Article - 82 Week 48 Culture of Big Talk

Article - 82  Week 48

Culture of Big Talk

Culture is a gooey stuff, brewed with individual biases and beliefs into a gigantic sticky snowball. It's so overbearing that it strongly controls and directs the thoughts of the very individuals who contributed in building this sticky snowball in the first place. The set of responses of any individual in a group or industry has a clear pattern and commonality. To an outsider this looks strange and funny at times, unless he gets carried away to lose his shirt at a later date. He tries to rationalize his observations, based on his own culture. When we talk about groups, they do not necessarily mean to comprise of a geography or demography. The group could be engaged in a specific industry or business over a large geographical or time span, influenced by common factors like government regulations and policies, consumer appetite, and various other terrains of the enterprise. 

There are many facets to the culture of our Indian shipping industry - both good and bad. We shall discuss about one of the facets - Big Talk & Despondency. I have yet to come across one in our industry, who believes that the future holds promise for Indian shipping. Some people believe in a state of stagnation at best, while majority love to stay in their make-believe temple of doom  and confusion. Meet any sales professional in our industry. They would spew up unbelievable numbers on your face! They throw such fantastical numbers on your face like so many1000 containers, that too from a small port incapable of handling such a volume in months, or so many million tons of bulk cargo to put even China's appetite to shame, or so many tons of air cargo that no plane has been built to carry that kind of load. If bravado is a mask to hides one's vulnerability, such claims are no more than pumped up words to hide the deep seated despondency within. To outsiders, such claims are mind bogglingly incredible at times.

It's time for us to stay away from such fantasy and indulge in a real a world with real numbers. And these are by no means small any more. They are impressive numbers in the backdrop of a buoyant economy. By believing in reality and working with confidence, we can change this culture of Big Talk  to Real Talks.

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Brgds

Capt Rath

Article - 81 Week 45 Understanding Compulsive Business Dishonesty?

Article - 81  Week 45

Understanding Compulsive Business Dishonesty?

Its wonderful for an industry to do well. This creates jobs and helps other industries to thrive with cheaper and efficient support. We know that consumption, skill, technical know-how, people, infrastructure, raw materials, ecology, and cheaper connectivity to the consumer are clear givens. What we really underestimate is the role of our Big Daddy - the Government. It decides on its policy, taxes, skill development, education, health, infrastructure building, and freeing up consumption climate. Assuming, people explore ways around to combat the defects in infrastructure and skill developments etc, our Big daddy finds a way to tax the ingenuity and productivity of the entrepreneur - stealing a major chunk. Sometimes, Big daddy steals every thing that is produced in the industry. The industry becomes sick like a non-milch cow. Big Daddy wakes up and starts doling put subsidies to keep it alive, so that he could continue milking.  

There are times, when Big Daddy steals more than the industry could produce. In such a scenario, the business heads for sure death. The entrepreneur sees this. And with an instinctive survival mechanism hard-wired into him from evolution, finds a way to steal back part of the taxes from Big Daddy. The harder the Big Daddy tries to extricate its claimed pound of flesh, the more ingenious the entrepreneur becomes in devising his stealing back mechanism. This prolonged struggle results in systematic (at times open and blatant) supremacy of wits of the nimble-footed entrepreneur over the slow and large Big Daddy. The industry does survive with a culture of dishonesty and deceit. This trait gets embedded in to the psyche of the people, until such a time when the words 'business' and 'dishonesty' become almost inseparable. Businesses are considered dirty. Businessmen are assumed to be dishonest, treacherous, conniving, and ruthlessly unscrupulous. 

A stage comes, when Big Daddy realizes loss of revenue and finds a sickly industry living two lives of deception. It loses its power and potency to deal with the menace. The people working for the poor (some times almost insolvent) Big Daddy find it logical and beneficial to cozy up with the businessman. They join hands and connive the contrivance of tax escapades and duping an unsuspecting population. Stealing taxes becomes legitimate. Subsidies are doled out. And budget deficit snowballs into ugly inflation. The best possible example of this can be seen in our domestic shipping industry - an incurable culture of dishonesty and a helplessly miserable government. Can we come come out? Time will tell for sure. Until such time, we need to pray that the Big Daddy steals lesser than the sum total of productivities of our industry - both direct and indirect. And invests in better policies and institutions. 

For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/

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Capt Rath

Article - 80 Week 44 Can You Sell To A Total Stranger?

Article - 80  Week 44

Can You Sell To A Total Stranger?

We sell all the time. We buy all the time. That's unique to humans and we are hardwired that way. However, there is a big barrier created by our social culture or bonding. An extreme example ; The infamous cliches` that 'Money can not buy love'  and 'There is a price for every thing', stand opposed to each other. Volumes of fictions and movies have triumphantly taken on one or the other, captivating the mind of the people. The fact is, we find it easy to push hard bargains with perfect strangers, while we easily acquiesce to make concessions to known people. We sort of avoid bargaining with friends for material prices. We voluntarily give away without pre-conditions to the people we love. Even though there may be unsaid motives for getting some thing out of the other person whom we unconditionally give and the other person guesses it right, we can not call it a true Sale. If we try hinting anything to that effect, it would be a social disaster. Try paying for the birthday cake baked specially for you by your mother or sister!

Therefore, we have two distinct types of Sales - (A) Impersonal Sales (B) Social Sales or Gifts. In impersonal sales, it is a pure deal between demand and supply at that particular moment between the two individuals. Both the individuals are pushed to the edge of 'take it or leave it' point. Each individual consummately assesses the extent of compulsion of the other, while hiding his own vulnerability. Then you have the offers and the counters. Finally you have on the table, an objective price or subjective conditions to arrive at a price in a future date. Think of it. It is a big disadvantage to sell something to a stranger. So, if you are a salesman like me, you would better have many friends in your basket of clients. In other words, before you seriously attempt to sell what you set out to sell, you need to vigorously campaign to have as many friends as possible in the basket of clients in front of you. This is where, most of us go wrong. We start selling on our first meeting, struggling hard to hold on to our prices and other advantages. If we delay this until there is a personal relationship, then we can be far more effective. However, this should not be kept so late and subtle that it backfires - like those close friends of yours who chase you for those network-sales for herbals and shampoos. You run away from them or avoid taking their calls! You can not effectively sell to a completer stranger or a very close friend. Understanding that fine line in between is one of the essential keys to effective sales.

Brgds

Capt Rath