Saturday, April 11, 2009

Right kind of Lighting matters - In buildings, In life and In Selling!!!

You R Reader No.
Sujit Lalwani

It was a fine evening after a good days work, when I decided to spend sometime building my dreams list, So had been to UB City. A truly Royal Construction for truly Royal People. The place is just too royal. All credits to the architects and big dreamer behind this - "THE VIJAY MALLYA - The king of good times:-)."

The entrance will leave you spellbound. The lighting at this place inside is complete mix of mild yellow, light orange, cream & Magenta. The bright yellow glow on the wall, fading into dull orange is simply something, that leaves your subconscious mind into a state of total bliss. Its an experience that will leave your neurons excited for days, for you will have to recall the visit over and over again to narrate it to others.

But beyond this beauty was an observation. The top floor of this place is an exuberant place with brilliance and beauty spilled over scenic beauty, that it has got to offer to the visitors. The place is an open place facing tall (tall for bangalore heights of buildings) skyline of bangalore. The place also faces one part of its structure, which is the central building of this UB City.



The observation taught a lesson which has left me pondering for 24 hours already and am yet pondering. The building had a wall - really tall one - the bottom end of it had a light being projected on it at an angle. It was light cement colored wall, but the light being projected was light blue in shade. There were other walls parallel to it, which were of same original wall color. The observation was simple, the colored wall added all the beauty to the building. The walls were of simple cement color, but the light on the wall projected at the right angle gave a brilliant look to it, which made it carry an elegance that would attract the attention of any individual who looked at it, and leave him pleased.

What I learnt are the lessons which follow :

1. A simple dull colored wall is something that pleases none, but when a small light bulb even at the bottom end of it, throws light at the right angle and color, gives it a pleasing look. Hence our life is dull or beautiful by the way we throw light on our past collection of memories (imagine present and birth being two end points of the straight line called past. If you throw light form present to the past - highest intensity will be at recent past and least as you go behind in the past.) If you throw light at the right angle and of right color on your past, your life lived, will become extremely pleasing to anyone, who gets to learn about.

Every individual can write the bestseller autobiography, provided he throws light of right color at right angle, recalls the best memories, the lessons of life and people who made a difference. One more thing I could learn was - Life would seem dull to live further if you dont make an effort to light it up well, is what the other parallel walls taught me.

2. <In marketing - Product is not the only reason why the customer would buy or not (for nobody tries to manufacture and sell a bad product), Its how you throw light at your product and carry forward your presentation and light up your product with right colored light that matters to get you the sale. If you throw light on the benefits of your product well, and list all the reasons why the customer would enjoy possessing your product, he would sure not think twice shelling out all the money required for your product without feeling a hole in his pocket. It would add to your efforts of lighting up your presentation, if you just ensure that the light you project is of the color, that is most pleasing to your customer's eye. You need'nt be a mind reader for this, a few good questions to understand your guest(customer) would serve a great deal.

I am still pondering for scratching out more lessons. But one more lesson i learnt is you dont need books to teach you really big lessons in life, You just need to be a great observer and have an urge to learn. You have lessons all around you.

For, a mountain is a hurdle for someone, its the way to reach the top for others.

The article is open to comments and space goolge gives can take loads of them, so feel free to key them down here.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Be it any Industry or arena of life, Great Relationships Matter the Most!

You are reader No.:Thank you

It was not just another evening, for it proved to carry a big lesson for me to learn. At the onset it was just another evening of my life, where I was with my associates training them about progressing and being able to create huge networks for themselves, busy training them about closing sales, about becoming better presentors, mentoring them to become better leaders etc. while it struck to me the most important aspect that encompassed all the training that I delivered was "RELATIONSHIPS".

Relationships is a huge chapter, hence to cover something that can give you the best insight into what I learnt would be difficult to compile in a few short paragraphs. But I shall give my best to compile the juice with a possible few dos and donts of relationships.

The glue that bonds a huge organisation intact is relationships. Relationships at work are as imporatant and life changing as relationships at home. They say a chain is as strong as its weakest link likewise an organisation is as strong as its weakest relationship. It starts breaking from there.

The biggest enemy to the best relationships is EGO. Its more often than less that I have come across in my network where the ego between a couple of leaders has been the reason for an Upcoming Misunderstanding, which results in a communication gap. The communication gap works under the principle of assumptions, where both parties start assuming the other person's state of mind, and start concluding things which are totally based on those assumptions, only to one day realise that they were wrong and they had themselves caused damage to their organisations as leaders.

Hence, one most important thing to remember is one has to surrender his ego for the matter to get solved. A couple of minutes talk might make you look foolish, atleast it helps you avoid being foolish for a lifetime.

EGO --> Communication Gap --> Faulty assumptions --> greater Communication gap -->
Arguements instead of discussions --> Growth of EGO --> Broken Relationship.

This applies to the relationships in your love life as much they apply in organisations/business. They matter a lot for smooth functioning of organisations, help in building great momentum for the business, the stronger the relationships and understanding in the organisation the greater the momentum it can sustain.

So dear readers, all the people with whom you are feeling an ego clash, Its time to go and flush out all the misunderstandings between and make the beginning for a great relationship once again. Let us be the first one to surrender. Unconditional love has its first symptom - "surrendering of ego".

Remember nothing is lost, by surrendering your ego, but lot can be gained from it.

Feel free to drop in your perspectives and incidents you have come across in your life, where you learnt this lesson.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Its not just important to say "I will do it". Its important to move out & DO IT!

U R Reader No.: Thank You!

Many of us have come a step ahead of those others, who would go on to, for sure, become the 9-5 hardworking stars. We have come one step ahead of the people, who have decided that they will never become entrepreneurs/employers/financially free (can you imagine? But, Yes! thats true:D). We have come one step ahead, right with the decision, that for most things, that we encounter, we dont keep ourselves with a lazy mindset, instead we have learnt to take things in an energetic & an enthusiastic way and always say "I WILL DO IT."

But my dear friends, the next step, of actually doing it, is the most important one. I know thoughts manifest into actions. But sometimes, thoughts are followed by anti-thoughts, which are large in number and greater in strength pushing down the decided action. The anti-thoughts are comfort-zone lovers and lovers of relaxed state of body. They would want you cut down on your miles, forget extra-miles.

Hence the strongest fight/challenge, is to fight these anti-thoughts (the ones opposite to the main hard-core positive thoughts of ours for a particular action). The challenge is to come out of the comfort zone, face the heat and make things happen. Most often we surrender looking at the amount of extra miles we may need to walk, though we clearly know the purpose and the end result. Its then we need to reinforce our purpose, our mission statement, a million times in us, give ourself an extra dose of motivation, and not let these anti-thoughts take birth or multiply.

Go ahead friends, fight with yourself, come out of your comfort zones, and do the things which you always wanted to, but couldnt fight the laziness inside you. Go ahead! Its high time you did it! JUST DO IT! (NIKE will surely love this article :D)

Go ahead friends, walk those long pending extra-miles. I promise it will bring extra smiles. LETS MAKE THINGS HAPPEN & WIN OVER OURSELVES!!!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Misconceptions About Selling!

You are reader no.:Thank You

"Salesman"- the word itself throws a few people thinking that its a low profile definition to their talents, or less dignified way of referring to their profession! Let me take this chance to make it clear to all the folks who are reading this -
Every individual on this earth is a salesman. Every individual is selling his idea. A person who sells is called a salesman. Hence Every person is a salesman first, everything else later.

Being a Sales professional is a reason to be proud of, for you are talented in something, which the entire world needs to be talented in. You might be the greatest scientist, but if you fail to put forth your theory in a convincing way, you are going to lose out on your probably deserved noble prize. You might be having the greatest business idea & you are truly an aspiring entrepreneur, If you cannot convince the Venture Capitalists, They may just end not buying your idea. You might be the best suited individual, for a job profile, but you have a bad news coming your way, if you just cannot convince the interviewer (sell yourself successfully).

My dear readers, Being a Sales pro is the foundation quality for an entrepreneur. Every great entrepreneur is a great Salesperson, then a great leader, then a great visionary and so on.

I still remember the time almost 4 years ago, when I made my 2nd business presentation, and my friend's mom uttered "You look like a salesman"(sarcastically).
As any other normal individual I was a little shaken in my motivation to continue promoting my product, just when my leaders helped me realise this lesson which I have just shared with you. As a matter of fact, Shah Rukh promotes a lot of brands, including pepsi, Its as good as saying Shahrukh is a salesman for Pepsi. Instead we refer to it as: "Shahrukh is the brand ambassador for Pepsi". Thats it! this example/this realisation was enough for me to understand that I was being the brand ambassador for my product/company. And that belief has today turned into reality.

Today infact I am one among the top promoters of my company - eBIZ.Com Pvt. Ltd. Thanks to the lesson, I learnt after my second presentation itself.

Hope this article helped you! Comments are most welcome!