Is sales a result of constant push or does it arise out of a need?

Is Product not a part of marketing?

Ideas? What ideas?

Some people believe that ideas arise even without thinking. I believe in ideas that arise when you put your mind to it. I know that organizations that promote a work culture that encourages ideation will do far better than the organizations that dont. Having driven a start-up for 6 years, I've seen this work.

It's kinda funny when you look at some of the most seasoned professionals and see how starved they are for ideas. I always wondered what limits them from being able to ideate as they owe their senior positions in the corporate hierarchy partly to ideas they once brought to the fore. Reflect on your company's clients and you'll see that half of them want to meet with you and interact hoping that either you would give them new ideas or through your interaction they'd be able to think of something new. If you are unable to break through, offer them an idea, repeat process untill sucessful.

Have you noticed how ideas pop with interaction. I enjoy interacting with a few people here coz everytime i do, ideas flow. Now, almost always those ideas are for things they are doing, so obviously they go forward to the management as their ideas, not mine. Do i mind that? Guess not. Does it help my cause? No sir!

We all know and have experienced managers feeding off their subordinates for ideas but what we do need to watch out for is when these ideas get flagged up to the senior management as their own. Can something be done so that ideas get credited where they should? Would you as a manager be open enough to putting forward your subordinates idea knowing he has more to gain from it than you?

I take pride in saying that in my six years driving a start-up, not one team member worked without contributing an idea that worked!

Value homes lack real value?

Value homes in Bangalore are purely a result of the slump that the realty market faced starting around Aug-Sept 2008. By December builders, large ones too, were so cash strapped that they were unable to pay salaries to employees, for months. The one thing they heard from the market in unison was that the prices are ridiculously high. The result, more than a year later, homes in the prices of 10-20lacs with a compromise of 20-30km extra travel, 50% on the space of your homes. Some builders had already launched affordable homes earlier and some even specialised throughout their existence on the mid-budget category but i'm not refering to those anyways.

Conceptually, low cost housing is a no-brainer. With India's demographics it just has to work. It has been something that a lot of us have been advocating from 2005. I remember the marathon meetings with sreekanth of ambience for the 'studio apartments' they were studying the market for. I couldn't have been more excited about what I thought would take India by storm.

Apparently most builders i spoke to didnt share the sentiment, they were too busy doing what was helping them rake in the moolah, today!

While the market has been asking for low-cost housing for long enough, I am shocked at how the builder community has been ignorant enough to assume that people only want property that costs lesser conveniently forgetting that these homes also have to be livable. This has a whole lot of other implications like basic infrastructure, amenities, facilities, transportation, proximity to their work places, et al,. and you know what? Buyers cannot gamble on the Government to wake up to this reality. I am clearly not putting in my money on a brochure, any more. I need to see reality, I am investing today in what i can touch and feel.

I am sure the projects in the form they are being offered today will find a market but what i am not sure about is if the builder community will be happy with such projects. Clearly over the last 10 years the construction community has got too used to living on the borderline of profiteering. These projects are being in the executed in numbers excess of 2500 homes a project.

Almost all builders are getting into this if they haven't already, assume 20 large builders (Bangalore has at least 40) offer two such projects in a city throwing up over 1 lac homes. While i am sure the demand exists but the current offerings, in my opinion, do not fit the bill to help them enjoy complete sales. I would assume they wouldn't be able to sell in excess of 50% of a project.

Some projects lack even the most basic factor that would drive demand - commercial / corporate activity. Some people respond to this with "I want to use this for my living". Imagine investing in a project of 2500 homes, buying a flat of 700sft some 30kms from MG road with no corporate or commercial activity around. What happens if for some reason you decide not to live there? There would be at least 1250 more flats available for rent and 750 for purchase. Basic rules of demand and supply work here.

What would work very well in increasing sales is transparency along with a cost plus pricing approach with a clear mandate to make what any decent business can offer.

It is kinda odd to think that despite the magnitude there still isn't any Government intervention here. No entry barriers, no exit barriers, no price regulators.

Of corporate games and browny points

Social media: Strategy or Brand Dilution?

I remember in Oct 2008 when i joined here, one of my first suggestions for a consumer product that we have was to connect with consumer via social media and to my amazement, it was shot down, twice. I wondered then if I was just getting carried away by the hype and my boss could see through the thick smog that I failed to pierce through. Anyways, through the days I was entrusted other projects that needed my focus and somewhere in the process that social media connect was left behind.

While working on other projects, my interaction with the team at that product didnt slow down. The more I interacted with them, the more i was convinced. I even reached a point where each day I'd share ideas with the team on how they can use social media in reaching out to their consumers, either on an official connect or on a personal one.

When the topic was dead and gone, I even helped create a touch-point for the team on facebook and initiated connect. Though it was slow...very slow to take off and needed a serious push from my side, the team finally caught on. Today social media is the third largest source of traffic to the site of that brand.

Many old-school organizations i know perceived a social media connect (as it is known to be now)to be down-market and diluting their brand. Clearly, that opinion is changing and fast. It is interesting to note how organizations are awake and receptive to this now. One clear example is a client I am currently dealing with. Check this link www.polycom.com/company/news_room/media/index.html

Companies today have adopted this is an acceptable means to communicate with their target audiences. This would also mean they would have clear strategies on how to go about this. Imagine, the link you just saw is a B2B enterprise dealing mostly with large enterprises only. The profile of their target is as premium as can be in the technology industry. It appears now that we're prepared to be wherever our customers are, literally.

I even noticed someone designated as the "Head - Social Media" for a particular company. I noticed a few statistics that highlighted how social media is no longer a fad and is here to stay. For example, the fact that social media have overtaken porn as the No. 1 activity on the internet or 1 out of 8 couples who got married in the US met via social media or the fact that facebook added 100 million users in the last 9 months or that 80% of companies are now using linkedin as their primary source of database for recruitment. I can go on with this forever.

We have moved from the mindset of "why should i give page views to facebook from my audience?" to "how can i use facebook better to direct traffic to my site?"

My point is that if you haven't considered this, wake up before it's too late. It is not mandatory that this has to used, measusre the viability, explore options, think beyond the ordinary or as a brand adage goes "do the new".

Can you learn Digital Marketing in a classroom?

A couple of days ago, I signed up for a course on digital marketing being offered by IAMAI that starts tomorrow. Sometime this morning, Tanu asked me if I was excited about it and looking forward to it.

Somehow, without much effort i have always managed to right-set my expectations with almost everything i do. While i always hope for the best case scenario and am prepared for the worst, i find this little habit really helpful.

I sure am looking forward to the madness i hope this is. Can you imagine a discussion full of marketing specialists, each one of whom have their own idea about how things should be and why. I'm looking forward to getting my hands dirty with 'digital marketing', which i dont think my people have too idea about. I am hoping to have meaningful interactions where i can get to learn from the facilitators and peers' experiences.

Learning happens when you either burn your fingers yourself or learn from others experiences and I havent been able to do either in sometime and for the interaction craving person i am, this just seems perfect.

Hopefully this would give me clarity on where i stand and help me come out knowing more. What is also interesting to note is most of the facilitators are media folks and considering how much I enjoy teaching, wondering if this will open up anything.

Anyways, will wait till tomorrow night to find out how this goes!