Any marketing is good marketing

How often have you heard the statement that ‘We need to sell ourselves to the customers’ and how often have you actually tried to find out what it means? One might find the statement bizarre and incongruous to its literal meaning. There is no profound meaning or rocket science involved in that statement for one to understand. It simply means that one has to create and communicate offerings to the clients and has to make them clued-up about what one does and what services one offers. In one word, it means that one has to‘market’ himself.

In business, marketing plays a key role quite literally. It opens the doors of the business and the services that are offered by them to the potential clients. One of the 4P’s of marketing is PROMOTION which acts as a communication link between the sellers and buyers for the purpose of informing and influencing people. All these people need not, or for that matter, will not be potential customers. However, if the services offered do make an impact on them, they can spread it through word of mouth to others who are potential buyers of the service. These days, even infants know about Apple and its products and there are minors who also know about Steve Jobs being the owner of Apple. They do not necessarily have or require an Apple product. But, if any of their relatives, friends or acquaintances come up with a sticky situation as to which cell phone to be bought or music device to be purchased then these kids’ answer would be instant. This isn’t something out of the clear blue sky. If someone were to ask the great man himself, the brains behind the iPods and iPhones and iPads, as to what is his big secret of kissing success, his obvious reply would be “iMarket”.

A US based marketing consultant Stuart Britt said ‘For an entrepreneur, not marketing is like winking a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but no one else does’. As an entrepreneur, a person’s main objective apart from getting clients would be to make the world know about him and his company and what it does. A company should not market with the objective of converting everyone who comes to know about them into clients. Every person yearns for name, fame and money. Fame is a forerunner of money. If your company is famous, money will follow. And fame comes from effective marketing targeted not just towards those within the entrepreneur’s ken but also those who are beyond that. Consider yourself to own a hard disk manufacturing company. Few years ago, the domain for marketing the hard disks were the computer manufacturers and assemblers. But as the time progressed, the concept of external hard disks came up which were exactly the same hard disks that were contained in the computers but they came with a casing. Today, hard disk manufacturers have their domains not only in the form of computer manufacturers and assemblers but also the common man who directly goes for these products. Another example is the cell phone which used to be owned only by high class and aristocratic lot of people but if you consider the scenario as of today then you would find children having more advanced phones than people double their age.

You can have brilliant ideas but if you cannot get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere. At the same time, too many takers of your idea will lead to chaos. Everyone that a doctor knows is not his patient. Everyone who enters a Nike showroom does not come out with a Nike product in his hand. What is important is that they chose to enter that particular showroom and that is effective marketing.

My ‘Imcrede’ble Experience Part 2

Heavens Be Praised. The Almighty had spoken through Vimalesh. I was suddenly feeling at ease because I always wanted to see a real client meeting, but strictly SEE a meeting. During school days, when there was a beautiful girl in our class, my friends depended on me to talk to her first. In fact, when Vimalesh and I used to be in school and college, he used to be the stalker and I used to be the talker. He would push me in talking first which I never did have any problems doing. What I realised is that things were different from what they were in school or college. There I did not have to think of the consequences but here, the consequence could make or break our sequence. There I was undaunted by the girl’s slap but here I had to think about the client’s clap. There, every move was a childish thing but here, one childish move would make us lose everything. What if I go wrong in my words with the client? What if I slip off while shaking hands with him? What if I stutter while speaking? What if something angers the client especially because of me?

Many such ‘What If’s were running through my head churning my brain. My heart started pounding at the penultimate second as we pushed the door into the client’s office. We were directed towards the proprietor’s room. This man was tall and dark with a hefty physique. He was talking on the phone and, from what I could grasp, he was in a foul mood. We introduced ourselves to him and gave him our business cards. A very queer thing or rather, etiquette about giving your business card to a client or anyone, for that matter, is that you should give it with both the hands. Moreover, even while receiving a card you should receive it with both hands. Imagine a small 90mm X 55mm card being given and received with both hands as though we are giving our relative’s marriage invitation card. Though we gave our cards with both hands, he received it only with one hand which made me feel that my doubt was right about his foul mood or maybe he wasn’t aware of the etiquette at all.  

Vimalesh started by introducing himself and me, spoke at length about his company, the websites that they have developed, the logos and brochures that they have designed and so on. Though this man was hearing him, he was not listening to him. A small difference exists between ‘hearing’ and ’listening’ and that difference is the presence or absence of concentration which in turn depends on your level of interest. Harshly and honestly speaking, he was not interested. He was pre-occupied with something or rather, worried about something. We, then, let him speak about his requirement which is when we got to know that he wanted to design a brochure for his company and he had given this to a small printing agency and that guy had made a very simple design which didn’t even qualify to be called a ‘design’. The client wasn’t happy with the logo created nor was he happy with the content. He handed over the brochure to me to have a look. As I was going through the brochure I saw underlines in many of them. Without reading the underlined text, I opened my mouth for the first time.

“Sir, why is this underlining for?”

He burst out saying they were all mistakes committed in writing English by the other guy and he went on and on with his saga. I browsed through the brochure and found that the English was awful, to say the least. We assured him that we will give him the most creative logo and brochure designed and that he could ask us to go ahead with the work only after finalising the designs we have made. He was already too upset with his past experience and had a prejudiced notion about us. Our words of assurance gave him some confidence that, if nothing, he won’t lose his money again at the wrong place with the wrong person.

Then came the most emotional part, the costing. This is where I wanted to learn tackling clients. I was terrible in discussing money anywhere. I remember going to vegetable vendors with mom and she would buy vegetables with an amazing bargain whereas when I used to go alone, I used to buy them at whatever price they said, without a bat of an eyelid. Vimalesh put forth his proposal and his advance amount to the client. Any company works on the norm that they have to receive a certain advance amount as a start-up but this guy wasn’t in a mood for losing anymore of his money and so he refused straightaway. This is one of the tricky situations which I wanted to learn to tackle but I never thought that it would arise in the very first meet. I was eager to see Vimalesh’s presence of mind now. He gave the client a solution that the client could sign a post dated cheque which will serve as, both an assurance for us to start with the job and for the client to have an upper hand in the deal. The client, as expected, was happy with the deal.

As we shook hands with him, we assured him that his money is in safe and skilled hands and proceeded to leave the room. The moment we exited I started wondering that if this is the kind of people I’ll have to meet then I really will have a tough time and need to hone my skills of using my wit and presence of mind. My thoughts were interrupted by Vimalesh.

“Dude, tomorrow also you have a meeting. TWO GIRLS”.

Client Compliant

If at all there was to be a movie or a documentary on do’s and don’ts of business, then the hero would have been the client without an iota of doubt. Why does this happen? Why is it so that the client is the one who makes a business or breaks it? Why does a businessman having a shrewd mind and an acute business acumen render handicapped if he doesn’t have or retain clients and bring in new ones?

Talking about the world of artificial intelligence and the concept of data warehousing, the basic study is called the client-server architecture. Your server might be the best in its class but it is a mere nothing without the client. The server is at the disposal of the client. If there is a small lag in the co-ordination, interdependency and functionality of the client and server, what is set right is the server and not the client. This means that the server should be client compliant.

An American businessman Arthur Nielsen said “Give your clients the earliest delivery consistent with quality – whatever the inconvenience to us”. The importance of clients in your business can be commensurate with the importance of tea powder in your tea. You can afford the absence of sugar and even milk, for that matter, in your tea.You can be a lawyer, an IT solutions guy, a Chartered Accountant, an architect, a mutual fund advisor, an advertising agency or even a movie director. You can have an insight of what you have to do and what you have to achieve as your goal but there is a dependency on your client as well. What really makes a client go for your work is not just your skill set but also your compliance with what they want. You might make the most creative advertisement by pulling in your best designers for a company but if it is not in compliance with the vision of the client then that is the end of the road for you as far as that client is concerned. As they say, success is a combination of perspiration and luck and in this case, your client is the factor of luck. This is because when there is a laudable service that has been offered to a client by you, there is a fair chance that your work will be appreciated and you earn a few more clients through word of mouth but in case he is unhappy with your service then negative publicity is an assured free gift.

A successful businessman doesn’t have just a handful of clients to generate a great turnover. He always is in quest for more clients whom he can service and generate dollars and a reputation. At the same time, he cuts his coat only according to his cloth. Situations wherein you have to meet more than one client with overlapping timings makes you wish for a Hermione’s watch or a time travel machine. The worst thing that you do here is say ‘no’ to one of them. Negative attitude in business is negative altitude in reputation. A typical example is when you want to buy a camera and you logon to google and search for shopping sites. You get hundred odd sites ranging from amazon.com to costco.com. You log on to one of the sites, say, abc.com and check out the user friendliness of the site, the prices they offer, the services they provide and their payment mechanism. If there is any discrepancy in that website in comparison with amazon.com, you need not worry. All you need is the best e-shop for the camera and so, without batting an eyelid you go for amazon.com. But it is the loss for the dotcom which had one of its potential customers brushing shoulders with it yet, lost him. David Ogilvy, a Scottish born British military intelligence Officer and later an advertising executive said, “I never tell one client that I cannot attend his sales convention because I have a previous engagement with another client; successful polygamy depends upon pretending to each spouse that she is the only pebble on your beach”. Ogilvy doesn’t mean that one has to put up pretence in front of the client. He means that though there isn’t much of a difference between the numbers thirteen and fourteen, fourteen is better and greater and so, no client must go unobserved or overlooked upon.

Client compliance is the numero uno rule for any given business process. The unhidden secret of a business giant is that it is client compliant. Client compliance is not about pretending that a client is precious but to actually consider him precious and make him feel at ease and imbibing confidence in him that his work is in safe and skilled hands.

My ‘Imcrede’ble Experience Part 1

Frustrated with my present job which was not at all challenging and had me sitting only at one place and banging on the keyboard, I decided to quit my job and sought refuge at my childhood friend Vimalesh’s own company, Imcrede Solutions. He was my friend right since we were in 1^st grade and we were the thickest of the friends and knew each other in and out. I happened to ask him if there was any vacancy in his company and incidentally, he was also searching for a marketing guy and had put up a requirement for the same in newspapers and job sites. Since our friendship went a long way back, he was aware of my engagements with my vocal cords and my interactions with people coupled with the diplomacy that I exhibited during the interactions. He was quite confident that I would play the role decently, if not the best. The work that he had offered to me was both, a challenging one and also a good medium by which I could gain experience in interacting with clients on a one on one basis.

My first day at work was something which I can never forget. I always had it in mind that though Vimalesh was my friend, I was indebted to him because he gave me a chance to work with him when I had nothing with me. For that matter, he had given me the choice as to what job would I like to do instead of predefining my responsibilities. He took me to his office and introduced me to his colleagues and employees. As it was my first day, I was shown their work culture, the basic and important documents, clients and their contacts, the works that they have been doing at Imcrede and so on. Throughout everything, I couldn’t help noticing that Vimalesh was no longer the person I had known. He had changed a lot. He was very friendly yet clear with his intentions and requirements and from what I could grasp, he was a shrewd businessman. He treated his employees as if they were his own long lost friends. The creative designers who happened to be his friends did actually fit the title and their creativity was par description.

 Initial few days were my revision lectures in which my colleagues helped me with the facts about marketing, what is it all about, the ethics and etiquettes to be adhered to while having interactions, the Do’s and Don’ts of marketing and so on. I was enjoying all this considering we were having demo sessions and mock client interactions with employees I had not interacted with, at all. I was so brilliant with all of them that I got over-confident about myself, though Vimalesh, who knew that I do get carried away soon, made me aware that it’s a human tendency to be relaxed in home atmosphere but it is not the same onsite albeit he never meant to discourage me. Despite his cautioning words, I was feeling like the Tendulkar of Business Development but little did I know that I would actually be the Sreesanth on field.

Then came the day when my first client meeting got scheduled. Vimalesh said that he would accompany me though he would let me do the talking. I was super excited till the time he said he would accompany me. The moment I got to know this, I got apprehensive. All my over-confidence went for a toss even before we could leave for the meet. It was as though I had become Bruce Almighty for a few hours and suddenly all my powers were lost when Vimalesh said he would accompany me. I was quiet throughout the journey which never seemed to end, with Vimalesh speaking to me to make me relaxed and cracking jokes about his past experiences to lighten up the atmosphere but in vain. At the same time, I was determined not to let him know that I am nervous, though he was smart enough to conclude it. At the penultimate second, I got to hear the golden words from him. “Do you want me to talk to him as this is your first time and you could grab some knowledge too, just by plainly listening to us”?