Strategies from Modiji

It’s been a wonderful last week, of course a lot of dramas, in the end all ended up well.

Vibrant TiE- Con event where I met inspiring entrepreneurs, great sessions, a lot of learnings and few things to implement. In one of the TiE Workshop, Vimal Abraham took a wonderful session on lean marketing; an important lesson is about storytelling.

So, here is this week story or grammatically a fable, a well-known one for all of us, perhaps this is one of the oldest on Sales strategies

In an Arabian winter night, enter a camel, walks up to an Arab’s tent and asks to be let in. The Arab permits the camel to stick its nose in. The camel pushes in. One leg; another. Until the camel is completely inside

Does this fable have any relevancy with the title, read through the end!

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In Tamil there is proverb “For a person with yellow fever everything looks yellow “,

I am a salesperson; I look everything from a sales angle, even with Modiji.

Amidst all the dramas about the Modi-Xi visit and the traffic chaos one thing inspired me about Modi is how he turns the table around-ALWAYS. For a moment forget the political colors, for business- people it’s only the inspiration and Strategy matters. So let’s look what sales lessons I learned from Modi.

Everyone does have a Vision and few strategize to a plan and very few could execute that, for him the visions are big, the country not a small one

Here is his strategy- one by one

Strategy -1: Where to start when you have a big vision, in a small territory, a land you are familiar, he acquired the initial golden account through relentless untiring work and acquired the breakthrough account -Gujarat.

In sales what we call this as a beach head strategy, occupy one territory strongly and expand it further, that’s what he did.

Strategy -2: If your vision is big, build one good model and show it to your customer, instead of telling – always SHOW, he made Gujarat a model. A state now ranking top in the growth charts, marching ahead of Maharashtra and Delhi.

The sales lesson is, build a successful model and Show. DONT TELL –SHOW to your customers

Strategy -3: The big stage was set, a good model was shown; now it’s time to win the big deal. Harness all your powers, bring it to one point, summarize and close the account. A PERFECT CLOSE. Don’t bother about your competition or who is in the line, customer supports who have done the best of the homework, not who is first in line. The deal is won; the big account has been acquired.

The sales lesson is we all should know when to close and win an account, not too early not too late.

Strategy 4 – Now the renewal is coming, competitors are fighting, the challenge is how to retain the account without losing any ground, and competitors will use slew of discounts, overpromises and whatever it takes to acquire your dream account.

As an incumbent, you need to know how to retain your account, you can’t keep quiet, Play the emotions well, instill the fear tell the change is pain, use all your trump cards, you need to blow your trumpet, you have to play your music well, else our customer forget us. Just not the renewal, in the process acquire the competitive account also, this is what happens when you grow strongly even competitor accounts get acquired. The renewal is done successfully.

Is that the end of the story, wait the camel is not fully into the tent?

Still, few major accounts not acquired TN and Kerala,

As a leader, you can’t leave anything for chance; the next acquisition strategy is TN. The sales lesson is proper account selection; you can’t acquire every account at once using the same strategies. To acquire a dream account you need a very personalized approach. He knows TN is not the same as other accounts; you need to play Tamil emotions.  A master strategist always understands that. The tool is Personalization

Personalization: Speak in Tamil, Wear Dhotis, give importance to the account, visit frequently, conduct events and create visibility, demonstrate that I care about you that are Personalization in client acquisition strategy.

Is there any connection to the fable, I leave it to you, but it’s all the more important to learn from a leader who proved to the world. When such large complex variedly accounts could be acquired why not our customers in a small territory.

Yes, we all could do: Personalization is the new mantra in new client acquisition if you want to discuss how to acquire new clients, feel free to call me.

Let us chat how we occupy the customer tent. Let’s get in ask for a neck space with our customers.

Regards ,

Ramesh.P

Cell: +91 9841052321|9176663799

Disclaimer: The above content doesn’t have any political intent or bias, purely looked into an entrepreneurial angle.