internet, people started getting bombarded with sales calls and emails. Soon “Spamming” became a big problem and little by little, reaching your customer was not such an easy activity.
But even today, cold emailing remains an important marketing tool for many B2B and B2C businesses. For B2B businesses to reach the target customer through cold emailing is an art and I hope to write a detailed article soon on how precisely one should approach email writing. But here we are discussing “generating leads” for your B2B business and cold emailing and cold calling remain a very important clog in the wheel.
With the advent of Social Media, you can bypass this spam problem. Here is what you need to do which will be effective for you to generate business without being dependent solely on Advertisements.
As a salesperson, you should be a good content creator. You can choose the medium but you have to generate content. It can be short-form content for Twitter, or short videos on YouTube, write blogs, or write posts/articles on LinkedIn. This is the starting point of getting eyeballs on Social Media. You can’t generate interest without generating content.
If you are someone who has just started out, then select your business domain and start following some influential people in that domain.
Start commenting on their posts. Make a timetable and see when they generally post. Make sure you are online around that time so that you can read their posts and give your comments. Your comments should be insightful and engaging. It should take the discussion forward. As you start commenting on these posts, you will gain the confidence to write your own posts. Everyone has a story. Everyone has a journey and you should love the journey and there is nothing wrong with sharing the same. Never get into the mindset of not sharing the knowledge. Small or big, share it.
When you start sharing your stories on social media, little by little you will start building your own community. Remember to nurture them. You should engage with your new followers daily either on their posts or directly via messaging. Everyone follows someone due to a reason, ask them why they followed you and what you can do for them.
Helping others without expecting in return is God’s biggest gift to us. If you can do that, you will be able to build a strong following. When you build a strong community you will see that these people are rooting for your success.
Why will someone root for an unknown person? – only when they get value by remaining in contact with you.
This is a very long-term process and the last thing you should do is expect results in 6-9 months. For some people, it takes 6 months to generate their first lead through social media, and for some, it takes 36 months – but you will get the result only if you are consistent.
Another important aspect to look into is the audience. You need to know who your target audience is. When you know that, you should generate content for that target audience on a regular basis. Your community will become a healthy community when the people in your network get value through your content. They should learn something new by being connected with you.
Engagements on your posts are a good vanity matrix but the business will happen in your DMs (Direct Message). That’s where relationships get built – that’s where your community gets formed. So when you connect with new people, make sure that you nurture the relationship through DMs. No pushy sales – that’s a big letdown. Just be a connection who cares.
In social media, we see a lot of pushy salespeople who get connected and start sending sales pitches on DMs. I always ignore them. So do not make this cardinal mistake. It’s the pull theory that works. When you know your audience and you are generating content for that audience then one day or the other some of your followers/connections will get in touch with you with their needs. That’s the time when your sales wheel will start moving. Wait patiently for that tipping point to come.
As I have been saying above, it’s a long-term game. This process will never get you success in a few months. People look for instant results and hence either leave doing it after a few weeks or wait for leads to come to them via paid advertisements.
As days go on, AD spaces are going to get costly. With more competition, you will end up shelling out more money per lead. Your profitability will take a hit and soon your business will be under stress.
Before that happens, create an environment in your organization where people in managerial positions get active on Social Media. Ask all your sales folks to make social media a part of their personal KRA. Social Media not only helps you in creating your own brand, but it also helps you to generate leads. But people will only come to you asking for help in their businesses when they see that you are a person who can be trusted. And trust happens with time. See what you speak. Never get into an argument with anyone. You are leaving a digital footprint every day so if you speak out of turn then one day it might come back to bite you.
Goodhart’s Law says, “When a measure becomes the target then it ceases to be a good measure“.
So if you are always focused on the sales number you will not love the system or the process of reaching that goal. And to reach the goal of continuous business growth you need to love the process of how you can generate leads through social media and cold calling. I am focussing more on social media because once you get active on social media, you get to know about the target customer properly and when you make that first call or send that first email, you will be able to generate the hook better.
Do you generate B2B leads through social media? How are you doing it? Does the above strategy sound similar or do you follow some other process?
I am willing to hear from successful marketers and hope to learn from them.
Till we meet again, Take Care & God Bless!
Cricket fans especially from India are having a joy ride like no other. Accepted that the team lost out in the WTC finals but the consistency of this team has been eye-catching. The season started on a sedate note though, with India being bowled out for 36 runs in the Adelaide Test. All experts including me wrote the team off!
But then the comeback started. India won Melbourne, then saved Sydney by the skin of the teeth, and then did the unthinkable of beating Australia at Gabba!
This Indian team doesn’t give up and if the Australian tour was the trailer another act was played out in India when after losing the first test against England in Chennai, India decimated England in the next 3 matches to win the series and thereby confirming their spot at the top of the WTC table.
In every way, this new cycle of WTC (2021-23) was expected to be tougher for India because they are lined up to play two tough series away from home – England and South Africa!
India doesn’t have a great record in England, though it’s far better than in South Africa. On the other hand, England in red-ball cricket is completely opposite to their world-beating white-ball team.
Add to that the injury woes and Ben Stokes pulling out at the last moment made this English team extremely vulnerable!
By all counts, rain robbed India a fair chance to win in the first test match but no one could stop them at Lords where fortunes ebbed from one side to the other but the Indian team came good when mattered and eked out an amazing win.
But why am I writing this? Lots of journalists have already penned their thoughts about the lord’s test match – then why? Well, cricket teaches us a lot especially when it comes to life and corporate management lessons. Other than giving us joy, this is another aspect which we keep learning from cricket.
So what did we learn from the Lord’s test match? I point out a few which caught my attention the most.
Having ego stops us from thinking judiciously. We start believing that we are superior and we stop learning. When England batted and eked out a small lead there was this small passage of play when Jasprit Bumrah peppered the English number 11, James Anderson with short pitch balls. Anderson was left hopping around the crease and needless to say he was not thrilled one bit with that barrage of short balls directed towards his neck!
Fast forward, and that incident turned out to be the eventual turning point. At the end of day 4, India was 181/6 with a smallish lead of 154 runs. Realistically speaking it was Rishabh Pant who stood between England and victory. But early on the 5th day, Pant perished and the floodgates opened (or as it seemed). With tailenders to follow it looked game over for team India.
But quite unexpectedly England forgot the objective. In place of taking wickets in a normal way of pitching it up, they decided to target the Indian tailenders with short pitch bowling. Slips were removed and fielders were put on the leg side boundaries! It worked straight into India’s hands because feet movement was taken out of the equation. Overs after overs the tactic continued and India started building a healthy lead. The ego of Anderson influenced the captain Root and in place of trying to pick the wickets by bowling pitched up deliveries they resorted to short bowling and in the process handed India the decisive advantage.
When the history of this match will be written this aspect of bizarre captaincy would be written in golden words especially if the series is lost by England.
Never let your ego come in between your objective. Win matters – individual glory doesn’t matter.
When Jim Collins wrote his famous book, Good to Great, he discussed his flywheel concept and one of the first clog in that wheel was Level 5 leadership. To build a great business what matters the most is great leadership. Leadership matters and that’s why you will never find a great company with weak or average leaders.
It was amply displayed at Lord’s on 16th August. On one hand, we found Joe Root who got influenced by his fast bowlers’ ego to completely go against the normal line of thinking by removing slips and bowling short balls to Bumrah and Shami. And on the other hand, we found Virat Kohli who gave a stellar speech to his bowling unit before the start of the 4th innings making sure that the team would be relentless in attacking the English.
England went with the mindset of winning a minor battle which eventually led them to lose the war.
To be fair, Joe Root accepted his mistake because he did say at the end of the match that he did some mistakes which should have been avoided in hindsight. That’s a good hallmark of a leader though because when you accept your mistake you find a path to win. And that’s what Joe Root will be aiming for heading to Leeds next week.
Leading by example is an apt lesson taught in management. By that yardstick, Joe Root was far ahead of Virat Kohli.
In the first innings, he held the English innings together by scoring 180 runs remaining not out. Even in the second innings if India had to win the match it was Root’s wicket that was the key. Finally, when India did go past Root, that’s the point from where the win looked a possibility for India.
But let’s delve into some numbers, first.
Number of runs scored by Joe Root this series: 386
That’s more than 40% of the total runs scored by the whole English team in two matches.
Number of wickets by James Anderson and Ollie Robinson: 18
That’s about 65% of the total wickets taken by England across two tests. Both of them have a fifer too.
Now compare this with India. There are no runaway winners other than KL Rahul in batting. In bowling, all bowlers have contributed more or less equally other than Jadeja who has been under-bowled. Only Bumrah has one fifer.
This was the same scenario in Australia earlier this year too. The man of the series, highest run-scorer, and highest wicket-takers were not from India but finally, it was team India who took the series.
The point I want to make here is that it’s the team that wins. Individual results are good for optics but if you are to be remembered in history, you as a team have to win in tough conditions. You have to win against adversities. In Australia, the Indian team came back from a disaster in Adelaide to win the series 2-1 with many of their frontline players being injured. Here, going into the 5th day England had a bigger chance to win but how spectacularly did team India bounce back?
This happens through sheer teamwork. Each and everyone puts their hand up and gives 100%. The pressure created when a team works in tandem is much much more than when a team is solely dependent on a couple of players.
The relentless attack of the 4 pronged pacers of India was a sight to behold. We have seen that with England in the 70s, West Indies in the 80s, Australia and Pakistan in the 90s but we have never seen that with India.
In that sense, it was a new India that was visible on 16th August who was not ready to give an inch to the opposition. The whole idea of intimidating Bumrah backfired because the expected protagonists were left vanquished.
If you compare Virat Kohli with Joe Root individually, particularly in this series, Root is far ahead but when you look at the final results, India is ahead.
England went to win the battle but ended up losing the war.
Let’s not forget the back-end team of India at this moment of glory. Bharat Arun and Vikram Rathore have been doing a stellar job at the back. That India could attack relentlessly with that 4 pronged pace attack has a lot to do with the work that Bharat Arun has been doing with the team over the past many months. Similarly, if Shami and Bumrah were going behind the line of the ball on the 5th morning we have to give some credit to the batting coach, Vikram Rathore. His efforts are bearing fruits.
As I said above, it’s the team that wins. For long, in the ’90s or later in the new millennium we used to see individual performances which helped India win but now it’s more about everyone in the team contributing. That’s what great teams are all about, be it cricket or in corporate life. It’s the team that wins. Backing each other and making sure that everyone’s contribution matters is what differentiates between a great team to an average team.
This current Indian team is a perfect example of that.
Let’s not get too overboard though. Three test matches are still to go and India should be ready for that. Lord’s win was great but winning the series would make this win sweeter in the final analysis.
Let’s take a breather for a week and come back stronger and hungrier on 25th August. Headingley is like an English fortress so India needs to be at their very best to keep the momentum with themselves.
Bring it on. Headingley here we come!
Today is 15th August 2021 and we celebrate our 75th Independence Day.
India has come a long way from 1947 when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the tricolour on the intervening midnight of 14th and 15th August.
India has improved leaps and bounds over the years and with time our economic conditions have improved too. Today we are the 5th largest economy in the world and boast of having the youngest average population in the world.
We got political freedom from the colonial rule in 1947 but how many of us have gained financial freedom? To be fair we are far away from it.
India today has a thriving middle-class population but a big question that raises on my head is – are we financially free?
What is Freedom?
You are free only when you can decide what to do when to do and with whom to do it. Freedom also means you are the master of your time. Confused?
Let me explain.
But before that, let me ask you a few questions.
If the answers are no to the above then you are not free. Yes, you are politically free, you live in a democratic nation, you have freedom of speech (I guess we have) but you are not financially free. And till the time you are financially free, you will have to keep saying yes to a lot of things that your heart doesn’t agree to.
It’s all about choices. It’s all about decisions taken or the choices made that have put us in such a situation. I have been an equal culprit of such a situation in my life. So you are not alone, you have a partner.
If you want to truly enjoy freedom, then what you should yearn for, is freedom of time and that’s only possible by making the right choices today. It won’t come easy. India’s freedom struggle was a long drawn affair but believe me, this freedom struggle won’t take that long.
There is a difference between being rich and being wealthy. Rich can be seen but wealth is not visible. Wealth is like an iceberg it’s 90% invisible! You can seem to be rich without being wealthy. One can have a big car, a big house, go on yearly vacations but if most of his major lifestyle expenses are serviced through debts then that’s not a wealthy lifestyle – it’s a rich lifestyle!
So try to garner wealth. Don’t try to show, being rich. We are living in constant need of self-gratification and we are under pressure to prove ourselves to others! But this doesn’t get you happiness! It gets eyeballs and nothing else.
Living within your means is the order of the day! Our needs and wants are controllable and that’s what is the first step towards getting wealthy. Restraining your “needs” and controlling your “wants” is what differentiates between living life under stress or gaining freedom!
In one of my earlier posts, I wrote about the 80-20 rule. Here I break this up further! It’s the 50-30-20 rule.
How we control our wants is what defines if we will gain freedom or not. Imagine a day when you get up and you can decide what to do, not what you “have” to do. You have a job you may love it too but does that give you a purpose and pleasure! If yes, great, if no, you need to gain freedom. But to gain your freedom you will need to sacrifice something. And that something is to control your wants. You can’t decide to purchase items that can be postponed.
Ideally, if you plan to buy something don’t buy it immediately. Wait for a month and see if your desire is still strong on that. Most of the time “wants” are changing and hence once you postpone after a few weeks, you won’t have the desire to buy. In that case, your money is saved. Even after a prolonged wait if your desire is still strong then go and buy it only if it’s within the above formula.
Insurance is not an investment tool or product. Two have completely separate reasons for existence. Insurance is bought to protect our future needs or for future unknown eventualities.
If you have a child below 5 years, protect his future by buying a child education endowment plan. But how do you know what’s the amount that’s needed? Head to Funds India calculator. They have a marvelous calculator which can give you an idea of what amount you need to save for particular goals.
Insurance premiums are expenses that fall under the category of “needs”.
If endowment policies don’t cover within the 50% rule then opt for a term policy, only. 10-12 times of your net annual income should be covered under your term policy. This basically means you will have to relook at this every 5 years. Because every 5 years your expenses will increase due to rising inflation and you need to ensure that you are properly protected.
Discuss with your spouse about all your insurance policies. People tend not to talk about “insurance” with their spouses because no one likes to talk about deaths but it’s a truth that all have to admit. There is no guarantee of how many years one may live so even if that happens it’s your duty to ensure that your family doesn’t struggle for basic needs after you are no longer there.
Health insurance is a must due to rising medical expenses. Minimum policy coverage of Rs. 10 lakhs is required for a family of 4. Have a top-up policy every year in case you can’t afford the premium of Rs. 10 lakhs right now. So you may buy a basic floater policy of Rs. 5 lakhs and every year purchase a top-up which should be double the basic amount. The advantage is that a top-up policy can be purchased at 25% of your existing premium. This way you can keep yourself properly insured.
Our earlier generation used to buy cars and houses when they had enough money to cover that expense. Today we purchase cars and houses based on the down payment affordability and by EMI affordability. For a flat worth Rs. 40 lakhs most don’t have that money in their bank so they opt for loans based on the fact that they can give down payment of Rs. 10 lakhs and finance the balance Rs. 30 lakhs. Two things happen. One, your savings of Rs. 10 lakhs goes towards down payment (you lose your compounding power) and you end up paying EMI of more than Rs. 20k per month.
Now imagine if you are earning Rs. 40k per month. You end up paying more than 50% of your income in servicing the debt. This would eventually mean, “no savings”. You are young and free to think that your salary raise will take care of your future savings with time. But that’s a “big if”. “If” because our desires are always aspirational. Today you will buy a 2BHK house which will feel small after 5 years and you will then yearn for a bigger house.
Some get lucky and things fall into place but what’s the guarantee you are one of those lucky ones? Having a life of no debt is the first thumb rule for freedom. You gain freedom when you are not answerable to anyone.
But if you are living under a pile of debt then you have not gained freedom.
You might have a big car, you might have a big house but if they are financed by banks then these assets don’t belong to you. And till you pay them up, you are not mentally and financially free.
You might be in a job that pays well but has a toxic environment! Can you change your job at the drop of the hat if you have debts? You can’t. And you end up living a life which you are not happy about. Then what’s the use of having a house and a car if you are not happy?
These are hard questions, you need to ask yourself. If you need freedom, if you need total control of your time, first thing first, get rid of all your debts.
If you are already under debt then it’s time to stop and have a look at your finances and see where can you reduce your expenses so that the extra cash can be given to your existing loan.
If that means you will have to stop some investments – do it but first get rid of your debts.
Another thing to keep in your mind is that your term policy should be enough to finance that loan just in case something bad happens to you. I don’t mean to frighten you but you are responsible for your family. If something happens to you, God forbid, can your family pay up the pending loan via the insurance? If you have not done that, then do that today.
6-12 months of your needs should be available in liquid form at any point in time. So, for example, if you can take care of your needs within Rs. 15,000 per month then ideally Rs. 1.8 lakhs should be in your savings account or some liquid funds. If it’s not there then you are not close to gaining freedom.
If you are in a job which makes you unhappy, can you change it immediately? Most of the time, the answer is no. It takes time to get a proper job that will match your needs. But if you are not happy can you leave it immediately? You can take that decision, only if you are debt-free and when you have a 12-month emergency fund available with you.
Emergency funds are not supposed to be used in your “wants”. They are only kept for extreme emergencies. If you don’t have one, create today. I have a separate savings account altogether where I put some portion of my money every month to finance my emergencies. It’s a habit that I started in 2013. In between, I have had medical emergencies and those were taken care of only due to the availability of that fund. Even today that’s the first activity I do on payday. By default, 5% of my net income goes into that fund every month. And frankly, I don’t look into that account other than once a year when I have to submit my IT returns. If you don’t have one – start today.
We want freedom, but you will only get freedom when you plan properly. You can’t expect to be free if you have debts and if you don’t have an emergency fund.
People feel that they will get wealthy when they get better pay. But the fact is that you don’t get wealthy with that mindset. You may get rich but not wealthy. Because wealth is created over time. You become wealthy when money works for you, not the other way round.
With your pay raise, if you push the goalpost of lifestyle expenses then you can’t get wealthy. Your goalpost should be firm. Your lifestyle expenses should not increase with your pay raise. That’s the only way to get wealthy. Because once you do that, what will happen is that your extra cash will be put under the savings/ investments bracket.
The only way to increase your wealth is to let your money grow over time. And keep increasing that investment amount every year with your pay raise.
Top-up SIPs are a great way to begin that journey.
If you have EMIs to pay, then pay some portion of your extra EMI with your new pay raise. Debt reduction is equally important to gain freedom.
But if your pay raise is used to finance a new vacation or a new electronic gadget, then you are pushing your date of freedom.
Finally, it’s a choice. And the choice is yours. Do you sacrifice a bit today to have freedom for yourself and your family or do you want to have instant gratification! I leave it to you to decide.
Having goals is very important in life. So it’s vital to ask yourself what are the goals you have in life that you need to fulfill or wish to fulfill. You will need money to finance your goals and it’s best you do not be dependent on anyone other than yourself for those goals.
You can break up these goals into buckets (I put them in an excel sheet with each tab having one goal).
What could be your goals?
It’s absolutely personal but generally speaking, people have goals like Children’s education, a dream house, a foreign or domestic vacation every 6 months, etc. Now that you have defined your goals, give a deadline (time) against each goal. If your child is 5 years old then you would need to finance his or her education in another 12-13 years. So you have a time of 10-11 years to build that corpus.
How do you know how much is needed? Well, head to Funds India and they have some good calculators which can project the costs of your future goals. Once you know the amount that you need you to get into planning mode.
If yes, add these up and see what’s the expected amount after 10 years. You can calculate that too with the Funds India calculators.
Now, check if adding them is taking you to your goals or not. If not then you will need to arrange more funds which if not possible today, wait for your next raise and invest it in a mutual fund of your choice.
As I stated above, insurance products are not investments. You are investing for your freedom. If you are new to investments then you can start with Mutual Funds. But remember you have better choices in case you have a window of 12 years or more. Even with mutual funds make a plan to have a proper balance of funds.
This is not at all something which I am advising you. It’s a suggestion. Finally, it’s your choice.
If you ask me, I will suggest that you invest only 50% of your kitty in Mutual Funds. 30% in stocks. And 20% in cryptos.
I am not keeping Gold and Real Estate in this discussion but I do believe SGB is a good option in building assets in the medium term.
Century SIPs provided by a few mutual fund houses are a good option too. This is a product that can connect your investments with insurance. You get insured 100 times your SIP amount. This is good because you are forced not to stop or withdraw your investments for a fixed amount of time. Discipline is very important to get wealthy and this product forces you to remain displined.
For direct equities, once again you will need to do a lot of research on what to buy and when to sell. Most people don’t have so much time but that doesn’t mean you should pay these Mutual Fund companies the various expense charges that they keep charging you. You can get rid of these expenses by investing directly in equities via Smallcase and Zerodha. This allows you to have full control of your funds – you become your own fund manager.
Open an account in Smallcase.com which is directly integrated with your Demat account. Zerodha is very easy to use and is very user-friendly and you will have fewer charges to pay if you invest through Zerodha. Smallcase allows you to invest directly in equities in portfolio formats and you can buy it in SIP way too. The advantage is that you are the owner of the stocks and you will have full control of your investments. And if you are a man like me who loves to enjoy dividends then because you are investing directly in stocks you enjoy the dividends too not like in MFs where you do not get any dividends.
Over the past few months I have been reading and talking with people related to cryptocurrencies and I think 15-20 years down the line this will become the new normal on how people deal with money. It’s a big disruption in the money market and I think if you invest today, you can get multi-fold returns a couple of decades down the line. But do not invest too much yet, be very sure about your risk appetite because you can lose a lot of money in the short term. It’s highly volatile but the returns can be quite unimaginable in the long run.
I maintain a retirement fund. I used Funds India Calculator to understand the corpus I need to create for me to retire (Retirement means financial freedom – not retirement from work). These are the places where I have invested for my retirement goal.
Now, this is something I won’t advise you to copy. Because your way of thinking could be completely different from mine but I just wanted to give you an example of how I have diversified my retirement corpus. Every year, I update my excel sheet to understand how far away I am from my goal.
I am definitely not there yet but I am surely getting there.
If I can do it, I am very sure you will be able to do it too. I would really love all my friends to enjoy freedom. It’s important to live a life filled with happiness and that’s only possible when you do not have any burden. I advise you to plan your freedom today.
Happy Independence Day everyone and I hope to see you financially free too.
PS. If you are young and you are yet to get going, I will advise reading a few time-tested books to further crystalise your thought process.
When I previewed the Indian contingent for Tokyo Olympics 2020, a few weeks back, I had a distinct hope that it would be India’s best Olympics performance to date. I expected India to win 11 medals and though India fell 4 short of that, what we gained has been tremendous over the last couple of weeks.
From being glued to TV sets, cheering Mirabai Chanu as she picked up Silver in weightlifting, to being tensed till the dying seconds of the bronze medal match in Hockey, it has been one heck of a ride. And let’s not forget that we had many glass ceilings broken with India doing particularly well in certain disciplines where India qualified for the first time or was not expected to do well – be it Equestrian or Golf.
In all 127 athletes qualified from India but some athletes left an indelible mark in our hearts. Some won (nothing bigger than what Neeraj Chopra achieved) and some lost by a whisker. But the bottom line is that we competed to win and not to participate and that for me is a big plus from this Olympics.
Some names that readily come to mind who punched their weight above others are given below:
There are so many Indian stories about this Olympics! The first day got us a medal. And we competed for medal rounds till the penultimate day – In fact we received 3 medals on the 14th day of the games. It shows that our process is bearing fruits.
Rather than sulking on why we didn’t get more medals think of this:
I started watching the Olympics in 1984. My whole school life went through with India never winning a medal. During my college days in 1996, I finally saw an Indian on the podium (Leander Paes winning Bronze). India has been winning medals after that but it has always been more about individual brilliance – it was never about the system throwing up champions. Hence this Olympics is different! Across multiple disciplines, we have been highly competitive. And to be fair, if our boxers, shooters, and a couple of high-profile wrestlers didn’t have a meltdown on the important days, India might have had around 15 medals.
In boxing, Amit Panghal was world number 1. In archery, Deepika Kumari was world number 1. In shooting three of our shooters were top-ranked coming into the Olympics. In wrestling, Vinesh Poghat was world number 1. All of these players failed to deliver on the big stage. It happens. We saw in tennis both Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic losing and didn’t win a medal. But my point is, if our top-ranked players would have performed to the expectations then we would have had the nation rejoicing like no other.
Nothing is lost though because Olympic sports are now firmly in our imaginations. The thrill that our hockey team gave over the last week is difficult to describe! It shows that if we provide better infrastructure and better systems and more sponsorships, things can look up for India!
If Mr. Naveen Patnaik can sponsor the hockey team, what’s stopping the other state governments to pick up one sport and sponsor? What’s stopping some of the corporate honchos to sponsor some of these players and teams? Things can only look up when you take care of the economic struggles of many of these players! At the grassroots level we have serious talent but most fizzle out because after a while what’s important is to get the physiological needs to be taken care of!
The lead-up to Lovlina’s house in Assam didn’t have a motorable road till she confirmed a medal! Suddenly the government woke up and got the road done in less than a week! So if you want, you can do it. What’s required is the intention. The process of TOPS (Target Olympics Podium Scheme) started by Rajvardhan Singh Rathore in 2014, can be seen to bear fruits now but all will be lost if we do not build on it from here. It’s not the destination that matters – it’s the journey that counts.
India’s performance in Asiad 2022 and CWG 2022 will be closely watched! If in the next 15 months we come back home with a big haul of medals, you can rest assured that Paris 2024 will be the year when India crosses the 10 medal count in Olympics. Of course, what we need to see is from where we are getting the medals in Asiad and Commonwealth Games! In CWG we are traditionally strong in shooting, archery, wrestling, weightlifting, and boxing. But many of these disciplines are not happening in 2022. Can India do well in traditional events, like athletics? Can India get a bagful of medals in Asiad other than athletics, kabaddi, and hockey? These will be closely watched!
One thing that I surely suggest is to have mental conditioning coaches to be sent with these teams! We need to invest in this department. Because you need to be cool under pressure! To win gold you need to control your brain and not make mistakes at important junctures! Few of our losses this year have been due to the barest of margins! These can be overcome when you have mental conditioning coaches travelling with you!
We truly become a global superpower when we start performing excellently in the Olympics! The economic performance of India should be reflected in the medals tally too! And frankly, when you invest in the system you will get results! Talent was always there but our politicians never thought beyond votes! It’s the right time that we understand, to be highly respected all over, we need to be respected and taken seriously across all domains, be it start-up culture or sports culture! We truly become a developed and economically top nation when we excel in business and Olympics sports!
So much money has been spent by corporates in football and cricket! What’s stopping them from investing some of those funds in Olympics sports too? We should start the HPL (Hockey premier league) and keep working on creating professional leagues across most of these Olympic sports be it basketball, volleyball, athletics, etc. Only when sponsors come in, we will have these events televised. And when they get televised, you will get more eyeballs. And when you get more eyeballs these players will learn to thrive under pressure!
I think our process is working. I am not disappointed with these results (individually I am with shooting) but we should build on this!
And to sign off, we should get rid of this mindset of casteism and focus on equality. More ladies have won medals in the last couple of Olympics than men hence we should believe that our girls are no way less than men. Start treating both your kids equally at home. When the kids from a small age see that there is no difference between the brother and sister, you will find them growing up into individuals who are independent and self-reliant who are ready to take on the world alone!
Create more Ranis (my daughter’s name is Rani too), and Bhawanis and Sindhus in your homes! Don’t buy them only dollhouses and doctor kits; buy them volleyballs, cricket bats, badminton racquets, hockey sticks, etc. I personally watched most of the games with my daughter and son in tow! Quite expectedly both enjoyed the fortnight with the defining moment being all of us watching together when India beat Australia to reach the semifinal in women’s hockey. Nothing was more pleasurable though than seeing my daughter jumping with joy when she saw Rani Rampal scoring India’s first goal in Tokyo 2020.
Didn’t think we will have another high after hockey but Neeraj Chopra made it happen as Saturday evening became a golden evening as all three of us jumped in joy as Neeraj Chopra won the Gold medal in javelin.
We can make this happen friends. We can truly become a sports superpower by 2032. Let’s believe. Let’s back them. Let’s create a great future for our nation, together!
What have been your top 3 moments for India in Tokyo 2020?
“I have so many expenses. I can’t save money with the salary I get currently.” – one of my colleagues told me this.
Believe me, if you are having such a mentality you won’t be able to save even after your next raise. Human psychology is such that you will do what you want to do. Your will is what matters.
Here is a simple hack that you can follow.
Garnering wealth is not something that can be done by earning more through hard work.
Wealth is garnered by saving more and investing more.
I was speaking with a colleague recently and we were discussing financial management.
I asked him why are you not able to save?
His answer was in expected lines. “Too many expenses so I don’t have excess cash to save or invest.”
This is where most people make mistakes. Paycheque to paycheque is how most people run their lives. What a big mistake!
I asked him how much was his traveling expenses per month (home to office travels) before March 2020!
He took a while and then told me it was about Rs. 2000.
I asked him next: “Did you get any appraisal in the last 12 months?”
He said, “yes”.
I asked, “how much?”
His answer, “Rs. 5000”
I told him it means in the last 12 months your extra savings should have been Rs. 7000 per month. Then why can’t you save a part of that?
He didn’t answer. This is the mistake most people make. We do the expenses first and think of savings later. That’s a cardinal mistake.
My simple idea on this matter is given below.
It’s a pain to start initially but soon you will be habituated. Good habits are the first step towards success. Start with Rs. 500 and then keep increasing that amount.
Ordinary Habits: Extraordinary Results
Last year towards the end of the year as the lockdown was eased and things were getting back to normal, I saw people who have been advocating that we should normalise work from home since going to the office was risky – making a beeline to vacation spots. Some went to Darjeeling. Some went to Sikkim. Some went to Goa. Some went to various other places across India. Good on them and I am happy for them because that’s their inner calling. But did they think how much of their decision was related to the extra savings that they made due to work from home? Actually, most of the people saved a lot, in time and money during the lockdown (Especially in the IT industry). But in place of thinking about investing part of these additional savings, they decided to increase their expenses. These are lifestyle expenses. Finally, after one year if you ask them what’s the net worth after adding all savings and investment accounts- the answer is “no difference”.
So saying that I will invest after earning more, is a fad. You will only save and invest more when you believe you want to be wealthy – desire is the first step towards success – you will get wealthier only when you change your mindset. And tweaking your lifestyle habits and giving more importance to “save first and spend later “ is the very first step towards financial freedom.
How are you doing it?
I have seen most people not coming up with counter-views in meetings.
Now, why does that happen?
Let’s delve into the details:
If the boss is intimidating then you will hardly find a person raising their hands to ask a question. And when people are not comfortable asking a question then forget about any counterargument. This is not a good omen for a company because a single person can’t be right all the time. You must create an environment where people get the confidence to speak up. If your culture doesn’t allow a junior employee to counter the views of the CEO then something is wrong.
Are you too demanding? Is your perception of being a tough taskmaster gone down in the negative sense? Are you reactive to criticisms?
These could be some of the reasons why your team is not putting up counterarguments. Being surrounded by YES men is the worst thing that can happen to a leader. Because when hubris sets in, there will be no one around to point out where things are going wrong. When things go wrong it falls in a spiral and before you get to the root cause, much damage is done.
So, as a first step, create an environment where all views are given a patient hearing. Allow people to criticise you without crossing the line of decency. Take open questions in town hall set up. When people realise that you are open to criticism, they will get the confidence to counter your views. You need people in your team who would openly talk when they find things are wrong. The boss can’t be right always and this needs to be instilled in your team for them to understand that when you criticise or give feedback, it’s for the betterment of the company.
When you are speaking to a group of team members, are you only talking or are you engaging? Recently I was speaking with a group of my team members and I found one of my colleagues, a bit off. A generally jovial person was hardly involved in the meeting. I suddenly stopped talking and asked him what’s wrong or what’s bothering him. As I found out he was having a bad time with a few of his clients and he was not getting desired results. I told him, you can’t do anything about what happened yesterday, so why are you ruining the present? We are here together now making some plans for the future and without your involvement in the meeting, it will be a wastage of time. This small pep talk of 30 seconds, got him back to his feet and the jovial colleague was back amongst us in the true sense.
So when you are talking, do not follow the monologue template. Ask questions, try to engage with your audience, throw in the humour sometimes and you will see most of your team members having a good laugh. You would need an energetic team to get success and one of the best ways to get people out of slumber is a dose of humour. Today all are working from home. Every family I know of has had some tragedy to tell. In such a scenario mental health is something you should be really concerned about. Work, work, and work-related discussions can get boring after a while, so release the pressure by talking something nice or some jokes which makes people laugh a little. When you are happy, dopamine gets released and that brings about positivity in you.
When you are happy and jovial, you will engage more with the speaker because you get confidence when you see your boss as a peer. Too much seriousness and your team members will settle inside a cocoon and your meeting will become a monologue that nobody loves or feels connected to.
The art of interactive speaking is about stopping after 5-6 minutes and ask questions. Rather than telling your audience to take notes and asking questions at the end, the better option is to allow people to ask questions at any point in time or when there is no question after 5-6 minutes, take a breather and ask questions.
As a team when they know that the speaker will ask questions in between, they will be extra attentive because the question might be thrown to anyone at any time. This keeps the audience on their toes. Of course, you as the speaker need to plan this well because if you ask too many questions then your speech itself might get diluted.
Any meeting if it goes on for more than 50 minutes will ensure that some or most members losing focus. Ideally, 45 minutes is what general human beings can focus on continuously. Anything more than that and some people will wane off. I have seen that whenever my meetings stretch beyond an hour, I see a few yawning faces. A few yawns openly and a few try to hide but the fact is that you can’t have the same energy and focus for more than 45 minutes.
Ideally, you should plan the meeting in such a way that the meeting can get over within 35 minutes with 15 minutes buffer. If you plan out the 3-4 important points in advance, you will be able to cover them in 35 minutes. If you have too many topics to discuss then divide the meetings into 2 days. Do not discuss everything in one shot and lose the entire intention of the meeting. If your team doesn’t digest what has been discussed then it was a complete wastage of time.
Time is more valuable than money. Money can be recovered but time can’t. So value everyone’s time. Do not have this attitude that just because you are the boss you can hold a 90 minutes meeting. I have been guilty myself of the same sometimes but consciously I try to avoid any meetings beyond 50 minutes. If it stretches to one hour, I ensure that we have enough humour breaks in between to keep everyone energised.
People who are introverts find it difficult to speak. And some who are not introverts also have difficulty speaking in front of 1-15 people. Do not despise them because most of the time these people are good listeners. If you check properly you will find that the ideas that you shared in your meetings will be followed properly by these introverts. Though it’s OK to let them be in their comfort zone once in a while, it’s good to nudge them. Good listeners are good collaborators so you can ask some insightful questions to them and ask them for their suggestions. Introverts need to be nudged and as a leader, you need to do that so that they can share some important insights with everyone. When you listen deeply, you can grasp a few things better than others and sometimes they give inputs that the speaker himself might have missed or not thought of.
But, never ignore them and neither should you pester them in all meetings asking them to speak up. They are different and it’s good to give them that space. Finally, if you can accomplish your goals there is no need to push hard on something in which the other person is not very comfortable.
People who are having an inferiority complex are people who are not confident about themselves. As a leader, you should ask yourself why so? Is it the background of the individual which has made him such? Or is it some recent happenings that have left a scar in his mind? Or was it a completely bad hire?
You can’t grow as a team if you have people with low self-confidence. I am in the sales team and if I find any person who lacks self-confidence which in turn has turned into an inferiority complex then it’s high time for me to look deep into the issue. People lacking self-confidence is detrimental for the organisation especially in client service roles because they are the face of the company. When they lack confidence, no way your client will gain confidence in your company. When you spot that, it’s time for you to get into a one-to-one conversation with that member. If you have built a team where conversations (at least the one to ones) are candid then you will be able to reach the root of the problem.
If a person is afraid to take part in group meetings because others might feel awkward about the questions or he feels that his questions will be deemed stupid then you as a leader have failed because it means he has faced humiliation in the past and you have not taken action. It’s high time you change yourself – first of all, if anyone is laughing at the question asked should be told to stop doing that and secondly answer his question in a simple manner to make him understand. Later on, get into a one-to-one conversation and try and listen to all his problems. When you listen to his problems and provide some solution to some of the problems, you will see a different person in your meetings in the future.
Your team will reflect what you are as a person. So try and be positive at all points of time. Do not work, make it a fun place to work. People gain confidence and interact more when they are in a transparent environment. And of course, an environment where everyone is treated equally.
Have you faced such issues in your meetings? How do you tackle the non-responsive team members?
I was speaking to a colleague recently and he said that after he speaks with me he gets motivated and charged up! But after a couple of days, he loses the momentum!
This made me thinking why does that happen?
Inspiration comes from outside. Motivation comes from inside.
After talking with your mentor if you are feeling motivated it means you are inspired but then how does that wane off in 72 hours?
Well, this is what I think is happening and holds true for many others!
What you do as a profession is not something you really love to do! – Sounding cliche?
If that’s true, it’s important for you to find out what’s your passion! And also find out that in your current profession is it the process that excites you or are you only looking for the final result?
If you are too anxious about the final result then you won’t focus on the process. You need to enjoy the process because without that your final result will never be consistent.
Coming from a sales background I generally give examples of the sales process. The atomic structure of a diamond forms a hexagonal shape and just like a hexagon has 6 angles, the Sales process has 6 dimensions.
What are they?
As a salesperson, you need to focus on these 6 major activities!
At any point of the day, you must be doing one or more than one of the activities listed above. Pick up an activity and try to do it better than yesterday.
For example, While qualifying a lead you need to try and understand the person through some research. Social media is the best place to do that.
It’s a fantastic place to meet new people, learn new things and connect with like-minded professionals (especially LinkedIn). Ask yourself: Do you like what people are talking about? How do you connect with them? Can you start a conversation? If this process of meeting new people, learning from them, and connecting with them excites you then do that daily. And you will find that your anxiousness about what will happen with your target will vanish.
Life is all about giving it forward. When you learn something new are you excited to share it with your colleagues? If you don’t, then change that habit and start sharing. There is no use of your knowledge if you don’t share it with others.
Your net worth is not the amount you have in your bank but the number of thank yous you collect in a day! Your dopamine levels will increase when you feel happy. And you will feel happy when you see another person feeling benefited by your teachings.
This is how you keep yourself motivated. You need to pick up one activity which you like and try and get the best at it. If you are good at customer elicitation calls then try to be the best in your team. Leadership comes from anywhere and when you share your experience about a certain elicitation meeting (which went well) with your colleagues then they will get motivated and they might ask you to join in their elicitation calls. Then you, as a colleague help them with that activity. Help them to win and suddenly you will find your niche. Suddenly you will be considered a leader in a particular niche area of a business process.
There is no use being average in 6 activities if you can be the best in one or two activities! By the way, you can’t remain the best if you stop learning. Markets are evolving. Human beings are evolving! The way people buy is changing so you also need to keep on learning to remain the best. Then, what will happen, is that you will always try to learn something new and keep your level above anybody else.
Too much time is lost by thinking of the future – By being anxious for events not in your control. Control the controlables.
When you stop regretting past events and stop being anxious about future events, you will start living in the present. For living in the present you won’t need motivation. Just think, that I will do this for the next 8 hours and try something new. Then tell yourself to do that again the next day. Keep repeating! Do the boring activities every day and one day you will become an expert. People will look up to you! And then you won’t look for external motivation to keep yourself energised.
It could be your friend, it could be your boss, it could be your parents, it could be your spouse or it could be someone else. Discuss your problems and follow the thought process. Most of the things can be solved if you have an open mind. It’s all about mindset. If you are rigid, you won’t be able to change. But if you are flexible and have control over your emotions like ego etc. then you will be able to grasp the models better. I mean the mental models. Write down the important points and go through them every day till you make it a habit.
When I read ” Think and Grow Rich”, I wrote down all the 13 most important points that the author tries to teach and I make sure to read those notes once in a while whenever I feel mentally bogged down! It gets me back to my feet.
Your success is totally dependent on you. And your success also depends on the decisions you make. If you take some wrong decisions don’t try to overcome them through shortcuts, accept your mistakes, learn from those mistakes and try to get better!
It’s your life – don’t try to lead another person’s life!
Read some self-help books which will help you to grow in your mind. Some of my personal favourites are given below:
1. Focusing
3. The greatest salesman in the world
4. Power of your subconscious mind
6. How to win friends and influence people
7. Influence
8. The almanack of Naval Ravikant
Take notes when you read them. And then go through those notes once in a while.
Your life is about to change! You are born to do something great in this world! Your time is about to come!
Do you believe in yourself? How do you motivate yourself?
Can you share your stories? Let’s try and grow together!
I learn from your stories and you learn from mine? Deal?
Everyone is born with their own destiny. You can’t change it. But you can’t cry over it too. You just need to accept the facts, give your best shot and move on.
If you think of India’s World Cup wins in 2007 and 2011, quite understandably, it was Mahendra Singh Dhoni who got the maximum accolades.
When we think of the 2011 world cup, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? For me, it’s the final sixer and Ravi Shastri’s booming voice announcing that the world cup comes back to India after 28 years.
When we think of the 2007 T20 world cup, what comes to your mind? It’s Misbah’s wicket, isn’t it?
But amongst all this, there was a man who was the highest scorer in both those finals but still didn’t win the Man of the Match award and remained in the background. It’s none other than Gautam Gambhir. His contribution in both those victories can never be ignored but did he get the due accolades that he so richly deserved? – Probably No.
Now, let’s look back at India’s first World Cup win, the 1983 Prudential World Cup.
What comes to your mind when you think of that world cup?
It’s Kapil Dev, isn’t it? That great catch of Viv Richards, that great innings of 175 runs in the group match against Zimbabwe – quite naturally he got the maximum eyeballs along with the fact that he was the captain, and all the media glare was spotlighted towards him. He richly deserves those accolades – don’t take me wrong. But who is the next man whose name comes to mind with regards to the 1983 world cup? It’s mostly Mohinder Amarnath – after all, he won the man-of-the-match awards in both the semifinals and finals. Next? Probably Roger Binny – the highest wicket-taker in the tournament.
But amongst all this, there was one player who didn’t get his due accolades as much as he deserved. And that was Yashpal Sharma.
Yashpal Sharma was the second-highest scorer for India in the 1983 world cup and if you take out that one innings of Kapil Dev (175 against Zimbabwe) then Yashpal Sharma was the highest. I don’t think we ever gave him the kind of mileage the way we should have.
Let me give you some examples. I will specifically point out 3 matches here.
Till that day (9th June 1983), West Indies were yet to lose a World Cup match. On the other hand, India was yet to win a World Cup match against a test-playing nation. It was a mismatch of the highest order and the result was a foregone conclusion!
But everything changed and the World Cup saw one of its biggest upsets ever when India against all odds defeated West Indies by 34 runs.
India scored 262 runs and the highest score was 89 by Yashpal Sharma. He won the man of the match too.
If India defeating West Indies was a big upset then Zimbabwe defeating Australia was an even bigger upset. What that meant was that the group was thrown wide open. Kapil’s heroics saved India the blushes against Zimbabwe and India’s final group match against Australia turned into a virtual knockout.
India won that match comprehensively beating Australia by 118 runs and though the architect of that victory was India’s bowling led by Roger Binny, the top scorer for India was Yashpal Sharma with 40 runs.
The win against Australia took India to the semi-finals and it was a great moment for Indian cricket. Here was a team who no one gave a chance, entered the knockout phase.
England probably took India too lightly and was already looking forward to the repeat of the 1979 finals. But 1983 was destined to be India’s year and the Indian bowlers once again came to the party to bowl out England for 213 runs.
Yes, it was a relatively small score to chase but England had a terrific bowling attack led by Bob Willis and it was never expected to be easy.
It was quite a hard-fought victory for India and they won with 32 balls to spare and once again the top scorer for India was Yashpal Sharma with 61 runs. The audacity of flicking Willis over the long leg boundary for a six would remain etched in memory forever.
3 major victories against 3 different test-playing nations and in all those occasions the common factor was that Yashpal Sharma was the top scorer for India.
As I said above some people never get their due and Yashpal Sharma is an apt example of that. Yes, it’s a team sport but individual brilliance matters.
Overall, Yashpal Sharma scored 240 runs in the 1983 World Cup coming second to Kapil Dev in the highest runscorers list for India but closer scrutiny will tell you that 190 of them were scored in winning causes against 3 top test nations. As the saying goes, “Devil is in the details”.
Recently during the 38th anniversary of India’s World Cup victory, we saw Yashpal Sharma in all glory with his former teammates but little did we know that it would be the last time we will see him alive. The news of him passing away on 13th July left everyone in shock.
One of the big architects of India’s World Cup glory left us suddenly and it just tells you that life can come to an end suddenly and so live the moment and celebrate the small wins. Yashpal Sharma didn’t win small because he helped India win the World Cup and probably everyone will now realise in hindsight what a big contributor he was during that campaign 38 years earlier.
As noted journalist Vijay Lokapally pointed out that Yashpal Sharma was one of the fittest of the lot and spoke enthusiastically about cricket even today. Not an age to go but life takes unpredictable turns and leaves you in shock.
When his teammate of 1983, Kirti Azad came back from Yashpal Sharma’s funeral, he tweeted that they will leave a front-row seat vacant for him during the screening of the movie ‘83 which is expected to release later this year. The WhatsApp group of the 1983 Indian team won’t be the same again.
All goodbyes are difficult but Yashpal Sharma will forever be remembered by all Indian cricket fans for his contribution to India’s biggest glory in sports history.
To be fair, I didn’t watch him play live because I started watching cricket after 1983 but the highlights of the 1983 World Cup is something I keep watching on a loop once in a while and whenever we see those matches we will remember Yashpal Sharma!
Thank you for the memories, Sir! Rest in Peace!
The 12th man bids adieu!
Do you know your target market?
Do you know your target customer base?
Many companies does this cardinal mistake of doing everything for someone or something for everyone! You don’t build a sustainable business if you have such a thought process. It would show that you don’t have values because as a company everyone can’t be your customer.
If you are in business for a couple of years, check the list of customers who turned out to be most profitable. Now being profitable doesn’t mean only your monetary profit but also value to the customer. How many of those customers have given you repeat business or referred you to new customers? Only satisfied customers will give references or repeat business. As a first step, make a list of all these customers.
Once you create that list, sit with your team and try to find out why you were able to satisfy these customers. Sales managers, account managers, project managers, and delivery managers need to sit together and should have a comprehensive meeting to understand the common factors which led to customer satisfaction.
Also, arrange one-to-one meetings with these customers and take feedback on why they chose you and why they preferred to refer you to others.
When you get the answers you will know what service offerings of yours are gaining the most traction.
Now expand your marketing efforts in that key segment.
Say for example if you are a digital transformation company that helps their customers in their digital transformation journey, find out the category of customers who are most satisfied with your services. If you find that start-up owners are very happy with you, find out what’s the top 2-3 reasons are for their happiness with you.
For startups, other than the economical offering what they need most is timeliness. They need their product to go out in the market in the shortest possible time. Is your team highly successful in certain types of product deliveries within a deadline? If that’s true it means that’s your niche and it’s time for you to expand that team and focus your marketing efforts in that segment.
People make this cardinal mistake of using costs as a negotiating tool. This never works because someone will come along the way and price it cheaper and you will be soon out of business. So rather than focusing on the price points, focus on the deliverables and the timelines. You can also focus on a consultative approach helping the customer, plan in such a way that he can go and launch his product in phases.
As founders, many think that they need to get their product pixel perfect before launching. It’s a gross mistake because however clever you are in your ideation, it’s wrong to believe that someone somewhere is also not having a similar idea and if he launches earlier with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) then you will be called a copycat.
So as a business consultant you should counsel the customer and tell him that he can do multiple iterations on his product and keep adding features throughout the life cycle but getting on to the market gives him a big advantage over his potential competitors. This type of approach needs a lot of persuasion because many clients don’t understand it and they will only listen to you when they are 100% sure that you care for their growth.
To find your niche you can do the following:
Another mistake that many sellers tend to make is that they brag about the good things that their company can do for the client. Believe me, customers do their research well and when you brag about these elements it makes them think that there are some problems that you are hiding.
You should only focus on how your service or solution can help the client win! If you have a reference of customers in a similar domain or country give that proactively! Show him your work if your portfolio is not directly available on your website. When you do these things proactively your customer gets the confidence to take the discussion to the next level. The old way of pushing doesn’t work anymore because there is too much competition. The new way is to put the customer first and to show him how you are going to make him win!
To improve a relationship you need to “give” first and in fact, give more. Do more than expected. There are questions in your customer’s mind and he misses to ask some important questions, sometimes during the initial phase. But as a seller, you know the pain points because you are the expert and you should proactively answer them. Don’t wait for your customer to ask.
Some important points to take note of
A Business becomes a great business when people start talking good things about you behind your back. Till that happens your continued focus should only be on improving your niche service areas. Don’t spend your time and energy on stuff where you are continually losing money. By default, you will see that where you are losing money, your customer satisfaction is also low. So for two to tango focus on your strengths and connect with your customers’ goals. Focus on your niche and keep working on those strengths.
Are you aware of your niche?
How are you aligned with your employees’ and customers’ goals?
Do write in with your insightful comments. Till then, take care and God Bless!