Thursday, April 1, 2021

No more product sales, the future is about solving the problem - SPIN Selling

Selling now is first to understand the problem, not always what the salesman sees first is the problem, unless we dig deep with 4Ws and 1H we would never know what the PROBLEM is. 

Take the example of vacuum cleaners, 10 to 20 years back of we need to buy a vacuum cleaner, we would go to a store meet the salesman who knows more about the product and get a demo. During that period, we had less competition, you end up purchasing that vacuum cleaner.

But now we can go online and check and compare multiple vacuum cleaners, select the one that suits us, check reviews on Amazon, post on Twitter and Facebook to my friends and followers to share their feedback about the product before purchase. Once we are through with our research, only then we start comparing the costs on multiple e-commerce websites and purchase from the one that gives us the maximum discount.

But imagine a scenario, when a sales or solution expert drives deep to understand why I need a vacuum cleaner, this can be either for

1 - Cleaning the carpet, as it keeps on accumulating dust regularly.

2 - Clean glass sliding windows.

3 - Clean the ceiling, as difficult for my hand to reach.

3 - Clean sofa

Now going deep to understand the problem, which might lead the salesperson to give a better solution to the customer. This might be offering house cleaning services, which might be cheaper than the cost of the vacuum cleaner or joining a neighborhood club where all members pool white goods and use it once a month or end up buying a new carpet cover that doesn't let the dust settle in the carpet.

The new age Salesperson should drill and question the customer to understand the exact problem, rather than just give the solution.

Find the right problem to solve, what is important?

As per the study, physicians interrupted the patient in the first 18 secs of discussion, if you do not understand the problem, how can you prescribe the right dose of medicine.

Listening without intimation is not listening. We stop interrupting and wait for 15-sec before you reply.

Use 'Yes and Instead' instead of 'and but'

This helps to engage and drive the customer to explain their problem with all the information, this can be with his real-life problems and how he/she is dealing with them. This will help the salesperson to arrive at a solution along with the customer. Customer been part of the solution creation process, it helps to have better buying to increase in usage of the solution. 

This article is based on the book, SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham






Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Time to Play: Indian Toy market, a late entrant, but has immense opportunities with growing market

The Indian toy market is approximately ₹16,000 crore, of which 75% are imported from China. While the Indian toy market is largely disorganized and comprises wholesalers, importers, and manufacturers. It is very price-sensitive also. 

Nevertheless, with the recent “#MakeInIndia” momentum, Indian’s are more aware of buying toys manufactured in India. But been very late entrants in this industry which lacks both experienced manpower and investments. 

I really appreciate the work done by some Indian toy designers and manufacturers towards creating their own unique niche.  Here are a couple of Indian startups and companies.

  1. PlayShifu by Dinesh Advani
  2. Kreative Kids International by Sharad Kapoor
  3. Toiing by Simon Jacob 
  4. Desi toys and games by Swapna Wagh and 
  5. Zephyr Toys by Moiz Gabajiwala.

Here are a couple of interesting ideas which I thought would help toy companies to increase sales. 

  1. Companies can give free piggy banks to kids when they buy any of, their products. The piggy bank will be registered in their name with parents' mobile no, this creates a transition from offline to the online world. When the piggy bank is full or the amount crosses INR 2,000 enough the kids can get their piggy bank to the toy store and the toy store will open it. In exchange, the toy store will give 10% interest on the collected amount as an incentive to kids. This can be used to purchase a new set of toys. The toy company can also partner with any bank for launching kids' accounts, both stand to benefit. 
  2. Choosing toys is a difficult process, and most often the toy store guy is hardly aware of toys and how they can help in learning. Indian toy companies need band evangelists who can help to guide on what and which toy people should buy. They need more and more kids joining as ambassadors program.




Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Modern Monopolies - book review

This book Modern Monopolies by Nicholson is a must-read for all entrepreneurs, start-ups, strategy heads of brands/ Products. It highlights the importance of being in platform business and how this impacts the growth of organisation, as most software companies are becoming commodities.

As you move towards chapters four, the author gives examples on successful platforms like Facebook, Twitter,  Android OS, AirBnB, Uber and reason behind their success. He also highlights platforms like Windows OS, BlackBerry OS, MySpace, Friendster, etc and why they failed or failing.

He furthers goes on to explain interesting shifts that are happening in the platform business. Earlier examples include iTunes during launch of iPod became the largest music company, but now people are shifting towards newer platforms like Spotify, Saavan, Gaana, etc.

Even when Amazon launched Audible platform, which became a market leader in it's category. But now new platforms like Storytel are offering ebook + Audio book + Regional at a monthly nominal subscription. Though subscription cost is higher but, this gives the customer freedom to choose and read / hear multiple books.

Here is the story which I loved from the book ans have copied as is, since it makes sense and easy to understand. Though many argue this is not a real story, but conclusion is important for learning.

An entrepreneur, tired of the long waits he is experiencing in his dentist’s office, decides that dentist offices are badly managed. So he designs and builds a comprehensive dentist office management system and brings it to market. The software is expensive, at $25,000 per year per dentist office, but it’s a hit anyway as dentists realize significant cost savings after deploying the system. The company, Dentasoft, grows quickly into a $100mm annual revenue business, goes public, and trades up to a billion dollar valuation.
Two young entrepreneurs graduate from college, and go to YC. They pitch PG on a low cost version of Dentasoft, which will be built on a modern software stock and include mobile apps for the dentist to remotely manage his office from the golf course. PG likes the idea and they are accepted into YC. Their company, Dent.io, gets their product in market quickly and prices it at $5,000 per year per office. Dentists like this new entrant and start switching over in droves. Dentasoft misses its quarter, citing competitive pressures, churn, and declining revenues. Dentasoft stock crashes. Meanwhile, Dent.io does a growth round from Sequoia and hires a CEO out of Workday.
Around this time, an open source community crops up to build an open source version of dental office software. This open source project is called DentOps. The project takes on real life as its leader, a former dentist turned socialist blogger and software developer named NitrousOxide, has a real agenda to disrupt the entire dental industry. A hosted version of DentOps called DentHub is launched and becomes very popular with forward thinking dentist offices that don’t want to be hostage to companies like Dentasoft and Dent.io anymore. 
Dentasoft is forced to file for bankruptcy protection while they restructure their $100mm debt round they took a year after going public. Dent.io’s board fires its CEO and begs the founders to come back and take control of the struggling company. NitrousOxide is featured on the cover of Wired as the man who disrupted the dental industry

Towards the end, the book explains how to identify true potential of your own product and how you can make the shift towards becoming a platform.

Software is a commodity, think platform.



Friday, August 30, 2019

How to build spaceship - book review

How many of us know about early life of Peter Diamandis, founder of X prize, founder of Singularity university?
Then you shouldn't miss this book "How to make a spaceship: A band of renegades, an epic race and the birth of private space flight" by Julian Guthrie.

And this book is not only for people interested to build ROCKETS but for all those who DREAM.
Some interesting insights I gained from this book

  • The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line when you travelling in a flight! As Earth is a sphere, round, in olden days pilots without gyroscope, would pull a rubber band between two points they are travelling and leave it, when the rubber band loses tension it returns to its curve position to give you the closest distance. 
  • Sometimes the solutions is so obvious that we over think about it, which takes us far away from the solution. The SpaceshipOne flight had an outer varnish covering of Epoxy fluid, which helped to prevent it from overheating. But, Burt Rutan wanted to patent, so he literally added herbs and oregano and named it as some patented solution. 
  • Peter Diamandis didn't have the $10 million prize to give away for X prize winner, but it didn't stop him from announcing this competition. After announcement he went on to pitch almost more than 60 to 70 entrepreneurs to sponsor it. Richard Branson meeting was the 60th meeting and even he rejected to sponsor. Quite, surprisingly, he was the one who finally invested and sponsored Spaceship One for $2 mn just before 2 weeks from final take off. 
  • Peter Diamandis was a medical student since his parents wanted him to take up medicine. But he became astrophysicist from MIT before joining medical. It amazed me that he was running a company to make spacecraft for sub orbital flight, so people can experience zero gravity PLUS running Association for space Tourism across the world, had launched Space X prize and looking for sponsor + "studying medicine"



If you can dream Big, and work towards it with all your passion, their is no stopping.

This book was written by Julian Guthrie and After Spaceship 1 win the Ansari SpaceX prize, Stephen Hawking suggest  Peter Diamandis to write a book on this entire experience, so technically this a Peter's biography prior to start of Singularity University.