Saturday, February 16, 2013

MIS And Feedback

....
Ha-ha. Does the pic seems funny to you?  It does to me. Now, if you are  thinking that ' the bastard is about to go in a long, sanctimonious lecture, again..Help :-) Lol!
 You need not be scared. I just want to tell you or "share with you" something about "Management Information Systems" and their role in Indian Companies.

Let us analyze what Mr. Boss is doing on top of the arrow. The conversation may be something like this.
Boss: Nope! I don't like it.Somehow alters the view ; aesthetic point of view. Not that I expect you bummers even to know what "Aesthetic" means.You people do not know what a good sales view is. Put me the...ere, instead.
Engineer #8: ( sotto voice) Does he mean that his bum is aesthetic, considering that's what we see almost all the time?
Engineer #7: ( sotto voice) Ha-ha; good one dude but keep your voice low

         A very important system in an organization which can result in an organization being buried  and failing woefully or rising up from the ashes, sphinx like, is MIS. What is MIS? MIS or management information system is the system available in your organization through which information flows, not gossip, not political diatribe but positive information. Business Information which does good for your company.

When the MNC's first arrived in India, we were optimistic that we were going to see some good management practices, after all. But nothing happened like that. The amalgamation of Indo-European Management thinking, literally made sales people account for every minute of your time. There is a particular MNC in Noida, where even branch managers have to fill out timing..Now, I believe that filling up a form where you are required to mention the waiting time too is absurd.( There is a journey time, a waiting time, a meeting time and a miscellaneous time)
There are plenty of reasons why this is absurd but my main bone of contention is that the minute someone is asked to do that, he or she ceases to be loyal soldiers of the commander-in-chief, if they comply.They instead become hear and doers, they become "yesman"-that creative spark inside them fizzles out and the challenge of capital equipment selling becomes a dodo.

        Well, a kangaroo lady I know and plenty of other departmental heads will not understand that. They'll say "  we are paying you big bucks man, this is the least you can do for us. They then proceed to tell you what to do and at the end of the year they ask what happened to you. Hey lady..back off. You want to place responsibility on me with you taking all the decisions? This is not acceptable at all. These lapses all the more important in capital equipment selling where there are few orders and less players. You gotta speak up for your rights.

         This is a tragedy. Today we have one of the best inventories for minds if not the best and look where we are going, in comparison to the Chinese-next door. Say you are Fernando Torres and the coach tells you that he must score a hat trick. A hat-trick has to be made irrespective of the side of the field where the goals are to be scored. So, Torres finds the going tough and ultimately score his hat-trick against his own team. 



Torres scoring for Chelsea against Sunderland while Juan Mata looks on.








     You must be in splits by now now...but these things do happen. Look around in your office, and you'll find the same happening day-in and day-out. Therefore, in selling capital equipment, let your team the freedom to think for themselves as per their capabilities. Take stock in weekly sales meetings. Gather all information and link it together to get information about new projects. Tell them what to do and why they should do it.

Do not tell them to do something without any explanations. For this indirectly tells him that you don't trust him. And lack of trust is one of the greatest demotivators -in the field of B2B direct selling of high value capital equipment. 
with love
friends
Bilbo.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

See this : Arnie as Darth Vader

Hi Friends,

I just want to post this now. Recd it about 5 minutes back from Arnie

@ Scharwzeneggar..I can't believe this pal. Thanks ad infinitum



Friday, December 14, 2012

On Persuasion and "Win-Win" Arrangements



Confusion regards sales terms

< meta name= 'keywords" content = capital equipment, sales, selling, persuation, persuasive selling, capital equipment selling>





When I started off in sales after spending about three years at site, the one advice people would give me was “ you have to be persuasive”..with the wisdom of a Zen-master .Accordingly, I thought to myself 'gotta be persuasive dude' and "Aal-eez-Well", but there was a spanner in the works,as usual. 

"What’s 'being persuasive'? How do you be persuasive?" were some questions which baffled dumb 'ol me.When I asked, the Zen-masters just smiled a-sort-of-Zen-master smile and uterred wisdom like “ find it out for yourself” or similar words to that effect. The advice-givers are never generous with definitions, as you may be aware. 


However, then I found out when once a person has made up his mind, it is difficult to get him to change his mind. I  was mainly getting my results with my personality, my ability to make friends, my lack of ego at my job hours ( but man I had an ego a mile long after office -I had to do a lot of struggling to realize ..or correction make my CPU realize that the world does not revolve around me-but that's another story).Finally, I decided that persuasion is what precedes aggresion, but I was not happy.
By then there were young people under me and I told them the same thing, crossing one more generation, without any definitions-of course. I had made up my mind by then that persuading is gentle aggression. I was not completely sure but then, no other definitions came to mind. About 10 days back, I came upon this definition in a book in the British Library here, which in my opinion, is superb and exactly conveys what ‘being persuasive’ can mean in sales. I thought therefore I‘d share it, for a change, being in a good mood.
This definition  gives you four approaches all based on the ‘win-lose’ sales concept of situations, which are as under


     1.Unimpressive approach: lose-lose

    2.  Timid approach: You win-I lose.

     3 .     Aggressive approach: You lose –I win

     4.   Persuasive approach: You win-I win


 This impressed the hell out of me, cos it makes perfect sense.Hope you think it is helpful.

 Now, I thought like crazy but could not recall the author. So, if he or she is reading this, thank you for a concept so brilliantly explained.Superb clarity of words and thought. Now I know what to tell my subordinates next time anyone asks me how to be  persuasive.!!
Wishing you lots of profitable selling
Best Regards from

Bilbo.