10 secrets which will help you to have a successful startup and career in India even during lockdown!

A lot of large companies are betting big on Indian markets.  For example, the Reliance group was able to raise more than 20 billion dollars from international investors and digital players like Google, Facebook, and many more, even during the pandemic.   

Likewise, they say Tata Group is in talks with Walmart for a 25 billion dollar partnership. This is not confirmed yet but has been widely talked about in media outlets including the likes of Economic Times.   

Walmart has already bought Flipkart for 22 billion dollars to capitalize on the e-commerce opportunity in India while Amazon is heavily invested in India.

What this indicates is that India as a market is a huge business opportunity over the coming decades.  

While the big companies will do well, so will the startups, small businesses, freelancers, and career seekers, participating in India's growth story.

In the following article, we will talk about the fundamentals of not only marketing but how one should go about having a successful business in India.  

This information will be extremely useful for founders, entrepreneurs, big and small companies, professionals, freelancers, learners, and students.

Fundamentals of marketing can not be forgotten if you want to be successful in any market and even more so in a large and diverse market such as India.

1. Know thy customer 

The consumer is not only the king but also the queen and everyone else in the royal family.   

Titan (10 billion dollar Company by market capitalization)  knew that women like to wear watches as a fine piece of jewelry.  They also found out that office going women don't like wearing heavy gold jewelry.  

Hence they created a “Raga” collection which includes watches with gold which are also light, trendy, and not heavy.

Likewise, it is extremely important to know who your customers - not just age, income, gender, and location but also psychographically what are their dreams, aspirations, pain points, emotional levers, and a lot more. 

This is probably the most important piece of work as you plan to grow your business leveraging marketing.

2. Go niche and deep 

Not everyone is your customer.   This is why a lot of rejection while doing marketing or running a business or raising investments is almost given.

More sharply you can define your customer persona and create a value proposition that suits your customer segment, higher are the chances of your success.

Nike does this with runners/athletes, Apple does this with high-end consumers willing to pay for great design and user experience, Tanishq does this for women wanting to buy better quality and design gold; there are so many success stories.

3. Pull vs Push 

Gone are the days when you could shout out loud to attract customers. While you still have to do the communication and messaging right,   in today's internet world, customers have got a lot of choices.  

Also, information asymmetry from the earlier days has gone away. They can easily do research online to find the right price, features, competitor products, and a lot more.

Hence instead of pushing your products and services to the king Customer, it is probably wiser to pull him towards you through better marketing.  

They can involve content marketing, brand building, invitation marketing, relationship building, and a lot more.

4. Digital is default

Compared to traditional marketing mediums, digital marketing gives you amazing capabilities around personalization, scale, measurement, agility (A/B Testing), and a lot more at fraction of a cost compared to TV. 

Of course, you need to be sure that that your target customer segment can be engaged on digital media such as social media, SEO/SEM, email marketing, etc.

That is also why the digital marketing spends of all the big and small companies are increasing significantly compared to traditional media such as print, TV, radio.

The work done by Digital Deepak is highly commendable in creating awareness and training in the space of digital marketing and if you wish to learn more, you should definitely check out training programs and solutions offered by Digital Deepak and team.  

5. Building a personal brand is fun.

What do you want to be known for?  What legacy do you want to leave behind?  What should they remember you for?   What gives meaning to your life and gives you a sense of purpose and belonging?

All these questions are worth finding answers for and in the process build a strong personal brand around answers to these questions. 

Your personal brand can be the magnet attracting the right segments of customers. 

The mass trust blueprint as rightly explained by Digital Deepak can be of great help here. 

Start with learning, then do the work, then write about it (blog or a book or any other way), then mentor others in the same field, then build your startup and do it all over again. 

6. It is a marathon and not a sprint

“All my overnight success has come after years of hard work and a lot of failure in between.”  - says Amazon founder.

Anything meaningful, it takes time to build it, whether it is a career, business, family, hobby, and likewise.

You have a significant unfair advantage if you are playing a long game. 

7. Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate

“You win or lose with your teams.”  Alone as a lone wolf, you can achieve only so much.  

Even arch-rivals like Apple and Google are collaborating.  Arch-rivals in the pharma space are collaborating in order to create a vaccine for the corona pandemic.

As young professionals, we must collaborate to grow the pie for everyone instead of fighting for the existing pie. 

8. Numbers tell the exact story 

Digital Deepak shares interesting arithmetic around how you can build a sizable business as a startup/freelancer/consultant/mentor by leveraging the following arithmetic.

• Mission 1 crore =  100 Rs per customer * 1 Lakh Customers

Or

• Mission 1 Crore = 1000 Rs per customer * 10 thousand customers

Or

• Mission 1 crore = 10,000 Rs per customer * 1 thousand customers 

Or 

• Mission 1 crore = 1,00,000 Rs per customer * 100 customers

You can also play with how you want to manage the marketing funnel.   

For example, a 100 Rs product might not result in profit but can create a funnel for the 1000 Rs or 10000 Rs products.

Also when you market in India, please do not forget the following important facts.

• Even though there are 1.3 billion (130 Crore) people in India, it is an extremely heterogeneous market.

• Top 10 Crore consumers in India are similar to Mexico with income levels of ~10 thousand USD ( 5 Lakh INR+)

• Next 10 Crore consumers are similar to the Philippines with income levels of ~5 thousand USD

• Next, more than 100 Crore  consumers are similar to Sub-Saharan Africa (not including South Africa) with a purchasing power of ~1200 USD (1 Lakh Rupee INR)

It is important to appreciate this diversity in India (besides so many languages, cultures, religions) and make your plans accordingly.

9. Break the silos - integrated is the way forward

People think that they will post a few Youtube videos, a few Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn posts, and customers should start pouring in.

Fortunately or unfortunately it does not work that way. 

The marketing approach has to be integrated where you keep customers and content for the customer at the center and then leverage all other channels (Paid, Social media, Email, and others) to generate attention and then trust and then finally transactions.

CATT framework - Content, Attention, Trust, and Transaction - developed by Digital Deepak is the best way forward here.

And instead of the one-time transaction, lifetime value (LTV) created out of the association between the customer and service provider can be much more beneficial for both the parties. 

10.  If you can’t measure it, you can't manage it.

Some smart guy once said - “In God we trust, everyone else brings data”.   

If you don’t have the data, then you are most of the time shooting in the dark and then hope and pray that something will work out. 

This is where “Direct response marketing” using digital media ads great value.  You can measure what is working, what is not working, you can do A/B testing and so much more. 

This was not possible just a few years back.  

This is where TV advertising seems quite wasteful since many people do other work while advertisements are playing on TV and also more recently TRP scam is also in the news.

Steve Jobs during Apple events used to always say “And there is one more thing...”

It is always good to do more than what is asked of you. Hence 2 more lessons here (besides the 10 lessons as mentioned title) which are extremely important as well. 

11.  More about better marketing

Marketing is science as much as art. In fact, it is more science than art.  You have to go about it scientifically and methodically. Emotions are important but they should help the cause and not go against the cause. 

How you build your marketing funnel, how you do targeting,  how you select your customers and channels is extremely important and must be data-driven rather than emotion-driven.

Emotions and passion are important too but they should be leveraged for branding, customer empathy, building a long-term business as well as A team.

12. Uniqueness and differentiation

As Peter Thiel says, competition is for the losers.  Instead of fighting with everyone else in the marketplace, it is better to create your own market/category/niche. 

As Digital Deepak mentions, “Don’t be the best, be the only one.”

In summary and conclusion,  there is a big market out there even during lockdown and recession and those who serve this market well will win big over time.  

You have to follow the rules of the game as highlighted in these 12 marketing secrets though.  

Also, keep learning and experimenting with the help of experts and mentors.

In the end, success will be yours if you do everything right for your customer with great consistency and discipline.    

Please do feel free to reach out at mahesh.jd@gmail.com if you need more specific insights, guidance, coaching, and mentoring.

MD2.0 by 31st December 2022

Health, Family, and Career of MD2.0 by 31st December 2022

• Health

MD is in the best of his health.

He has lost all his extra weight and reached his ideal weight goal of 66 Kilograms.  

He spends 2 hours every day in the morning 6 to 8 doing exercise, yoga, and meditation.  He is regular with Pranayama and does all asanas with required ease and flexibility. 

His body is flexible and without any health issues. He has got rid of all the health issues including sinus problems, body pain, back pain. His sleep time is optimal that is 7 hours every day from 11 pm to 6 am.

He runs a lot and is ready to complete the annual half marathon (21km) in January next year. He also enjoys trekking and hiking every other weekend spending time with nature.  

• Family

MD has got a lovely family with his wife and daughter.  They stay at a beautiful house in the suburb of Mumbai.  His parents are doing very well with great health, wealth, and happiness.   

His immediate family including brother, sister-in-law, nephews,  in-laws  and close friends  are doing very well as well. 

MD, his family, and friends spend quality time together and care for each other.

• Career

MD has got a well-established business where he helps a number of startups and executives.  Both growth of the business as well as profitability is as per the plan.

He enjoys his work thoroughly with productive days and weeks.  His daily schedule is fixed with a lot of time for work as well as other things he enjoys in life. 

His recently published book was very well received.  The startups he has invested in are doing well with the next rounds of investments. 

He has already established an authentic and trusted personal brand that is sought after by many.   

He has put his asset allocation in place and already working on a high-impact initiative that will be launched in March 2023. 

MD is content, happy, and satisfied with his life and looks forward to the second half of his life that is the next 50 years where he can contribute as much value in this world, in a good way.