When Losing Is Gaining

When Losing Is Gaining.

Buddha was asked: "What have you gained from meditation?" The Buddha replied, "Nothing at all. It is not what I have gained that is important but rather what I have diminished, namely, greed, hatred, and delusion."

My Experiments with Meditation

Here are some of my experiments and experiences with meditation which may be of help to you:

When I look back at what I was ten years back: I used to have a bad temper, especially with my close family. I used to be rude, I wanted things "my way". My parents and my grand mother used to take all this crap. This was the story before marriage. 

As the married ones amongst you may agree, the story after marriage is often different. No wonder, Buddha went on the path to enlightenment only after a couple of years of marriage ;-). Just like any other marriage, my marriage was no different. There were fights, big and small, like in any marriage. Whether the fight was big or small, the trigger was always a very small point. On thinking about all such occasions now, the trigger was always deep down within me. My HUGE EGO.

I was first exposed to meditation in year 1997, when I accompanied my grand mother to Dr. Bimal Chajjer's program for the reversal of heart disease using change of lifestyle rather than By-pass surgery - Science And The Art Of Living.

I used to exercise irregularly with an occasional round of meditation, once in a blue moon. In 2005, when I was in United Kingdom, there was a huge wave of followers of Baba Ramdev's Yoga and Pranayama in India and abroad. I was influenced by this and added this as a part of my routine. It has been more than eight years that I have been regularly practicing Yoga and Pranayama. It has become a part of my life like eating. While the effect was hardly visible in the first few months or even a few years, but now, the effect is very evident in the way I conduct myself, the inner peace must be experienced to be believed. It is an ongoing journey and with every passing month, the results are fantastic. 

While performing yoga and pranayama, I play the episodes of my favorite epic. This has a super calming effect.

My Loss Is My Gain.

To summarise, I have lost my HUGE EGO, my short temper, my nervousness and my depression. And this loss has been my biggest gain. I would love to know your experiences with Yoga and Meditation. I look forward to your comments.

The Basics Of Sales And Marketing.

This afternoon, I received a call from my wife's friend (will refer to her as Rina - a fictitious name) who works for a popular private bank in India. She asked me to open a bank account with their bank. I refused citing the reason that I do not need to open another bank account with a private bank since public sector banks ask for lower minimum balance which is my present need. She persisted that since it is a new branch of the bank that she is heading, it would be good (for the bank) to open a bank account with their bank. I can easily shrug off this incident as a one-off sales call from a very "popular" bank.

However, I chose to relate this event with my last three years of sales experience as an entrepreneur. The video below depicts my state of mind about sales when I first took over our family business in mid - 2010.

The main reason I was afraid of sales is because I hate rejections. I looked at sales as a three-step process.

1. Customer Call
2. Presentation
3. Sales Acceptance / Rejection.

We found our first sales person at Fragrochem - Paresh Raghuwanshi. He was working under the guidance of our mentor - Richard Price and our Sales Director - Narendra Rami. These three persons (along with the whole entrepreneurship ecosystem) were instrumental in explaining me that Sales consists of the following six steps:

1. Get Customer Contact Via Trusted Network.
2. Build Relationship And Understand What Customers Need.
3. Decide Your Own Niche And Structure Marketing Around Gaps.
4. Help Customers To Solve Their Problems.
5. Wait For The Right Opportunity For Your Sale.
6. Pounce On The Opportunity When It Arrives.

Analyzing Rina's Sales Call, she did the following:

1. Get Customer Contact Via Trusted Network: Rina did the correct thing by getting my contact through my wife (a trusted contact).
2. Presentation: She presented her case as to why she wants to sell instead of looking at things from my perspective. (We have a new branch and seek your support to grow this branch).
3. Sales Acceptance/ Rejection: Will you open an account with our branch? (Yes/ No).

In my opinion, Rina should have employed the six step process as follows:

1. Get Customer Contact Via Trusted Network: Rina did the correct thing by getting my contact through my wife (a trusted contact) instead of a cold call. The likelihood of a cold call to get rejected is very high.
2. Build Relationship And Understand What Customers Need: The next step should have been to understand our needs by possibly delegating the sales team to schedule a phone call at a convenient time or even better - a face to face meeting. This would enable the sales team to understand our present conditions. Two of the most beautiful networking questions - "What do you do?" followed up by "What are your main challenges?" usually work wonders. This meeting would lay the foundation for understanding the Customer's situation and also evaluating the customer for the sale.
3. Decide Your Own Niche And Structure Marketing Around Gaps: If the bank's target customers are financially un-savvy individuals and they are looking for persons with extra cash who do not worry about where their money goes, it would be evident in a meeting or two. However, if the bank's marketing plan is to reach out to the masses and get customers loyal to public sector banks, they would need to restructure their offerings. Sales team could do a wonderful job in providing feedback to the marketing team and work hand-in-hand towards a common goal. We do see some marketing campaigns that are doing precisely this - "offering 6% interest per annum instead of the 4% offered by the public sector banks" is one such example.
4. Help Customers To Solve Their Problems: Sales persons can do a great job if they do one thing - "Treat everyone whom they meet as the most important person they have ever met and try to see things from their perspective". Only if this is done, the sales team can solve customers problems (a lot of times unrelated by referring them to other individuals or companies from their network without any material gains or commissions) and build a long lasting trust relationship.
5. Wait For The Right Opportunity For Your Sale: Successful sales persons do one of the two things a. Convince marketing and technical departments to structure products towards the Customer's needs or b. Help the Customer rise up to the value of the offerings by building a long and a sustainable trust relationship.
6. Pounce On The Opportunity When It Arrives: Through either route, once the offerings match the need, the sales team needs to put in all the efforts to close the sale.

What do you feel about these six points? I look forward to hear your comments and suggestions in the comments section below so that we can incorporate some more innovative points in our next sales and marketing campaign.

Fragrochem Aromas and SIES Collaboration - The Beginning.

The importance of industry collaborating with academic institutions is very important from multiple perspectives. Here we would like to share our experiences at Fragrochem Aromas while collaborating with academic institutions starting with South Indian Education Society - popularly known as SIES College of Science, Arts, Commerce and Management.

Interactive Discussion with Students and Faculty at SIES College - Sion.

On Friday, March 16, 2012, we had an interactive discussion about Entrepreneurship and Career Path with the students and faculty of SIES College Sion, Mumbai - India.

Some of the important points that were discussed:

Why Entrepreneurship?

A myth amongst students that came to the fore was that entrepreneurship is all about making lots of money. In fact, the early years of entrepreneurs' life seldom see them making lots of money. It's all about the problems that we see around us and how can we solve these problems in cost-effective, innovative ways always keeping in mind the simple equation:

Revenue - Cost = Profit / Loss.

Always making sure we do not run out of cash. Always spending less and earning more in order to make sure we are in Profit territory. Based on my reading the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad - I would definitely not recommend a person who wants to make a lot of money to be an entrepreneur.

Work for Money versus Make Money Work for you.

The book - Rich Dad Poor Dad educates you about money. Unfortunately, as highlighted in the book, none of the educational institutes teach students about money. This book beautifully explains the difference between the real assets and real liabilities and how assets help you generate recurring income for you to come out of the rat race and make money work for you. I highly recommend this book to anyone in high school and college. The earlier you know about finances, the better it would be for you.

Problem Solving and Entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship - on the other hand is a roller coaster journey that is for persons who love to live on the edge and enjoy the thrill of the journey. The journey to solve challenges or problems posed by the community and coming up with innovative ways to solve these. The more innovative the solution, the better you can charge for product or service. However, statistics show that only one percent of entrepreneurs succeed - hence making it a very difficult path to tread.

Action Points.

To summarize, we at Fragrochem Aromas Private Limited want you to be a rich individual (and we are talking about money rich here - not just rich in knowledge). If you choose to join us in our entrepreneurial journey, we look forward to collaborate with you in this journey. We look forward to your questions, comments, suggestions and more importantly criticisms which help us improve.

FAFAI Workshop: Exploring Opportunities in Turbulence: Fragrance and Aroma Chemicals.

When the going gets tough the tough gets going. In the business world, what can be tougher than a recession? These are possibly the toughest times that we are facing in business - may it be a large corporate or an entrepreneur with a passion to Change the World. This was the essence of the FAFAI (Fragrances and Flavors Association Of India) Workshop held on December 17, 2011 at Hotel Hyatt Regency - Mumbai.

Anand Jhunjhunwalla's opening presentation and the introduction by Nivedita Assar which summarized the agenda beautifully set the tone for the start of the seminar. Nivedita used the presentation brilliantly with minimum use of words being the icing on the cake and started the workshop that surely caught my attention.

B. Ramkrishnan from S.H. Kelkar and Company shared his insights coming from the leader of Indian Perfumery Industry. Ravi Mullick of Goldfield Fragrances titillated the audience brilliantly by reinforcing the creativity that is at the heart of Perfumery. His presentation highlighted the fact that unleashing a perfumer's creativity is the essence to great creations. It was a truly entertaining presentation by Ravi. With such a high from the presentation, who would need caffeine from Tea or Coffee.

Nivedita Desai from Firmenich presented a lot of analytical information from Cosmetics, Soaps and Detergents industries in India and from across the globe giving an analytical insight into the World of Perfumery.

Swaraj Sunku from Parimal Mandir Bangalore brought in a fresh wave of energy that the youth of India symbolizes. It was a pleasure to witness his energy and the confidence on the lectern and a lot of new thoughts about mechanizing the industry coupled with traditional Indian values and cultures.

Networking over delicious lunch presented a perfect opportunity to meet the stalwarts of the Indian Perfumery Industry. The end of the year is a perfect time to look back at the year gone by and look forward to the upcoming challenges. Coming from the Information Technology background, I have never quite understood a lot of secretive trends in this industry as we can deliver so much more value to the community by collaborating with the so called competitors.

Second half was brilliantly started in an entertaining manner by Parag Satoskar introducing V. Ramkumar from Symrise and Dr. G.S. Shankarling from Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai.

V. Ramkumar rightly emphasised on the need for collaborating and innovating instead of re-inventing the wheel. I would have loved to see some concrete points to follow up this statement that would lay the foundation for small and medium perfumery houses to explore avenues for such collaboration.

Dr. G.S. Shankarling provided a lot of interesting insights into Feedstocks available for manufacturing Aroma Chemicals in India opening the doors from Institute of Chemical Technology towards the Fragrance and Flavor houses to embrace chemistry into their day-to-day activities. It is indeed a pleasure to see Institute of Chemical Technology taking an active part in the FAFAI workshops.

Meghna Shah Karmarkar from Vikram Aromatics presented a lot of interesting insights from Indonesian Essential Oils and Aroma Chemicals.

Nikunj Harlalka was very refreshing in his presentations very much in the footsteps of the legend - Mr. Ramakant Harlalka. The knowledge from on the fields in the areas of Essential Oils from Chattisgarh and the neighboring areas is always a delight to experience.

Kamlesh Hinduja's crisp and flawless presentation on the areas that Hindujas specialize in The Mint Oils was really informative.

On the whole, it was a brilliantly put together workshop and we look forward to many more such events led by the energetic FAFAI team. As majority of the participants in FAFAI are small business owners and entrepreneurs, I see a very good connect with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE Mumbai) which can enable these businesses to rise from survival mindset into the growth mindset. I would love to see your comments about such workshops and how can FAFAI help you solve problems that you face in your day-to-day activities and work environment.

Better Ways To Scan Relevant News?

The Challenge:

We are swamped with data everyday. Data from friends from social networking websites, data from emails, data from television media, different websites and then there are newspapers. The traditional Newspapers. How relevant do you find the news in the Newspapers to your everyday life is a challenge like it has always been. How can the same news stories add value to a large population? Highly improbable, I would think. Do you agree?

One Likely Solution:

As with so many other problem solving areas, it's Google to the rescue. Google News has better ways to scan through the news. I've been only able to leverage the tools provided by Google News last week. Here is my attempt at making the news around me more relevant. The steps:

1. List What Is Important For You:

Identify news items that are relevant to you. For example: We are presently growing our fragrance business, hence, news from Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies - our potential clients is very relevant from our perspective. More specifically, we are interested in market segments like incense, hand-wash, deodorants and fine fragrances to name a few.

2. Identify Keywords For Important Information:

Next step is to think of keywords for Google. Most times this step is a no-brainer. The keywords in my example are "incense", "hand-wash", "deodorants" and "fine fragrances". You can also add synonyms. For example: incense is commonly referred to by a local language name in a lot of articles. Hence, an additional keyword for incense would also be "agarbatti". This is one input in the interface provided by Google News Personalize option.

3. Identify The Geographical Relevance:

The next thing that you need to think about is the Geography. I did not put a Geographical filter to the news initially. I was swamped by news from the United States - which is not my focus presently. Google News provides an input in the interface for Geographical filter. Once I added India in this filter, I was reading news more relevant to me.

4. Set The Criteria In Google Account:

Once you have finalized your keywords and geographical relevance, you also have a choice of which language you would like to view the news in. Google offers a variety of languages to choose from. You can set your criteria and enjoy the news catering solely to your own requirements.

5. Scan The News And Follow Steps Iteratively Until The News Are Relevant:

Once you scan through the news on a day-to-day basis, you will be able to refine the news that are relevant to you and set your criteria accordingly. This will typically be an iterative process and is likely to change with time based on the information you receive.

6. Try It Out For Yourself:

If you have not tried it already, just click here to experience it yourself.

Alternative Solutions:

This is my experience with making news more personalized to my requirements. I would love to hear your views on how do you go about personalizing your daily news as it is delivered to you. Please provide your comments/ suggestions to make news more relevant and to add more value in your day-to-day life.

TiE Bizworld - Learning By Teaching.

TiE Bizworld has been a fact re-enforcing experience for me. Why fact re-enforcing? As a student, one of our best teachers always said - Life is a learning process. Albeit the teacher is assigned the task of teaching students, most often it is the Teacher who learns a lot from the students. These same thoughts come to my mind at the end of my first TiE Bizworld experience as a BizGuru.

I learnt the following three things the most from the students:

1. Sense of Fun.

All the while, the teams that did well had a sense of fun in their activities. They enjoyed what they were doing. This is so very important from the business perspective too. Very often teams that enjoy being with each other and have fun at the workplace excel the most. While this is common sense, we seem to get so involved in the everyday activities that we forget the fun aspect of what we do. My Saturdays at MCA enabled me to bring the fun back into our own office.

2. An Open mind and a clean slate.

Children had a very open mind and hence we saw some very original ideas. Teams of eight were involved in the business of making paper bags. The most creative teams were innovative in choosing smaller bag sizes from the material that was provided. Innovation was the result of keeping an open mind and a clean slate. Always helps if you step out of the business and look at it in an unbiased fashion.

3. Fearless approach.

Teams were not afraid to experiment and risk failure. This was the biggest takeaway and re-enforced the fact that a fearless approach and not giving up always helps.

To summarize, participating in TiE Bizworld as a BizGuru was very important for me as an entrepreneur. It emphasized the importance of having fun, having an open mind and adopting a fearless approach.