Some thoughts on Networking, Social Media in Financial Express

God creates all Men equal, once out of the womb, he starts playing favorites

Last Friday I had an extremely interactive discussion with a medium sized company’s owner about his Branding & Marketing processes. Whilst, he had done some innovative things, the basics were still lacking. Having convinced him of them, decided to pen down those thoughts.

Product and promotion

Offline:
• Branding
• Image through communication
• Image through medium used

Online:
• Branding and colors on the site
• Branding and colors on the newsletters
• Branding and colors used for any new application or module

Place and physical evidence

• Sign board at the entrance of Office, Stores
• Entrance to be maintained consistently
• Reception, needs to be clean & maintained so there are posters, reading material of relevant products –
necessary to get the visitor to feel that he/ she has come to a great place!
• Security to greet customers well
• Receptionist to greet customers well and cater to the basic courtesies – ask for tea/coffee/water; ask what
they have come for; keep the area for brochures and newspapers in order.
• To keep the reception area well stocked with brochures and any reading material so that the customer’s wait is
pleasurable and worthwhile.

People in service

• The concerned person should not keep the customer waiting for long
• Each and every employee to make the process easy for the customer
• Every employee to adhere to dress code so a uniform and desirable image is formed
• People to adhere to the selling process steps strictly while attending a customer.

Process in service

• Whether it’s online or offline, every department to make the process easy and pleasurable for the customer

I am sure this is not a complete & comprehensive list. But it is the bare minimum. It is extremely easy to get a lot of ideas, however to execute ONE of them takes a lot of effort & time. All products, companies that are BRANDS today are because of CONSISTENCY.

It is an addiction, study shows a third of office workers were stressed by the volume of message & that’s only email.

Trust me, Being ‘always on’ does affect productivity & create stress.

With your notebook, multiple phones, that constantly beep, it is very difficult to switch off. And when you switch off the office work, there is Face Book, Twitter that needs your attention or else you are not with the times.

It is funny to see 3-4 friends sitting over coffee or drinks & 2 of them are texting, whilst the others are speaking on the phone; then why meet? You could might as well do that on the phone.

I am constantly asked “How do you manage official work, email, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Partying & even writing a Blog”.

And I say “EVERYTHING IS FINE IN MODERATION”

Some of the rules that I follow to disengage & recharge myself, at the same time have me time:

1) I check & respond to your emails just 3-4 times a day, this includes laptop & smartphone.
2) As for FB; Linkedin, Twitter I just go cold turkey.
3) I leave my phone behind when I go on the gym floor.
4) I use Tech to the maximum - program email, blog, phone to garner maximum productivity.

Because, I believe - Be the one to control devices & not the other way around.

In any moment of decision, the BEST THING you can do is the RIGHT THING, the next best thing is the WRONG THING, and the worst thing you can do is NOTHING.

Heart touching thought of life…Laash pani par tairti kyo he..?kyun ki,,,Dubne k liye zindagi chahiye!

1980 - 1) Study hard so you can find a good company to work for.
2) Write an impressive resume to find a job.

2010 - 1) Study hard so you can find a good company to buy!
2) write a strong business plans to create good jobs!

Patience is powerful. If you are desperate for instant results you make it all too easy to be taken advantage of.

The world is not Fair! Knowing that we must protect ourselves.

A dedicated fiction reader, who once upon a time used to complete a 400 page book during a Bombay - Delhi - Bombay flight including the waiting time at the airports; over the past year or so found my reading habits breaking away completely, more maybe from the fact that I do not travel at all these days, a little less from the fact that have been watching more movies, tweeting?

Having said that had decided to rectify the situation this year. Flipping thru Flipkart sometime a fortnight ago, saw some Indian authors, whose books sounded simple, in terms of story & price both. Ended up ordering the following:

Love, A rather Bad Idea….All it gives is a lousy hangover by Anirban Mukherjee
Zero Percentile..Missed IIT Kissed Russia by Neeraj Chhibba
Nothing can be as crazy by Ajay Mohan Jain &
The Dork by Sidin Vadukut (heavily tweeted on twitter by his well wishers)

Whilst this was in transit, I made a trip to Malvan and picked up a book at the Goa airport - Devil in Pinstripes by Ravi Subramanian having read his earlier ‘If God was a Banker’

Then overcome with work, did not even glance at those till, last week, when glancing through them, saw that most of them were 200 pages easy to read font & decided to go for them & so began:

Devil in Pinstripes - A good book taking a look at the Banking & financial segment, boss, mentor, couple relationship etc. nudging & offering some insight of what it is all about in a superficial way.

Dork - A good enough book, that gives an insight into Management placement, Consulting industry, taking a swipe at the perception & hype created vs how actually it works.

Zero Percentile - Halfway decent writing, that takes a look at lower middle class home, destiny mish mash. A book that can be missed without missing anything

Nothing can be as Crazy A decent book on the Banking Industry with neither a complete coverage on banking or institutional politics. There but cannot be there.

Love, A rather Bad Idea - A breezy book trying to convey that IIT has everything that the world can show and friendship, love, loyalty overcomes everything.

Having said that, some common factors which are not so surprising:)

Out of the 5 authors 2 are from IIT & 2 are from IIM or combination of both.
All the books can be called “ILIT” that has sex, loyalty, destiny, family & happy ending with of course IIT or IIM as background.
A bit of superiority “we were there, we are better, and now besides we can write” comes through.
The cost of the book is sub 200/- something like ‘chiclit’ take it on the flight & throw it.

As the DNA & Sunday Midday of 22nd February says that 1000 copies is enough to break even all of them have broken even, if nothing else but through their network, loyalty, friends & relatives.

What is painful is that such intelligent (obviously with IIT & IIM tags) people have chosen extremely mediocre, flat subjects to write their novels on, truly hope that they come out of their comfort zone & contribute more.

The Question this raises now is - “Do Indian Authors need to be IIT or IIM”

BUT in the end Hey they have written, published & people read, whilst I have not, so whilst this may sound, it is NOT sour grapes.