Author: animeshjmathur

Realizing your dreams

Affirmative action, dreams

While I was growing up and during the time I was doing my engineering, I used to be enamored by the space shuttle. I used and still marvel at the amazing piece of human engineering to take people into space and get them back.

While there have been engineering lapses, which led to accidents and the program had to be stopped eventually, you cannot doubt the conceptualization of this whole program.

I used to wonder if I will ever be able to see a space shuttle up and close. It was a dream for me.

In 2019, I had the opportunity to visit Washington DC. We landed at the Dulles International Airport . Very close to the airport there’s a museum where they have now housed the retired space shuttle Discovery.

When I used to see the launch, I would think that the shuttle would be a massive structure. But when I saw it from so close, it didn’t appear to be so huge. Which makes the reusability an even bigger feat.

When I had planned my trip to DC I had not envisaged that I would get an opportunity to see the space shuttle. While researching the Smithsonian and other museums in the DC area, I came to know about this museum which was a little distance from Dulles.

Since we were coming from an international flight, I was wondering where we could place our luggage. That’s when one of my friend and her husband pitched in. They picked us up from the airport, dropped us at the museum and took our luggage in the car to do their work and came and picked us up after two hours.

The point is that if you dream and take action then the universe also conspires to help you achieve a lot of your dreams. Never stop dreaming….you never know what all you may achieve.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Time flies

Affirmative action, Decisions, life

Due to the way the pandemic is playing out one never knows when the next lockdown will take place. I have started looking at time more like Before Covid (B.C) and After Covid (A.C).

These days I become nostalgic quite often (maybe it has to do with my age or maybe with restrictions in place I don’t get time to spend) and tend to keep going back to the journeys we took as a family because now taking national or international vacations has become almost impossible due to new variants of Covid coming up all the time.

While I had visited the US many times, I took my family for the first time to the US exactly two years back. We entered the US at Washington DC and had the opportunity to see the lovely celebrations and decorations around the White House with the Christmas tree and the toy trains criss-crossing each other on the lawns between White House and the Obelix. We also visited Capitol Hill and took the tour, which was an eye opener.

I wonder if I had delayed taking my family during that trip, given the Covid situation, I may not have been able to go, till I don’t know when.

The critical thing here is time – it waits for no one – and there’s never an “opportune” time. Time is what it is. You need to grab whatever comes your way and put your best foot forward.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Persistence is a key aspect in B2B marketing – 3

B2B, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, segmentation, single target market

I have written in the last two posts about the key importance of persistence in B2B marketing.

Now the advantage of B2B is that you can generally get a database of contacts. So if you have segmented the market well and you have a clearly defined Single Target Market, then you can go and buy it from multiple sources.

What’s important are 2 aspects viz. The age of the database- how old it is and second figuring out if the designation and function is matching.

A lot of times designations can be deceptive in terms of the power equations within the organization.

Generally larger the organization, lower is the level of the people who will be entrusted with the responsibility for doing the research and identifying vendors, creating comparison sheets etc.

So not only do you identify the the key decision makers and send messages, you also need to identify the functional people who could be responsible for doing the evaluation. You will need to influence multiple people.

So your first step would be to verify the accuracy of the database because more than 50% of your success will be determined by the quality of your database. Incidentally this would be true whether you are looking at B2B or consumer markets.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Persistence is a critical aspect in B2B marketing – 2

B2B, Customers, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence, Triggers

In yesterday’s post I had mentioned Dean Jackson’s philosophy on 100/1000 leads – where 50% of them will change the incumbent in the next 3 years. The only challenge is that we don’t know which ones will. Its a game of patience int he B2B space.

Changing an incumbent need not be the exact category of what you sell. The “incumbent” in the B2B space is about how the customer presently gets the job done.

If presently someone licks a stamp on their tongue before sticking it on the envelope, then this is the incumbent , if someone is trying to sell a franking machine. Now until the person whose tongue is used to lick the stamp quits for a better job ( a trigger) or someone in the company realises that keeping this person only for the “licking” is an expensive option (another trigger) your messages for the franking product or services will not work.

However whenever a trigger takes place with respect to the incumbent, if you are present in front of the customer, then you become the first person they will call.

So you need to have the persistence and marketing stamina , to ensure that you are in front of the stakeholders on a regular basis. In case of B2B this is one way you build your brand. The other aspect is to make your messages “instigating” the dissonance. Slowly hammering away at possible problem areas.

Tomorrow we will look at another aspect of this persistence story.

Till then.

Carpe Diem!!!