Weekend Reading

• Is Revenue and Profit Growth Rate Meeting Expectations
• Building a culture of learning at work
• Effective Sales Prospect Messaging
• Strategies to Increase Profit
• Key to Adding Value to Every Sales Encounter

Weekend Reading

• How to see a revenue shortfall 
• How biases and ego trump your Strategy 
• What do you want your customers to do 
• Things to make your life better and sell more 
• The art of asking questions
• Two funds, four unicorns, $45 Bn Value
• Post COVID - Indias Weakest link Maybe the Informal Sector

Why Buyers and Sellers Behave like this ?

Sharing some of the Sales Tips in tweets from my new book 

• A buyer who is emotionless has an advisory tone, impresses upon care and nurture during the discussion, is lazy in communication, often prefers that the status quo is not challenged. Learn why do they behave like this in my new book on #B2B #Sales. #marketing #uxdesign #salestips 
• Sellers who are open to grievances but don't address the root cause of the objection because they lack depth & are impulsive, get emotional & angry on too many objections. Learn why they behave like this in my new book on #B2B #Sales. #marketing #salestips #negotiations 
• Sellers who are sharp, data-driven, emotionless, driven by the limelight from winning a deal or being seen as visionary often end up making concessions through the bargaining mix. Learn about this in my new book on #B2B #Sales. #marketing #uxdesign #salestips #negotiations
• A Seller who writes email in bullet points, uses action-centric words, likes visuals & slices the data many times, tends to be a rainmaker. Why this happens, learn about it in my new book on #B2B #Sales. #marketing #salestips 
• A Seller who writes email in bullet points, uses action-centric words, likes visuals & slices the data many times, tends to be a rainmaker. Why this happens, learn about it in my new book on #B2B #Sales. #marketing #salestips
• A buyer who is stylish and asks a lot of queries like a journalist during sales meeting ends up paying more for a solution. Why this happens, learn about it in my book on #B2B #Sales. #marketing #SalesTips

To learn Why Buyers and Sellers Behave like this? Read in my new book - Sellers from Mars and Buyers From Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales

Weekend Reading

Weekend Reading

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• The New Elements of Digital Transformation 
• Begin With Trust
• People Buy Tomorrows Dream
• Military Strategy to Defeat Your Dream
• A Framework for the Innovation in the COVID Era
• In Sales Time is Value not Money
• The Sales Process Was designed to Solve The Sales Organisations Problem

Telecom Industry - Revitalise and Generate Revenue

 Telecom Industry - Revitalise and Generate Revenue 

B2B Sales Tips - from my new book

 B2B Sales Tips in tweets from my new book - Sellers from Mars and Buyers From Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales

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Sellers need to anchor their conversation on Price, Risk, and Functionality only when selling to CIOs in Traditional IT (commodity). #Sales #salestips #IT #B2B 

Sellers need to unpack the information asymmetry across different stakeholders at the buyer's end before articulating a value proposition. #Sales #salestips #B2B #marketing 

Sellers need to share commercial insight and educate buyers about it. #Sales #B2B #salestips #B2B #marketing 

B2B Persona Mapping enables sellers in navigating other people's mind. #B2B #Sales #salestips #marketing 

Buyers trap #sellers through the RFP process as it leaves sellers with no BATNA and minimal leverage in negotiations. #sellers #salestips #B2B #marketing 

To sell services in a post COVID and Digital world, building buyers' persona and applying the intelligence is key to success. #Sales #salestips #B2B #marketing 

A fiery Seller brings a vision for the future, agility, excitement, data-driven decision making, whereas a metal Buyer is about boundaries, order, wisdom, logical and emotionless decision making. Fire’s energy movement moves up and seek the limelight, whereas metals movement is inward and non-exuberant. Together, they don't connect at an emotional or physical level. In sales, these two find it hard to start a conversation. Both find each other operating at a different tangent. (2/3)Fire’s agility, rapid speech and disregard for boundaries make a metal native to raise a red flag and a signal to stop and leave the conversation. (3/3) #salestips #Sales #marketing 

A Seller who acts like a broker, open to making concessions through the bargaining mix and fond of discussion, prefers to keep multiple options in hand like a swiss-army knife. #Sales #B2B #Negotiation #marketing #FunFacts #salestips 

Fire requires air as a fuel source to burn & spread; without the supply of air, fire ceases. By governing the speed & supply of air, fire is controlled from being wild to gentle. On the other hand, fire controls the intensity, impatience, & rebellious nature of air by burning it. Show this thread. In sales, when these two transact in a buyer-seller engagement, they act like friends in a symbiotic relationship. Collectively, they can reduce the sales cycle & create new & incremental revenue growth at both ends. Most closed deals will be short term and high margin because both like to wrap up deals swiftly and end up paying more for a service or a product. Airy natives overspend more than fiery natives. #Sales #B2B #salestips #product #marketing 

Buyers who open up in conversations quickly & have no hidden agenda; end up sharing information with the Seller side & makes it difficult for them to leverage the option of BATNA (use an alternative). #Sales #salestips #Negotiation #marketing #product

Mistakes Made in Building a Cloud Strategy

 Mistakes Made in Building a Cloud Strategy

1. Assuming it’s an IT (only) strategy, not involving business 

2. Not having an exit strategy 

3. Combining a cloud strategy with cloud adoption/migration/implementation 

4. “It’s too late — we’re already executing,” redoing everything 

5. Equating a cloud strategy with “we’re moving everything to the cloud” 

6. Our cloud strategy is our data center strategy/it’s “all in” or nothing 

7. Our strategy is by executive mandate 

8. We’re a shop so that’s our cloud strategy/we need a single vendor cloud strategy 

9. Outsourcing your cloud strategy 

10. We are “cloud-first” and that is our strategy

PS: How to map cloud journey and avoid mistakes in execution

Source: Gartner, BCG, Mckinsey

Weekend Reading

• 4 D's of Investing
• The growing use of Robotics
• Master the Leadership
• Why Warren Buffet never bought Google stock 
• The One Metric that Identifies Qualified Buyers
• The B2B Lead Gen Stumbling Block
• The India Opportunity

Telecoms - IT Strategy, Managed Services and Implementation View

 

Telecom Verticals - IT Strategy, Managed Services, and Implementation View on 1Page.

(source: Gartner)

Hype Cycle for the CSPs Network Infrastructure 

Post COVID - FY22 Australian Economy Update

 

Export to China primarily iron ore is bringing Revenue 3 times what was estimated in the budget (from USD $55/tonne to $200/tonne). 

Once Brazil overcomes labor supply and Chinese mines open for business in Africa, Australia will see the impact.  

While household debt and savings are rising. Frequent and strict lockdown in major cities of Australia means less spending by people.

Australia is still behind other OECD countries when it comes to green energy.

Australian Vaccine rollout is abysmal compared to US, UK, Canada and EZ. This means a conservative approach of the elongated lockdown applied, threatening its economy in a globally connected world.    

Frequent and elongated lockdown in major cities of Australia, primarily Sydney and Melbourne threatening FY22 Q1 and Q2 (likely) with downward growth.

Source: CBA

B2B Sales Journey Context and Background

 

Weekend Reading

 

• What is required in Sales Process for Startups  
• Strategies Buyers Use to Negotiate Price
• Weekly Habit that will push you to peak performance
• You Don't have to Memorize the Presentation
• 3 Networking mistakes that you need to avoid
• Map your buyer in prospective Journey

Vodafone will get a lifeline from Retrospective Tax Withdrawl

Key Players in the Indian Telecom Industry

 

Vodafone Tax Issue Timeline

   

 Indian Govt Decision on Retrospective Tax 

   

Key Issues and Arguments

• Vodafone acquired Hutchinson/Idea/Max in 2007 - 67% share by $ 11Bn
• Hutchinson Vamco, based out of HKG sold 67% of shares driven by assets in India
• Indian Tax Department called out that Vodafone has to pay Capital gains Tax (calculated as Rs 7K Crore in 2007, today it's Rs 20K Crore liability)
• Vodafone said the transaction was made by 2 foreign entities (Hutch/Vodafone) in a tax haven country
• When challenged by the Tax department, Vodafone went to the Supreme Court  (SC) and won the case by saying that assets transferred in a foreign country can be taxed
• FM Pranab Mukherjee was hurt (probably ego) by this SC ruling, and hence he applied his power in the government and legislation to circumvent the SC ruling and prevent the tax from being backdated retrospectively

Removal of Retrospective Tax by the Indian Govt. will give a lifeline to Vodafone India, which is struggling financially in a JV with Hutch/Idea. The tax was ill-conceived by FM Paranb Mukjherjee, even though it was opposed at the time by PM Manmohan Singh and his cabinet colleagues like P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal (law minister) in 2007. The tax was imposed from the backdate (can claim nearly 60 years) after Vodafone won the case in the Supreme Court (as described by Shekhar Gupta from ThePrint). By rolling out the retrospective tax, FM exercised typical abuse of power, intimidation, and legislative superiority to ensure Vodafone fell in line.

Why Vodafone is Indispensable
 
India has a few major players in the Telecom sector. The failure of any key player is detrimental to Telecom and is key to India's IT-driven Service Sector. Besides this, it will cause twin balance sheet issues for the financial sector as Indian Banks will lose their invested capital.

For Vodafone India, on the verge of bankruptcy in FY 22, Rs 20K crore liability will give a lifeline and infuse cash to survive in a capital-intensive industry during these challenging times, when the demand profile has changed.

In short, this decision by the government is late, but sometimes politics can weaken strong leaders resolute to reform. As Shekhar Gupta (from ThePrint) called out correctly, if a mistake goes long, it does more damage, but it needs to be welcomed if it's corrected.

Credit: Shekhar Gupta from The Print, ET, The Hindu, WSJ.

Update on Liability for Vodafone India is around 60K crore, (share price is around - Rs7).  

India's telecom sector is mismanaged by bureaucrats and is destroyed by some of the ludicrous policies on taxation, like AGR for spectrum. The amount of money owed to the government and banks by 3 telco companies (VI, Airtel) is around 1Lakh crore. The government needs to assist this sector, which has laid the pathways for the future. Time is running out before it's too late. 

   

Brief Context and Background on Sales

 

Sales 

Origin 

Word sale came from the old English word sala - "a sale, act of selling", which originated from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse sala, which originated from Proto-Germanic source "salo". The use of this word first appeared in texts around 1866, and by 1910 word Sales Representative was defined. 

Definition 

A sale is an activity between two or more parties in which the buyer receives tangible or intangible commodities, services, or assets in exchange for money. It is a commitment between the buyer and the seller to be exchanged for monetary consideration. When this activity is repeated multiple times for goods, it is defined as a Sale. Sale is a successful transaction between a buyer and a seller reaching a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA). The interaction between the two individuals or parties underpins the success of this transaction. If two individuals are comfortable interacting with each other, they will transact or do business. In other words, relationships play an essential role in closing a sales transaction. 

Sales Today 

Today, a sale can be executed in multiple ways through a direct, indirect, electronic, agency, B2B, B2C and other channels. With the rise in technology adoption underpinned by digital enablement, sales in B2B and B2C segment is becoming more technology-enabled and less human-centric. However, buyers in the B2B domain still prefer human interactions for complex and large deals. In the context of business, sales are the lifeline of any business, and to succeed in B2B sales or convincing others, one must learn how to navigate other people's mind. 

Beyond Sales 

Today selling has become an integral part of our daily life because we sell every day to others. How to influence and win over others is a skill that is fundamental to success in life and every task we undertake. Selling is everyone's business, and this is something that is not taught in any school. To succeed, the art of sales needs to be learned and practiced from early childhood. 

 

Weekend Reading

 

• How to Map your Buyers Journey
• How to Start with Why
• Secrets of Sustainability
• How to Prepare for a Client Conversation
• Posers vs Top-Performing Sales Rep
• How do you Ask Good Questions