Author: animeshjmathur

B2B – Single target market – deep analysis

B2B, Marketing, Methodologies, single target market, Value

I keep writing about the Single Target Market on a consistent basis. For any new marketing initiatives this has to be your starting point. As I have mentioned in my posts earlier also, if you’re in the B2B space then this becomes a lot more complex.

The decision making is much more challenging in the B2B space. Depending on the size of the company, the research would be done maybe 2 layers below the actual decision makers.

Now when you think of a Single Target Market in case of B2B, you then need to go deep, to analyze the revenue ranges, the industry, the use cases, the actual people whom you will need to talk to etc.

Once you have mapped the people, roles, you will need to figure out a way to reach them. This is critical because there are both technology gate keepers (like spam filters) and human gate keepers as well. In addition these people already have incumbents who are providing them with similar products or services. So they won’t change their supplier in a hurry.

Which means you will need to have a clear methodology to ensure that you figure out a way to identify the dissonance with the incumbent and then provide value much larger than the incumbent.

By focusing on the Single Target Market you will soon understand the challenges all the customers could be facing with all the incumbents. This will help you get customers faster.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Losing hurts more than the joy of winning – 2

losing, winning

Yesterday I wrote about how one less packet of buns caused me more anguish than the joy of getting the complementary items which BigBasket had sent me.

I keep writing about the Gap versus Gain philosophy of Dan Sullivan. How its more important to see where you have reached from where you started and feel happy, versus, continuously chasing a moving target and feeling depressed.

After the delivery boy had gone, I started wondering if the situation was really as bad as I was making it out to be. Compared to not having anything to eat, early in the morning, I had at least received one packet of buns. Now I didn’t have to wait for the shops to open, before I would get the items to make my breakfast. I could atheist have my breakfast immediately.

I had also not lost any money, since the delivery boy had ensured that he had updated the shortfall in his system right there and I had got the return also credited into my wallet.

That’s when I came back to measuring my situation with respect to where I had reached (got one packet of buns) from where I had started (nothing for breakfast) instead of measuring against an ideal (both the buns packets being available)

When you think in this fashion, you stop being a victim and start feeling more happy. Try it and let me know your experiences.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Losing hurts more than the joy of winning

Human Brain, Labelling, losing, winning

I have read multiple psychologists write that the brain always tends to get impacted more with a loss than an equivalent or higher gain.

Today I had a real experience with both the loss and gain at the same time,.

I had ordered groceries from BigBasket which is one of the e-commerce sites for delivery of grocery items. They have a very convenient mobile app through which I order and they come and deliver all the items. Unlike other marketplaces, where each item comes at a different schedule, the benefit is that everything comes together.

So I am not trying to do an advertisement for BigBasket. But there’s a relevance to the statements above.

So I had ordered a lot of items and the delivery boy started handing over each of those. This was early in the morning at 7 AM and I had just brushed my teeth and washed my face. Now within these items zi had also ordered 2 packets of buns. This item was more critical than all the others because I had to make breakfast for myself with those buns.

While this boy was handing over the items he handed me a box of chicken drumsticks. Now I had not ordered it. So I handed it back to him. But he insisted I keep because it was complementary. Just so that you get a relevance – this free item may be worth Rs150 or 2 USD. So I was happy to get a free gift early in the morning.

But because I had my breakfast in mind I had my eye on the 2 packets of buns. Otherwise I would have to go to the shop and get them physically….early in the morning that’s a pain.

Now my man handed over one packet of buns. Then he gave me other items and finished the delivery and asked me to check. I was agitated since I had got one less packet. Then the boy checked his delivery receipt and it showed 2 packets, so I got even more agitated. Again for relevance we are talking about a packet of about Rs19 or 25 cents US which had not come.

I was brooding over an item which was 1/8 of the free gift they had sent me. But my brain was seeing the negative that I would now have to go and get the item. For full disclosure, when the boy realized that there really was a gap, he immediately put it out in his “app” and BigBasket immediately credited the money into my wallet instantly for the one packet of buns which were not delivered. So it was not that I had lost money , it was just that now I would have to do extra work.

Since our brains are designed for survival, they always find the negative in a situation and remember it longer. So the extra work was what made my brain make me feel bad about.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Time is a relative term – Good or Bad

arrogance, ego, Karma, Time

I think it was Einstein who spoke about time being short or long depending on the relative situation. If you were with you “girlfriend” it would seem shorter and if you were sitting on a hot stove, it would feel so long before you could switch off the stove.

I have a different take on time. Not to contradict Einstein. But thinking of time in a totally different way. After spending more than 50 years on earth, I have realised life goes through different phases like the weather. And they happen to everyone, like the weather.

When things go wrong with us, we tend to blame others for some trigger or the other. Suddenly the people who caused that trigger to happen, become “BAD” people. My take is most people are not bad. Its the specific “time” of our life which is good or bad. And times change, like weather changes.

The other way of also looking at this is that, when we like to transfer the blame of something, anything, to someone else….it means that we don’t have faith in ourselves. And till you don’t have faith in yourself, you will never learn the lesson which life teaches you. And life will keep giving you those lessons till you learn the lesson. The more arrogant you are about things, or bigger the ego, the more difficult it is to handle these things.

As Dan Sullivan says, till you learn the lesson, the “bad” thing which happened to you, the brain will keep relieving the issue and cause you more and more pain depending on the circumstance you are in. Once you decide to see what was the learning and how you will utilise the learning, the pain goes away.

NLP Professionals and Tony Robbins etc. have a different way of handling this issue. Some of it ], I have used and has worked. However Dan Sullivan’s rational explanation appeals most to my brain and therefore I have tried to utilise it more and more.

So “first lesson ” – Most people are good – times are good or bad and second, you can make BAD times – not so bad – if you get the learning out of the whole experience. Since times will change, anyway, its best to be equanimous in whatever situation you are and get the best out of it and bid for the time to change. As part of the Karmic cycle, I believe, when you do “good” even during these “bad” times the suffering is lesser and the change is faster.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!