My kids attend a public speaking course called “Think and Speak Up”. The main idea behind the class is that in order to be an effective public speaker, you need to think before you speak i.e. be prepared before you speak. A recent conversation with a very action oriented CEO who wants to launch in the US got me thinking that the “Think and Speak Up” approach applies to companies as well. It takes...
We Indians are notoriously cheap, second possibly only to the Chinese. There are countless comics in the US that make fun of both ethnicities, but for us it a point of pride, a virtue borne out of years of trying to make do with less. You can call it whatever you want, we like to say that we are “careful” with money. #488634497 / gettyimages.com Nowhere is that trait more useful than in a startup...
I have written many posts on what it takes to enter the US market. Most of my past posts have been around sales and marketing. However, there is a much more fundamental, one might say visceral, approach to entering a new market. How committed are you to it? As the famous anecdote goes of the hen laying an egg (the hen is involved) vs the chicken that gets cooked (the chicken is committed). Does...
Without a doubt the Silicon Valley or “Valley” as it is known leads the world in new technology breakthroughs. Day in and day out we hear of companies growing, getting acquired, of going public and of untold riches accrued to the founders and the investors. The recent Whatsapp saga is a classic example of a rags-to-riches story and so the legend of the Valley continues to build. There is no doubt...
There are many solutions that are targeted at a niche, that solve a specific problem. Selling these is relatively easy. You know the target, you know the problem. The challenge comes with the horizontal solutions, or ones that apply to wide variety of industries and business problems. There is tremendous potential opportunity there and yet they are devilishly difficult to sell for a small company...
The first call you make to a prospect is critical. It could make or break you. And yet, I find capable, well-meaning, highly intelligent people not putting in the effort to prepare for it. While it is obvious, and most definitely not rocket science, it helps to have a checklist to go against. I recently put together a short checklist for a client of what to think about when making the first call...
In the corporate world there are no certainties. There is never a “sure thing”, even the best businesses fail due to circumstances beyond their control. However, there is one thing that you can control: your brand. Let us face it. Whether we like it or not, we are constantly selling. Whether it is our agenda as a design guru, a resume, a position, even a restaurant we want to go to, we are always...
There have been a lot of posts recently on the need to have a well-defined sales process: something I heartily endorse, by the way. The challenge often in smaller companies is that they are resource constrained and so putting thoughts down on how sales should be approached tends to rank way down on the priority list. This is a mistake. Call it what you want but a documented approach that talks...
If you asked me this question five years back, I would have said unequivocally that you have to establish a presence in the US if you want to do business here. My thoughts on the subject have changed. I believe the answer is, it depends. Let me explain. Since it is the risk-reward equation that tilts the scales in favor of one vendor over another, we have to start out by thinking about how the...
My wife forwarded me an article recently that Booz & Co. had written on India’s leadership challenge. You can read the full article here. This confirmed something I have long suspected. While there are great leaders in the Indian business, there are very few great companies. Let me explain what I mean by that. In the business, we are in, i.e. IT, some companies have done very well...
