Vishwajeet

Lighting Challenges

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:14:00 +0000

We have been working to promote the Endo and Artemide brands lately. Both are distinctly different brands. Endo is a pure technical lighting. A Japanese brand, and brings to the table the Japanese marvel of superioroty in design and application use, backed by fantastic pricing.

But that is not what will make our brand sell. We are in the energy conservation space, and our appeal is quite different to various roles from our customers.

For Project Managers, we are a way to make their project an energy efficient solution. But often, tight budgets come in the way and we are unable to move forward. We are approaching this in two ways:

1. Work on solutions and partnerships at the project design stage. If users integrate LED Lighting at the project design stage, then the savings, paybacks and benefits are much larger. Paybacks can often come down from 3 years to just over one and half years just by being a part of the design process.

2. Instead of only approaching the project people, we are also talking to the Finance people. For us, more often than not, they are the real specifiers / influencers as a very good payback / IRR can turn the tides very quickly in our favour.

Learning : Look beyond the obvious. Dont just look for enquiries, but interact deeply with them. Also, your real friend or coach in the project may be currently not in your line of sight. But you have to get yourself into his.

New Horizons

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:16:00 +0000

Hi there,

Am returning after a very long time. Last 8 - 9 months have been very hectic and have brought about a huge change in my life. I am doing something very exciting in my life now, something which I am loving every moment of, and something will shape my desitny.

Have taken on a new assigment, and i am now in the process of creating a new business. I am back into the field of Lighting, a field I enjoy immensely and care about. I now have a chance to make a major impact on my environment - both aesthetically as well as from the Energy concerns.

With this change also comes the need to get back to blogging and exploring my inner self even further.

All I can say is - I will not give this up. Had a blip and a depay, but I am back again.

Love and Care, Vishwajeet

The Buyer's angle: Create Engagement

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:15:00 +0000

Here is the first insight I gained as a buyer:

The best seller I have come across in this assignment is the person who Engaged with me patiently and Energetically. From our very first interaction, this gentleman has been continuously probing our NEEDs while also trying to learn the WANTs. He has spent a lot of time trying to provide me adequate and not excessive knowledge and information about his products, services and the marketplace.
He did this regularly which led to a certain relationship being formed between us.
He fertilised the relationship with a lot of genuine and honest help in various matters. He shared open insights about his own company, sharing with me things which would work in his company and things which would not. He continuously tried to read the same about my company. This clearly helped in defining expectations about each other.

So what has this engagement done for the Deal to go through?

1. It has built a certain familiarity about each other's company. Expectation management.
2. It has helped him understand my customer, which will hopefully give him an opportunity of customising his offering to our specific needs.
3. It has withstood some of the other competitors, who risk a chance of loosing out as they did not engage often enough.
4. It has built respect. If he is keen to sell, I also am keen to buy. The engagement creates value for both of us.

Now this is important. Every salesman has a certain desperation to clinch the order. This purportedly gives the buyer the 'upper' hand. Both forget that the customer gains value and utility from the product he buys. Hence there are no favours that a customer really does in giving the salesman an order. I think an Engagement with the right contents ensures that both sides understand VALUE.

How many times and how long do you engage with your customer? Very often, we believe that the follow-up for the order is Engagement. Well I don't think so.

Dwell on this. Share your views on this. I too intend to create this discussion with many other contacts. In my next post, I will try to crystallize this distinction.
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone Essar

The buyer's angle

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:28:00 +0000

I have been playing a new role these past few months. That of being a buyer.

I am in the process of sourcing some new accessories for our company. These deals will be pretty large ones, so there is much at stake for both sides.

Through the next few days, I hope to share some insights I gain and experiences I undergo. Will this new point of view make me a better salesperson?
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone Essar

At your service ...... If I wish

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Some days don't work out very well. I mark them as learning days in my calendar. Yesterday was one such day. It showed me different shades of attitude problems among service providers and how it impacts their customers. Though this is a service related issue, I am writing this post in a Sales blog since attitude towards customer service is critical.

Pic Courtesy - Imageshack

Morning 6:30 am: I travel to Pune Railway station to catch the Deccan Queen Train to Mumbai. At the station, I discover that my wait-listed ticket has not been confirmed, so I cannot take the train. Reason – The person in our office who booked my tickets showed a callous attitude. Inspite of my calling him on Friday @ 5 pm, with more than 3 hours available to book the tickets on Friday, he finally booked my tickets on Saturday evening. The reason for delay, he never checked the requisition about which date tickets were required. Outcome – tickets with wait-list of 40. Further, no attempt was made to try alternatives.

My perception of his Attitude: Callous, Insensitive and Indifferent.

Morning 7:30 am: I then returned home to catch a cup of tea and rush to office. I decided to use the opportunity to drop my daughter at the bus-stop, something which I rarely get to do with my hectic travel schedule. At the bus-stop, I encountered one of the strangest behaviors seen from service providers. As the bus approached us while we stood at the bus stop, the driver saw us standing at the stop, but decided to pass us by, for some strange reason go to the next stop, pick up those kids, then come back and pick up my daughter. This took around 10 minutes during which time we kept wondering whether the driver is going to come back to pick us up or we are expected to reach school ourselves. His reason in his own words – So what if we had to wait another 5 minutes and keep wondering about this?

Attitude seen: Contempt for the customer, not acting in the interests of the customer.

In both cases above, the outcome was the same. I have taken steps to begin the process of replacing the service providers. They have lost my trust. Neither of them intended this outcome. Neither of them started the day saying they are going to attempt to loose their jobs today by treating their customers badly. It was their attitude which was their un-doing.

Do your customers ever get this feeling? I often look back at interactions with customers and think if any aspects of my behavior contained shades of poor attitude. Poor attitude is never by desire. It is by habit. In most cases, it is unknown to the person who exhibits that poor attitude. The difficult part is that one only gets to know about poor attitude when it is too late.

Appreciating Your Customers

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:16:00 +0000

I came across another very interesting site today, Simply Gourmet Bistro referred by Chris Brogan in his daily posts.

The Author John showcases a very unique way of building lifelong relationships. He writes about his customers. He has a post called "Customer of the Day" each day. In every post, he writes about 1 customer, sharing something about the customer, his profession, the servies that the customer provides and also puts in a kind word or two about his past experience with the customer. At the end, he writes about what food the customer ordered. This way, in a single post, he builds a bond with that customer, creates win-win by promoting the services of his customer, and also promotes dishes in his menu. What better way to Adding Value?

Think about it. We get so many opportunities to do this every day if we so wish. Have you ever done this to your customers? If yes, write a post about it here. Share and learn.

Selling OBAMA

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:15:00 +0000

I started typing this post as I watched the inauguration of the 44^th US President – Barack Obama. And like thousands of other people who have been writing about him for the past few months, I too am going to write about this event, this person and this outcome.

As I write this, I remember all that I have seen, heard or read about the great marketing campaign to catapult Obama to the presidency of the US. There have been enough and more articles about his great positioning, his terrific virals, his e-mail campaigns, of Obama's Twitter presence, his digital marketing, his websites, his TV campaigns…. and much more. For those who are interested, his social media statistics are mentioned at the end of this post, duly acknowledged.

But importantly and finally, Obama had to be "SOLD", and not just "Marketed". So as you can guess, this post is about "Selling" the product Obama, and not just "Marketing" it. I was privileged to hear and read highly respected marketing "Gurus" speak about marketing brand Obama. And all through, I kept on trying to get the answer – how did the Obama "Sale" finally happen? I am sharing here how I have perceived this whole process as an ever learning "Salesman". Readers will have to pardon me if I refer to Obama as "Product". I use this phrase only because I am looking at a purely "Sales" perspective here.

Once posed with this question, I began digging more, and came out with not only the social media statistics, but also importantly, the on-ground statistics of the two campaigns. Of the many statistics, I am presenting 2 interesting ones:

1. The table below shows the number of campaign offices opened by the 2 candidates in certain states:

State	Barack Obama	John McCain
AK	4	0
MI	40	No Data
MO	30	10
MT	6	No Data
OH	18	8
PA	18	No Data
VA	20	6

2. The second table below is even more interesting. It lists the number of events within 100 miles of specific US zip codes:

courtesy: www.thedailypage.com

US Zip Code	Obama Events	McCain Events
45416 (Dayton, OH),	492	22
43963 (Tiltonsville, OH)	231	21
48701 (Akron, MI)	205	22
45203 (Cincinnati, OH)	435	23
6607 (Topeka, KS)	54	6
75968 (Pineland, TX)	3	3
44127 (Cleveland, OH)	243	33
95903 (Beale AFB, CA)	320	23
12985 (Schuyler Falls, NY)	55	4
73503 (OK)	21	6
73105 (Oklahoma City, OK)	30	7
62205 (Centreville, IL)	84	4
12979 (Rouses Point, NY)	41	3
81152 (San Luis, CO)	22	1
29105 (Monetta, SC)	84	1
50660 (New Hartford, IA)	103	0
76105 (Fort Worth, TX)	67	12
84314 (Honeyville, UT)	389	1
61605 (Peoria, IL)	30	0

CONCLUSIONS: What do the statistics above suggest? Obama clearly had more Effort going in. Whether it was on the ground or on social media. Obama was clearly OUT-SELLING McCain. On election day, more Obama followers were voting than McCain voters. Obama garnered support of more volunteers than McCain. He was more visible to customers – not just through TV or print campaigns, but importantly through his volunteers, meeting people one-to-one, braving the heat, the cold the rain.

They were his SALES TEAM. Meeting more customers. Generating a larger pipeline. Improving his chances of conversion because of sheer numbers.

Brand OBAMA was as much created through a great strategy, great positioning (Yes We Can), as through Superior Execution, a focused, more coordinated effort, more calls being made, more sms messages being sent, creating more followers ..... everything was more.

Well, tell me what you think about this, if you are not already bored with reading the reams and reams of articles already written about OBAMA.

Annexure : Social Media Statistics for US Presidential Campaign.

Courtesy: www.web-strategist.com

Internet Usage in United States
United States Population: 303,824,646
Internet Usage: 220,141,969
Penetration rate: 72.5%
Growth from 2000-2008: 130.9%
Stats from Internet WorldStats (Census, Nielson)

Facebook
Obama: 2,379,102 supporters McCain: 620,359 supporters

Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

MySpace
Obama: Friends: 833,161 McCain: Friends: 217,811

Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

YouTube
Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006, Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day), Channel Views: 18,413,110
McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 (uploads about 2 a day), Subscribers: 28,419, Channel Views: 2,032,993

Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain

Twitter
Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers McCain: @JohnMcCain (is it real?) 4,603

Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain

1,000: The number of phone banks organized by volunteers using MyBO in the final week of the campaign.

150,000: The number of other campaign-related events organized on MyBO over the course of the campaign.

1 million: The number of phone calls supporters made using MyBO on election day alone.

35,000: The number of groups created by supporters on MyBO. These were clumped by geographic proximity and shared interests.

1.5 million: The number of MyBO accounts created by election day.

$650 million and counting: The amount of money Obama raised, more than half of it through his website.

Simple Examples, Profound Meanings

noreply@blogger.com (Purva Brown - Sacramento Real Estate Gal) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:50:00 +0000

I’m writing this as I watch “American Idol.” While I realize this may not be the ideal beginning to a post on adding value, hear me out. Here’s the thing to think about: why are there so many bad singers complaining about not getting a fair hearing and in stark contrast the winner who cries with being humbled by the love of millions of voters? In other words, in every field of life, why are losers proud and winners humble?

My take? I think it’s because the winners think about adding value and the losers are thinking merely about appearing to care about adding value. The winners, in essence, are already thinking about the consumer while the losers are only thinking about themselves. If you continue to think about yourself, there is no room in your head to think about your consumer and how you will help them. And they can sense that and not buy from you. As most sales trainers will tell you, think about yourself and pretty much kill the sale!

Here’s another example. I’m currently writing a book on how to be an excellent landlord. You can read about it here: Landlord Landmines . Although I didn’t come up with this while I was a real estate salesperson, I did come up with it as a landlord. Actually, my husband came up with the idea as a way to help other landlords avoid the problems we’ve had with our tenants! We’ve already learned all we could. We want to share the information; we’re thinking about the consumer!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that my husband and I, we should win American Idol. Ha,ha,ha! No. just kidding. I’m trying to say that the first step to adding value is thinking about the consumer. Like the consumer.

Now I am in a better position to help investor clients and they are attracted to it. I am not just a real estate salesperson who can sell them a rental. I’m a real estate salesperson who owns rental property, who knows what to look for in one and can guide them through such a purchase. My next goal? Owning a property management company, so that every aspect of buying and managing a rental is taken care of for the client. Their job is simply selection.

Everything worth doing is worth doing well. Everything you do can add value. Not just to the consumer, but to your own life. And when you think like that, that’s when you don’t need to think any more. That’s when you’re there!

The Flame of Hope begins to shine brighter

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:05:00 +0000

I apologize for having stayed off the air for a long time, and I shall make amends. I can only say that the last 2 months have been too hectic (What's new there - you may ask). But this time, they were hectic enough to keep me away from my two cherished hobbies - writing and photography. I have hardly been able to put in a decent effort in either of these areas. Well, now that the need is back, the effort will match as well.

I attended a conference on Digital marketing in Mumbai on 26th November last year (Yes, you got it right, 26/11 it was). I am going to just mention some very key and important learnings there:

1. The Digital media is growing faster than you and I imagined. The western world has really progressed far more in this area than we have. The buzz is just beginning in India now.
2. More people are spending time on the net than watching TV. This applies more to youngsters than older people. People are even creating an alternative and imaginary life on the web where they are born, go to school, grow up, have a job, make or loose money, meet people, have a romance, marry, divorce and much more. While much of this is fun and fantasy, it is also going to provide opportunities for sales people to create scenarios for prospective customers. e.g., Prospective home buyers will scout around the locality and then enter the house their broker is showing them, see and inspect the specs, the amenities, the list of neighbourhood store, prospective friends for themselves and their kids and much more. How soon will this happen? Weel, your guess is good as mine. It may even never happen.
3. Web-behaviour is quite different than physical behaviour. One thing is currently certain - As Prahalad Kakkar put it nicely - A reader will be more informed than a web - browser. Real knowledge will never come from the web. But instant reference and reviews will. For a sales person, this means that any unhappy customer will surely go to the web and vent his ire. So beware. Sales people can no longer afford to leave issues open. Closing customer complaints and making the customer feel satisfied will be very important.
4. An important point Kakkar made - No matter what, one cannot fake it, even on the web. Humans have very strong sense to detect anything synthetic - be it food, cloth or behaviour (even on the net). So keep that out.
5. Most important learning - Like it or not, I do not have an option but to get net savvy, be socially active on the net and learn to use it to my advantage before others do. It is a race here like anywhere else.

Well, there you have it. A full day's learning in 5 critical takeaways for a sales person.

As promised, I will be back soon and will keep coming back. For a change, I have also put up a new picture on the web-site. The picture of a Saturday morning guest at our window. Do see it and please send me comments on how you liked this post.

Regards,

Vishwajeet

Display of Sincerity

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:21:00 +0000

Three Incidents impacted me last week. I am writing about 2 of them today, and the third one I shall write later.

I was travelling most of last week meeting customers, trying to push sales, create new openings and explore customers / segments which will offer business opportunity. One of these calls was a formal presentation to an Architectural house - a very important call. We had a fairly large team from our side to take care of various product verticals. Among our group was one individual with an unshaven chin and wearing sports shoes to work. He is a promising young fellow in our team, and has come in with very good references. He has a good record of customer service and is generally liked by customers. But his attire sure did upset me a little.

Pix by hyougushi

The Other incident was at Bangalore airport. All flights are running empty these days and passengers are few. As I approached the counter of the airline I was flying, I saw that the 3 check-in clerks at the counter were involved in a friendly banter and I my walking in on thier banter perhaps served as a slight intrusion. On my right was another set of counters belonging to another airline. This airline too had no passengers at the moment, but all counters were manned, and each person appeared either busy working, with a couple of them always eagerly awaiting customers so that they could greet them with a warm smile and smoothly process their check-in.

Mind you, my own check-in was extremely smooth and the staff was polite and nice to me. But I found a subtle difference in the approach. While the other airline appeared sincere and friendly, the staff on the airline I was flying was only friendly. While it is great to have fun at the work place, I thought it was equally important to convey a message of being sincere in approach. The second airline seemed very sincere and determined to ensure that any customer walking in would be treated like Royalty and made to feel extremely welcome. They ensured that a lack of work was not visible to the customers.

I have been thinking about these two incidents over the weekend. If I was a customer, I would carry an image of "casual" about the employees and effectively, the company.

While being casual may have been ignored in the frenzy of work going on during the boom times, during a slow-down, this is simply a no-no. Customers will give business to those individuals and companies they like. And first and foremost, they will like sincerity.

Sincerity has to be VISIBLE now. In every action, in every e-mail, in every telephone call and in every aspect of your persona.

In our next post, we will explore sincerity further. In the meanwhile, tell me your views on sincerity. Share few stories where sincerity impacted you. This sharing will be of great learning value to other readers.

Let us together spread Hope and Faith and conquer fear and dispair.

Hope and Faith not Fear and Despair - Shaping your perceptual spectrum

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:33:00 +0000

Last two weeks have been - what can I say - eventful. We had so many crises one after another. First the US crisis. Then the European crisis. Then our own Indian (rumoured) crisis.

Yes, there was a liquidity issue in India. But was it enough to be a crisis point? I do not know. When the whole world was reducing interest rates to spur the economy (to avert a crisis, which probably increased the magnitude eventually), our RBI governor kept on tightening. As a result, we have ample scope to reduce both the CRR now as well as the interest rates. I mean we are hovering around 14 % interest rates, while US is @ 1.5%. Any further and they would actually start doling out money for customers to borrow. Aren't we in India in a much better shape.

But inspite of this, we had so much rumour mongering - largely about ICICI Bank. Again, I am not the expert to comment on whether this is true or false.

But I am a salesman, and I think - how does this impact me? Do I fill myself with Fear and Despair about the future? Do I fear about missing target quotas? Will my company start downsizing? Will people loose jobs? Well fact is, I don't know. Only time will tell how deep the wounds are.

But is the fear of future possible pain making me feel despair today? If yes, then I have already written my future (or rather, lack of it) as a salesman even without any of this happening.

So what will I as a salesman do? I will nurture Hope and Faith. Hope of a return to normalcy soon, but importantly, faith in my own ability as a salesman to tide over this present and temporary crisis.

I will write more about this in my next post.

While the mainstream media (read TV, Newspapers) were busy spreading news about the bleak future ahead, I think the Social Media Role is to spread cheer, hope and faith in our own ability to withstand this, unlike the depressing role being played out by the mainstream media.

Pause, Think, Restart

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:01:00 +0000

CC - Image by ahhyeah

The Dow went down by 777 yesterday. The last 6 months have seen terrible ups and downs in the world markets. This makes me wonder, are there lessons for me to learn as a sales person? Let me think

Unrestrained growth meant that we all forgot fundamentals. The discipline in investment went away, and many untrained small investors started fancying themselves as "Traders". In a growing market, everyone makes money. In the process, people stopped analysing their investments and went after hot leads.

For a Sales professional in India too, last 5 years have been full of heady growth. Any ordinary salesman was meeting and beating quota targets. Instead of spending time in analysing customer needs, sales people were busy "closing" one deal after another, paying scant respect to the quality of the prospect, the risk involved and not worrying about building strong pipelines. Everyone was living in the here and now.

During the bull run, many investors went from one script to another, making quick capital gains based on hot market tips and moving money rapidly. In the process, they learnt NOTHING about investing. When the market dropped, they are clueless. They are loosing money fast, and have nowhere to invest. Everyone is living on the hope that the market will recover. Many others will never invest in equities again for a long long time.

Salesmen were in demand from varying sectors like insurance, telecom, banking, services, IT, manufacturing etc. Salespeople rapidly hopped jobs, earning ever fattening paychecks but learning prescious LITTLE. In the face of a slowdown, these salespeople face the problem of not knowing how and where to sell. We hope the recession will soon pass us by. We hope what's happening in US has nothing to do with us. But we now fear for we have learnt little.

I wish to draw the reader's attention to earlier posts on learning. Let us ask this question of ourselves - how much have we learnt?

Lastly, everyone was betting on the the euiqty and Real estate markets. High Risk - High Rewards as someone told me. Very few investors thought about spreading the risk across a wide array of assets. They hadthe proverbial "all eggs in one basket".

As salesmen preferred to hunt the big deals, companies showered praise on the "Stars" getting in the multi-million deals. The Star salemen were not interested in having a "spread". Business tomorrow will happen in the spread.

I am sure we can draw many more analogies. Would welcome comments, analogies and examples from readers.

Well, we now have some time to Pause, Think and Re-start, Let us learn from the past 5 months. Let us work on our fundamentals of Self Esteem, Discipline, Ethics, Knowledge and Respect.

Let us invest in our customers again. Happy Investing !!

Making Your customers Win and Battling a Slowdown while you do it

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:46:00 +0000

Sales training programs regularly teach us about Making Customers Win. It is all about Thinking Win - Win. But how do you really do it? I saw a wonderful example of really making your customers win.

I recently read a blog http://sacramentorealestategal.blogspot.com/

CC - Getty Images

The author is a real-estate broker called Purva Brown from Sacramento - somewhere in the United States I think. At the moment, US real-estate market is under pressure with foreclosures, the subprime crisis, falling prices and the works. Probably the worst time to be in the real estate broking business. You will see most people resorting to signs like the one on the right.

But not Purva.

Being a property broker, she is really a medium of exchange between the buyer and the seller (remember my first post on BRIDGE?). So in effect, both the buyer and the seller are her customers. Conventional wisdom would have us think, if the seller wins then the buyer looses and vice versa. So then, which of her customers does she focus on? The one which approaches her first? Or the one who is paying her the commission?

I found that she makes both of them win!!! Don't believe me? Then check out her URL.

She has worked out a beautiful way of making both her customers win. On her blog, she often writes about "Adding Value to your real estate". She regularly shares tips on home improvement, green homes, water conservation, landscaping tips, interiors etc. She is helping customers about finance options. She writes about ways of saving property taxes. She updates her readers (future customers) about local property legislations, property facts and much more.

Now this lady is no expert on any of these topics. So how does she offer these tips? By painstakingly researching articles and stories on the internet and elsewhere which her customers will like and benefit from. This is her homework to prepare for her business.

So how does this make both the sellers and buyers successful?

The Seller can get a better price for his home by implementing many of the tips which Purva passes on. So he is thankful to Purva and would like to consider selling his home through her since she "helped him improve the value" of his home.

The Buyer on the other hand looks at Purva as an expert, and expects that Purva will show him the homes with the best amenities, design, decor etc. So they too would like to approach her, and buy the most valuable property she recommends.

Now that's what I call really making your customers successful and winning more business!!!

Importantly, at a time when many real estate brokers are probably morose and witless, Purva is investing in building hope, value and confidence in her customers. As the market begins to recover, she will be the first person prospects will reach out to.

You can check out Purva Brown's blog on http://sacramentorealestategal.blogspot.com/

Checking the pulse of the blog

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Dear readers,

We have been having some problem with feeds not reaching readers. Hence I have re-configured the feedburner settings.
Please give me a single word confirmation once you receive this feed, which will tell me that all is well again.

Thanks in advance,
Vishwajeet

Nanhe Kadam (The first 3 steps of a young salesman)

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Last week I read a blog by a young sales professional from Kerala - the southern-most state of India. He had only 3 posts on his blog, the last one of them written 3 years ago. This young salesman had passed out (in his own words) from a ‘2nd rung Business School. Like any other youngster, he had started with big ambitions -

Year 0 – frontline

Year 3 – Territory Manager

Year 5 – Area Manager

Year 7 – Regional Manager

Year 10 – National Sales Manager and

Year 15 – CEO

But 5 years down, he was still in frontline, not having found his footing, unsure of what the future held for him, and completely depressed. His only thought – survival. Somehow manage to meet quota and targets week after week, month after month just and keep afloat. Depressed. Looking for a change in job, hoping something will “happen” in the next assignment.

What went wrong? Why did this B School graduate not make it? I saw two possible reasons.

1.His ambition was manifest in years, and not in what he aimed to learn in those years.

2.His manager did not help him learn.

Last week I commented on one's readiness for a job promotion. This week I am presenting a perspective on the first 3 positions in a salesperson’s career.

Level 1: Frontline: This is the SELF DISCOVERY stage. Constant probing, a child-like inquisitiveness and a huge learning appetite are crucial. This is where your Corporate personality begins to take shape. A good manager will coach and mentor you through this stage. Importantly, this is the time to discover your strengths and areas for improvement. In your future career, using your strengths and taking up assignments which are best suited to your strengths will make you immensely successful. Once you complete this self learning, you are ready for the next challenge.

Level 2: Self manager: Often called a territory manager. This is the time to start applying your knowledge about Self and Market. Remember the first time your dad let go of you while teaching you to ride a bicycle? You learned self-balance, you understood that you could do it on your own. Your dad just kept giving you a few tips from the distance. Learn to take decisions and own up responsibility of customers, territory and actions. In my second post about “bridge”, I had mentioned that one of the strong foundations is Self-discipline. This is the time to build that foundation. The stronger your foundation of self-discipline, the easier you will find it to Manage Self. Becoming a master of managing oneself and building a strong empathy in the process is an essential skill before moving on to higher ground.

Level 3: People manager or Area Manager: This is where your first challenge with people management begins. You will now carry a big dual responsibility on your shoulders for the first time

1.You are responsible for your company’s market share in your area.

2.You are responsible for inducting, grooming and developing the fresh blood entering the organization.

You will learn that you can accomplish much more through your team than you can ever accomplish alone. Making your team members more of what they are, and not clones of yourself will ensure that you have diverse talent in your team. This understanding and respect of talent alone can help you take on higher responsibilities in the future. I have seen so many great salespeople never crossing this line. They hang on to being great salesmen, focusing on self success, little realizing that they can win only if their entire team contributes, performs and WINS. As a manager, you need to learn to GET THINGS DONE.

Completing these 3 steps of learning is essential for a salesperson to grow. The speed at which you learn at each level will determine the speed of your growth and not how many calendar years you put in between.

The only other way around this is being extremely LUCKY!!!

Knocking on the Door ... on the Upper floor

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:14:00 +0000

I recently answered a question on LinkedIn in response to a question by Doyle Slayton of SalesBlogcast (http://www.salesblogcast.com ). I am reproducing that answer almost verbatim here, since I want to put this question and my thoughts to this forum as well.

The Question – How do you know when you are qualified for that next promotion?

My Answer - I love this question. This is a question I get from team members all the time and one that I love to answer. I have a simple take on this one:

You are ready for your promotion when you have made yourself redundant in the current role.

Surprised? Let me explain.

If you are doing your job too well and no one else around you can do it better, then you are too important for the job, and no one can do it better. And if you are so important, then how can the company ever move you?

But then does this mean you should not do a great job? Absolutely not. But any position should go through 3 phases:

Phase 1 - Learning the Job. In this phase, you are exploring your job, continuously trying to understand the role and expectations better, and importantly, finding opportunities to improve continuously.

Phase 2 - Consolidation. In this phase, you put your learning to use. You implement the changes which are necessary to keep pace with the changing times and business scenarios. You also use this time to do talent spotting and identifying people who are the clear growth stars in your team.

Phase 3: Redundancy. In this phase, you have build strong systems and work practices, which are solid, but which at the same time give enough flexibility for your team to use their own initiative and make things happen. You vigorously delegate larger opportunities to the identified stars and consciously build the next line. You keep demonstrating your thirst for newer and more challenging tasks and assignments, taking on difficult challenges. At this time, the strong team you have built has the independence to execute the regular tasks themselves, and the whole unit is working like a beautifully oiled machine. You have many team members who continuously think they can do a better job then you can, and you clearly demonstrate to the organization that you are clearly "available" for the next challenge. You have built a team which is raring to go and will do exceedingly well, and in-fact at times better, once you are out of the way.

When you demonstrate this to your organization, the organization clearly sees that you are ready for new opportunities.

It has worked for me so far. I have endeavored to leave an assignment in a much stronger position, and built future leaders who are well developed to take up the role. They are budding with newer and better ideas, and will surely take the organization to the next level.

You know and the organization knows then, that you are ready.

Promotions have to be earned, by contributing to the growth of the organization, and not just by doing your job well. This is all the more applicable for earning promotions in a Sales Role. Not every good salesman becomes a good sales manager, and not every good sales manager has been a "Great Salesman".

Sales Ethics - The Inner Conflict

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:35:00 +0000

Last week while on travel, we were on retail development calls and also putting up some new posters in retail outlets. One sales officer, clearly a motivated fellow, was leading in the discussions with many retailers. That he shared an excellent rapport and relationship with most of them was immediately evident.

In each call the Sales officer was also required to put the new branding stickers in the retail outlets. While the Sales Officer's sales skills did impress me, his fixing of the branding stickers apalled me. As we exited the first outlet, I found our branding stickers stuck in a little wayward manner on the shop window pane, which obviously did not look aesthetic at all. I pulled out the sticker to demonstrate how attention to detail in such matters makes a favuorable impression, and positioned the sticker properly to the clear satisfaction of the shop owner.

Our Sales Officer having learned some bit on aesthetics and symmetry, then proceeded to show-off his newly acquired skills, The next sticker in the next retail shop was placed exactly at the centre of a large branding panel (though not of a competitor) installed with a lot of love and care by another respected company. By the time we noticed this, it was too late. Removing the sticker would have torn the other panel up and completely de-face it. Leaving it there was not only defacing it, but also spoiling the reputation of company. I was unable to decide which way to turn. This incident set me wondering.

Is Sales Ethics dead?

A lot of times I get this feeling from some salesperson that there is a thin line between outright lying and not disclosing all facts. Is there no inner conflict for a sales person at all today? I remember this syndrome having affected me very early in my career when I too believed that this is the way a salesman was supposed to be. But the inner conflict soon became un-bearable. One soon discovers that our childhood teaching of not lying really is a better option after all. Situations do become very bad for that moment, but your courage to share unpleasant truth always leads to stronger relationships based on the foundation of trust.

So why is this overall lack of basic Sales ethics so prevalent? Is it because customers have started demanding too much? Many times when faced with impossible delivery commitments from customers, the response from a salesman is simple - no company can deliver in such a short time. The question is only about which salesman is able to handle the pressure of delayed deliveries.

If this is indeed so, why are customers getting so unreasonable?

I found the answer to this question last month whille travelling from Pune to Delhi, when I chanced upon a very important prospect sitting next to me on the flight. We struck up a conversation, and one of the issues I wished to indirectly check was this issue. His responses clarified this "delayed" decision making by customers today.

There are plenty of jobs available in the market. As a result, a salesman is getting more enquiries and leads in his lap than he can handle. As a consequence, he has no time for any real exchange of information or engagement with a customer. All products get commoditised, without consideration about the suitability of the product at all. In this process, price becomes the only weapon an executive fights with. And the race for a lower price is always longdrawn and time consuming - which finally impacts both the buyer as well as the seller. There is no exchange of value.

Somewhere this viciuos cycle has began to have an adverse impact on our sales profession. The only way to get ethics back in our system, is to break this cycle somewhere. And to me the easiest available opportunity to break this ethical cycle is at the point of spending more time in customer engagement.

Please let me have your thoughts on this. I would welcome both agreements as well as disagreements which would help me build this thought better.

Going forward, I would also like to start developing thoughts on how can we begin to improve customer engagement? By the way, better engagement also means great and profitable business.

Would also like to mention two good sites I read on Sales ethics. I am mentioning those here for more reading on the subject: http://www.principledprofit.com/sales-ethics.html

Another site which helps us look at this topic in the lighter vein is http://www.grantland.net/salesethics.htm . Hope you enjoy both.

Do let me have your comments, and help me become a better sales professional.

Salesman - A Bridge between Demand and Supply

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:18:00 +0000

I made a mention earlier about a salesman being a bridge between Demand and Supply. Let me expand this thought a little more today.

A bridge connects 2 shores - in our case demand and supply.

A bridge allows flow of traffic in both directions - In our case this means free flow of needs, wants and desires from demand in the direction of supply and information on products, services, technologies from supply to demand.

A bridge has to make the otherwise arduous task of crossing the river seem easy. A good salesman will do the same by making the product or service look appealing to the customer. He has to make the process of buying the product or service very convenient. Both sides - the demand side and supply side should feel deep interest in crossing over to the other side.

With use, a bridge will begin to have potholes and make the journey more arduous, difficult and finally - uninviting. Regular maintenance work is required to keep the bridge smooth and pleasurable. A salesman too finds that with overuse, he begins to develop "fault lines". He needs to repair them with regular "new coats" of training and self development.

Most importantly, a bridge needs to be firmly anchored to both sides. Being anchored to only one side - either the supplier side or the customer side will not help. And there are FIVE foundations to ensure that this anchoring is strong - Self Esteem, Discipline, Ethics, Knowledge and Respect.

Before I close this thought, let me explain my viewpoint on the bridge angle here. When I first considered that my role was being a bridge and no more, it brought a lot more humilty to the otherwise overhyped "Sales" profession. It threw out all the assumptions of any fantastic ability to "convince" people to my point of view or be able to "push" through any order. It also helped me realize that a bridge cannot connect two dis-similar shores. Simply put, there is a product and then there is a market for that product. If I am able to find a suitable market for my product, then the sales process is easy and there is a real exchange of value for both sides.

When the customer is not suited to my product, that is the time when I need to "convince". But then at such times, it makes me think - Am I con-vincing or am I con-ning?

From those who have bothered to read through this blog, I would love to have an exchange of views on this last point.

Going forward, I will further present my thoughts on the above question and further develop the idea of finding a suitable bride for my product (the groom). I will also write separate blogs on the foundations of our bridge.

Please do write in your comments / thoughts, it will help me evolve as a better sales professional.

noreply@blogger.com (Vishwajeet Rajwaday) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:39:00 +0000

My First Attempt at Blogging

This is my first ever attempt at blogging. Have heard a lot of it, but never tried. Being a sales and marketing professional myself, this is one subject I would love to share my views on. I am not sure how this works, but I also hope to invite some friends to contribute to this spot as well.

As I meet, interact and interview sales professionals in India, I often try to understand the person's motivation in being a sales professional. I have heard many resons - I like to meet people; I have strong convincing powers; I like to travel and see new places and many such things.

The MBAs get "campus selected" into a sales career, but for many others, they just happened to enter into this line after trying their had at other jobs. For them, it is just a way of living.

But from the sales professional in a tie, trying to sell socks cheap at a traffic signal to the M&A professional trying to "sell" a "company", we are all doing a very basic role - the bridge between "Demand" and "Supply".

I will write on this concept a little later. Let me first understand how this blogging works.