Practicing what I preach

Last few days I haven’t had the time to write my blog posts. I keep talking to you about getting coaching to sharpen your saw. So I recently decided to take one more coaching which will last a few weeks where there will be some teaching and then we are supposed to practice. So its not that I just tell you to get coaching in the areas where you can improve, I also find ways to constantly improve myself.

If you choose the right coach, you can shorten your learning curve dramatically.

So I was busy testing out how I could utilise what I had learnt for Linkedin. As I have mentioned earlier also, each medium has its nuances. If you want to become proficient with any medium, you need to become aware of the nuances, the psychology of the customer using the medium.

As an example if you are doing an on-prem seminar. This seminar is where everyone is together and you are talking or addressing a lot of people together from a stage. On the other hand if you are using email as your medium, then it is a one-on-one medium. No one reads their email aloud to everyone. They read it privately.

LinkedIn also as a medium has its nuances. Its a place where things are less formal since people are in your direct connect or in your network of connects.

So my agenda is to improve my prospecting skills on LinkedIn given that we work in the B2B environment. Similarly I am looking at how I can utilise LinkedIn to get better candidates for our jobs as well as advertise for our offerings.

Will keep you posted on what I learn and how it helped me improve my capabilities further.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Practice makes a man (& woman) perfect

Affirmative action, Marketing, Testing

I like to read a lot of books, listen to a lot of audio recordings while I am travelling and also watch sessions on YouTube. I am gatherer of information. So intellectually that’s a great thing. However not all that I read/hear/see stays with me until I apply it.

When we were young and new to the selling profession, our bosses did trainings of all the kinds, to tell us things that are good about our product and then about how bad the competition is, and what all questions the customer can ask. But when we went out to do our first call, everything went flat. The customer asked all the questions for which no training had been given, the customer found all the features that competition gave, as useful, while ours were useless to them. How many of you have had this situation with your first assignments.

Its only after you go through the customer meetings, that you realise, what is of value to which kind of customer. There will be some customers who will value what you have to offer and most won’t. But until you get down into the market to actually start selling you won’t be able figure that out. Practice is what makes you perfect.

The same can be said of ANY kind of knowledge. Until you practice it, you won’t know what may work and what may not.

In marketing, because there’s a lot of psychology involved, its very difficult to do arm chair thinking and decide what will work. Until you go out into the market/ Google/ other media and actually check out what the customers need, what the competition is doing, all your thought process has no significance. This does not mean you don’t do planning. But planning without action is worthless. Money comes into the bank only when someone sells something. And that can’t happen if you don’t get out in the market and sell.

And who would know this more than me. I am one of the biggest procrastinators and gatherers of knowledge. But I LEARN only when I actually try it out in whatever field. So most of the things I write on this blog, are there because I have tried and tested (failed for general folks) and become better.

So whenever you get some information, try to use it before looking out to acquire more information. That way the information will become knowledge that will stay with you for a long time.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Practical and Theory

education, experiences, ideas, Learning

You can’t experience heaven without dying yourself….this is something which my father used to say, when emphasising the importance of actually “doing & practicing” versus “learning by reading/ listening to podcasts/ viewing videos”. Its like what Mike Tyson used to say – everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face…..when that happens, its what you have practiced practically that keeps you in the ring.

I am a big propagator of the idea of lifelong learning. I have been an avid reader of books, I listen to a lot of podcasts and watch a lot of videos. Most of the people I read or follow have very interesting content. I used to find it very intellectually very stimulating. But it would all get lost in the daily humdrum.

But the items which I would practice would stay with me for a long time. As Joe Polish says there are three ways to learn – the first is to learn yourself, the second and better way is to Practice what you learn and the third and best way is to Teach from the experiences of what you practiced.

All the authors can write or talk about the ideas and challenges that they encountered. Consultants can give you ideas based on the interactions they have with multiple clients after synthesising them. Each has its value, because you can at least avoid the known “snakes in the grass”. But its only the practitioner who can give his/her experience with the “doing”.

As an example, some consultant or podcast may tell you, Facebook advertising is cheap and you can target on an amazing amount of niches because Facebook collects a lot of data of its users and preferences. But you want to say target, “start-up” entrepreneurs. When you actually go through all the filters, that Facebook provides for advertisers, you don’t find a way to target start-up entrepreneurs. This situation has actually happened with me a lot of times, when I have tried to implement some thing that I have read or heard.

Its not that the consultant is wrong, its just that they have not actually worked in your specific situation. Your learning comes out of applying the things you read and hear and then adapt it to your situation. Then the thing stays with you.

That’s why I keep prodding all of you who read my blog to give me feedback on how you applied what I shared in the posts and if it did help or where it didn’t help.

Look forward to hearing your feedback.

Carpe Diem!!!