I presented on this topic at the seminar held by Bombay Chamber of Commerce on the 27th of November, 2009.  I have embedded the slide deck with this blog.  Key take-aways were: Social media is ‘not free’ Content still remains the king Social Media Vs. SEM - can co-exist together Social Media for Marketing and Corporate Communication Some of the slides in the deck may not be self-explanatory.  Write to... 

I’d like to have channels that can sell my product so that I can focus on building and delivering my product well. This was the statement that was made by one of the up and coming entrepreneurs during a casual conversation. As a matter of fact, he does the selling himself at this moment and there is a healthy pipeline and good traction in terms of number. He was also giving the examples of SAP and Microsoft, which... 

There are many work related challenges that rob sleep out of a CEO of a small or medium-sized software company. One of the leading dare-devil robberies is performed by the ‘Sales’ challenges. The disturbing questions for the CEO are - ’How good is my sales team performing? How will I enable them to meet the targets consistently? Do they get enough support? What are the immediate reasons for sales inability... 

Budding entrepreneurs in the software space should focus more on market gap, customer need and user adoption than on the ‘coolness’ quotient of their product or the ‘cutting-edge technology’ buzz. Why do many entrepreneurs and even the CEOs of MSME / SMEs get into this kind of trap? In my daily job of selling branding, marketing and outsourced sales services to such individuals and companies in the technology... 

Does the ‘Home Page’ still matter in website design? I think ‘Proposition/Solutions’ page should replace the home. In my opinion we should show what the customer wants and give exactly what he has come in for. Not what we want him to see and not what we like him to act on. Let me give an example to illustrate my point better. Last month, I travelled 200 miles north to attend an important business meeting.... 

Most statistics show that 33% of all new businesses fail after just 2 years and 56% fail after 4 fighting years. When it comes to software product businesses, the numbers are really scary so… let me leave it at that.   Ask failed software entrepreneurs, they will agree that ‘building a great software product is necessary but not sufficient.’ Myself and Saba, co-founder, DJargon, met a technology start-up last week... 

As part of our service offerings, we help our customers to dig out value propositions for their businesses and products. During such closed door exercise, we flood our customers with innumerable, lengthy and nagging questions till we hear something unique from them. We believe that asking the right questions unearth the right answers. If you haven’t got the answers for your business challenges, probably you have not... 

What is the trigger to the free fall in trust in print and TV Advertising? Is it the emergence of internet? Or the rise of digital marketing? Or the power of word of mouth marketing? Or the latest heart throb – social media marketing?   I think it is none of these that contribute to the falling trust in consumer advertising. It is how the Ads are made and delivered. Hopelessly, majority of them are misleading. Am I... 

Would you pay $1.68 million for a steak lunch? What if the lunch is with the mercurial investor Warren Buffet! And what if the money goes to a charity and not to the billionaire’s vault or for the restaurant! I would jump up and say ‘yes’ if I have as much… that is! The additional incentive is that you could also take up to seven friends of yours to dine with the world’s best brain on investing.  Global recession... 

This scenario repeats itself in most of the small and medium sized enterprises. The company is growing or stagnating and the clarion call is: “we need marketing”. Sales says: “we can’t do it all!”   Management turns to HR – “get us a good marketing resource that will fit our culture!” HR comes up with either with a one-liner or an elaborate job spec and waits for the perfect match.  Days, weeks and months...