Consultative Selling

This is a training I attended as a part Skills course last week at LBS.
It was quite interesting and we were told to understand the type of the person to whom we are selling to. There are 4 types of people namely :

1. Analytical
2. Amiable
3. Controller and
4. Enthusiast.

Analytical people are quire thinkers and believe in factual data. So when you are trying to sell to them be ready with the facts, data and research reports.

Amiable people are friendly and will be bridging and will expect a long lasting relationships.

Controllers are slow decision makers based on analysis, data and facts. You need to provide bullet points and get confirmation from them on thier interests.

Enthusiasts are people who like imagining. If you are selling to an enthusiast use phrsases like ' Imagine you are using this tool and it will increase your revenue by many folds, etc etc'

So the basic idea is to understand the buyer before you discuss with them. This is consultative selling or customer oriented selling.

If I talk to a marketing guy, he would say that this is obvious - as a seller you have understand the needs and design the accordingly.

Is Greed Good ?

Well, not exactly but it depends on what you are after. Many of my friends including me have settled in a decent job with a decent pay. Moreover, with a bit of a luck we are now working in the western country which gives you a good work-life balance unlike it is in India where the more you show that you are working the better will be your rapport with your manager and better the pay.

Ok, now we know where we are and always, always and always want to go move up a bit higher in terms of position, salary, power, etc, etc... I know this is not greed but to avoid complacency we strive to grow. Our needs tend to keep growing time goes and so is our family, our pass time activities etc which is why again we strive to be even better wanting to grow.

This seems to be a vicious circle and are we ever going to come out of it ? are we ever going to be satisfied and whole heartedly happy with what we have without wanting more beyond our needs and reach ? And at this point will I/we stop aiming to be more better than what I am now because I already have what I need ?

So is Greed the basic reason for us to strive harder and be better at things ? May be - as I said before we need to define Greed here - wanting to have more than what you actually need - luxury, comfort, etc - for example the latest and greatest cool gadgets, exotic holidays, sports car and to buy things that we like even without seeing the price tag.

But in the journey we sometimes forget to give back something to the society or less priveleged people. If we can do it directly and if it reaches the needy in addition to satisfying our comforts I would say greed is good..

The more you earn - the more you spend - the more you give - the more you will strive to earn more. We should not forget "the more you give" part which "I think" makes greed good.

Beautiful White All around!!

On the way to work all the tree and plants were covered with snow.. it was as if somebody threw some white powder everywhere...it was so beautiful.

Crispy cold fresh air with this beautiful scenary - life is sometime worth it !!

Place : Chippenham, UK

Change

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The SPEAKERS

Watched this program on BBC iPlayer last night and was quite impressed with it. Hoping to watch the next episode tonight. I am not sure how long the video will be hosted in BBC iPlayer (about a month or so..) but it is worth watching it. The kids are just amazing and with the level of exposure they have these days they would soon outperform us in all fields.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00k1ww3/The_Speaker_Episode_5/

Happy Tamil New Year - 2008

First of all, may this new year bring happiness,porsperity and peace all lives in this universe.

Waking up to soemthing new is always interesting. Running mundane tasks, living a mechanical life is really boring and uninteresting for anyone, though some less expect changes but definitely welcome changes on a postive side. A thought all of a sudden popped up in my mind to invite Maha,Vidhya and Rahul for dinner tonight. Though it was a bit surprise for them Maha and Vidhya accepted the offer immediately. But Rahul had a bit tough situation and so he was unable to make it. I was all in good mood and tried to plan an interesting menu so that it would make the home food deprived people a good chance to taste my menu. Infact I had already started to prepare sambar by the time I called them. I know Potato curry is a favouite dish for anyone in India. So I decided to make a pulao (using green peas and coconut milk), potato curry and as Maha demanded I soad urad dal to make vada rathaer I should say bonda just because it could be of any shape.

I had just made my grocery shopping from ASDA and hence had most of teh stuff at home. But there were a couple of items that I had to buy. So I rushed to the tesco express at chesterton road to grab some crisps, yogurt, peppers and oil. They were supposed to start at around 4 PM from Reading so that they would reach cambridge at around 6.30 - 7.00. I thought we could have a good chat before dinenr and enjoy the dinner and may be catch up with a movie. So I headed to prepare the Pulao, boiled the potatoes. But when I received a call from Vidhya it was around 6.50 PM and they were at Kings Cross and the train had just started for Cambridge. It would take about an hour to reach cambridge and 10 mins from the station to my home. So I expected them around 8.15 PM.

I prepared teh potato curry, raita and started the bondas when they arrived. They were damn hungry that they reached the dining table and we started our dinner. They were very happy atleast that's the expression that I saw in their faces. After dinner we watched some videos in you tube and had a chat before we hit the bed at around 1 AM.

I am planinng to get the metal dice from India this time so that we could play dayakaatai when we all meet. It would be a great time pass.

And today, is an ususal monday morning but teh difference was that Maha and Vidhya were here. Maha made scrambled eggs and vidhya used teh left over dough to make some more vadas for teh morining so tahtw e could have that woith the sambar.
I booked teh taxi for them back to train station.

I should have called them on friday or saturday...but the happiness and sharung is more when we meet for a short time rather than for 2 long days. May be I should organise a 2 day trip to some interesting place in UK during teh long weekend in May.

Mastana 2008

Last weekend I had been to Corn Exchange to see Mastana 2008. The show was by Britain Born teenagers from Indian origin. It was quite a mix of Bollywood,Kollywod mostly and with a Trukish troop performing belly dance. It was quite entertaining and I got reminded of my school Annual days which used to start at 8 PM with dance,dramas in languages like english,tamil and hindi and would go on till midnight. Infact Mastana was like a school annual day. The uni student here performed the shows. Though some programmes was not really good - may be due to insufficient practice. One such program was the Rahman's songs. There were a couple of obvious mistakes they made and I think they would definitely improvise on these areas.
The guy who danced for Prabhu Deva's songs was really amazing. Wonderful dance dude!
With a majority of North Indian population here in cambridge and surrounding areas it was a pleasant surprise for me to see a Bharathanatyam performance and 'Thunbam Nergayil' song sung by a girl. Good job guys and gals. You have really got a very good potential and good that you guys are trying to learn something. Kudos the the kids' parents !
There was snacks served during teh interval. A box with dhokla,samosa,bonda,potato chips and a sweet. Good one! I am infact looking forward to more Indian based programmes in Corn exchange and would love to attend them!

Again with a Bang!

Not blogged for a long time now. So many confusions and I wont say I was a bit occupied but I was definitely lazy. So many thing running onmy mind right now.
I was also preparing my application for another business school and was regualrly chatting with my friend for reviewing my essays. At work, I am moving to a new division (infact most of us from the current division are moving to another divison) - organisation wide restructuring. This has borught in deadlines sooner and have to complete the tasks assigned by the ned of this month.

I think I have a lot of free time but I feel I am highly unorganised and as a result I am not utuilising my free time effectively. What results if you are free - An idle mind is a devil's workshop - rightly said. Thinking of something that is unnecessary started bothering me. Now I have started to work out for a longer time so that I keep myself occupied.

I am thinking of ways in which I could effectively use my spare time.

Reading is one best thing - but unfortunately if I take up a novel - it doesnt matter how interestign it is I would fall asleep after flipping through a couple of pages. So here are the other alternatives that I am trying to propose.

1. Gym - work out
Benfits : Physical fitness and alleviate stress - overall mental health.

2. Visiting places/window shopping - Just time pass
Benefits - go around and have a change in environment
Cons : Just waste of time soemtimes.

3. Music - Cant keep hearing fr a long time.

4. Cooking - Relaxing and brings up new thoughts - Refreshing

5. Swimming - same as working out.

6. Movies - ateast 3-4 new movies in a month

7. Travelling - Cant do every weekend - once in a quarter is feasible.

8. Meeting friends.

9. Learn something - but what ?????? may be tamil poems/painting

10. Blog about somehing/somebody/events/incidents/analysis everyday - sounds good !!!