Author: animeshjmathur

The 80/20 of a daily routine

Focus, Leverage, Unique Ability

I have been analyzing my daily routine. On a weekly basis if we were to just take 40 hours of work, then after a month of monitoring my daily activities I have realized that

1. I spend more than 30% of my time in peer to peer meetings and unscheduled internal calls

2. I spend another 30-35% of my time in emails

3. I spend about 15% in reviews / feedback sessions with my team .

4. About 5-7% is spent on meeting customers to understand what is happening at their end or to give presentations or to get feedback ….this is one of my Unique Abilities and I love interacting with customers.

5. I spend less than 10% on actual marketing activities like conceptualizing marketing messages, strategies etc.

The last item I am able to achieve with the focused thinking time that I keep writing about.

The other day I was listening to the Ultimate Entrepreneur podcast by Jay Abraham. He had a guest by the name of Dr. Alan Barnard who is a practitioner of Goldiratt’s Theory of Constraints.

In this podcast towards the end they speak about a new offering they’re bringing to the market which shows entrepreneurs how they can convert their existing top line into the bottom line in less than 4 years.

That’s what got me thinking. I have been talking so much about 80/20, prioritizing, small hinges move big doors etc. in my blogs. To actually be able to convert the top line that I get for the company into the bottom line I will need to focus sharper and sharper on the 80/20 of the 80/20 of the items which actually get me business. Items where I have high impact and where presently I am spending less than 15% of my time.

I am on the experiment to see how I can convert the amount of my present top line to become my bottom line in next few years. Will keep you posted.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing is Education – Part 3

education, Marketing, Methodologies, Technology

In this part today we will look at another set of great marketing successes who have used education as a method to differentiate themselves and made me their customer.

Example 1: Jay Abraham. I referred to him in the first part of this series. He is big time into giving away knowledge free of cost. There’s so much knowledge which I have gained from him, that when I could afford I started investing in his programs. Due to him I learned that there are only 3 ways to grow a business. The strategy of pre-eminence. The marketing Parthenon etc.

Example 2: Motilal Oswal.This is one of the biggest brokerages in India. When I was starting to learn about the stock markets, I read a lot of the Berkshire letters to the shareholders by Warren Buffet. I read a massive amount of books on the subject. The only challenge was that all the content was international. I was looking for content specifically for India.

That’s when I found the Wealth Creation studies that have been authored by Raamdeo Aggarwal each year for the last 20 odd years. These studies don’t talk about their company at all except maybe for the methodologies they use. Due to that, you gain trust.

When I read those twenty odd reports, I was able to understand the Indian stock markets. So when I had to choose my brokerage, I chose motilaloswal. There were others who were offering cheaper options but because I had trust in motilaloswal, I took them.

Its however difficult to create pure education based content and put it out. Even though I am so much in favor of creating educational content around your offerings, its especially tough when you are in the technology space where there’s so much happening. So I also struggle to get this to happen.

Having said that, I would still think its the best way to build trust with customers.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing is Education- Part 2

Breathing, education, Health, Marketing, Yoga

Today I will give you examples of how different people / companies have used education to create a massive amount of marketing pull for their companies.

Example 1 : Joe Polish , Dean Jackson , Dan Sullivan. Between the three of them they run 4-5 podcasts. Ilovemarketing.com, morecheeselesswhiskers.com, 10Xtalk.com, Cloudlandia etc.

The amount of knowledge they give in these podcasts and related YouTube videos is so amazing. I have utilized so much of that knowledge and because I saw their knowledge working for me, I also started buying some of their products .

Example 2: Baba Ramdev is a Yoga and Ayurveda guru in India . Ayurveda is the more than 7000 year science of using plants and herbs to heal the body. Using Yoga and Ayurveda Ramdev baba teaches how you can live a healthy life.

Whenever possible I watch his videos on YouTube and television channels like IndiaTV. Through these I have learnt so many breathing exercises to keep me alert and healthy as well as about plants and herbs that can keep me healthy.

Patanjali is the company which sells Ayurveda products which is associated with Baba Ramdev and he does show some of those products in passing.

But what do you think comes to my mind first when I have to buy AloeVera juice. You got it Patanjali. Simply because the other companies didn’t teach me the advantages of using AloeVera first, I always prefer Patanjali . Like me there are millions of people who have today made Patanjali a company with revenues of more than USD 2 Billion.

Tomorrow I will pick up some more examples from different fields where education has helped increase the business.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing is Education

differentiation, education, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Trust

Jay Abrahamone of the most respected marketing strategists, has one of the pillars of his Marketing Parthenon – education of customers.

An informed customer makes better decisions, and generally in your favor.

The bigger reason why education helps is that it goes below the radar of the prospects. Most prospects have their antennae always looking out to see if someone is trying to sell them something. The moment they sense that, they bring up their barriers to hearing about what you want to say.

When they see that you are doing selfless education, they hear you. Once they keep getting educated on a continuous basis, they start trusting you. If you show them proof of how you have helped others then the trust grows even stronger. You position your company differently.

During this process when you start introducing your product in a non-intrusive manner then subconsciously the prospects start gravitating towards you and if they have a need which your product can fill, then by default they will choose your brand because you have built the trust.

When there’s trust, factors like pricing etc. take a back seat. Your competitors will be compared to what you offer, not the other way around. Your competitors won’t even realize what hit them.

The other advantage of educating people is that then they come to you for advice, they list their challenges. Using these inputs you can further refine your product and make it more valuable in the eyes of the customers.

Till next time then keep educating your prospective customers.

Carpe Diem!!!