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In the southern part of the United States, an old man with a now boat ferries passengers across a mile-wide river for ten cents.
Asked how many times a day he does this, the boat man said, As many times as I can because the more I go, the more I get. And If I don’t go, I don’t get.
That’s all you need to know – all there is to know – about selling!

Ask Your Customers What They Like

There was a company in the U.S.A. selling dog food.
For one of the monthly sales promotion meetings, the chairman of the company decided not only to call all the department heads but also to invite the young trainees so that he might get some new ideas from some of these relatively fresh brains.
At the meetings, each department head gave his own ideas, views and ways of how to go about selling. However, the chairman was feeling very uncomfortable because each one was coming out with bombastic theories, ideas and concepts.
Casually, he asked a trainee sitting at the far end of the table, Well young man, what do you have to say?
The young trainee replied hesitatingly, Sir, we want to sell dog food and therefore, we should ask the dogs what they like. There was an uproarious laughter in the meeting room. However, the chairman said, Let us give it a try.
The young trainee felt very perplexed wondering what would follow. To the astonishment of all present in the meeting, a few dogs were brought into the board room and different varieties of dog food formulations were placed before them. The dogs sniffed at each of them and in the end, out of ten varieties, many of them liked two or three formulations.
The meeting came to an end and subsequently the company concentrated its effort on the marketing of those selective varieties. Within six months, the company’s market share registered a 10 percent increase.

Judge by Sales, Not By Reports

A recently employed area salesmen in the farm machinery industry wrote his first report to his head office. It stunned the sales manager because it was obvious that the new man was almost illiterate. Here is what he wrote :
Dear Bos,
I bin to sea this outfit what an never bawt a pennies – worth of farming mashins from us, an I sole them our know forig arvesters, balin mashins, muk spreaders, an kuters also fifte ov owr knew shift in mashins.
This amounts too a cuppla hundred thousand pownds ov guds. I am now going to Nawthan Egerland.
Before the illiterate could be given the old heaveho, this note came from him in Northern Ireland :
Dear Boss,
I cum ere an sole them a half ov a milyun.
Not knowing whether or not to fire the illiterate salesman, the manager dumped the problem in the chairman’s lap. The next morning, the salesman’s letters were pasted on the head office notice board with the following memo from the chairman above them :
We bin spending two much tyme tryeing to spel rite instedd of tryeing to sel. Lett’s watch those sails. I want everybodies shud read these letters from owr knew man, who is on the rode do in a grate jobb for us an you shud goe out an du like he dun.

A Good Salesman Gets What He Wants

Hungry salesman, while passing through a village, sees a welcoming light in a small cottage by the edge of the woods. He knocks on the door. It is opened by a farmer.
Salesman : I’m very hungry, friend. Can you spare some food for me?
Farmer : Go away ! It’s late and we have nothing to give you.
Salesman : Please, please… maybe some water, and the loan of a pot…
Farmer : Water and pot! Why?
Salesman : I’d like to make a little stone soup for myself… with this stone.
Farmer (thinking) : Stone soup! What next?
Farmer’s wife : But I suppose there’s no harm in giving him what he wants. (The farmer agrees)
Salesman Thank you, good lady. Would you mind if I kept the pot on your fire?
Farmer’s wife : Oh, all right, if you must. Come on in. (The farmer frowns! His wife puts a pot of water on the fire and takes the salesman to the kitchen).
Salesman : Now I’ll put this stone in the water and wait for it to cook.
(The farmer and his wife sit back to watch the strange cook at work. A little later, the salesman opens the pot and peeps in.)
Salesman : Let me taste it … Ah! It’s coming along … (After a while) but it needs a bit of salt.
Farmer’s wife : Wait, I’ll get you some.
(The salesman adds the salt).
Salesman : I should taste it again, don’t you think?
Farmer (getting impatient) : Yes, yes, but be quick.
Farmer’s wife : Is it very tasty?
Salesman : Well, it is! But wouldn’t an onion improve the taste?
Farmer (to his wife) : Go and get him an onion quickly, otherwise he’ll be here all night.
(The farmer’s wife goes off and … soon a chopped onion is added to the soup).
Salesman : It’s taking too long. I should try to once again, I think.
(After tasting) Delicious! But if only I had some carrots and potatoes to add.
Farmer (By now the farmer, too, is beginning to feel hungry) : Wait, I will get you some.
(The farmer returns with the new ingredients and … soon the soup begins to boil.
Farmer ; don’t you think you should taste it again?
Salesman : Good, very good. You must share it with me … but could I bother you for a few coriander leaves and perhaps a bit of pepper?
Farmer’s wife : Yes, of course!
(A delicious aroma now begins to spread around the house. The soup is ready).
Salesman : Please bring three bowls and spoons and let’s begin to enjoy this fine soup.
Farmer’s wife : Here is some bread as well. (Finally they all sit down to eat).
Farmer : It’s delicious!
Farmer’s wife : Mmm, so it is! How did you do it?
Salesman : All thanks to this stone of mine.
Farmer’s wife : May we have closer look at it please?
Salesman I’m sorry, my good friend. I can’t divulge the secret.
Thank you and good night!

A Salesmen Must Sell Himself Before Talking of his product

The Ford team had come to India. Our former colleague’s name was suggested for the sales assignment in India. He went to Patiala with the visiting team and was told that his acid test would lie in his actually selling an implement or accessory to any one farmer to whom the dealer would take him. He and the dealer went to a farm and saw that the farmer was watering his mature wheat which was almost ready for harvesting. Here, his own experience helped him a lot in developing a fast rapport with the farmer. He went upto the farmer and told him that the wheat was of Kalyan variety and the would be getting about 50 maunds per acre. He even told the farmer that the plot must have been levelled (this was from his observation of the colour of the crop which was different in the patches where soil had been filed in and remained loose as a result of levelling). He also went to say that it must have been a locally made leveller. Next, they went on to the farmer’s water pump and seeing that the outflow of water in the pipe was not full and also hearing the belt noise (he could not see the engine and the pump coupled to it), he told the farmer that the belt must be loose. The farmer switched off the system and after checking confirmed that our colleague was right. However, the farmer said that at that stage he could not stop the work as watering the crop was a priority. He agreed with him but suggested a temporary arrangement. Some Barojaa (pine resin) was fetched from the village shop and applied on the inner surface of the belt thus increasing its tension and reducing slippage. The result could be seen immediately. Now, our colleague walked upto his tractor and suggested a belt pulley system as a stand by for the pump. The farmer just enquired the price and placed the order then and there.
What one must learn from this incident is the selling himself is a must for the salesman. Our friend never talked of the product till he solved that the farmer’s problems which took almost 90 per cent of the time.

Selling Without Profits for One Day A Year

Vivek & Company has three showrooms in Madras. They are dealers for electric and electronic consumer durables. Their sales amounted to Rs. 1,08,000 in 1965 and rose to Rs. 9,60,00,000 in 1986. This increase has been achieved through :
Hire Purchase Scheme
lOn January 1 every year, all the goods are sold at cost price. Their Mr. Kodandaraman gave the logic, For 364 days, my customers buy from me and give me profits. One day in the year, I do without profit to say ´thank you’ in my style.
lOn this, they also give 1500 lucky-dip gifts to the customers who buy items from them.

Installation Can Be A Future Prospects Building Opportunity

An incident narrated by our former colleague Mr. H. S. Gill : Chaudhary Lakhmichand of village Alawalpur near Palwal in Haryana was an uneducated customer who had come from his native place and had settled here. He bought his first tractor from us in the year 1956. Mr. W. R.P. Fermie was then our service manager at Roshanara Road. The evening when the customer was to take the delivery, the office had closed and almost all the employees had left. I was assigned the responsibility of installing the tractor. I left the office with the customer and his tractor and we reached his village late at night. The customer made arrangements for may stay in the barn where my first might was a bit sleepless one.
Next morning, I asked him if he had somebody in his family who could read and write. He had a sone who was studying in eighth class. I asked the boy to miss school for a day. Next, on my asking, he fetched some cardboard pieces on which we pasted on white paper. These were made out into daily and periodical maintenance charts. After lunch, the son went away and I took Chaudhary Sahib to the farm. Till that time, he knew only bicycle riding. Anyhow, I spent a few hours and taught him how to operate the tractor. In the evening; while Chaudhary Sahib watched, the charts where put on the walls so that they could act as reminders all the time through an automatic two-way communication. In the evening, I talked to him and prepared brief history of the other tractors in the village – there were five of them.
On the second day, I took him with me and driving his tractor down the village, we talked to all these other tractor owners and got an idea of their feelings. I also had a look at their tractors and got information on what they grew and what implements they used. My mind kept on registering what all implements and accessories could be sold to them. I invited them for coming to Chaudhary Lakhmichand’s farm after two days to have a look at Chaudhary Sahib operating the tractor and also to have a look at the tractor’s capability. In the evening, his son read the chats, and he demonstrated while I watched. After the session, I sat down with him and enquired about names of such people who had big land holdings. There were about 15 such cases. On the third day, I met them and invited them also to Chaudhary Sahib’s farm the next morning. Before lunch, I spent some hours with Chaudhary Sahib at the controls. I asked him to keep on practising till it became his habit.
On the morning of the fourth day, there was a gathering of about 40 to 50 people at the farm. I introduced the Escort tract and explained its salient features. Then Chaudhary Sahib was made to operate the tractor using tiller. I told the village folk that whatever they could see was the result of only 48-hour training. Then I went to demonstrate the capability of the tractor by trilling about an acre of land. I even told the five existing tractor owners that they could use our seeding attachment with the tiller to make a seedrill. I also informed them about other implements. The result of all this was that after some time I sold three tractors in that village. Also, I was really moved when, after a year, Chaudhary Sahib walked into my office with a basketful of fruits, a turban and Rs. 5 towards shagun. He told me that he could return his entire tractor loan because of better yield resulting from our tractor’s use and also from the custom-hiring income. He said that he had come to make me his ustad.
This story reveals that the salesman should be a practical person and during installation, he should try to locate other prospective customers too.

The war Was Lost Because of A Nail

Centuries ago, a battle was fought and it changed the density of a state and the people who were living there. This state had an excellent army that was well provisioned.
On the battle day, the day the king was ploughing through the enemy’s forces when suddenly his horse tumbled because of the shoe of its front foot having came off. That was it and this caused the fall of the king. His forces fled and the battle was lost.
The opponent king analysed the reasons of his unexpected victory and found that the king’s horse had an excellent armour, but the nails of its shoes were worn out. And he learnt the lesson that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
A large sale may have been lost because the pages, of the quotation that was sent, were wrongly stapled and did not make any sense.

Turning Competitors Into Your Own Sales Promoters

Four friend Mohan Sonone of Jain Brothers Auto agencies Jalgaon had practically nil sale of a particular model of a motorcycle. He personally carried out a survey and met all the competitive brand’s mechanics of his area. He had a friendly chat with each of them and was subsequently successful in putting up a 6ft. x 3ft. size painted signboard at the workshop of each of them. The sign board had a visual of the motorcycle and carried the name of the mechanic as well as of Mohan Sonone’s establishment. He also offered Rs. 400 each as incentive for the first two mobikes sold to the prospects brought by a mechanic. On the bikes after that, the incentive was to be Rs. 300 per unit till such time his dealership sold the first 50 motorcycles. Mohan also offered to train them at his dealership and to supply special tools at discounted rates to them. The result of all this was that Mohan was able to retail just within five months what he had planned to sell in the entire year.

Handle a Customer Carefully And Creatively

Late. Mr. J. K. Parker of Ford Motor Co. had an experience during his sales assignment in Australia. In the morning, when the dealership pushed up its shutters, an agitated farmer created a scene. Fortunately, at that very moment, Mr. Parker who was the area manager, happened to drive in for his routine sales call. He found out that the farmer had bought a Ford tractor only six days earlier; while ploughing his farm the front axle had hit a hidden rock, broken and overturned the tractor, damaging the tractor’s looks. Mr. Parker was very sure of the quality of the tractor he marketed. He pacified the farmer and requested him to visit again on the next day. As soon as the farmer left the dealership, Mr. Parker took the dealer and his service manager with him to the farm. There, they were received by the farmer’s son> After the normal courtesies, Mr. parker asked him when he had learnt operating the tractor and if he would like to join an operator’s training course at the Ford School. The farmer’s son blurted out excitedly, That will be great of you, Uncle Parker, because the training will help in avoiding another tractor accident. That was it. Later, it was discovered that the farmer had proudly put his son at the controls of the tractor and the son’s overconfidence had resulted in the tractor hitting a tree trunk while operating the tractor at full throttle.

Create the Need For Your Product

One day our friend M. H. Jagannadha Rao was waiting to receive a friend at the railway station. A young man walked up to him and said that it seemed they had met earlier. Jagannadha could not recollect. The young man wondered if it was at a cinema hall but Jagannadha informed that he never saw movies. The young man enquired if it was at a church in Vizag to which Jagannadha said that he had never been to a church. The young man did not give up and tried to remind Jagannadha if it was at Dolphin Hotel. Jagannadha replied in the negative and pleaded with the young man not to ask him any more such questions as it gave him a headache. Immediately, the young man opened his bag and produced a strip of tablets which were made by his company. He guaranteed that the tablets would give instant relief and Jagannadha could get them free if he bought a bottle of 50 vitamin capsules from him.

Selling Creatively

Union Carbide India (manufacturers of Eveready batteries) had a scheme under which a few of their salesman would call incongnito upon the battery retailers. And the visiting salesman would tell the retailer, Please give me a battery. If the retailer would offer an Eveready battery, the salesman would give Rs. 100 to the retailer. What do you think would happen? Very obvious; isn’t it?

Be Clear About Your Market Segment

A man went into an insurance office to have his life insured.
Do you drive the car a great deal? the agent asked.
No.
Do you fly much?
No, replied the applicant.
Sorry, sir said the agent, we no longer insure pedestrians.

Think and you think of IBM! Yes, Thank was invented by IBM and we discovered it in 1966. We have been thinking about it and doing our best to find better ways in all walks of life. And we are convinced that it works. There are always better ways to do what you are doing now.

Thinking is done in your mind. Mind perceives, thinks, feels and wills. Won’t it be wonderful if we got a mind-manual to do our jobs better at our offices and at our homes?

What is a Mind Manual?

When you buy a car, you get a user’s manual. When you get a job, do you get a job manual? Maybe not. Well, here is a mind manual which will enable you to do your job better.

Mind your mind!

Your mind is the best asset you have
Most of us use only 10 per cent of our minds. And it is just like our car being run with one piston working and with 30 percent extra air in its tyres.

Do you not believe that it can happen to you? Well, it is happening and your money is going down the drain.

Relax and think for a while

How much of your Mind did you use yesterday? You did several things, say 100. Now, frankly, how many of these could have been done by your assistants? Maybe 30,60 or even 90. Yes, be hones with yourself. Agreed, your assistants could have taken longer and could have even made more mistakes. If you give more authority and responsibility to them, don’t you think they will improve themselves? They Definitely Will. In several offices we often see employees doing nothing. Identify such people in your organisation and give them a few such things to do which you are doing yourself. It will keep them busier and they will feel happier. Won’t they? Of course, that will depend upon motivation, attitude and your style of management.

What else will happen?

Simple. You will then have enough time to use your Mind.

You can learn to use your mind, your best asset, fully and it will take you towards your goals.

Your mind can store as much information as you want it to. It will never be full.

Your mind is like a large, limitless white wall. On this wall, you have a lot of pegs. On each peg, you can hang a good idea which you can easily retrieve when required. You can do the indexing to suit your style and your present job.

Your mind is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. The older you get, the better it becomes, provided you keep on using it.

Let us put it in another way: Your mind is an acre of land. In your acre, you can grow whatever you put in. You cannot expect good ideas to come out unless you put in seeds of good ideas. Those who read job-related books, of course keeping their minds open and also 6 per cent to 9 per cent empty, soak in newer and better ideas.

Your mind is even better than an acre, because germination can take place not only within, say six days or six months, but even after 10 or 20 or 30 years. Relax and think. It happens to everybody. To those who try and concentrate, ideas come seemingly from nowhere. But it is the miracle of your mind when suddenly an idea starts flashing on the screen of your mind. Now it is up to you to transfer this flash from your mind to a piece of paper, still better to jot it on your pocket memo pad and later on transfer to your diary.

This is the easiest way to harvest the crop of your acre.

God gives this acre to everyone. Some of us treat this acre with love and care like any good farmer. But a few of us underutilise it, finding short-cuts to get the production to meet the current needs of the day.

Our acre of land needs :
tilling …. hard work, long hours
fertilisers … good reading
pesticides … self – discipline
irrigation … commitment
seeds …. good thought-starters; visits to your counter parts to pick up ideas
rains ….luck (may God be on your side).

Now, you, being the farmer-owner of this acre, should decide what you want to put in, and then start looking after the plant when it is growing. Five out of ten times you will get good results; three out of ten times you will get fairly alright results and two out of ten times you will get poor results. It is part of the game. Accept it. Tomorrow is always another day. Amen.

In an article on human brain, the Plain Truth (October 1988) writes :

The brain is a fabulous mechanism. About the size of half a grapefruit, it can record 800 memories a second for the average 75 years many of us live, without exhausting itself. The human brain retains everything it takes in and never forgets anything. Even though we don’t recall all the information received, everything is on permanent file in our brain. If a computer to match the brain’s potential was built, it would occupy space comparable to the size of the Empire State Building (1,250 feet tall) and need 1,000,000,000 watts of electrical power to run. The cost would be equally immense. The mind is one of God’s most amazing gifts to man. Yet most people use only a small fraction of their mental ability. For many, the power remains largely untapped.

Another article Our Wondrous Brain published in the American magazine Span (September 1989 and edited by William F. Allman, Senior Editor of U.S. News and World Report) tells us that research work on the brain has been so stepped us that research work on the brain has been so stepped up that the recent increase in information on the brain has been like an explosion. In fact, a whole new branch of Science – Brain Science – has now come into existence.

Our Scientist has called the brain an engine of thought. But this term is quite inadequate, for the functioning in unison of the 100,000 million neurons of the brains, with all its capacity for instant differentiation, far surpasses that of any potential machine, no matter how great its capabilities. In fact, according to the article in Span, An explosion of recent findings in brain Science – aided by new computer programmes that can simulate brain cells in action – is now revealing that the bran is far more intricate than any mechanical device imaginable.

Our mind comes as standard equipment at birth and it is free. And we place little value on things that are given to us for nothing.

Unfortunately, we value only those things that we pay for.

Please remember :

Thinking can also be done by your subordinates. You have to encourage them to get involved in thinking. After that, keep your eyes and ears open.

Thinking is also to be done while you are travelling, shaving, sleeping, talking, visiting others, and so on. Do you do it? If not, try to develop this habit.

Soak the problem into your system. Let your subconscious mind work on it round the clock. Meet, visit and talk to a lot of people. This is the process of putting the heat on in your mind and, believe it, the sleeping thoughts will come up like POP, POP, OPP, POPCORN. Develop common sense and use it since it is your best friend in the world. This reminds us of a story.

In an ashram, a disciple insisted with his guru that he (the shishya) was ready to go into the world. He agreed to take a test before venturing out. The guru fisted his hand and asked the student to name what it contained. The shishya, after a lot of calculations, told the guru that it was a round object with a hole in it. The guru complemented the student but asked him to name the object. The student made some more calculations and said that it was a grinding wheel. To his surprise, the guru opened his fist which held a finger ring. Education without common sense, experience and exposure is never complete.

Also remember the crow in grandma’s story that could raise the level of water in the pitcher by dropping pebbles into it. The crow solved the problem by thinking and using its mind. Incidentally, his story has now been modified. The crow who had dropped the pebbles saw that the water that came up was muddy. It flew away without drinking the water. Another crow who was sitting nearby and observing all that was happening waited with patience for a few minutes so that the mud could settle down, quenched its thirst with the clean water.
It reminds us of a another story in a film that was shown on American television network many years ago.

A chicken saw some foodgrain across the other side of a wire mesh. It tried to reach it, but the wire mesh came in the way. It pecked at the wire mesh in desperation but to no avail. Frustrated , it started pacing up and down alongside the wire mesh until it saw that the wire mesh was only six feet wide. It went over to the side where the wire mesh did not exist and reached the grains.

The above story just points out that when you are thinking, you limit your scope and span of thinking. If you are asked to join the following nine dots with four straight lines without lifting your pen, you cannot do it until you widen your span of thinking and extend it to the region that lies outside the nine dots. Think and give it a try.

The more innovative ones expand the size of the dots so that they overlap each other. Once so done, even one straight line can join the 9 dots.

Think ( a few mind bogglers) :

Why is the engine of the car normally in the front?
How was the tyre invented?
Why do we drive on the left side of the road?
How was the zipper invented?
Do it now

After you have done the Thinking, it’s time for action. Do It Now. AS simple as that. If the decision you make is good, you will soon find out. If it is wrong, you will find out sooner and will therefore think of a still better way to avoid similar repetitions. We are assuming that you will be using your better judgment and applying this principle to the Potato-sorting type of decisions.

While buying potatoes, we normally sort them out, but do we really think too much of the size we want? No. It happens so automatically that we do not really have to exert ourselves. Of course, the earth-shaking decisions can wait for consideration and thought. Often so much time is wasted on sorting potato type of decisions that very little time is left for the big decisions those we get paid for.

Many years ago, we had a colleague at Escorts who used to spend a lot of his time in allocating our office staff car to the dealers while they were in Delhi and Faridabad for official work. On several occasions, he used to land up in confusion because many dealers used to drop in together on a particular day. He used to schedule and reschedule, apologise, make urgent phone calls, and so on. He used to feel that he was working very hard without realising that this task could be handled by his secretary. Now, he had worked his way up the ranks and had formed similar habits. One fine day, his boss had to put a stop to it and asked him to get involved in bigger decisions.

Think about those situations that are bothering you now. How many of them really warrant the time you are spending on them? Often you find that identifying small problems and delegating them to subordinates will leave you with enough time to handle bigger and more complex problems. Experience will make you better and better.

Do not postpone what you can do now. We have seen from our working experience that very often our dealer is happier to get back our reply on his own original letter sheet as it takes less time. At Escorts Dealers Development Association Limited, we reply many of our letters instantly in this way. We attach the following slip to the returned letter.

If Americans do it, why not EDDAL?

We want to reply to you the same day, i.e. today and vice versa.
We believe you will prefer efficiency to the formalities of a nicely typed letter.
We can send you
gold embossed replies – after 30-45 days-at your cost.
individually dictated and typed letters – after 15 days
routine replies – in 7 days.
returning your letter with our comments – same day.
You can also give your reply on this letter itself and return.

This reminds us of an interesting article on the subject. We give here some relevant excerpts :

Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of a raging war, found time to write the now famous letter to Mrs. Bixby. Dear madam, he wrote, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant – General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

If President Lincoln could write this letter when he had a thousand preoccupations, you should also find time to attend to the minute details of your day-to-day life. When you follow this principle, be sure that your colleagues also follow this principle and the efficiency of your office will go up. When you say that you will do it at 9 a.m. and then you actually do it at 9 a.m., people will respect you because they will also reciprocate by following this principle, at least for you.

More important than what you say, or how you say, is when you say: say when you feel it should be said. Send or give sincere compliments when you have liked the food. Also use Waste paper Basket (File No. 13) to get rid of most of the papers. You will then have enough time to do important things NOW. Have you ever thought that a lightning phone call is normally the result of a delayed post card which you could have written in time but kept on postponing because you thought that you did not have the time to write it? Mind it, it was only your thought. Did you sincerely try to find the time to write it? We are sure, no.

Remember the axiom :

Do Important Jobs NOW Before They Become Urgent. Had the hare remembered it and not gone to doze off in the midst of the race, the tortoise could have never made it to the winning post first. This is what differentiates winners from losers. We are sure that you want to be a winner … always.

Let us put it this way :

The world’s largest fires can be extinguished with merely a cup of water if it is poured at the right moment at the right place where the spark ignites the fire.

Look around and think…

Think about your most annoyed customer. More often than not he has been annoyed over a trifling matter and had he been handled properly, his annoyance would have disappeared and he would have been probably your best customer.

3. Ask For It

Once you have a conviction and you are not begging for your own benefit entirely, go ahead and ASK FOR IT. Do your home work as if you are having a love affair. Write it down (Your request: only the sixth draft can be good enough to send into whom you are requesting; then hope for the best. This works 90 per cent of the time.

This principle will help you further to increase your productivity. It has been wisely said : Ask dumb questions and you will not make dumb mistakes. More questions mean you have been thinking (supposedly!). It will also rule out the possibility of doing what should not be done.

Let us illustrate :

In the French Army, the caps of the soldiers were being changed from one design to another. The General asked his ADC how many caps would be required to be changed. The ADC took this to be a very serious assignment and worked on it for the next six days. When he gave the General a compiled report, the General put it in File No. 13 (waste paper basket). The ADC was shocked at first but then he realised that he should have asked the General, How accurate do you want the information to be? May be he could have answered from experience and that was probably what the General wanted.

The idea is that in several situations the concept of sensible approximation should be applied. In other words, just make a guess and very often this may be cheaper and faster than collecting detailed information or statistics.

Ask questions whenever there is something even remotely connected with your work. And, on several occasions, clues will come your way and you can then build on them. This is how most good ideas have originated.

Asking for the order is very important for a salesman is shy to ask for the order.

Many ideas fail not because the timing is either advanced or retarded. No to an idea does not mean it is No forever; it is for that moment. May be next day, next month, next decade it will be Yes.

Let us tell you a story :

Once a father and his son were walking down he road and an elephant crossed their way. The son wanted to buy the elephant crossed their way. The son wanted to buy the elephant and the father said ‘No’. After 15 years or so, they were going in their Toyota and the son asked his father if he could buy the elephant. The father gave him permission. The son could not refrain himself and asked his father why he had not allowed the same thing 15 years ago when the elephant was a available at a far less price. The father said, Son, remember, at that time we were poor and our priorities were different. Today we can afford it. As simple as that.

Ask again and again; put yourself in the shoes of the person from whom you are asking and, accordingly, make your request. Remember, normally no one wants to say NO.

Years ago, one of the authors of this book followed this principle and was rewarded with an around-the-world tour, travel by PANAM 1st class. At that time, he was working with General Mills in the U.S.A. In the company’s house magazine, he read a small news item that the company was sending a two-member team to India, Burma and Ceylon for surveying the dietary habits with a view to include soybeans as part of the PL 480 scheme. The news item kept him awake. Moreover, he was keen to meet his parents residing in India. At last, he wrote a request to his company’s Mr. Sewell Andrews. The request stated the following :

As I am Indian, I can help the team in carrying out a better survey.I will stay on may own in India (I still have cousins almost everywhere in the country). On my return to the U.S.A., I will repay my air fare in installments. All I want from the company is my regular pay while I am on tour.Believe it, within six days of the request being put up, he got an assignment as Special Consultant to Soybean Council of America and was sent for 45 days with all expenses borne by the company in addition to 25 dollars per day for coverage of out-of-pocket expenses. Similarly, he was able to attend the 5th International Food Fair in New York. At Escorts, our 1982 and 1984 Mini-MBA with Ford, Mercury, Yamaha training programmes for the company’s dealers were based on this very principle. However, before you ask for something, you must do your home work well. In the case of Mini-MBA programmes, we had to write over 1000 letters for collecting the facts and information and we had to meet a lot of people before putting up the request to the top management of our company. Many of the ideas given in this book have been collected by following this principle. The more you ask for ideas, the more you get them.

• Make sure you\’re maintaining a consistent bottom-line profit and that you\’ve shown steady growth over the past few years.
• Look at the trends, both economic and consumer, for Indications on your company\’s staying power.
• Make sure your administrative systems and management team are extraordinary-you\’ll need them to get a new locations up and running.
• Prepare a complete business plan for a new location.
• Determine where and how you\’ll obtain financing. (See “Got Cash?” for finance tips.)
• Choose your location based on what\’s best fro your business not your wallet.

02. Franchise you Business
Think about turning your business into a franchise or business opportunity. While most home based business remains small, yours may have the potential to hit the big time though franchising, licensing or wholesale distribution. The key question to ask yourself is if your business can be converted into a business format that somebody else could operate (a franchise) or if you have a standardized product or service that someone could resell multiple times (a business opportunity). While you may think expanding your business requires raising capital, hiring employees buying equipment and leasing office or warehouse space, it\’s often more profitable- ad less risky -to license your product to a big corporation with manufacturing capabilities and an existing sales force to do the work for you. Well you get to be doubly sure before taking this route to grow, as it involves huge managerial issues. But this is the fastest and sure-shot way to growth. First you will need to streamline your internal system and marketing and then select the location you want to spread your business to.

03. Licence your Product
This can be an effective, low-cost growth medium, particularly if you have a service product or branded product. You can receive upfront payments and royalties from the continued sales or use you software, name brans etc- if it; successful. Licensing also minimizes your risks and is low-cost in comparison to the price of starting your own company to produce and sell your brand or product. To find a licensing partner, you should start by researching companies that provide products or services which are similar to yours. But before you set up a meeting or contact any company, you must find a competent attorneys who specialized in intellectual property rights. This is perhaps the best way to minimize the risk of loosing control of your service or product.

04. Diversify
Diversifying is an excellent growth strategy as it allows you to have multiple streams of income that can often fill seasonal voids and of curse, increase sales and profit margins. Rolling out the new lines allow you to expand the reach and thus sales. It will also broaden the target audience and increase presence in the marketplace, giving you the credibility to approach much larger retailers. Once you\’ve hit on a product or service that customers really like, don\’t miss the opportunity to bring out related items to diversify your product line. Not only does that give your products more appealing to retailers, who typically like to stock a line of products as opposed to a single item.

Some of the Ways you can Diversify are:
• Sell Complementary product or services
• Teach adult education or other typed of classes
• Import or export your or other\’s products
• Become a paid speaker or columnist

05. Merge With or Acquire Another Business
Well, this is how most big corporation of the world became really big. But you should have the capacity to manage one. The advantages are many. A merger or acquisition increases your size overnight. In addition, you staff strength also grows, giving you the capacity to execute larger projects. Besides, it will also give you access to newer technologies, products and geographies overnight.

06. Expand Globally
But you don\’t need to acquire another business to expand globally. You just need to prime your offering for an international market. You\’ll carry an inventory of your product and resell it in their domestic markets. You can locate foreign company. Trade groups, foreign chambers of commerce, and branches of Indian chambers of commerce in foreign countries are also good places to find distributors you can work with.

07. Expand to the Internet
Thanks to the Internet, it\’s no longer necessary to open a store to reach retail customers. For marketers of speciality products like rare books, collectibles and gourmet foods, a web-based boutique lets you reach millions if shopper around the world out paying for rent, utilities or garbage collection. And while creating websites once designer or programmer, do-it yourself website are now available for less than Rs 1,5000 a month with no technical knowledge required. Typically, the companies that help you register you domain name (web Address) will provide online templates you can to build your site, host your web pages on their server and provide you with multiple e-mail address as well. E-commerce capabilities can often be has for an additional charge. You can also set up low-cost website through web hosting companies and search engines.

08. Find ways to increase sales to your existing customers
It\’s a lot cheaper that finding new ones. Even if you can\’t expand you product line, you can boost revenues by selling more of your existing product or services to the clients you already have. One easy way to do this is through volume discounts. Especially if your products cost little to produce, offering your customers the chance to buy, say, two T-shirts for the price of one lets you ring up additional sales without sacrificing much profit. Another common practise is to reward loyal customers by giving them a punch card that entitles them to a free product or service for every 10 times they buy. This technique is common at hair salons, car washes and arts-and-crafts stores, but home-based business can use it, too.

09. Join forces with another business to promote you company
Partnering with a company in related industry is one of the cheapest and easiest forms of marketing that you can employ. If you make spa products, for example, you may be able to convince a local health club to carry them in its store by offering a discount to its members. Likewise, you can send a free, one-day health club pass to anybody who buys your lotions and scrubs.

10. Breaking down tasks to last activity in system
Prima facie, what us essential is a broad under standing of what you want to achieve in a business for which no short-term vision is adequate. A long term perspective has to be drawn, breaking it down to the nitty-gritties of business, in terms of proposes turnover, markets and customers that have to be services and identification of personnel to implement activities successfully from among existing team members. Alternatively check weather some activities of the company can be outsourced P.G. Subramaniam, CEO, ASAP Management consultants says that the decision on out sourcing some activities of the company will depend on the entrepreneurs\’s ability to perform and generate returns on investment and not be determine by costs involved on out sourcing, as these are usually long-term costs.

11. Banking on Networking
The upcoming entrepreneur will have to bank on his own networking circle as well as on interaction with colleagues, vendors and customers for growing the contact base of the company. Some professional networking sites like LinkedIn are useful in providing information on people involved in various activities provided you are able to identify then an reach out to them. Small startup can also expand their networking base in their own industry by tapping he contacts of friends who are in the same line on business.

12. Focusing on cash Flow
Upcoming entrepreneurs tend to ignore or undermine the significance or understanding cash flows. This includes keeping a track of funds in terms if revenue earned though sale of products an planing expenses on production and other activities. This would mean maintaining a cash book and recording expenses on actual accruing basis for operational purposes. Depending solely on funding received from ventures capitalists is not advisable as money generated from one\’s own business is important for operational efficiency and for meeting daily expenses. Loans or large fundings can be deployed in meeting system and infrastructural needs of the company.

13. Result -Linked reward system for Employees
In small startups, attrition tends to pose a problem, hence retaining and attracting talent is important. Talent can be taped through the networking route and then retained by adopting a result-oriented reward system. This would also call for transparency in the operating system, leaving no room for error in zeroing down on the deserving person or persons. Ideally, maintaining a personal rapport with your co-workers, with certain freedom to innovate in work, helps in retaining talent.

14. Strengthening regional Footprint first
Before panning out to an all-India level from its regional roots, the company has to first gave a strong regional footprint. To move to the national level, the company has to be stables and profitable at the regional level. Thereafter, the entrepreneur has to understand the company\’s bandwidth to grow and hire people who have worked earlier in a national company an posses the competencies to help him achieve that level. Such achievers have to be remunerated accordingly, for which the upcoming company has to be prepared to shell out adequate money from its profits. Capital funds for going national can be accessed through initial public offerings, private placements, bank funding, venture capitalists and market development funds from the government of India. A focus on enablers for every activity like customers and sales will facilitate the process.

15. Risk Taking
L Ganesh, Chairman Rane group, ha highlighted some points that need to be kept in mind while growing one\’s business: “The leader must have the ability to take calculated risks. Despite all the financial evaluation and due diligence, the final decision- especially on new ventures- is always fraught with risk.” The culture in the organization, especially among the top management, must be one with the ability to take decision with many uncertainties and then course correct these as required without getting bogged down by either problems or failures.

16. Perseverance
Any business will go through ups and downs both due to external reasons or internal problems. It is therefore very important that a leader and indeed the top management team, should have the perseverance to stick to their vision and goals despite such fluctuations. This should not be confused with rigidity or obstinacy. The goal can still be rigid but the path is to be flexible, depending on the journey. Successful leaders are those who have this ability to preserve through severe trials and turbulences.

17. Hard Work
Leadership always means leading from the front. This would means sustained hard work for a long period of tie. It may be fashionable to talk about working smarter and not harder. “I believe that such as approach will work in deal making and not in building and growing an organization over a long period. Growth often means very hard work in the initial stages till the organization gains a momentum,” says Ganesh. Thereafter to take it to a different trajectory again, and work is required from the leadership team.

18. Ability to choose Good leaders
The most important event or decision in any organization is to chose the leader. Leadership is not often evident in the external behavior of people and definitely not related to academic qualifications. To spot a good leader and groom him or her with a good sense of timing is important. The other aspect is fit. Leaders often perform well if the fit or culture of the organization is conducive the culture when it warrants and still make it a success.

19. Empowerment
Empowerment is extremely important, particularly after a point in the growth of any organization. It is very difficult to define this point but the leader has to sense the same out of experience and starts increasing the empowerment. A hands-on closely controlled management style is very effective in smaller organizations. However, the same style starts stunning the growth or organization beyond a point. A good leader will sense this point and also design the right kind of empowerment, still having a good of review to keep the organization on track.

20. Institutionalization
Growth would mean transition of an organization from a one man show or partnership of few key people to a large professionally managed organization. It is one of the most important objectives of a leader to start working on this system and only then will there be a good foundation for smooth on this system and only then will there be a good foundations for smooth growth. If not the organization can grow rapidly but at some stage start collapsing without this professional foundation.

To win the startup game, you need to be a miser with your money. You need to spend in on things that will simply make you feel or look like one. You need to pander to what your customers need, not to what you need.

So before you sign that check, swipe that credit card or sign that contract, ask yourself, “Will this bring me business?”
If the answer is no, consider it one less rupee you need to beg borrow or spend. Based on my experience, here are 10 of the most common ways entrepreneurs waste money:

1. CUSTOM LOGOS, FANCY LETTER-HEADS AND OTHER ICONS OF SUCCESS
They may make you feel like an entrepreneur, but they don’t bring home the bacon. Instead, design your own with one of the many templates that come packaged with your word processing software. They include matching business cards, letterheads, enveloped an invoice. You can find templates in the Project Gallery of Microsoft Word or the Template Chooser in Apple’s Pages. If you need more choice, HP.com and Avery.com offer free templates for use with their specialty forms and paper.

2. FANCY OFFICES
Speaking of bacon, maybe the dining room isn’t the ideal office, but working there bats not eating. If you don’t need a formal office, don’t pay for one.

3. A COMPANY CAR
The latest luxury car doesn’t make you a better businessperson, it makes you a poorer one. If the wheels you already have get you back and forth to the grocery store, new ones are a waste of money. Just be sure to log your business travel so you can deduct the usage.

4. A SLICKER-THAN-YOU CAN AFFORD WEBSITE
Brochure sign, ad, etc. In the beginning good enough is often good enough.

5. CONSULTANTS
Sorry to say, many of them will borrow your watch to tell you what time it is. If it’s not rocket science, figure it out for yourself.

6. FALLING FOR THE PITCH
“You’ll be getting in on the ground floor.” You’re not in a position to be someone else’s venture capital. If a rep for a new advertising outlet gives you the hard sell about how wonderful it’s going to be, invite them to call you back when they can prove it. Leave the experimenting to others.

7. STARTING A BUSINESS BECAUSE YOUR FRIENDS LOVE YOUR IDEA
It’s one thing to like or even love an idea-it’s an altogether different thing to be willing to plunk down money for it. There’s no substitute for test marketing where real money changes hands.

8. BASING YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY ON WHAT YOU THINKS IS WONDERFUL
Good chance your customers are nothing like you (or them you). Instead, research your market thoroughly. What do they read? What do they watch on television? Then craft your message based on what actually appeals to them, not you.

9. UNDERESTIMATING THE COMPETITION
Or worse, thinking you don’t have any. Any business plan that proudly states it has no competition earns itself an immediate place in round file. If you don’t understand your direct and indirect competition, you don’t understand your market. And if you don’t understand your market, you may be trying harder to get better at something you shouldn’t be doing at all.

10. THINKING THAT YOUR PRODUCTS OR SERVICE IS WHAT SELLS
Here’s the sad truth: a great marketing strategy beats a great product every time. Business owners can (and will) go on and on about their wonderful products or services. The successful ones spend their time scheming about how’s going to buy it and how they’re going to buy it and how they’re going to reach them. Products don’t sell, marketing does.

7 ways to woo customers
Following are seven ways in which a pharmacy could attract customers. However, one should keep in mind that these points are not one-time activities, but are a continuous process for retailers.

Importance to customer:
A customer continues to visit a particular retail not just because he/she gets a product or a service, but also because he is considered in high regard by the employees and is hence given much importance. This is especially essential in the case of ‘mom and pop stores’.

Trust:
Customers prefer to travel an extra mile if they trust a particular outlet or staff. Hence retailers should strive to build trust in the locality and should earn a reputation for being a genuine medicine & advice provider.

Availability:
One should ensure that all medicines are readily available and if not, the retailer should arrange for the medicine to be procured & delivered to the customer when required.

Knowledge:
Customer believes that the pharmacy staff is knowledgeable enough to serve him with the right kind of advice, both in case of availability and non-availability.

Service:
One should have an efficient staff to serve customers and the home delivery service is also beneficial. Response time and ease of delivery is very important and hence, retailers must strive to improvise on the same.

Convenience:
The retail should be easy to reach and also get a convenient parking place.

VAS and prices:
The last determinants in case of medicines are prices or discounts, as no customer would want to gamble with his own or the lives of his family members when it comes to buying medicines. However, taking into consideration the competitive environment and market scenario, a customer would always welcome some value-added services (VAS) or quantity-based or loyalty-based discounts. With changing times, discounts will also be a driver, but not the only one.

Know your customers
Every pharma retailer should identify the potential customers in that locality. There are long-term loyal customers in every business and every loyal customer should have a reason to come back and make a repeat purchase. There are basically three categories of customers – chronic, geriatric and acute. Acute customers are seasonal ones and those who complain of short-term ailments, while chronic customers are long-term customers. The self-coined acronym ABCDE stands for arthritis, blood pressure, cardiac problems & cancer, diabetes and epilepsy or elderly people. Geriatric customers are mostly under multiple therapies and it makes good business sense to service them well. In fact, if every pharmacy focuses on ABCDE, then there is no reason why a pharmacy would not do maximum profit in that area. Hence, it is best advised to pharmacists and other staff to interact more and know more about chronic & geriatric customers so as to establish a stronger bond with such customers.

Customer retention
Products contribute a more 20 per cent when it comes to customer development and retention. Hence, one would see that in an area where there might be 50 chemists, only one or two of them have a prosperous business. Medicine selling is not just about selling medicines; one has to care about customers before as well as after the prescription. One should also keep in mind that customers prefer doing business with people they like. And, creating this like in the minds of the customers depends on the employee’s commitment & capability and the way one delivers the product.
It is important that every retailer should do an analysis as to why customers move away from his retail. Figure 2 illustrates a practical analysis of the reasons for customers to visit another pharmacy. It has been found that 68 per cent of the time customers move away due to dissatisfaction with the products and services.

Types of retails
There are always some retails that do roaring business – these are ‘preferred’ outlets. Customers prefer to visit these outlets rather than other ones. Following is the broad categorisation of the class of outlets in a locality or an area:

Available outlets:
This includes all outlets in the locality

Considered outlets:
The main driver here is the distance from the customer’s residence or office that he considers for making his purchase

Acceptable outlets:
These outlets meets the basic criteria for a customer to step in like proximity, ambience and having the basics in place

Preferred outlets:
This is the outlet where the customer decides to buy his medicines from. It enjoys the success a retailer aspires for. The success depends on a few important factors like excellent service & availability of products besides being a trusted place for genuine merchandise

How to become a ‘preferred’ outlet?
The first and foremost step in the direction of becoming a preferred outlet is having the retail at an ideal location. Then, the starting point for building a bond with the customer begins the minute he enters the outlet. One can start on a good note with customer by opening the door for him with a smile and making him feel welcome. After the customer has entered the outlet or rather is nearing the counter, it would make him feel good if someone greets him again. Most of the ‘preferred outlets’ would be busy with queues. But one can at least, acknowledge the customer and gesture that he or she will be shortly attended to. This makes customer feel important. Now the customer would have lesser chances of escaping unnoticed, and it is likely that the customer would wait for his turn, as he has been given the importance he needs. While the product is being ‘serviced’, it is important to ‘engage’ the customers in some talk that is in their interest like ask about the customer’s well-being, his family or children (it is assumed that the preferred outlet would know its customers well, directly or through his details popping on the screen through his loyalty card). One could also ask the customer why he was not around for a long time or about the scheme that was being run by the pharmacy for customers or any activity that is being planned by the retails. In this manner, the time between ordering and billing is used productively. If a commitment has been given for making some product available or for home delivery, one should always deliver in time or keep the customer informed well about its arrival well in advance. Once the billing is done, one should make a gesture that would make the customer feel comfortable enough to be back again to experience the ‘Importance’ he or she gets at the store. However, most retailers make the mistake of attracting new customers but taking the old customers for granted. In fact, there must be a clear and a well-defined strategy for customer retention and development. Both are equally important and communication is the key.

From passive to active service
For ensuring a knowledgeable and customer-centered staff, the senior management must take training mandatory and at regular intervals. It is sad to see that pharmacists have become glorified billing clerks in India – instead of interacting with customers they simply bill whatever is written in the prescription or asked by the customer. This is what one could term as ‘passive customer service’. One has to keep the customers engaged and make it ‘proactive customer service’. People usually say that they lost their business due to poor service, but the rule of the market is as simple as the law of energy – ‘You can never lose business, it goes to someone else and thus, your loss is someone else’s gain’. Hence, in order to avoid such a scenario, every retailer’s goal should be delivering outstanding customer service, thus making the customer one’s salesman.

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Before getting started, there are several steps to consider. Going through a straightforward process of exploring the opportunities will help demystify this source and make it more accessible. Let’s start with each of the following in turn:

1 Assess your needs
2 Build consensus
3 Create a prospect list
4 Assign responsibility
5 Manage expectations
6 Assess Your Needs

Each publication is different and that quirkiness is half the fun of working on different titles. In broad strokes, one may be mature and under rate base pressure in a category affected directly by the economic downturn.

At the other end of the spectrum, a newer publication may still be enjoying positive cash flow in some of its new business acquisition and be under no significant rate base pressure at all.

The first title, the mature one, may be satisfied with a partnership that delivers what amounts to essentially qualified leads for the first year with the expectation of a decent shot at respectable renewals a year out.

Management at the other magazine, however, may insist on some minimum of positive revenue contribution, even in the first year. One such magazine requires enough positive revenue to cover the production and distribution costs.

Treat patnership marketing like any other source. Gather the information you need for your assumptions and then create a budget for your partnership program with an allowable cost per sub. This will provide clarity and also help manage expectations for what this source will deliver.

Be honest with yourself about your rate base needs and expectations. How many subs do you need and by when do you need them? Partnerships take time and this has to be accepted early or you will set yourself up for disappointments.

Another consideration at the very start is audience development. Speak to your research director and ad sales staff to find out where you are weak compared to your competition in audience composition.

Admittedly, we usually focus on the circulation economics: the expected P&L of the first contracts combined with favorable renewal prospects. Addressing the opportunities in audience development will at the very least help spark some ideas. Plus, this orientation could have the very positive result of enhancing your competitive positive in the ad sales community.

Build Consensus
Be inclusive. Involve everyone at the start. Colleagues to bring into the conversation early include:
1 Publisher
2 Ad director
3 Editor
4 Research director
5 Circulation staff

Partnership marketing is a process that will take on a life of its own over a long period of time and will help in sustaining their cooperation and support as the projects will likely take time to bring to fruition.

Create a Prospect List
In the early brainstorming meetings and information gathering, develop a list of criteria that you think will improve your chances of success. Some things to look for in a partnership include:

1 Editorial affinity
2 Scope and scale
3 Renewability
4 Needs to be filled

Editorial affinity is a baseline must. A good fit offers better renewal prospects and advertiser acceptance as well as stronger partner recptivity and cooperation.
An easy way to get started prospecting is by making a list of your endemic advertisers. If it is not the exact advertisers themselves, then it might be companies that are similar in service or offering. At the very least, they can be a rich source for brainstorming.

Also, syndicated research can help in at leas two ways. A Simmons or MRI profile of your own audience may provide some ideas, or a similar profile of a company targeted for partnership may yield some ideas to take to that potential partner company.

Look at your own direct mail lists and focus on your best producing lists and likewise, look for opportunities with the biggest renters of your list.
Associations also offer strong posibilities and these organizations are often overlooked. Almost by definition they offer strong editorial affinity. Even so, they can be challenging to work with.

Beyond the money issue, associations frequently have their own publications – a newsletter covering the activities at the organization and a professional journal covering the group’s core subject. Offering an additional publication to their membership can sometimes be threatening.

In my work with Spirituality & Health magazine, many associations were concerned that they would be in a position of competing with S&H for their member’s reading time and, potentially, for ad dollars.

Also, from working with more than 25 organizations, I learned that non-profits move slowly in their decision making and these decisions usually require approval by the board of directors, which meets only three or four times a year.

Size matters. Ask yourself if the partnership is going to yield enough subs to warrant the time and effort required. Keep in mind that the time commitment will not vary significantly with the size of the deal, so make it worth your while.

Retention is one key to success. Your objective is to generate high quality subs with a better than average renewal rate. If it’s just numbers you’re looking for, you have other ways of achieving that. Partnerships are an investment in the future of your title and the renewal rate is one important measurement of the program’s success.

Look for needs to be filled. Ask yourself what’s in it for your partner. The challenge is to identify others’ needs and propose creative solutions that are mutually beneficial. Don’t concentrate on what you get. Instead, focus on what you’re giving.

Develop an understanding of what your partners value in both a larger context and also in the specifics of the deal. Ask what is important to them. It may be different from what you expect.

Make it worth their effort. Your partner will be investing considerable time and effort and will require a minimum return, whether it be $50,000 or $500,000, or a less measurable result such as exposure and branding enhancement opportunities.

Try to quantify, or at least document, a measure of success for your partner and get the acknowledgement in writing.

Make the benefits clear. Your partner contact is going to have to sell the deal inernally and their boss, in turn, will likely have to communicate it even further. If you make it easier for them to sell the deal to others, you increase your chances of success.

Keep the execution simple. Even the simplest promotion still requires considerable cooperation and time to implement. If the execution is too complicated, it may never occur at all.

Assign Responsibility
Valid arguments can be made for assigning responsibility to a staff member or for outsourcing to a consultant.

A staff member is better positioned to build consensus among the staff and there is a comfort factor with having someone familiar representing your magazine. Outsourcing affords the opportunity to tap into a skill set that may not be readily available on your circulation staff.
Part of the skill set required falls outside of the usual strengths found in circulation management. The responsibilities fall into two broad categories: selling and operations.

Circulation professionals are well versed and adept with the operations side, which includes partner logistics, in-house logistics and working with ABC for approvals. It is the prospecting, proposal writing and relationship management skills that may not be readily apparent.
Avoid turning partner relationship management over to a sales rep, whose primary responsibility is selling space. Getting pages, ad dollars and commissions will win out over the partnerships.

There is also the real danger of scrapping the partnership discussions and offering the subscriptions as “added value.” This could have an additional negative of devaluing your circulation in your advertisers’ eyes.

Manage Expectations
It takes a long time from the first internal brainstorming sessions and initial partner meeting through to legal contracts and actually implementing the promotion and generating subs for your file. The average gestation period for a deal of significant size is about 8 to 12 months.
Don’t be fooled by an early meeting that is positive and enthusiastic. This is just a good start. The devil is always in the details and much work lies ahead in the legal and fulfillment issues.

While you may want to deliberately avoid raising the issue of who owns the name, this can lead to problems. Your partner will want to know what they are going to get after the first subscription contract.

Will you share renewal revenue and if so for how many years? Will your partner want access to these names for their own promotion?
On the other hand, will your partner want to restrict your use of these names, specifically in terms of renting them on the open market? It’s better to spend some time on these issues early.

SOME EXAMPLES
A big part of getting started in partnership marketing is creative. It requires us to stretch beyond what we know and are comfortable with and identify opportunities of mutual benefit. How can we help our partner? What are we willing to give or give up in exchange?

It is absolutely critical that these deals be perceived as win-win relationships. We’re in this for the long haul and we hope our partner is too.
Several examples of partnerships are outlined below to help stimulate some thinking and generate ideas.

Product promotion tie-ins can be very effective and can be implemented through virtually any sales channel. Examples include:
1 In store: Musicland and Entertainment Weekly formed a successful partnership.
2 Catalog: Levenger recently included a Real Simple insert.
3 Online: Quicken and Money magazine joined forces.
4 In bound telephone sales: LL Bean hypothetically might offer Outdoor magazine it the customer meets a predetermined spending threshold.

Multi-title promotions can include a publisher offering two of its own titles for one combination price. Or, with a partnership between two publishers, each sells a pair of magazines (their own and their partner’s).

A stamp sheet offering several titles – chosen for their editorial compatibility – could be exclusive to your in-house offerings or it could be inclusive of other magazines that are published in your editorial category.

Upselling and cross selling offers more opportunities. One publisher’s advance renewal effort includes a second titles at minimal cost. Another’s Christmas promotion includes a second title at minimal cost.

Every customer contact is an opportunity. When a subscriber phones in a change of address, consider offering a complementary title, either solo or in combination with a sub extension.

No matter how you choose to approach it, partnership marketing offers new opportunities to meet the challenges of maintaining quality circulation. With the increasing pressures on the tried and true subscription sources like direct mail, partnerships can provide new solutions and particularly without the reliance on the old infrastructure.

Creating lasting mutually beneficial relationships with one eye on lifetime value and another eye on your partner’s values and objectives requires us to let go a little bit and be open to creative thinking.

Lawrence Hedblom is a principal of Partnerships for Profit, a directmarketing consulting firm that specializers in new business development. Previously he created marketing partnerships for two content-based Web companies. He has also held consumer marketing positions at Time Inc., Ziff Davis and the Economist Group.

Nine Dos and Don’ts

Do
Align your values with your partner’s, as this may help sustain the relationship.
Involve more than one contact at your partner company; a new job or a management change could wipe out your deal and you would have to start all over from scratch.
Get ABC approval early in the process.
Involve your fulfillment house early to ensure that the logistics are manageable, especially in a roll-out.

DON’T
Underestimate the time commitment, either in the hours involved or the duration of the project. Overlook the legal issues, as shortcuts usually end up being the long way around.
Handle the written agreement without your own contract lawyer, as you must protect your company and yourself. Continue working on a losing deal: if a partnership that looked promising and cooperative turns sour, avoid the temptation to hang in there hoping the situation will improve.

Make it complicated; simple deals are challenging enough.
Inspired House Inspired House, a new Taunton Press design and decorating magazine, is partnering with American Historic Inns, which publishers country inn and bed and breakfast guidebooks, to introduce its magazine to inn goers.

Publisher Jon Miller explains that 1,500 inn across the country will receive complimentary issues of the magazine; each inn keeper will be offered a free subscription and each guest will have an opportunity to receive a complimentary mini-subscription.

Sprirituality & Health
Over 40 associations-all spiritual, counseling or holistic in nature-were contacted by Hedblom on behalf of Spiritually & Health to form partnerships. S&H, Published six times a year with 70,000 paid circulation, was seeking a partnership whereby the associations would make a year’s paid subscription an automatic benefit of membership.

Despite offering a relatively low price per sub, most of these non-profit organizations balked at paying without finding new money somewhere, says Hedblom. They also resisted increasing dues-even by a few dollars.

Entertainment Weekly
A retail upsell partnership between Entertainment Weekly and Musicland started in April 2001 and continues today. Consumers making a purchase with a credit card at Sam Goody, Media Play and Suncoast are given the opportunity to try 8 issues of EW risk free, explains Gary Foodim, EW’s director of strategic partnerships. “We’re trying to reach entertainment lovers where they are making an entertainment purchase,” says Foodim. “Clearly there’s an affinity that this program taps into and it’s been reflected in solid pay rates and volumes that have met or exceeded our expectations.”

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So I will explain you the biggest Alternatives for the All time best Pay Per Click website – Adsense

1. Adbrite

AdBrite being the best Alternative to Google adsense, has got Many Great features. Although they are not good enough to provide you wide range of Ad Formats, publishers can use some commonly used formats. If your site has Good Amount of Traffic, You can rank higher in Adbrite Marketplace enabling to get more advertisers.

2. Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser can be a useful alternative to Google and offer some intriguing ad formats including what they refer to as free design. This lets you specify the look and dimensions of your text ads. Another important pros of Bidvertiser is that they will show the high paying ads first and then the rest of ads below that. Thus more chance to get more earnings per click.

3. Chitika

Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) was founded in 2003 and is the industry’s leading impulse merchandising company. Chitika was founded in May 2003 and is based in Massachusetts. For advertisers and media buyers, Chitika is a proven channel for targeting on-line consumers and qualified buyers. For all publishers, Chitika is an easy-to-use platform for earning daily ad revenue.

4. Yahoo Publisher Network

Yahoo are currently playing catch up to Google and are trying to release their own context sensitive advertising service. This promises to be an excellent alternative to Google Adsense but in reality is likely to be a simple copy with the same restrictive terms and conditions as Google, including $100 minimums on payouts.

5. AdToll

AdToll pays on a CPC basis. Their user interface is great and navigating through the user panel is both easy and pleasant. Payments are available via Cheque, Paypal, ePassporte and Wire/Bank Transfer. It is also possible to use the revenue you earn as a publisher to advertise your website further.

6. Clicksor

They have payouts up to a market leading 85% and unlike a number of alternatives the cost per click bid values are high enough that you can earn a decent income.

So choose one among the above and start making Enough profit from your blog/website. But I am sure that none of these publisher website will come near to the income that adsense can provide you.

Information about new project, ask with client or prepare these details before start a new project !!

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View here…

No. of Post=     2 to 5 in each department, above mentioned

Experience=    1 year to  5 Year (here, fresher are strictly not welcome)

Salary=            10,000/- to 40,000/- per month

Work Exposure: 

Dedicated & Laborious, Good Exposure of Core Programming, Designing in w3c- standards, CMS Development Expertise (Joomla/ WordPress …), CSS knowledge is must, Having the depth knowledge of Project Management for experienced persons, good exposure for Individual project handling, can take responsibility and perform the best in terms of result. Here, each person should have perform individually, no excuse about results.

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