Tag: #startup

Sales Knowledge: Answer Intelligence (AQ)™

Asking the question was the best way of showing intelligence in yesteryears. But today, answering those questions is also seen to be the best way to show intelligence. 

The new word coined by Dr. Glibkowski is Answer Intelligence (AQ)™

We can always ask questions out of curiosity. But the answer we give should be influencing. That’s why they say, “Questions are for Curiosity, and Answers are for Influence.” 

AQ is a must nowadays for every entrepreneur and professional. If you want to become an influencer, your answers should be of the following types: story, metaphor, theory, concept, procedure, and action. 

A question can be constant all the time. But the answer can always be learned and improved.

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Sales Knowledge: Organisational Growth

Growth is not about how much you earn or how much you spend. It is a multi-faced question to be answered. 

Some of the few questions are:
– Are you cutting the salary check without any delay year after year?
– Are you able to pay all the bills before the net period?
– Are you able to sustain the revenue if not growth?
– Are you able to increase the headcount?
– Are you able to provide a salary hike every year?
– Are you able to achieve all the above even during a bad revenue year?

If the answer is “yes” to all the above, then you are running the company with a very well calculative strategy. 

But can we grow just with the above? No. We cannot. What do we need then?

We need innovative ideas. 

But if your innovative idea is going to pull you down on any of the above, then that idea is a liability rather than an asset.

Ideas are split into two.

– Idea potential
– Idea achievement

Idea potential is the ability to propose novel and creative innovations. But, Idea achievement is the ability to implement those ideas. Idea potential can become daydreams. There is nothing to lose out of it. But, idea achievement is a risk-taking measure. It may alter all your current operations together. Idea achievement can be achieved, only with sustainable revenue growth.

As per Forbes information, a company fails to take off to the next level is due to the wrong association of Idea potential and Idea achievement to be present in the same mind.

So an idea achiever must take only calculative risk. It will not just end up with the failure of the idea achiever alone. It may end up shaking the very base of the existence of the company itself.

Idea potential comes from the most creative people. Idea achievement comes from the most operational people.

The success of an Entrepreneur

How do you quantify your #success as an #Entrepreneur?

Starting or running a company is not a huge task. But running a successful company is the matter here.

But again what is a success?

In today’s hyper entrepreneurial world, success means “boatload of money” and for some getting “funded or acquired”.

But

Did we ever think that there is another Entrepreneurial world still exists where their Success is not quantitative and only qualitative?

The company where I started my career was shut down in just 5 years. We all were asked to search for the job and we did. 20 years after, we are now in a WhatsApp group with the #CEO , #CTO , #CMO , and #CFO of that company. The then employees started a private chat and that is when we realized that everyone is having the same feeling. Yes, we are in this successful top management position is because of the foundation we got in the first company.

Does this not the great success of that company and the management? Of course, with the stereotype entrepreneurial current world, that company is an utter failure.

I am not an entrepreneur. But I am a successful professional person. I have handled more than 2000 team members in my 22 years of career and I am very proud and happy that I am able to show the right path to my team members all these 22 years and they are doing super duper well. I am not claiming their success is because of me. But, I am convinced that I am also a minuscule reason for their success.

Maybe the world can say the other way.

But, Do I need to worry about that. If my mind is happy to think of that then what more do I require to caliber my career as a success? Someone else’s valuation? Then I won’t be a successful professional personal throughout my life.

If a company is a shutdown due to financial problem or by any other failure, at first, it will be very painful and take us into inferiority complex. But that is going to be only at the starting stage. If your self-consciousness tells you that you have done your best that didn’t affect anyone, then you learned a lesson with that venture. That’s all.

We are listened to watched to heard to, only stories of successful persons in terms of money and not in terms of good deeds. That is the problem of society and not us.

Millions of #startups are getting started every year. If you keep on counting only the successes, then you are fooling yourself with the real success of your career or profession.

Funded or Loaned – Assumptions

No-Assumptions-1

Getting Funded

Rather than considering Success as the ultimate goal of any business, the New Age Entrepreneurs are considering “Getting Funded” is the ultimate success of their business.

Yes, your business will not get funded unless they see some flesh on the bone.

If you are getting funded for the expansion of the business on the basis of the success it has shown, then it is acceptable. But if you are not able to run the company because of financial crunches and then going for funding, will not be considered as an intelligent move of an entrepreneur.

Business getting sliced

Another important point to be noted here is, your hard earned business is going to get sliced and shared with another one, just for the money. From that moment, you cannot have the pride to claim this as your brainchild because the other person is rightfully going to take his slice out of it. Apart from this you will loose your freedom on running your business.

Loaned rather than Funded

There is another hidden drawback in this. If the person going to fund you is not having any basic knowledge of your business, then your freedom is totally screwed. Here it is better to be called as Loaned rather than funded. Also, if you are getting funded from small VCs, their own work tension, and pressure will also impact your business.

End of the day, your pride, and satisfaction as a business person itself will be in a stack.

Can you avoid this?

Yes, you can.

You need to keep the concept of Funding on a back burner until you have used all your trump cards.

As how the VCs choose to fund, you need to choose to whom you are going to get funded. Seldom, just shutting down will solve many problems than running on a funded money.

Keep in mind. If you have shut down your first business without getting funded, then understand, you are the best to run the funded company at a later stage.

If you take “pride” as the yardstick and go for funding rather than shutting down, your self-esteem will be lost and will eventually halt you in getting into any new venture.

If you keep “getting funded” as the goal of your business, then you are reinventing the wheel again rather than reading from the past market during bubble burst.

So don’t get into the wrong assumption as “Getting Funded is Success”

 

 

Technology Driven or Technology Focused?

iot

The definition of this will slightly vary based on whether you focus on Service based or Product based.

If we are a product based company then we should never consider the technology as criteria at the first stage itself. Any product based company should be focusing on Market-based rather than technology based. The success of the market-based product is much, much higher than the product of technology based.

Technology should be determined based on the market need of our product and market should not be determined based on the technology proficiency of our company.

Example: A product should be analytics based and not big data technology based. Hope you can understand the difference. We cannot build a product on top of the technologies of big data. But we can leverage the advantages of the various technologies of big data to develop our product.

So the steps would be:

Market need – > technology selection – > Development Methodology – > Goto Market strategy

If we are developing on these steps then we are driving on the freeway to success. This is well experienced on large scale products and for any quick product, we can derive our own steps.

Now lets us analyze the same for a Service Based Company

Service based company can be a Technology Focussed (TF) or Technology Driven (TD). There are many differences between TF and TD. A TF company will be built on a specific set of technologies only.

TF example:

A company will say they are CRM specialized or E-commerce specialized or M-commerce specialized or Mobile App specialized, so on and so forth. Here they have to focus only on the technologies required for their specialty of service they provide.

TD example:

Any company which brings their core value as providing End-to-End Solution for the client would be automatically a TD only. Here they will suggest the client on which tool or technology would be the best fit based on the requirement of the client. Example: Based on the past experience a TD company would be in a commanding position to suggest on which Framework on which CMS on which Payment gateway a required E-commerce or M-commerce Web or Mobile App can be built with maximum efficiency and optimal utilisation with TCS (total cost savings)

If someone still says, “Jack of all and good for none” then consider he is still living in the past and this phrase has no meaning in the current trend of the technology world.

Also, this phrase is still used by the Technology Focussed companies only.

They should understand that even the developers are now “Full Stack” and not focussed on one specialty. It means you cannot get a developer on board for a long period in the name of technology focus. The percentage of people sticking to one technology is now draining fast and because of this trend, they will tend to move where they have enough for their appetite.

A Technology Driven service based company is a most versatile company to build our product rather than arguing with technology specific company.

The TD companies are on a fast track of new technology adoption and they bring more value to the table rather the technology focussed management companies.

Especially on developing countries like India where the opportunity for the developers are huge to learn new technologies and if we restrict them from getting involved in new technologies based on our company focus we will see more brain drain than the industry standard.

The most used Big Data and Analytics are gone and we are in the world of integrating technologies and concept together. Yes, we are now stepping fast into the IoT (Internet of Things) and image where we will stand if we still speak about technology focusing.

IoT is nothing but the combination of Targeting the Customer with the Electronic Gadgets into Data Capturing. Can we now say, IoT is a combination of Marketing, Electro-Mechanical, Software Development, and Analytics?

So is it now possible for us to restrict our service based on one set of technology alone? The answer MUST be an NO for any Technology Driven Company who see their company’s growth in next generation vision and mission.

If we still say that we are a Technology Focussed Company then will miss our right bus at the wrong time.

If we are a Service based company with tomorrow’s vision working with SME or SMB companies then we need to be having Full Stack Developers driving our Technology Driven company.