Tuesday, August 26, 2008
"How 2 B a good customer?" John Quelch
Prologue : You must have read a lot on ' How to be a super salesman' but rarely do we come across some Guru, telling us, ' How to be a good customer?' !! Contrary to conventional wisdom,
(a) being a good customer is NOT about being a ruthless customer. (b) NOT about being a great negotiator and equally , (c) NOT ( only) about getting the Best Deal / Highest Value at the Lowest cost or about extracting MOST from a vendor, while paying the least !! Most of of sell, in profession and earn money and then, we are CUSTOMERS most of the time, when we are spending it. IN 99 % of occasions in life, we are CUSTOMERS first , and then, sales people !! Hence, this small piece assumes a great importance !! Lastly, those of you married men, please forward this to your wife or take a print out, as , it's the Queen Bee which makes most of the domestic purchases. Also, share it with at least ONE sales person you know. Being good customers first, makes better at sales ! cvr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " How to be a good customer " by John Anthony Quelch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " We all know that, not all customers are treated equal ! "Big customers get better treatment than small ones. Frequent customers get better treatment than occasional customers. Most of us recognise, and accept, such discrimination. But how can you punch over above your weight as a customer to get better treatment than your importance to the seller, deserves ? You can, by doing the following : (1) BE DEMANDING : Make sure, the vendor knows, you have the other options. That, you are going to seek out, more than ONE BID. (2) BE RESPECTFUL : If you want your vendor to do a good job, DON'T be haughty. Be on time. Ask his / her opinion ! Spell out your need, in detail. (3) BE RELIABLE : Do - what you say you will do. Pay on time. Do't try to ' Nickel and Dime' the seller ! Don't ask for the free, value-added services, that WERE NOT THE PART OF THE ORIGINAL deal. This is most important, often neglected, part of buying. (4) BE SURPRISING !!! : Reward a job well done ! How ? You can, (a) leave a tip (b)Pay - ' a little over' the contracted price, if the seller's costs clearly exceed the expectations. (c)Promise to refer the supplier to a friend and keep up the promise. Give him / her a new customer. (5) BE ENGAGING : Differentiate yourself as a customer, by engaging in a friendly conversation. Treat your vendor as EQUAL, not as a mere supplier or order-taker. Obviously, when demand exceeds supply, customers know - they are going to have to get in line, perhaps , pay more than the list price or wait longer than usual , for service. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EXERCISE : ------------ Did you like this ? If you did, do the following : (1) SOUL SEARCHING : OF the 5 things mentioned above, how many you thing you do normally ? How often ? What are the things ( among the 5 above) you do not do ? Resolve to do - what you normally don't do !! (2) Share this with at least one married woman ( I am sharing with my wife first), who does all the household purchase. (3) Share it with at least ONE sales man / woman you know. Tell them, they must become BETTER CUSTOMERS first, so that, they can be super sales-persons !! (4) Share it with at least one person - who works in a purchase dept / in-charge of procurement. cvr -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIO: ohn A. Quelch is Senior Associate Dean and Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Between 1998 and 2001 he was Dean of London Business School. Prior to 1998, he was the Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing and Co-Chair of the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School. Professor Quelch is well-known for his teaching materials and innovations in pedagogy.
Book review of ' Greater good', his book.
http://www.amazon.com/Greater-Good-Marketing-Better-Democracy/dp/1422117359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219815124&sr=1-1
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
"Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben
For the most of human history, the two birds, ' More ' and ' Better ' , were roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and hope, to hit them both !
That's why, the centuries since Adam Smith have been devoted to the dogged pursuit of maximum economic production.
The idea that individuals, pursuing their individual interestes in a market society, make one another richer and the idea that increasing efficiency, usualy by increasing scale, is the key to increasing wealth has indisputably produced ' More ' .
But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this : ' Better ' has flown a few trees over, to make her nest !
Growth is no longer making most people wealthier, but instead, generating inequality and insecurity. And Growth is buming against physical limits. New search from many quarters has started to show that, even when growth does make us wealthier, the greater wealth no longer makes us happier !
Given all that we now know about topics ranging from the molecular structure of carbon dioxide to the psychology of human satisfaction, we need to move, decisively to rebuild our Local Economies !!
Shifting our focus will not mean abandoning Adam Smith or doing away with the markets. Markets, obviously, work . Building a local econonoy will mean, however, ceasing to worship markets as infallible - and consciously setting limits of their scope !
"Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007)" ISBN 0-8050-7626-3 -- by Bill McKibben.
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Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist and writer who frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy, and the need for more localized economies.
Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent. Al Gore wrote in 2007 that "when I was serving in the Senate, Bill McKibben’s descriptions of the planetary impacts... made such an impression on me that it led, among other things, to my receiving the honorific title ‘Ozone Man’ from the first president Bush.”
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The Age of Missing Information
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...Human beings--any one of us, and our species as a whole--are not all-important, not at the center of the world. That is the one essential piece of information, the one great secret, offered by any encounter with the woods or the mountains or the ocean or any wilderness or chunk of nature or patch of night sky. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 228
...We believe that we live in the 'age of information,' that there has been an information 'explosion,' an information 'revolution.' . We also live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach. An unenlightenment. An age of missing information. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 9
...It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, and drowns out the subtle and vital information contact with the real world once provided. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 22
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Enough
...They'll lead us bit by bit toward the revolutionary idea that we've grown about as powerful as it's wise to grow; that the rush of technological innovation that's marked the last five hundred years can finally slow, and spread out to water the whole delta of human possibility. But those decisions will only emerge if people understand the time for what it is: the moment when we stand precariously on the sharp ridge between the human past and the posthuman future, the moment when meaning might evaporate in a tangle of genes or chips.
—Enough, p.198
These new technologies are not yet inevitable. But if they blossom fully into being, freedom may irrevocably perish. This is a fight not only for the meaning of our individual lives, but for the meaning of our life together.
—Enough, p.199
Right now, plenty of people feel the peacefulness of their lives degraded by sprawl, or worry about the way consumerism has eroded the quality of our communities. For them, the idea of enough is not completely alien or distasteful, though it remains difficult to embrace. We've been told that it's impossible – that some force like evolution drives us on to More and Faster and Bigger. 'You can't stop progress.' But that's not true. We could choose to mature. That could be the new trick we share with each other, a trick as revolutionary as fire. Or even the computer.
—Enough, p.220
That's why, the centuries since Adam Smith have been devoted to the dogged pursuit of maximum economic production.
The idea that individuals, pursuing their individual interestes in a market society, make one another richer and the idea that increasing efficiency, usualy by increasing scale, is the key to increasing wealth has indisputably produced ' More ' .
But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this : ' Better ' has flown a few trees over, to make her nest !
Growth is no longer making most people wealthier, but instead, generating inequality and insecurity. And Growth is buming against physical limits. New search from many quarters has started to show that, even when growth does make us wealthier, the greater wealth no longer makes us happier !
Given all that we now know about topics ranging from the molecular structure of carbon dioxide to the psychology of human satisfaction, we need to move, decisively to rebuild our Local Economies !!
Shifting our focus will not mean abandoning Adam Smith or doing away with the markets. Markets, obviously, work . Building a local econonoy will mean, however, ceasing to worship markets as infallible - and consciously setting limits of their scope !
"Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007)" ISBN 0-8050-7626-3 -- by Bill McKibben.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist and writer who frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy, and the need for more localized economies.
Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent. Al Gore wrote in 2007 that "when I was serving in the Senate, Bill McKibben’s descriptions of the planetary impacts... made such an impression on me that it led, among other things, to my receiving the honorific title ‘Ozone Man’ from the first president Bush.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Age of Missing Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...Human beings--any one of us, and our species as a whole--are not all-important, not at the center of the world. That is the one essential piece of information, the one great secret, offered by any encounter with the woods or the mountains or the ocean or any wilderness or chunk of nature or patch of night sky. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 228
...We believe that we live in the 'age of information,' that there has been an information 'explosion,' an information 'revolution.' . We also live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach. An unenlightenment. An age of missing information. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 9
...It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, and drowns out the subtle and vital information contact with the real world once provided. --The Age of Missing Information, p. 22
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enough
...They'll lead us bit by bit toward the revolutionary idea that we've grown about as powerful as it's wise to grow; that the rush of technological innovation that's marked the last five hundred years can finally slow, and spread out to water the whole delta of human possibility. But those decisions will only emerge if people understand the time for what it is: the moment when we stand precariously on the sharp ridge between the human past and the posthuman future, the moment when meaning might evaporate in a tangle of genes or chips.
—Enough, p.198
These new technologies are not yet inevitable. But if they blossom fully into being, freedom may irrevocably perish. This is a fight not only for the meaning of our individual lives, but for the meaning of our life together.
—Enough, p.199
Right now, plenty of people feel the peacefulness of their lives degraded by sprawl, or worry about the way consumerism has eroded the quality of our communities. For them, the idea of enough is not completely alien or distasteful, though it remains difficult to embrace. We've been told that it's impossible – that some force like evolution drives us on to More and Faster and Bigger. 'You can't stop progress.' But that's not true. We could choose to mature. That could be the new trick we share with each other, a trick as revolutionary as fire. Or even the computer.
—Enough, p.220
