Try just one thing….then move to the next

I hope the content I give is useful and interesting. It’s good to know that some people read it and some people like it. I am grateful to all of you who regularly read my blog.

However I will be really happy to know if you have used the various marketing and sales ideas which I have given, actually helped you make money. Whether you work for an organisation or are an entrepreneur, at the end of the day its about getting business to happen. Action is what is critical to get anything to succeed. So if you don’t try out the ideas, you wouldn’t know if what I am writing about can be applied to you.

Like the picture above, the film can be in the mind of the director, but until someone cries action and people start acting, a film cannot be made. No director won an Oscar for a film which was not made.

My advise is good for the small companies / entrepreneurs. Its not for the mega corporations who have lots of money to spend in creating brands and then assuming business will come. Mine is more about the small company which does not have enough funds so they have to ensure that whatever they do gets converted into revenue.

Even within these types of companies, there could be some who can afford to invest in relationships and build the business while for some it mean creating a pipeline of prospects today so that they can survive tomorrow and ensure a smooth flow of business.

However you will not know if what you are reading is worthwhile if you don’t try it. If you try and it does work excellent, let me know. If you try it and it doesn’t work, even then let me know. I am trying to see how broad based is the possibility of the ideas I share. These are all things which I have tried to work out and see. When I see some success, I try to see if they can be applied to other areas also. If because of my ideas you can get more success, I will be extremely delighted.

So I look forward to your comments.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Execute….and you can change trajectory

execution, ideas, Marketing

I keep writing various things on marketing and sales – generallyfor B2B, personal finance and human performance.

My experience has primarily been in B2B marketing- providing industrial automation solutions, then IT and now some amount of media related work.

I was talking to a close associate on the weekend and she raised a point asking if the blogs I write can actually be applied by all kinds of companies in any of the industries that I have listed above .

I believe, except for pure start-ups, with whom I have never worked, if you even have a few customers then, what I write should definitely help you in your marketing and grow your business significantly.

But I can only give you ideas, at the end of the day, its how you take those ideas and execute that will determine your success. A lot of times when I am taking coaching or listening to podcasts, I get a lot of ideas going on my mind, but till I don’t execute them, I don’t realize the challenges that come up. So while these coaching calls are interesting , it’s not useful until I execute.

So while I hope you find my posts interesting, they can be useful only when you use them and then give me your comments, whether things worked out or they didn’t.

Till next time then….keep executing.

Carpe Diem!!!

Execution – the key to success of any endevour

execution, ideas

I am a big picture person. The guy who gets ideas. The guy who can construct a solution by seeing both inside and outside the box. I am the guy who can identify the ideas that need to be executed.

My blindspot is execution. I have to exert immense amount of concentration to identify execution challenges.

However, a big picture is very good to show how the puzzle will look like when made. However someone really needs to put the pieces together to make the picture. The more the pieces of the puzzle the bigger is the challenge from an execution perspective.

When you are in a corporate environment, it is the slippages in execution which cause the biggest problems. And these are not big slippages which can be observed easily. These are small, almost unobservable things which go unnoticed and then you suddenly get a surprise.

Today two such things happened – due to which this topic came on top of my mind. One was that someone was to load money into a prepaid account so that Google Ads would function and the second was because someone was to give feedback on a resume submitted and he didn’t think it was important to give that feedback to the right person, we lost 2-3 days in the process.

On the face of it, these are such small issues. But like the saying goes ‘you waste your life because of the seconds you waste”. Same way when you add up all the misses that happen in a year, the cost is a few months of revenue lost.

Like I said I am a big picture man, so getting down to identify why something missed target, takes an enormous amount of energy and diverts me from my strengths which is marketing. But when I start identifying the causes then I like to really go down and identify the root cause.

Ideally if you are like me, a big picture person, you should ave a team of executioners who complement you and ensure that the big picture is made. They are the guys who site with checklists to ensure that things get done at the end of the day.

And they should monitor the laggards in your team so they perform. If inspite of monitoring the laggards don’t perform, they should be thrown out. There’s no point in carrying dead weight around.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Execution is everything – or is the idea important

execution, ideas

I am generally a big picture guy. I don’t have the discipline for continuously looking at the details or working on the day to day activities.

However for any team to operate you need to have a daily rhythm of ensuring that the team performs. That’s where the discipline of execution comes in. Ensuring that the right things get done and are done continuously is a big job and I admire companies who have grown so big and still continue to surpass the results every day. Its the sheer execution that their managers are taught to do.

On the other hand the people with ideas – like me – think that executing on a bad idea will not get you anywhere. So you may have the best execution skills but if you don’t have a good idea it won’t get you anywhere.

The ideal situation is if you can complement whatever your skill is with someone who has the other skill. If you are a big picture guy and hire another big picture guy then your company is doomed. On the other hand if you are a good execution guy and take the other person also from execution then how will you get new ideas to for the Next thing.

But inspite of all the arguments which both sides give, I think if you have a team or a company, then you need really really strong execution. Someone needs to watch on how things are happening on an hourly basis otherwise very soon things go out of control.

Execution has a lot to do with follow-up. Due to my ability to drift away from targets I have found 2 things useful. One when I have team meetings, I want someone to make a “What-Who-When” list of the things that were discussed. What is the item that needs to be done, Who is responsible for getting it done and by When do they need to get it done. The other thing which I have found useful is to put a task on my calendar on my phone. Then when I have performed the task and I need to follow-up with someone on it, instead of closing the task I just change the date on the task for a future date and save it. So automatically the task shows up again till I have closed it. I am still trying to find even more effective methods.

What’s your view? let me know in the comments section below.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!