Importance of greeting

Importance of greeting:

One important thing while you are running your business is, greet in a very very positive and excited way. Whether its on the phone, or in person. Greet the person like

Dale: Hey Raghu,

Raghu: Hey Dale, my buddy…. How r u doing this morning…

Dale: I am doing good, how are you doing?

Raghu: I am doing gr8, what Can I do for you this morning.

This whole greeting is very important. It makes the other person decide if he wants to do business with you or not.

Whenever I speak to an outside company for a quote on anything, and they speak very slowly, I just dont feel like calling them up again. On the converse, when I spoke to an automation sales person, the powerful close positive way he greeted me, made me feel good and wanted to speak to him more and did not hesitate to call him again.

Exhibit a lot of positive energy. That makes people come to you for their needs, when they have a million ppl to choose from..

Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage:

Customers may have interesting ideas for making incremental improvements to your product--but those insights aren't enough to maintain your competitive edge. What about the competing products or nascent substitute technologies that aim to solve customers' problems in new, better, cheaper ways?

A classic example: One of the companies I was involved with developed a way to route phone calls by embedding smart software into the telecommunications network, not in the automatic call distributor (ACD) or private branch exchange (PBX). But forget all the techie acronyms--the point is that the guys building PBXs and ACDs were adding new features to their existing equipment, yet only able to make small incremental improvements based on what their customers were telling them.

Meanwhile, this new company took a totally different view, resulting in a more personalized, cost-effective, easily implemented solution. While manufacturers of ACDs and PBXs were busy making small customer-inspired tweaks, they missed the onslaught of a massively disruptive new technology--and suffered the consequences.

Time and again, companies face a comeuppance because they missed some cue. They're so focused on the operational side of the business, or on pleasing customers in the here and now, that they miss the very real threats from new competitors unencumbered by traditional technologies and business models.

It happened to mainframe vendors like Unisys (nyse: UIS - news - people ), which totally missed the minicomputer marketplace. And minicomputer vendors like Digital in turn dismissed the personal computer revolution spearheaded by Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ), Compaq and Hewlett Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ).

Surely Blockbuster's (nyse: BBI - news - people ) execs are sorry they didn't foresee the coming of Netflix (nasdaq: NFLX - news - people ) and movies-on-demand models. Talking to customers wouldn't have helped much: The new paradigm didn't emerge because of a fundamental change in customer needs, but because of an explosion of network bandwidth. Blockbuster lost because it didn't perceive the extent to which this seemingly peripheral technological advancement might invite a new breed of competitor--namely, cable companies that could stream movies to homes without interruption.

Customer feedback also won't shed much light on threatening new regulations or standards. To wit: the rapid shift from standard DVD to Blu Ray in less than two years. While prices of Blue Ray devices escalated, DVD manufacturers were severly affected.

On the flip-side, the nice thing about seismic shifts is that they help level the playing field. While entrenched players may try to hold on to the past at their peril, small, gutsy players often can adapt and capture value more quickly.

Whatever you do, don't get blindsided by only listening to your customers. Focus on the whole picture instead.

Lou Volpe is a managing general partner for Kodiak Venture Partners, a Massachusetts-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments.

The only thing that you cannot have is that you cannot dream.

Setup reduction in manufacturing

Setup Reduction (Often known as Single minute exchange of Die)

When we run large lots of each product, setups on that product are infrequent. Setups take skill, practice and coaching. When operators perform setups infrequently they do not learn them well.

This leads to the perception that setups are difficulty and risky.

With large lots, a fixed setup cost is amortized over a large number of units. This seems to reduce the unit cost. These are offsetting costs associated with the resulting inventories, but these offsetting costs are usually buried in the overhead. This also encourages large lots or runs.

The consequence is high inventory and complex scheduling. These give rise to a plethora costs and negative consequences.

What should be your company's strategy?

What should be your company’s strategy?

One important thing for any CEO to think is:

Don’t focus on the product you are selling, but clearly focus on what is the need of the customer is. What would his ultimate happiness be. Then try to get as close it as possible. Try to satisfy his need, not sell your product.

Its not luck, page 252

Its not luck, page 271

What should be the goal of a company?

· The goal of a company should be to make money, now and in the future.

· To provide a secure and satisfying environment for employees, now and in the future.

· Provide satisfaction to the customers now and in the future.

Each of them is equally important. Whichever of the three you choose as a goal, the other two are necessary conditions to achieving it.

To develop a strategy for your company, don’t build a strategy based on market forecasts. Start with a decisive competitive edge. If the company doesn’t have a unique technology or outstanding products, then concentrate on small changes that eliminates the negatives for the market and serves the customer’s needs better.

You always need to be on the move, because the competitors will soon catch up.

When the market is down for the company, it’s the company’s fault, if it goes into losses. It has to be flexible enough to go after new products, which need almost the same resources. A good strategy for a company would be to look out for more products which need the same resources.

It’s like the cricket blaming the winter, when the ant is fed and warm.

If you want to understand this concept clearly, you need to read the book, "It's not Luck" by Goldratt. I just jotted down the points that I would need later.

How to sell something..!!!!

How to Sell something

"It’s not luck", page 205.

· First setup a meeting for a fixed amount of time, so that there is no time pressure

· If possible, say the existing situation and problems and draw a tree in the buyer’s terms from his point of view. Be sure not to state the obvious stuff, coz the buyer may ask you to cut the crap.

· Ask the buyer if you have listed all his problems related to the issue, or are there anything else.

· Then provide the solution.

· Then show him a snake in the grass, by showing a small problem with this solution.

· Then instead of making a final closing statement, give the buyer some time for him to think upon and give him the related documents. Schedule a meeting in the future to finalize this.

· Give him a list of excuses for not going with this solution, why we should not go with this.

This makes him eliminate his own internal doubts and you come across as a sincere person.

Work in each department

You will never understand the problems in a department, unless you work in that department for sometime. So whenever you get some time, you need to schedule yourself to work for sometime in each department of yours, each week.

Like Romney complains of CEO not understanding the space problems in his department, i.e; fixture assembly bcoz Paul just glances through the department once in a while and he does not understand what space problems they have when they have too many swing returns in the department under extreme conditions.