The Makings of a King: The Early Years of King Gillette

He had spent his entire life tinkering with ideas, most of which the rest of the world would call him crazy for. It was not until King Gillette was in his 40s that he would patent and begin to sell his disposable safety razor. It was an invention that made him a household name and revolutionized the shaving industry in the process. Today, Global Gillette continues to rank as one of the most dominant brands in the industry.

King Camp Gillette was born on January 6, 1855 in the small central Wisconsin town of Fond du Lac. He had three older brothers and two sisters. His parents, George Wolcott Gillette and Fanny Lemira Camp were both inventors in their own rights. As a result, the Gillette kids were encouraged to be inquisitive, to be hands on, and to take things apart to learn how they work.

When Gillette was four years old his family moved to Chicago, Illinois in the hopes of achieving a better life. His father opened up a hardware store, but its promise was soon destroyed. In 1871, the great Chicago fire devastated the business and forced the Gillette family to move once again.

This time, they chose New York City, where Gillette’s father became a patent agent. Conversations around the Gillette family’s dinner table always revolved around the various inventions that had come across his desk during the day. With each passing year, the young Gillette was growing more and more inspired to invent something of his own.

At 17 years old, Gillette left school and began making his living as a traveling salesman. Although it was a far cry from his dream job, it provided a steady income and also allowed him to flex his inventor’s muscle; with each product that Gillette sold door-to-door, he tried his hand at improving them in some way.

By 1890, Gillette had become increasingly disappointed with his life. He had four patents to his name but none had achieved much success. “They made money for others, but seldom for myself, for I was unfortunately situated not having much time and little money with which to promote my inventions,” he said. On top of that was the dissatisfaction of knowing his parents were much more successful than him. His mother had even published the “White House Cookbook”, a compilation of her own recipes which remains in print to this day.

Gillette’s disappointment was such that in 1894, at the age of 39, he published a book called “The Human Drift.” It was an anti-capitalist rant in which Gillette set out to criticize big business and competition as the root of all evil. As an alternative, he outlined his own ideal of a utopian, socialistic society.

By his own admission, Gillette was at rock bottom. He needed a new idea, something that would make him the success he had always dreamed of. But what, he wondered. At 40 years old, what single idea could take him to the top?

Source :- The Makings of a King: The Early Years of King Gillette

Entrepreneurs - East and the West

Entrepreneurs - East and the West

By Sheeroy Desai:

The fundamental structure of the global economy is shifting- from the West to the East. China and India are expected to lead the global recovery and as such venture capitalists are also shifting their focus to these countries. Hoping to find the next big ideas and companies.

At the heart of successful new companies lie successful entrepreneurs. And if India and China are going to produce the next Microsoft’s or Google’s of the world, do they have the entrepreneurs to create and grow such companies?

"The combination of the talent, culture and money in Silicon Valley makes it an incredible engine for fueling entrepreneurs and successful start-ups. So, coming back to the idea at the top of this blog, what will it take for China and India to produce the large volumes of entrepreneurs and start-up’s? It will come down to will the best talent in these countries turn down, the safe jobs to pursue their dreams and risk failure. Will there be enough of these entrepreneurs with large dreams and ambitions to build global giants?"

To Thrive In The Recession, Be A Cockroach

To Thrive In The Recession, Be A Cockroach - Forbes.com

Why should a recession be good for start-up leaders?

First, since a recession weeds out weaklings, it's a time for the stronger to get underway. During a boom, you don't need as much talent to succeed; the environment helps you along. Even the mediocre do well because the market is flooded with opportunity. A downturn offers particular opportunity for especially smart people willing to work harder. They're the ones who discover their full potential and find ways to solve the toughest problems.

Second, bad times, just like good times, never last forever. A recession is as much a part of the economic cycle as is a boom. Nevertheless, in tough times people tend to let their emotions and judgment be colored by the uncertainty they feel. They end up behaving as if the world will always remain the way it is right now. But good leaders don't get stuck that way. They know how to take their eyes off the short term and try to see how things will shape up in the future. And then they don't just sit there gazing; they go ahead and start the process of building that future.

Third, a recession is a time when you know the environment is hazardous, so you remain cautious and tread slowly. Good leaders and entrepreneurs run their start-ups on the thinnest budgets possible, making sure they remain agile at all times. In the words of Paul Graham, programmer and start-up guru, recession offers you a chance to be the cockroach of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death for a start-up is always running out of money. The cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it will be to kill. A recession forces you to be as thrifty as possible and that helps it thrive even in the worst of times.

Outcome Based Thinking

Imagine that you're fairly new in business - maybe even five years in business - and you haven't quite 'made it' yet. Why is this?

There are a million books that say, "Here's what this successful person did, and here's the model. You go and do this. You start a software company and you get on everybody's computer in the world. If you can just get on everybody's computer in the world and make them all give you a dollar, you'll be a billionaire."

Of course, this is true, right?

You go out there and you try to sell your product, your idea, your patent, your trademark, or your invention and you do all the things exactly like the books say. It's like you have it in your mind and you do all this stuff.

You work hard, you're up all night, you're sweating, and nothing happens. You think, "That can't be possible because I did exactly what I was supposed to."

Are you familiar with the books like Built to Last, Good to Great, and some of those titles? Do they sound familiar?

I started to read stuff like that. The good thing was that the books are actually a few years old, so I was reading these books about companies, what things these companies had in common, what made them great, and how they got there. An interesting thing happened; over the following three to four years those companies, after the books were published, turned out to actually not perform as well as the rest of the companies in the United States did.

They actually tended to under-perform. Here I had all these companies-including companies that had been great for 25 to 50 years, like GE, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, tons of companies - and all of a sudden they under-perform. They had all the attributes of being excellent and amazing. They were doing everything right, and then everything went to heck.

Why?

Why is it that these companies are now actually showing losses on their statements? What is going on here?

Importance of Random Events

You can actually go to the dice table in Vegas, throw seven passes in a row, and "believe" you're doing really well, that you're amazing all by yourself.

The fact is that the eighth roll could just as easily be a loser as it is a winner.

The incredibly important question to ask is,

"Do you have all your money on that bet, or did you have a small percentage?"

Realize there's some randomness in life. That's a really good thing to know. Here, I'll recommend somebody else's book because I want you to learn about the things that go wrong in life. It's a really important thing to know. There is The Black Swan by Nicholas Taleb.

Pick up that book; that's a really cool book. It sort of gives you cause to understand that you aren't in total control of everything. When you do everything right, there's still stuff that can go wrong. That's number one.

Number two is that just because you have somebody's success formula doesn't mean you've got their recipe for success. I don't know if you've had this experience, but my mom made a couple of great dishes when I was a kid.

She used to make this great carrot cake; it had this right flavor and all that. It was perfect. It was the perfect food. She would tell other people how to make it. It's not like mom held anything back, but it didn't taste the same when anybody else made it.

The fact is that it tasted downright bad sometimes with almost the same exact recipe, if not the what APPEARS TO BE THE exact same recipe. How can that be?

The short and first answer is that food tastes different cooked in a microwave vs. in the oven vs. on the grill. Same exact recipe, very, very different taste, and perhaps very different nutritional value as well.

We leave the metaphor...

What Don't You Want?

The deal is that we always talk about the things that we want in life, "I want to be successful,"; "I want to be earning $100,000 a year,"; and "I want to be helping 500 people a month." If you're in relationships, "I want a gal, and I want her to be really pretty, sweet, nice, and not yell at me," and all those good things.

We have all these things, but we don't specifically itemize the things that we don't want to happen.

Seems kind of silly.

Except it's not.

What the books all miss and what the gurus miss when they're communicating is they're telling stories from their perspective of what they did to succeed, all of which are legitimately cool and valuable things. They're neglecting to say the things that you should not do, the mistakes that they avoided or overcame and those kinds of things.

In other words, what things don't you want to have happen in your business? Those are actually some of the things that cause you to be really successful.

Imagine, that you're saying, "I want the perfect wife. I want somebody who's funny and happy and somebody who's strong and good looking."

Great! There's your model. Now that same girl could be a terrible mother. She could be completely unkind in many other ways to your children or maybe your relatives.

You didn't say you wanted her to be kind to your relatives; you only said you wanted her to be nice, seemingly to you as if that would generalize to the world.

There are all kinds of other terrible things that this person will do in life, and this is what happens in everyday life. We don't itemize the things that we don't want to happen.

We don't create ways to get over the obstacles that are going to come up in life, so what happens is people accidentally get out of a success path.

It's very easy to do this in any business: real estate, investing, anything. They fall apart and they don't succeed because they don't know what they don't want.

If you live in coastal Kolkotta or Orrisa, you don't want a hurricane to come by and destroy your home, so you buy hurricane or some kind catastrophe insurance. If you don't, you have recognized what you don't want, but have failed to act upon that driver, either by insuring against it financially or leaving the physical area.

So the next question becomes, how do you know what you don't want? We'll go back to the relationship for just a second. The woman doesn't want somebody who's going to hit her, right? Does that make sense?

Yet we know that with one out of 20 that happens. The woman doesn't want somebody who's going to hit her children, let's say. Let's go there. All of a sudden a door opens in your mind, "...didn't think of that..."

She would like somebody who actually has proven income potential, not like he just got out of college and he could get a really good job; he's really smart.

That's nice, but does he have proven income potential? Does this person have a track record of bringing in $50,000 or $100,000 a year?

This would've saved a lot of problems along the way, too. As people look at the downside, the drawbacks, and things that can go wrong in life and they find out ways to solve those problems ahead of time, then it's much easier to build wealth and cause success in whatever area you choose.

Discouragement Leads to Failure

Otherwise, what happens is we get discouraged.

I talk to people all over the world, and they say, "I started this business, and I read Think and Grow Rich," as an example.

And, I'm not picking on Napoleon Hill. That book was so huge. I must have read that thing I can't even tell you how many times, maybe 50 to 100 times that it went in my mind.

Then The Law of Success, that other beautiful book that he wrote. Without that, I don't know if I would've had the motivation early on to go through those discouraging things.

The fact is that most people, when they get discouraged, inertia sets in and they tend to not continue to work as hard, to do as much, to achieve the goal, to go for the goal.

Expect Discouragement and Push On to Success.

You want people to know that a lot of stuff can and will go wrong, and we call this Outcome-based Thinking. This turned out to be one of the core factors of success.

Outcome-based thinking works like this:

What is it that you want?

Oh, write this down.

• What is it that you want, specifically?

• What are the things you don't want in this business? What don't you want to happen?

• What are the obstacles that are going to happen along the way?

What else? You just list all of the possible things that can go wrong in this business.

Feel free to get fantastic and wild in what can go wrong.

These are the 'black swans'. Earthquakes happen. Weird things happen in people's lives. Write down all of those things. Now you think, "I'm prepared now."

Now you have to create the map, and a real map has obstacles that are overcome.

How specifically would you go about overcoming each of these obstacles?

Make Your Motto "Be Prepared"

How Do We Learn to Succeed?

kids get bigger and we get more efficient at learning what people need is because we watched other people fail.

Really, when you watch people fail, you learn a lot more than when you watch people succeed. Everybody watches people who succeed. We watch the Olympians who are going to be in the Olympics coming up here. I know people will be listening to this probably forever, but think about your Olympians; they're great stories. They're very focused and single minded; that is their life.

I'll promise you one thing; that won't be your life in business. If it is, you'll probably fail miserably.

Why?

I'll tell you next week.

Obstacle to Success - A Series

Zig Ziglar said to not be a SNIOP. That means not be Susceptible to the Negative Influence of Other People. I couldn't agree more.

But I don't want you to be a SOOP either.

That's someone who is Susceptible to Opinions of Other People in general.

You need to determine whose opinions matter to you and whose don't. In fact, this is one of the most important factors in success (and no one will talk about this in 'The Secret').

Finding "like-minded people" is fine, but I'm not only talking about that. I'm talking about finding people who will disagree with you, who will challenge you, who will bop you on the head when you do stupid stuff that you don't recognize.

If all you do is hang out with other people who want to zen out, you are screwed. Support is important but far more important is being able to tell most of the world to go to hell while you go on your life journey that you have designed.

There is a monster-sized problem with the majority of success-minded individuals and the way they approach achievement, motivation and their individual goals and desired lifestyle.

If you are a person who dreams of success but find yourself wanting, wandering and wondering about what to do to achieve your goals, desires and dreams OR if you keep "doing things" that do not produce the results you wish....

Your unspoken secret that is blocking your life journey is the fact that you care too much what people think about you.

There are some people whose opinions NEED to matter to you.

The person who writes you your check. The person who hires you.

You don't live alone on the planet, but you sure don't have to live in fear of other people's opinion of you.

If you are held back by lack of action, fear of failure or any other issue that may cause you embarrassment or fear of ridicule, then you have a problem with caring too much about the other person’s thoughts more than you care about success.

If you let the VALUE you place on the opinions of other people get in your way, you've screwed up big time and the fact is that until you see this, you won't accomplish anything (even if you have 'The Secret')

The solution to caring what others think is easier said than done. But there is a way within your mind that you can make it much more of a reality. And with some practice, you'll be much more respected for your achievements.

Here are a few ways to stop caring too much about what others think.

1. Take a stand.

There's an old saying that goes "If you don't stand for something, then you'll fall for anything". That is one of the most profound statements that I have ever heard. The fact is if you don't stand up for your convictions, your passions, you'll wimp out and fold when you are challenged.

Know your position on what you believe and know why you take that position.

Do NOT just believe something because you heard it somewhere and your friends seem to believe it. Taking a stand is more than being someone's parrot.

Be an individual and you'll make a powerful impression.

2. Take directed, continuous and big steps.

When you have firmly claimed your passions and convictions to the point you will fight for them no matter who differs in your opinion, you are ready to take massive action toward your goals, desires and dreams. The hardest part will be growing the backbone to stand up for your convictions (if you don't have that type of personality). But once you have reached that point, it is extremely easy to take massive action toward your dreams.

Because you are living what you are meant to live. You are passionate about what you believe. You will indirectly command respect and you will eventually find a following. You will find a following because most people don't know what they believe and they jump at the first opportunity to follow a passionate, firmly rooted, passionate individual. That is you.

3. Define Yourself.

You will not reach your destiny without being true to yourself.

You will not fulfill your destiny without knowing who you are.

You must constantly be aware of who you are, what you are doing and why you choose to act or react in any given situation. Are you choosing your behavior or is it dictated by what others may think?

You must define yourself.

As Shakespeare said, "To Thine own Self be true." If you're not, there are difficult roads ahead to success.

And once you're on the proverbial journey and MOVING, you'll begin to build momentum.

4. Gain Momentum.

Athletes sometimes call it "the zone."

Even some circles in the business world call it the zone. The zone is another way of expressing a feeling of what really is momentum.

Momentum can be described as a heavenly cloud that carries you floating to your desired goal. When you experience a success momentum, it will seem like nothing can go wrong, no matter what you do. It's going DOWN hill with the wind at your back.

The zone or momentum or whatever you want to call it is a state of mind. It's a way of life. You must live there to be really successful in all areas of your life.

Questions to Ask Yourself to Gain Momentum

* What is your value?

* Can you truly achieve success in life, business, relationships, etc.?

* Do you believe in yourself enough to be able to carry out purpose-centered goals?

5. Develop a plan for a Positive Purpose and Drive for Momentum.

Use these questions to develop a sense of self first.

If you sincerely want to pursue a further momentum, you can do step six:

6. Set an "Action Accountability Force".

This will be the force that you set up that holds you accountable.

Develop a set of actions that will force you to develop a success momentum. Find a partner that will hold you accountable.

This person will also be your cheerleader and, maybe even your coach. Before you know it, you’ll need that person less than when you start out.

But it’s a good idea to always have this kind of person on your team...forever...because momentum does stop and sometimes reverses itself...and, the fact is, other people can see a lot about you that you can't see yourself.

Cash Flow Management

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners have great business ideas and this is reflected in their products and services. These great business ideas are mostly sound but lack one very important element of good business strategy — Cash Flow. Many businesses fail not because their ideas are flawed but they just could not maintain their Cash Flow well.

Cash flow management is a problem for almost any firm, large or small. The worst symptom of the problem: the business runs out of cash. Watching a business floundering, running out of cash even as it makes great sales and profits is painful. Painful though it may be, it is common and repeatedly the cause of business failure.

Small businesses are especially vulnerable to cash flow problems since they frequently operate with inadequate cash reserves or none at all and, worse, tend to miss the implications of a negative cash flow until it's too late.

Any good business plan must provide you with a reasonable forecast or estimation of the breakeven point. Even it may take time before breakeven point can be met you should at least ensure that you have available cash on hand to sustain the business throughout its life. Cash Flow must be maintained at a comfortable level at all times. By comfortable, I mean it should be at least more than 2 to 3 months of your total expenses and sales costs.

For financing purposes, cash flow projections are generally the most crucial aspect of the business plan. Bankers and other outside financing intermediaries will almost always look for a cash flow analysis in preference to any other financial statement, because this will show how the loan can be repaid. In larger companies, the cash budget for a new project or expansion is critical to the overall decision to commit funds and move forward.

Timing and cash flow are inseparable. Payments to suppliers are typically expected often even before customers of the business pay their bills. As a result, the operation is very likely to have a negative cash flow when it grows dramatically. Periods of change are always reflected in an altered cash flow. If sales fall off, the cash flow slows down. Interestingly enough even if sales increase, the cash flow may stop completely or even become negative (more out than in). Think of the impact of credit sales on cash flow, for example. One-time events such as population shifts or changes in competition could trigger such consequences. More commonly, seasonal fluctuations of the business may also pose cash flow problems where a build-up of inventories must precede the sales cycle (such as a toy business prior to the Christmas holidays).

Whatever the cause, the underlying message is simple: Run out of cash and the business is in trouble. Even if it is possible to raise more money from other sources, sooner or later the timing of cash inflows must match the outflows if the business is to survive.

Why is cash flow so important? If the cash inflows exceed the cash outflows, the business can continue operations. If the cash outflows exceed the inflows, the business RUNS OUT OF CASH and grinds to a halt. Even if the imbalance is only for a short period, it can spell disaster.

Cash flow management does not need to be mysterious or complex. Managing cash is all about timing the inflows and outflows. Cash Flow Analysis starts the process. This can be as simple as going to your check book or accounting system and analyzing your receipts and disbursements over the past few months. A pattern is likely to emerge. What are the revenue sources, and how consistent are they from month to month? As well, what are the expenditures, and how repeatable are they from month to month? Next, look at the incoming revenue stream (Accounts Receivable) or your sales forecast to confirm and further predict cash inflows, and your Accounts Payables to build a pattern of required future disbursements. Match the two. Is there a positive or negative cash flow?

If there is a negative cash flow, the deficit needs to be covered from somewhere. There are two options. Spend less, or get more revenues. Even it the cash flow is positive, inspecting the individual elements may further improve operations. Are there cash inflows or outflows that can be changed?

Cash inflows can be increased by adding new outside cash (usually a limited or one-time option) or, more commonly, by offering a discount for cash payments or for accelerated payments on regular accounts receivable (so-called "quick pays"). Another option for businesses normally offering open account credit (which become the Accounts Receivable), is to offer credit cards instead. Today, even many corporate customers, including many agencies of the federal government, utilize credit cards for purchases to eliminate much internal paper work for themselves.

Cash outflows can often be reduced and/or delayed. They can be reduced by eliminating certain costs (Do you really need a …?) They can frequently be delayed by negotiating or taking longer payment times than you have observed in the past. Many smaller businesses pay their monthly bills (their Accounts Payable) more quickly than they need to in an effort to maintain a good credit rating. The primary criterion here, however, is not necessarily how quickly you pay, but the consistency with which you pay. If you are inclined to pay bills at the end of the month in which they were received, instead, establish a policy to pay 30 or 40 days after receipt. You will automatically gain the equivalent of one to three weeks spending as a one-time improvement in your cash balances, and may be better able to align outflows (expenditures) with inflows (receipts).

If you are coming from a finance background, this is definitely nothing new to you but if you are not, then here are some simple steps that you can take in order to start managing your Cash Flow with your business plan:

1. Set a period of 24 months as your scope of planning. If you can not breakeven within 24 months, I would recommend you to really reconsider whether you want to proceed with the business idea.
   
   
2. Forecast your monthly regular expenses with enough headroom for all unforeseeable items. You may just include an item called “Miscellaneous” if you do not have a clue for the time being.
   
   
3. Forecast your monthly sales with a progressive growth rate. You need to be extremely conservative in order to ensure you are not over promising yourself the sales revenue before you have real data to support these forecasts. You can always revise it up and evaluate when the plan seems to be working or after running the business for a period of time. One thing to note is that even you have sales orders in each month; you may only receive payment after 30 days (or more) depending on credit terms you give to your customers. Accounts Payables always tests a company’s finances.
   
   
4. Forecast your monthly sales cost in relation to the forecast sales. You have to bear in mind that sometimes higher sales volume means you have to increase labor; so labor costs or salaries have to rise proportionately.
   
   
5. Calculate monthly profit (or loss) by totaling up sales and subtract expenses and sales costs. You will instantly see on which month you start making profits. The initial months will mostly be negative figures (i.e. losses) until total sales are higher than the sum of expenses and sales costs (including cost of goods).

After doing the above steps, you now can probably answer the most important question before you start any new business. That is, how much cash or capital should you invest in order keeping your business running until profit starts to build up? It is a relatively simple calculation as you just need to add all your losses in the initial months together plus two to three months of regular expenses (and sales costs) to make up the total capital required for your new business investment.

For example, you estimate it will take eight months before you can make a profit from your new business and the total loss is Rs. 700,000 during this period. You also calculate your monthly expenses and sales costs to total Rs. 100,000. Then your minimum cash required to invest at the beginning should be no less than Rs. 700,000 + (Rs. 100,000 x 3) or Rs. 1,000,000.

It may sound very simple but as others will tell you, business is very dynamic and no two companies will experience exactly the same conditions. What is certain though is that dynamics of the market are the same and so be prepared for uncertainties. Still, it is extremely useful to do such exercise in order to have a quick reality check of your business idea. This is the very reason why I did not start up my business early in the process as I could not shorten the loss period to minimize my investment risk!

Understand what your own cash flow cycle is. This process will take time and thought - otherwise it won't work. It is essential to take time to experiment with combinations of different alternatives. A controlled cash flow, the end result of this process, will more than repay the time and effort given to it. In fact, it may save the life of the business - and the future of the owner/managers as well.

Run your business - don't let it run you. This is COMMON SENSE.

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The First 90 Days of an Entrepreneur

Ever wondered what being an entrepreneur is like? Go to this blog post at Yu-Kai Chou to see the "The First 90 Days of an Entrepreneur". It has a really funny video and some great tips on how to start your venture.

Excerpts from the post:

In most people’s minds, the hardest part about being an entrepreneur is starting. That’s actually not true. Starting is the easiest part and it just requires you to get off your butt and start doing things. You only think it’s the hardest part because that’s the part YOU are stuck on.

For that reason, here’s a little guide to help you get over that “but I don’t know how to start!” hurdle, so you will have no excuse not knowing how to start your company.

25 Common Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

Regardless of your definition of success, there are, oddly enough, a great number of common characteristics that are shared by successful businesspeople. You can place a check beside each characteristic that you feel that you possess. This way, you can see how you stack up. Even if you don't have all of these characteristics, don't fret. Most can be learned with practice and by developing a winning attitude, especially if you set goals and apply yourself, through strategic planning, to reach those goals in incremental and measurable stages.

Business Musts

Like any activity you pursue, there are certain musts that are required to be successful in a chosen activity. To legally operate a vehicle on public roadways, one must have a driver's license; to excel in sports, one must train and practice; to retire comfortably, one must become an informed investor and actively invest for retirement. If your goal is success in business, then the formula is no different. There are certain musts that have to be fully developed, implemented and managed for your business to succeed. There are many business musts, but this article contains I believe to be some of the more important musts that are required to start, operate and grow a profitable business.

1. Do what you enjoy.

What you get out of your business in the form of personal satisfaction, financial gain, stability and enjoyment will be the sum of what you put into your business. So if you don't enjoy what you're doing, in all likelihood it's safe to assume that will be reflected in the success of your business--or subsequent lack of success. In fact, if you don't enjoy what you're doing, chances are you won't succeed.

2. Take what you do seriously.

You cannot expect to be effective and successful in business unless you truly believe in your business and in the goods and services that you sell. Far too many home business owners fail to take their own businesses seriously enough, getting easily sidetracked and not staying motivated and keeping their noses to the grindstone. They also fall prey to naysayers who don't take them seriously.

3. Plan everything.

Planning every aspect of your business is not only a must, but also builds habits that every business owner should develop, implement, and maintain. The act of business planning is so important because it requires you to analyze each business situation, research and compile data, and make conclusions based mainly on the facts as revealed through the research. Business planning also serves a second function, which is having your goals and how you will achieve them, on paper. You can use the plan that you create both as map to take you from point A to Z and as a yardstick to measure the success of each individual plan or segment within the plan.

4. Manage money wisely.

The lifeblood of any business enterprise is cash flow. You need it to buy inventory, pay for services, promote and market your business, repair and replace tools and equipment, and pay yourself so that you can continue to work. Therefore, all business owners must become wise money managers to ensure that the cash keeps flowing and the bills get paid. There are two aspects to wise money management.

1. The money you receive from clients in exchange for your goods and services you provide (income)
   
   
2. The money you spend on inventory, supplies, wages and other items required to keep your business operating. (expenses)
   

5. Ask for the sale.

An entrepreneur must always remember that marketing, advertising, or promotional activities are completely worthless, regardless of how clever, expensive, or perfectly targeted they are, unless one simple thing is accomplished--ask for the sale. This is not to say that being a great salesperson, advertising copy writing whiz or a public relations specialist isn't a tremendous asset to your business. However, all of these skills will be for naught if you do not actively ask people to buy what you are selling.

6. Remember it's all about the customer.

Your business is not about the products or services that you sell. Your business is not about the prices that you charge for your goods and services. Your business is not about your competition and how to beat them. Your business is all about your customers, or clients, period. After all, your customers are the people that will ultimately decide if your business goes boom or bust. Everything you do in business must be customer focused, including your policies, warranties, payment options, operating hours, presentations, advertising and promotional campaigns and website. In addition, you must know who your customers are inside out and upside down.

7. Become a shameless self-promoter (without becoming obnoxious).

One of the greatest myths about personal or business success is that eventually your business, personal abilities, products or services will get discovered and be embraced by the masses that will beat a path to your door to buy what you are selling. But how can this happen if no one knows who you are, what you sell and why they should be buying?

Self-promotion is one of the most beneficial, yet most underutilized, marketing tools that the majority of business owners have at their immediate disposal.

8. Project a positive image.

You have but a passing moment to make a positive and memorable impression on people with whom you intend to do business. Business owners must go out of their way and make a conscious effort to always project the most professional business image possible. The majority of business owners do not have the advantage of elaborate offices or elegant storefronts and showrooms to wow prospects and impress customers. Instead, they must rely on imagination, creativity and attention to the smallest detail when creating and maintaining a professional image for their business.

9. Get to know your customers.

One of the biggest features and often the most significant competitive edge the entrepreneur has over the larger competitors is the he can offer personalized attention. Call it high-tech backlash if you will, but customers are sick and tired of hearing that their information is somewhere in the computer and must be retrieved, or told to push a dozen digits to finally get to the right department only to end up with voice mail--from which they never receive a return phone call.

The business owner can actually answer phone calls, get to know customers, provide personal attention and win over repeat business by doing so. It's a researched fact that most business (80 percent) will come from repeat customers rather than new customers. Therefore, along with trying to draw newcomers, the more you can do to woo your regular customers, the better off you will be in the long run and personalized attention is very much appreciated and remembered in the modern high tech world.

10. Level the playing field with technology.

You should avoid getting overly caught up in the high-tech world, but you should also know how to take advantage of using it. One of the most amazing aspects of the internet is that a one or two person business operating from a basement can have a superior website to a $50 million company, and nobody knows the difference. Make sure you're keeping up with the high-tech world as it suits your needs.. The best technology is that which helps you, not that which impresses your neighbors.

11. Build a top-notch business team.

No one person can build a successful business alone. It's a task that requires a team that is as committed as you to the business and its success. Your business team may include family members, friends, suppliers, business alliances, employees, sub-contractors, industry and business associations, local government and the community. Of course the most important team members will be your customers or clients. Any or all may have a say in how your business will function and a stake in your business future.

12. Become known as an expert.

When you have a problem that needs to be solved, do you seek just anyone's advice or do you seek an expert in the field to help solve your particular problem? Obviously, you want the most accurate information and assistance that you can get. You naturally seek an expert to help solve your problem. You call a plumber when the hot water tank leaks, a real estate agent when it's time to sell your home or a dentist when you have a toothache. Therefore, it only stands to reason that the more you become known for your expertise in your business, the more people will seek you out to tap into your expertise, creating more selling and referral opportunities. In effect, becoming known as an expert is another style of prospecting for new business, just in reverse. Instead of finding new and qualified people to sell to, these people seek you out for your expertise.

13. Create a competitive advantage.

A business must have a clearly defined unique selling proposition. This is nothing more than a fancy way of asking the vital question, "Why will people choose to do business with you or purchase your product or service instead of doing business with a competitor and buying his product or service?" In other words, what one aspect or combination of aspects is going to separate your business from your competition? Will it be better service, a longer warranty, better selection, longer business hours, more flexible payment options, lowest price, personalized service, better customer service, better return and exchange policies or a combination of several of these?

14. Invest in yourself.

Top entrepreneurs buy and read business and marketing books, magazines, reports, journals, newsletters, websites and industry publications, knowing that these resources will improve their understanding of business and marketing functions and skills. They join business associations and clubs, and they network with other skilled business people to learn their secrets of success and help define their own goals and objectives. Top entrepreneurs attend business and marketing seminars, workshops and training courses, even if they have already mastered the subject matter of the event. They do this because they know that education is an ongoing process. There are usually ways to do things better, in less time, with less effort. In short, top entrepreneurs never stop investing in the most powerful, effective and best business and marketing tool at their immediate disposal--themselves.

15. Be accessible.

We're living in a time when we all expect our fast food lunch at the drive-thru window to be ready in mere minutes, our dry cleaning to be ready for pick-up on the same day, our money to be available at the cash machine and our pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it's free. You see the pattern developing--you must make it as easy as you can for people to do business with you, regardless of the business you operate.

You must remain cognizant of the fact that few people will work hard, go out of their way, or be inconvenienced just for the privilege of giving you their hard-earned money. The shoe is always on the other foot. Making it easy for people to do business with you means that you must be accessible and knowledgeable about your products and services. You must be able to provide customers with what they want, when they want it.

16. Build a rock-solid reputation.

A good reputation is unquestionably one of the business owner's most tangible and marketable assets. You can't simply buy a good reputation; it's something that you earn by honoring your promises. If you promise to have the merchandise in the customer's hands by Wednesday, you have no excuse not to have it there. If you offer to repair something, you need to make good on your offer. Consistency in what you offer is the other key factor. If you cannot come through with the same level of service (and products) for clients on a regular basis, they have no reason to trust you . . . and without trust, you won't have a good reputation.

17. Sell benefits.

Pushing product features is for inexperienced or wannabe entrepreneurs. Selling the benefits associated with owning and using the products and services you carry is what sales professionals worldwide focus on to create buying excitement and to sell, sell more, and sell more frequently to their customers. Your advertising, sales presentations, printed marketing materials, product packaging, website, newsletters, trade show exhibit and signage are vital. Every time and every medium used to communicate with your target audience must always be selling the benefits associated with owning your product or using your service.

18. Get involved.

Always go out of your way to get involved in the community that supports your business. You can do this in many ways, such as pitching in to help local charities or the food bank, becoming involved in organizing community events, and getting involved in local politics. You can join associations and clubs that concentrate on programs and policies designed to improve the local community. It's a fact that people like to do business with people they know, like and respect, and with people who do things to help them as members of the community.

19. Grab attention.

Small-business owners cannot waste time, money and energy on promotional activities aimed at building awareness solely through long-term, repeated exposure. If you do, chances are you will go broke long before this goal is accomplished. Instead, every promotional activity you engage in, must put money back in your pocket so that you can continue to grab more attention and grow your business.

20. Master the art of negotiations.

The ability to negotiate effectively is unquestionably a skill that every business owner must make every effort to master. It's perhaps second in importance only to asking for the sale in terms of business musts. In business, negotiation skills are used daily. Always remember that mastering the art of negotiation means that your skills are so finely tuned that you can always orchestrate a win-win situation. These win-win arrangements mean that everyone involved feels they have won, which is really the basis for building long-term and profitable business relationships.

21. Design Your workspace for success.

Carefully plan and design your office workspace to ensure maximum personal performance and productivity and, if necessary, to project professionalism for visiting clients.

22. Get and stay organized.

The key to staying organized is not about which type of file you have or whether you keep a stack or two of papers on your desk, but it's about managing your business. It's about having systems in place to do things. Therefore, you wan to establish a routine by which you can accomplish as much as possible in a given workday, whether that's three hours for a part-time business or seven or nine hours as a full-timer. In fact, you should develop systems and routines for just about every single business activity. Small things such as creating a to-do list at the end of each business day, or for the week, will help keep you on top of important tasks to tackle. Creating a single calendar to work from, not multiple sets for individual tasks or jobs, will also ensure that jobs are completed on schedule and appointments kept. Incorporating family and personal activities into your work calendar is also critical so that you work and plan from a single calendar.

23. Take time off.

The temptation to work around the clock is very real for some business owners. After all, you don't have a manager telling you it's time to go home because they can't afford the overtime pay. Every person must take time to establish a regular work schedule that includes time to stretch your legs and take lunch breaks, plus some days off and scheduled vacations. Create the schedule as soon as you have made the commitment to start a business. Of course, your schedule will have to be flexible. You should, therefore, not fill every possible hour in the day. Give yourself a backup hour or two. All work and no play makes you burn out very fast and grumpy customer service is not what people want.

24. Limit the number of hats you wear.

It's difficult for most business owners not to take a hands-on approach. They try to do as much as possible and tackle as many tasks as possible in their business. The ability to multitask, in fact, is a common trait shared by successful entrepreneurs. However, once in a while you have to stand back and look beyond today to determine what's in the best interest of your business and yourself over the long run. Most highly successful entrepreneurs will tell you that from the time they started out, they knew what they were good at and what tasks to delegate to others.

25. Follow-up constantly.

Constant contact, follow-up, and follow-through with customers, prospects, and business alliances should be the mantra of every business owner, new or established. Constant and consistent follow-up enables you to turn prospects into customers, increase the value of each sale and buying frequency from existing customers, and build stronger business relationships with suppliers and your core business team. Follow-up is especially important with your existing customer base, as the real work begins after the sale. It's easy to sell one product or service, but it takes work to retain customers and keep them coming back.

How Do You Find Your Passion and How Do You Pursue It?

Instead of thinking about the passion, expalins Komisar, free yourself to think of a portfolio of passions. Marry this portfolio with the opportunities in front of you, he says. Think of it as a quest towards which you are moving in the right direction, he adds.

Reid Hoffman (Linked In) Tells Charlie Rose: “Every Individual Is Now An Entrepreneur.”

Reid Hoffman is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. He worked at Paypal, founded LinkedIn, and invested in dozens more.

Last night, he appeared on Charlie Rose, where he talks about the rise of social networking in general, and LinkedIn’s success in particular (it is adding one million professionals every 17 days and is emerging as a “low cost provider of really good hiring services”).

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10128

Kalpana Saroj - India's original Slumdog Billionaire

You could call her India's real life slumdog billionaire. Kalpana Saroj, a Dalit woman who broke social shackles and left her ramshackle home in the poorest part of her village 26 years ago to begin life afresh, today heads a Rs.3 billion (Rs.300 crore/$60 million) business enterprise.

From the daughter of a Dalit police havaldar in Vidarbha's Akola district to chairmanship of a Rs68 crore company, it has been an eventful journey for Kalpana Saroj. To her credit is the revival of the defunct Kamani Tubes Limited.

Today, Saroj presides over her building construction, sugar, steel and brass-tubes manufacture business. She has no elitist education or background to speak of, yet the wall behind her table has photographs of her with international celebrities. Among them is a photo of her first meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Her life is indeed a saga of struggle, hard work and resultant success. Married off at 12 to a 22-year-old man, Saroj fled the violence of abusive in-laws within months of her marriage and returned to her parents in village Ruparkheda. She resolved to complete her schooling and "make something of her life".

She tried joining the police force at age 13, but failed. Downcast, she tried her hand at nursing, tailoring and other odd jobs but only succeeded in antagonising the villagers by these attempts 'to step beyond her social boundaries'.

Finally, at 22, she left Ruparkheda for Mumbai. She married again, but in 1989, her husband died. All that she inherited was an ailing steel-cupboard manufacture business. By sheer dint of effort, the mother-of-two revived the sick firm. One thing led to another. Saroj dabbled with politics, started a construction company, made profits, bought sugar and steel mills and determined her own path to prosperity.

In 2002, she saw workers at the defunct Kamani Tubes Limited dying of poverty and sickness. In March 2006, she bid for and bought the company with accumulated debts of Rs160 crore including unpaid wages of Rs 50 crore.

"I have seen poverty. I have risen out of it myself. So I was confident I could improve their lot," says Saroj.

"The government had given Saroj madam three years to pay our accumulated wages of Rs50 crore. She paid them off in three months and added an ex-gratia payment of Rs2.40 crore towards PF and wages till date," says Govind Khatmol, secretary, Kamani Kamgar AU Sahkari Society.

Knowing that money paid in instalments was no good to anyone, Saroj convinced a group of financiers to pay off the workers' dues at one go. "I thought if each man received a lakh or two, he could put it to good use," says Saroj, who is as earthy as they come. Her only concession to vanity is gold ornaments which set off her no-nonsense attire with élan. Saroj has done her share of social work. She speaks with obvious pleasure of her visit to Kargil to encourage the jawans. "Saroj was ready to join the war, but it ended the very next morning. She became the good-luck mascot of the Maratha Regiment," says Manu Gore, her friend and business partner.

Saroj draws her strength from her roots, her painful past and simplicity of Buddhism. "Buddhism says, find your own path. Experience, and then accept it," she says.

Turnaround tale

In 2002, Saroj offered to buy the sick Kamani Tubes Private Ltd, once a brand leader in non-ferrous tubes.

The company had suffered since 1975 with internecine feuds and litigation. Working long hours at half pay took its toll on the 566 company workers. The company finances deteriorated further. In early 1997, Kamani Tubes ceased production. Ninety-three workers died of penury.

On March 21, 2006, Saroj bought the company. Between June 15 to 18, 2006, she paid off workers' dues and provident fund claims and even gave them ex-gratia payments.

Social Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are essential drivers of innovation and progress. In the business world, they act as engines of growth, harnessing opportunity and innovation to fuel economic advancement. Social entrepreneurs act similarly, tapping inspiration and creativity, courage and fortitude, to seize opportunities that challenge and forever change established, but fundamentally inequitable systems.

Distinct from a business entrepreneur who sees value in the creation of new markets, the social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of transformational change that will benefit disadvantaged communities and ultimately society at large. Social entrepreneurs pioneer innovative and systemic approaches for meeting the needs of the marginalized, the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised – populations that lack the financial means or political clout to achieve lasting benefit on their own.

Throughout history, such individuals have introduced solutions to seemingly intractable social problems, fundamentally improving the lives of countless individuals by changing the way critical systems operate. Florence Nightingale and Maria Montessori offer two prominent historical examples. Muhammad Yunus, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, is a more recent example. He began offering microloans to impoverished people in Bangladesh in 1976, thereby empowering them to become economically self-sufficient and proving the microcredit model that has now been replicated around the world.

While social entrepreneurship isn’t a new concept, it has gained renewed currency in a world characterized by a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots. With this heightened visibility, social entrepreneurs at the forefront of the movement are distinguishing themselves from other social venture players in terms of ultimate impact.

One example is social entrepreneur Bunker Roy, who created the Barefoot College in rural communities in India to train illiterate and semiliterate men and women, whose lack of educational qualifications keeps them mired in poverty. Today Barefoot College graduates include teachers, health workers and architects who are improving communities across India, including 450 "barefoot" engineers who have installed and maintain solar-electrification systems in 547 villages that reach nearly 100,000 people.

Another example is Ann Cotton, who started the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) in 1993 to achieve the simple goal of ensuring an education for young girls in Africa whose families cannot afford school fees. By establishing a sustainable model that provides community support for girls to go to school, start businesses and return to their communities as leaders, CAMFED has broken the cycle of poverty for hundreds of thousands of young women in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania. In 2006 alone, more than 300,000 children benefited from education programs supported by a network of more than 5,100 young women who have themselves benefited from CAMFED-supported education and microfinance programs.

These and other social entrepreneurs are solution-minded pragmatists who are not afraid to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems. They recognize the extraordinary potential in the billions of poor people who inhabit the planet, and they are absolutely committed to helping them use their talents and abilities to achieve their potential. Social entrepreneurs use inspiration, creativity, courage, fortitude and, most importantly, direct action, to create a new reality – a new equilibrium – that results in enduring social benefit and a better future for everyone.

Think Like An Entrepreneur

You take the steps to put yourself out there, talk to other entrepreneurs about what opportunities are available, you do your due diligence and you end up finding the opportunity that you believe can take you where you want to be in life – whatever that may look like for you. You find out what it takes to get started including costs, what your next steps are, and have everything laid out in front of you and are ready to take the leap.

Then something happens. Your mind wanders and gets cluttered in endless chatter, and you get a severe case of the”what ifs”. You freeze, and end up going back to your safe life.

Crisis averted. What were you thinking anyway?

I’ll tell you what you were thinking – “There is no way that I have the time or resources to do this.”

It is that type of thinking that keeps many people stuck in their lives.

Successful entrepreneurs, regardless of the nature of their business, what their startup costs are or any other circumstance, employ an entirely different type of thinking – instead of thinking why they can’t do it, successful entrepreneurs think about how they can do it.

I hope you get that, because it is absolutely the biggest difference I see in those who make it and those who don’t.

The people who stay stuck can only see the obstacles in their way. They focus on anything and everything that could or might go wrong and they succumb to their fears. And they go back to what is comfortable for them.

Successful entrepreneurs know that being successful is all about being
uncomfortable. They see obstacles as challenges. They are busy figuring what stone they can turn and how they can move heaven and earth to get to where they want to go. know there will be challenges. However, successful entrepreneurs also know that their grit, determination, and desire to succeed can push them to overcome anything that comes in their path.

The key here is that you shouldn’t feel comfortable unless you are feeling uncomfortable. How can you grow if you keep doing the same thing, the “safe” thing?

You can’t.

Successful entrepreneurs do things that make them uncomfortable, and that make their palms sweat, because they know that the reward is absolutely worth whatever risk they are taking.

So the next time opportunity knocks at your door, open it wide. Welcome it. Treat it as your best friend.

Know that there will be challenges, as there are with anything worth having. But instead of being backed into a corner with your hands over your face, come out swinging.

Believe in yourself and your ability to overcome anything that presents itself as an obstacle. Figure out how you are going to make yourself into the next success story instead of why you won’t become the next success story.

Teenager techie set for his fourth book release

One of India's youngest cyber wizards and "ethical hacker" Sahil Khan is now getting ready for the release of his fourth book. Sixteen-year-old Sahil has achieved a lot. He has invented nine computer games and written three books on computer sciences, making him one of the youngest people in the country to have published on the subject.

"My fourth book 'Tricks of Email Hacking' is ready for release this month," Sahil said.

Sahil, nicknamed 'Indian Einstein' by a section of the electronic media, invented nine computer games when he was 13 and wrote his first book on computer hacking a year later.

"When I made my first game at home I told mother, but she was not excited, thinking it would just be a petty thing. Later she realised when my teacher told her. Soon the school formally announced it and I got an award from Newspapers in Education (NIE)," Sahil said.

Sahil, a humble and soft-spoken teenager, did not attend any professional course in computer science and he also did not own a personal computer until recently. His first interaction with computers began when he learnt internet chatting with his father.

"Since then he got interested in gaming on computers and though we did not have enough money to buy a computer, soon somehow I managed to buy him a PC on instalments," said Sahil's mother Atiya Suleman.

Sahil, a student of Class 10 at Harcourt Butler Sr. Secondary School, however, doesn't bask in his achievements and feels that every person has some special quality which needs to be pursued at the right time. What are his plans for the future?

"For now my main focus is on board examinations and then I will try to get into an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and become a cyber expert of repute," Sahil said.

Sahil's first book "Hackers and Crackers", which was published by ABC, was launched by Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal.

The second part of "Hackers and Crackers" was published by Diamond Publications and was launched by Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury.

"We have published two editions of 'Hackers and Crackers' in 10 months. This is a very helpful book and we have been getting an overwhelming response; so now we are translating this book into Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Tamil. The other book 'The Anatomy of Computer Viruses' has been a favourite among people," said Narender Verma, owner of Diamond Publications.

Sahil has also come in for praise from computer experts.

"Sahil's books give great grounding for any common man to understand the problem of computer viruses and computer hacking. This book can be a great help for the readers to protect their computers from virus attacks and hacking. Computer viruses are, however, a very vast area of study which has a number of complex aspects and some of them are not included," said Ahmad Kamal, a lecturer in computer science at Jamia Millia University.

Sir Richard Branson in drag – Virgin America lands in Boston

Marketing genius, Branson, still manages to have fun!!!



Check out the video above and the photos below for all the delightful hoopla. Virgin will be flying three daily roundtrips between LA and Boston and two daily roundtrips between San Francisco and Boston with Wi-Fi on every flight and fares starting at $109.

Social Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Social Marketing

If you own or manage a small business, there’s no reason to feel inadequate if you don’t understand the need for social marketing. How would you? For many small businesses, the design and content of their website dates back to the days when businesses just wanted to have a site because they were told that it was important.

A “Webmaster” — as they were called back in those days — took your information and turned it into a website, and your involvement didn’t extend much beyond paying for it.

Those old “online brochure” websites sprang up everywhere during the late 1990s, and while you may have had a new design or two since then, it’s much more competitive now, isn’t it?

How Businesses Compete Online in the 21st Century

It’s already become clear that social marketing will be one of the most important factors in the online success of 21st century small businesses. If you’re determined to excel in your online competitive environment, you’ll begin to commit some of your time and creative energy to it. For small businesses and organizations, this commitment doesn’t need to involve significant financial outlay, but it will take time that is well spent.

A significant number of major corporations have already committed themselves to Web 2.0 Internet strategies. We’re talking about Bank of America, Boeing, FedEx, General Motors, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, and Wells Fargo, for example.

Many (but by no means all) large corporations have been aware of Web 2.0 — particularly social marketing — since the beginning of this century. Their marketing, advertising, and public relations professionals discovered some years ago that “offline marketing” can no longer take their companies where they need to go.

Small businesses don’t need to think about the whole range of Web 2.0 strategies, but you need to start understanding the basics of social marketing right now. A small business that wants a successful website cannot ignore social marketing, especially if you’re in a competitive business or market.

What Social Marketing Means for Businesses

Social marketing can drive much more traffic to your site than you could reasonably expect if you’re only concerned about search engine optimization.

Social marketing involves a long-term commitment to establishing and nurturing mutually-beneficial online relationships that will help you improve your products and services, strengthen your reputation, and drive traffic to your site that you may otherwise have to concede to your competitors.

Social Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

After the fundamentals are in place and your new business website has been launched, you have to make your “static” website come alive. There are now ways to get much more traffic on your site than you could ever expect if your only concern is search engine optimization. You can:

• establish or upgrade a blog that is associated with your company’s website and use it to strengthen your site’s position as a trusted authority.
  
  
• use your blog to let your customers collaborate with you as you expand and improve your products and services; their user-generated content — contributions including the comments and suggestions they add to your blog postings — can give you value as well as cash as they become part of a community that you establish.
  
  
• initiate and nurture online relationships with bloggers and others who are in a position to influence your target audiences because they specialize in the kinds of products and services you offer.
  
  
• submit your best website content and blog posts to social bookmarking and content-sharing sites — to share what you know about your products and services and to call attention to the authoritative information you’re offering.
  
  
• begin to participate in and contribute to social networking communities intelligently, creatively, generously, and honestly.

Entrepreneurs: Win cool prizes in Doing Business in Bathrobe Day Contest!

I wanted to let you know about a fun holiday I participate in every year called Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Day. This is the 7th annual celebration of this awesome holiday celebrating the freedom and ingenuity of entrepreneurs around the globe!

Here’s how YOU can participate in this fun holiday!

1) Enter to win cool prizes
2) Submit their press release to your local paper and get free pr for your business
3) Send in pics of you working in your bathrobe. They’ll post it and give you a link back to your website.

Join the fun at www.businessinyourbathrobeday.com

The 100 Daily Must-Reads for Entrepreneurs

A compilation of 100 highly informative sites. Take a look at what they have to say and see how they can help you grow your business.

The Crossword Bookstore story

In the late-1980 s, a college student threw caution and a destined engineering degree to the winds and landed a job with the Landmark bookstore in Madras. He thought he would last there for all of three months. But as the line goes ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’ , and he went on to build one of India’s most successful bookstore chains. In the case of R Sriram, the former founder CEO of Crossword, fact is stranger than the fiction that lines the bookshelves at Crossword.

Today, the chain that he helped set up is perhaps India’s biggest book retailer . Before Crossword, there were well known bookshops — HigginBothams in Bangalore, Strand in Mumbai, Om in Delhi to name but a few. However none of them had a national presence.

The chain was born from the recognition of the fact that like many other categories in those days, even this had plenty of potential. Says Sriram, “Book retailing had served, underserved and unserved customers. We saw a huge opportunity in the underserved and unserved segments.” Today that goal has been achieved and standardisation is one of the biggest reasons for their success.

Sivaraman Balakrishnan, marketing head, Crossword points out that today a consumer irrespective of the city that he visits will be treated to the same shopping experience . He says, “Across formats our brand experience of educate, entertain and enlighten are the same.”

Back then, though, in a scenario where books were sold through outlets that were tiny and consumers bought them much like they bought medicines at drugstores (going with a prescription), there was a lot of ground to be covered. Attractive display was a far-fetched concept and the only bookstores that gave customers room to free their arms were the ones in five star hotels.

To be successful, therefore, a national chain would have to reinvent and remarket the very idea of a bookshop as consumers saw it. Luckily for Sriram, he found a backer for the concept in publishers India Book House putting the seed capital and more importantly give him real estate in the form of their vacant first floor office space in Mumbai at Mahalaxmi.

The name was supposed to be Crosswords , because it signifies fun and learning. However legend has it that a numerologist said that the name was unlucky and there was talk of a name change. Sriram though intervened and suggested the dropping of the ‘s’ , and so the name Crossword came into being. The store was launched on August 15 in 1992.

In many ways, right from its inception the chain broke the rules. The property was not on the ground floor, not easily accessible, no parking space and was a ‘U’ shaped space with many pillars. The entrepreneurs decided to look at the advantages rather than moan about the deficiencies . It was on the same street that housed iconic Mumbai stores like Amarsons and Benzer and hence likely to attract upmarket shoppers. It was decided that consumers would be treated to unique shopping experience in a shop that was trendy and hip. The bookstore decided to appeal to mothers and children.

It set up dedicated sections for children, a concept that was unheard of in the bookstores that were around. That risk paid off, with children contributing about 35 per cent of sales and 25 per cent of the volumes. The store also took some innovative steps like keeping the children’s section at the farther end of the store.

As a result, parents accompanying children would end up viewing the entire range of offerings while taking children to the section . Also introduced was the concept of book reading sessions for kids. The investment has paid off and today the kids section has grown bigger and better . Says Sukanya Kripalu, CEO, Sukanya Consulting, a Mumbai-based brand consultancy, “With other avenues like television and gaming fighting for the child’s attention, there’s a feeling among mothers that reading has got compromised. By addressing concerns like these, the brand has become much more than a bookstore.”

It also was the first bookstore to have seating spaces where customers could actually sit and read an entire book with no questions asked — a welcome break from the surreptitious reading at bookstores that customers were used to. To ensure that customers spent more time, Crossword set up a coffee store within the outlet and also provided space for rest-rooms . And on the customer’s bill, it offered a term that surprised many: ‘Books once sold WILL be taken back’ .

Over the years more innovations have taken place such as free home delivery, flexible gift vouchers (consumers could get credits on the remaining amount of their gift vouchers) and a thriving loyalty program. As a conscious policy, the store does not offer discounts , other than at the time of its annual sale.

It further put its neck out with the ‘Sriram recommends’ (now called Crossword recommends ) section, wherein consumers could buy the book and avail of a refund if they did not like the book, no questions asked. Book reading sessions with authors have now become commonplace inside the store. All this summed up in creating a brand experience that could be solely associated with the brand. Now, with Shoppers Stop owning a majority stake in the chain, it’s now spread across 12 cities with 52 outlets in three formats.

So while it does have a national footprint, there is still some distance to go before it can emulate say a Barnes and Noble. “The concept and the execution have been good. The trick is how to bring scale to this model,” says Kripalu. Crossword for its part is innovating on store size to gain further ground. While the flagship store of Crossword in a city is above 12,000 sq ft, brand stores are in the 5,000-7 ,500 sq ft range and corner stores set at gas stations are in the 500-2 ,000 sq ft range. It has also chosen to set up a shopwithin-shop inside Shoppers Stop outlets .

Balakrishnan believes that the various formats help the brand get closer to consumers. He points out that a market like Mumbai has 17 Crossword’s , while Pune has 11 stores. Says Balakrishnan, “The formats make Crossword a neighbourhood store.” Market observers however feel that there is still some way to go. They argue that Crossword has to offer more than one flagship store in big markets like Mumbai as the belief is that the brand’s equity among customers shopping at the flagship store might be quite different from others shopping at the suburban outlets. One could also argue that in cities like Kolkata and Chennai, it’s Oxford and Landmark respectively which are the big boys of the bookworld. Either ways it would seem that we are a long way from reading the last word in this book saga.