Smart thinking

Call it business sense or pretty smart...
The ten-year old visited a farm one day and wanted to buy a large watermelon.
"That's three dollars," said the farmer.
"I've only got 30 cents," said the girl.
The farmer pointed to a very small watermelon in the field and said, "How about that one?"
"Okay, I'll take it," she said.  "But leave it on the vine. I'll be back for it in a month." 

Overcoming obstacles

One of the pitfalls people over forty fall into is thinking that it is too late. It is an old cliche but the simple fact is that it is rarely too late for anything.

Some years ago a man over sixty was offered US $ 200,000 for a restaurant-motel-service station business that he'd spent his life building up.  He turned the offer down because he loved the business and wasn't ready to retire yet.

Two years later, at age sixty-five, he was flat broke with no income to look forward to but a small Social Security check each month.  The state had built a new highway bypassing his business and he lost it.  Most people would have been crushed by such a blow, but he refused to give up.

Instead he took stock.  There was one thing he knew how to do - fry chicken.  Maybe he could sell that knowledge to others. He kissed his wife good-by and in a battered old car, with a pressure cooker and a can of specially prepared flour, set out to sell his idea to other restaurants.  It was tough going and he often slept in the care because there wasn't enough money for a hotel room.

A few years later he had built a nationwide franchised restaurant chain called Kentucky Fried Chicken.  The man was Colonel Sanders.

Business sense

A ten-year old visited a farm one day and wanted to buy a large watermelon.
"That's three dollars," said the farmer.
"I've only got 30 cents," said the girl.
The farmer pointed to a very small watermelon in the field and said, "How about that one?"
"Okay, I'll take it," she said. "But leave it on the vine. I'll be back for it in a month."

Fear what?

Read an interesting post yesterday as I was glancing through some content on the net.  Felt like it is addressing me and challenging me to something.  Surely didn't need this in the situation I presently find myself in.  Very disturbing!

When most of us fear failure, we walk away from our boldest ideas. Instead of being original, we play it safe, selling conventional products and familiar services. But great entrepreneurs have a different response to the fear of failure. Yes, they’re afraid of failing, but they’re even more afraid of failing to try.

Read the whole post here.

It is said in the context of entrepreneurs and business people who struck gold - of course, after hitting dust and rock bottom too!  However, the idea of 'playing it safe' resonates with the notion of 'comfort zones'.

Creative enthusiasm

Two youngsters, whom I've met a couple of times already, in the past two weeks or so have begun to earn my appreciation. One has an MBA and another is a web designer by qualification.  Both of them have teamed up to bring out a rather qualitative year planner.  Not just a planner but one with some thought and research involved.  They tell me that this is not their maiden venture either.

What I find interesting in these youngsters is the enthusiasm to do something new and different.  In the process they are also earning something.  But the freshness and creativity and enthusiasm for finesse and quality is something worth emulating.  They are not just a couple of guys who are keen on earning big bucks by getting employed by some corporate sector bigwig.  They are out on their own, experimenting, kindling their creative genes and exploring... and most importantly enjoying!

Antique shop and Instant wisdom

The antique shop owner was doing a roaring trade, when the shop next door was taken over by another antique shopkeeper, who erected a large sign, which read 'Best Antique Deals in Town'. Trade was hit bad, when to his horror, the very next week, another antique dealer set up shop on the other side of him, and erected an even larger sign, which read, 'Finest Quality Antiques at the Best Prices in Town'.

The antique shopkeeper thought his business was destroyed, until he had a bright idea. Next day he erected an even bigger sign, right above his own shop doorway. It read, 'Main Entrance'.

Dealer in antiques but certainly fresh and sharp in wisdom!

Playing both sides...

The other day I watched the movie,  Promised Land.  The movie went about a normal pace with evidently the protagonist seemingly doing the wrong kind of job, but all the same passionate about it.  He is an employee with a multi-million dollar gas company out to convince the inhabitants of a village to sign a deal with the natural gas company permitting fracking.  He seems confident of his strategy and results until a senior person in the village questions the outcome of such a move.  To add to his woes an environmentalist lands up in the place and starts opposing every move of our friend.  From then on, it is a tussle to gain the confidence of the residents.

The elusive victory suddenly seems quite clear when he anonymously receives a package disproving the sole evidence on which the environmentalist builds his arguments.  The stage is all set now for the townsfolk to sell their land as the only possible arguments so far offered were all wrong.  On the eve of the final vote of the residents, the company representative comes to know that the environmentalist was a fake one himself and was sent there by none other than his own company.  The movie ends with the salesman turning against the very company he was so passionately representing.

My learning from this movie: to make a wrong into right, just propose convincingly the opposite, only to later reveal it as wrong.  The initial wrong then automatically appears right! 

I've seen tactic being used in a hindi movie too, Jolly LLB.  I know not who invented this strategy... it surely has to be either the politicians or the corporate brains, but it certainly is a very smart move!  I'm still to pin-point exactly what is wrong with this whole strategy... though I am certain that it is! 

Gurantee for the Price... not the product

Yesterday Satyam, our driver, bought me a mobile phone charger.  He was told in the shop that if he would pay Rs 100/- there would be a guarantee of 6 months. Or else he could pay Rs 80/- with no guarantee!  ... and I always thought the guarantee is for the product and not the price! 

Indian hotcakes!

The other day I was in the saloon getting a haircut. Just outside the barber's shop there was a couple preparing and selling bhajjis (sort of fried edible things quite common all over the country, I guess). What surprised me was that there was never a moment of rest, neither for the woman preparing it, nor for the man, packing and selling it. It was literally selling like 'hotcakes'!

As if this was not enough, something else also happened. The ladle which the lady was using to cull out the fried bhajjis slipped and fell on the ground - the same ground with all the dust and mud and every other imaginable (and unimaginable) filth - those who know Kothavalasa or for that matter any town market area will not have to imagine hard. I took it for granted that she would wash it or at least shake it well or use a piece of cloth to wipe it before using it. I was proved totally and confidently wrong. She just picked it up and as though NOTHING happened she inserted the ladle back in the boiling oil and continued her cooking!

Perhaps it all adds to the taste of the bhajjis!

Tuesday's Vegetable Market

Going to the market to purchase vegetables is a new learning exprience every time. There are the vegetable vendors, a breed of people specialised in remembering names, prices and profit margins of every brinjal and tomato. Then there are all those who come to purchase (me included)... a microcosm of the world population itself! Here are some who caught my eye today...

Besides these two (or within these two) general categories of people, one gets to see some poor nomads collecting some throw-away vegetables or those which drop off the baskets and sacks.
There are also some who 'recycle' these, along with stolen livestock, in another corner of the same market!

There are the hotel cooks who make a round of the market to gather all the left overs of the past week - for a pittance. The reason: the vendor has no use of them. All he can do is throw them away. But for the hotel guy, he can very well use these for his kitchen since none of those who frequent the hotel for meals ever step in the kitchen to see what's cooking! He might as well cook all dried and rotten things but in the final mixture of the curry it tastes good! All of this he can purchase for any price that he decides (but not the vegetable vendor).

There are those who collect just a handful of vegetables: families who can afford no more and will have to stretch them till next Tuesday or those who think money is for something greater than silly vegetables.

At all entry points into the market are the 'tax collectors' those who have taken the market place on hire from the panchayat. No one escapes their hawk-vision! Everyone who gets in something to be sold has to deposit some prearranged price at his 'desk'. One can witness more bargaining here than at the stalls!

Running around for a bike

Since two days I've been trying to track and get the guy who sold us the bike to complete the registration process of the same, with no much progress. Yesterday afternoon though I managed to catch him in his own showroom and got an important document related to the registration process. It was just one form with a couple of details to be filled in... just that! For that he made us run about for more than a month. And he promised (like always) that this morning he would complete the process. When I reached there this morning with Satyam and Laxmi, he was not there. And the best part: the showroom, from today, has been handed over to another person! To try to go by ourselves and get it done would mean another process altogether. Anyway, I just don't understand why some have to nag and delay people for no reason. If any serious reason, he could very well state it and excuse himself. This is sheer lethargy and negligence. I wonder how such people managed to run a business.

Professionalism vs Indecision

I had the opportunity to witness the presentation of a group of corporate representatives regarding the possibility of entering into a joint collaboration to upgrade and qualify our existing efforts in the educational field. These guys, I gathered, are thorough-bred professionals in their fields. Their lofty ideals and ideas were indeed very impressive and convincing. I am sure they gathered the weaknesses and strengths of our institutions and our strategies from their singular visit to Ramanthapur and the two-hour long interaction with us today. They were sharp in their observation of what we expressed and at the same time making sure that they conveyed their 'guarded views'.

Yet in and through all of this, I sat there observing and comparing ourselves with these two gentlemen. They were, in a sense, 'businessmen' - sure about who they were and what they were up to; we, on the other hand, neither sure of our charity nor professionalism. They clearly had financial profit and media fame on their mind (though they were careful not to harp on that!). We were groping for a way balancing our commitment to God (trust in Divine Providence?) and survival in a market-driven world. They had no one to account to and thereby arrive at decisions on their own; we, had to think, study (in groups, commissions, communities, councils...), discuss, get the approval of our superiors... (with no guarantee that by the time all of this is through, the confreres in the local community are sufficiently motivated to concretely carry forward this process). They were keen to kick start their plans right away; we go on as though we own time!

Final word: ... long way to go, dear confreres! Can't ride along complacent on past glory! Stand for something or we'll fall for anything!

Moses the marketing guru

I place before you life and death, prosperity and doom... choose life! What an invitation! I wonder which fool would need to be told what to choose. However, here is Moses making a passionate appeal to the Israelites of old... choose life.

Perhaps the significance of the appeal lies in its implications. That one would naturally choose life over death and gloom is understood but whether in doing so, we also choose to live by what entails by the word 'life' is also important! So here is Moses telling the people to choose life and thereby Yahweh and his commandments. Now that's the catch. I am sure not very many would go for that. But I suppose there is no other go.

That reminds me of the marketing technique of movie distributors. When producing DVDs containing three or more movies, they make sure that the compilation is not the best of all! The compiled DVD may at the most, contain just one good/hit/blockbuster. The rest are unknown or less popular ones. But people are forced to purchase all the three movies because they want that 'one'.

Looks like Moses is their marketing guru. No wonder, some say, in the Bible you'll get the answers for everything!!

Business tactics

Running around these days for administrative purposes is a tension-filled job. There's no moment that you can say, "It's over!" Last week I purchased 6 pieces of air-conditioners for the house and had payed the full amount of all expenses, inclusive of installation charges. Then the guy who comes to drop the ACs asks for transportation charges. Today the installation guy says you have to hire guys to drill a hole in the wall and then we'll do the rest of the work. Each one has his own argument to convince me that what they say is real and this bit is not included in the payment made earlier.

But I should say we get wiser by every mistake we make and learn from them. Knowing this would be the case, I had blocked some payment earlier of another accessory. This evening I put my foot down firmly and said, "Nothing doing, you either finish the work and take the due payment, or you won't get a pie!"

Now I don't know what these guys will come up with next!