Archive for 'Main Page'
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 9:30 PM - 2 Comments
If you are not in sales, this might surprise you. Many of you may be
thinking “I don’t ever intend to be in sales. This does not apply to
me!”
Believe me, it DOES! Everyone of us are selling something almost on a
daily basis. We may be selling our abilities to perform a job, our
ideas or our point of view.
Unfortunately, the sales profession does not get a lot of respect from
many quarters. Many of us won’t accept that everyone is a salesperson
in some way or the other.
A key point to note is that “selling” does not always refer to the
actual selling of a product or a service. However, the same principles
of sales apply even if you want to “sell an idea” to your co-worker,
boss or your client. If you can master some of the basic principles of
sales, your daily life will be simpler.
As a starter, take a look at Mahan Khalsa’s book Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play
. One of the best books on sales I have ever read.
Whether you are a salesperson or not, you will enjoy this book.
Have fun!
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 23 Apr 2005, 11:49 PM - Leave Comment
Meetup, as most of you know is a
hosted service for organizing, well, meet ups. Until recently, Meetup
was a free service. A few days ago, Meetup announced
that it will no longer be a “free” service. I have observed (sitting on
the sidelines, of course) a lot of discussions and opinions about
whether charging consumers was “right”
My friend Dave Taylor wrote a cool piece on this topic. Dave’s point was that if these changes were not carried out right, you could kill the service.
Here are my $.02
First and foremost, I truly believe that there is “nothing” of value
that is “free” It may be provided free but there is a cost associated
with it and someone has to underwrite it. Meetup is no exception. The
company was underwriting the cost and until now, did not consider
subscription was one of the revenue models. Also, the model might have
been to wait until they get the critical mass and then start charging.
Or, it might have been that the service is very successful and there
are a ton of users and providing the same kind of service to a larger
number of users requires more resources which costs more and hence they
have no option but to start charging the consumers.
In other words, Meetup has reasons and justifications to start charging
for the service. But here are the problems with asking people to pay:
a) Most people hate change. Especially one that will ask them to move from “free” to “pay”
b) Perception issue: Meetup is
perceived as a free service and that’s the kind of value associated
with it. Now people have to think what is the right price to pay. It’s
hard to set a price that will satisfy everyone.
Here are some proposed models to consider (for Meetup or any service moving from “free” to “paid”)
1. Charge for Premium: Continue to keep the service free and create a premium version for which people have to pay.
2. Up-sell: Keep the service free. Up-sell additional services. Revenue sharing through partners’ services
3. Create an enterprise version and sell: In case of Meetup, may be create “Meetup Enterprise” and sell to large corporations and keep the public service free
4. Push Professional Services: Keep the software free. Offer professional services related to the service and charge for those professional services.
5. Open Source completely or partially:
If development costs are a big concern, open source the software so the
community will take over the development and future enhancements.
Company can remain as a thought leader and steward for the software
6. Donations and Sponsorships: Allow users to contribute voluntarily and large corporations to sponsor the service.
7. Sell digital content: Allow
meeting organizers to put content from their members and sell the
content with revenue share. From the meta data associated with service
like Meetup, the digital content can be highly targeted (like Google
ads) and may turn out to be a significant revenue stream.
8. Tiered pricing: One example:
Groups less than 50 continue to be free and groups higher than 50 are
charged based on the number of members say 50-100 $x, 100-300 $2x etc.
9. Charge for support and training
We can get creative and come up with many more and you can mix and match the above.
Last, but not the least –
a) never make the change abrupt. Nobody likes it.
b) get your customers involved in the change process.
c) never insult your customers.
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Sat 23 Apr 2005, 9:42 AM - Leave Comment
All of us know that if you we want to make sweeping changes, we need to
innovate. Incrementalism (small improvements) won’t attract much
attention. Fedex became a success
story as they changed the expectations (absolutely, positively
overnight) of people, delivered on their promise and charged a premium
for it.
However, Innovation projects are never “complete” Fedex, since then has
embarked on continuous improvement of their “absolutely, positively
overnight” service. One such improvement is the transparency. Every
shipper or the receiver (or anyone with the tracking #) can find out
where exactly the shipment is at a particular point in time. Fedex
customers may not need all the information that they provide but making
the information available will only enhance the credibility of the
company.
One more point to note is that radical innovations are risky too. Not
all of them succeed. So, you should ensure that there is a “tolerance”
for failure at your workplace. Second, you should be willing to
emotionally detach from this failure and embark on the next innovation
project. Whenever an innovation project succeeds, the next immediate
step would be to put that project on a “continuous improvement”
roadmap. Because no project is really “complete”
So, in summary a good framework can be
Innovation -> Continuous Improvement -> Innovation
Take a look at all the projects that are taking place in your own life
and it’s easy to categorize each one of them under “Innovation” or
“Continuous Improvement” If there are no innovation projects, there is
a serious problem. If there are past innovation projects that are not
under a “Continuous improvement” plan, there is an issue too.
The beauty is in balancing the Innovation and Continuous Improvement initiatives.
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 22 Apr 2005, 7:27 PM - 1 Comment
This short quote reminds us that there are no short cuts to success.
“Success is dependent upon the glands — sweat glands.”
- Zig Ziglar
[Update 04/24] Thanks Dave for your kind words. Also, take a look a cool post on this topic by Kevin Salwen
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 18 Apr 2005, 11:21 PM - Leave Comment
This little quote reminds us of the need to have a noble purpose in our lives
“Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for”
- David Starr Jordan
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 18 Apr 2005, 4:10 PM - 4 Comments
I love Apple and they never cease to
amaze with all the new and cool things that they come out with.
However, I was a bit surprised when they came out with iPod Shuffle. It felt like it was more of a marketing play than a pure product innovation. I expected a lot more from Apple.
Here is why:
iPod
from Apple already has a feature called “Shuffle” that will shuffle the
songs and randomly choose the sequence of upcoming songs. The lowest
version today costs about $199.00. Of course, iPod has a lot more
features than iPod Shuffle (costs $99)
If that this the case, does it mean that the “Shuffle” feature on iPod is worth $99?
What do you all think?
Posted under Business Models, Compelling Offers, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 18 Apr 2005, 6:30 AM - Leave Comment
The following quote nicely describes the power of expectations. I have
seen this in my own life and in the life of so many people I know -
when people close to us expect more from us, we usually rise to meet
their expectations
“If I
accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you
as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become
that.”
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Posted under Great Quotes, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 15 Apr 2005, 7:06 AM - Leave Comment
Brad Feld writes about ordering custom printed M&Ms.
If you can order customized computer products from Dell, you can now order custom printed M&Ms from Masterfoods.
I am confident that others will follow but hats off to Masterfoods for taking the lead!
It seems like an obvious extension now, doesn’t it? Again, most innovation projects are that way.
Posted under Business Models, Innovation, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 14 Apr 2005, 7:50 PM - Leave Comment
Not much you may say. I beg to differ. I was watching a TV show the
other night and I saw someone performing a haircut underwater and
charging upwards of $200 per haircut.
What got me interested was Onsite Haircuts, whose service is described as
Onsite Haircuts is devoted to a single idea: providing a quality
haircut with the least interruption to your busy life. Get in. Get out.
Get on with life.
If you are outside the bay area, the service may not be available at your location yet!
Posted under Business Models, Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 12 Apr 2005, 9:51 AM - Leave Comment
All of us know that leadership is more than holding a title or a
position. However, it is difficult for many people to start an
initiative without positional power. Undertaking a lead role in a
volunteer effort will solve that problem. Leading a volunteer can be
hard work but the rewards are great.
If you are leading a team of volunteers you know that:
a) almost all the team members are in this for a cause and not for the money.
b) each team member has an option to quit at any time.
c) each team member is already walking the extra mile
d) each team member has other choices to volunteer their time
In other words, it takes a lot of effort to lead and succeed in a volunteer effort. What it will make of you is priceless.
Succeeding in leading a volunteer effort will provide several benefits:
a) you will spend time for a great cause
b) very few people lead a volunteer effort so you are in a minority (distinguished yourself)
c) great networking beyond your professional circles
d) short cut to developing your leadership skills
Good luck!
Posted under Distinguish yourself, Leadership, Main Page.
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