“Help your customer choose what you want them to choose”.

Some strategies to govern customer’s choices in your favor-

Provide multiple product option in the same category – e.g. same or similar energy drink in different colors, flavors and packaging in single cost bracket. Give them more options to choose.

Broaden your product line – Offer something which is perceived totally different from the existing product without expanding by leveraging your existing production and design capacity. Divert their attention to some other product from your line of product.

Start early – Your product should start targeting your prospective customers in its early interest phase, when children start choosing their own chocolate, when teenage start choosing their own spectacles, when a young couple start searching for their first car, when early grey-haired citizens start looking for investments. Approach early, either through target marketing or through mass promotion. 

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Dwelling on achievements

One takes pride on his/her achievement. Why not? They have achieved something and should celebrate their success. But past glory of success should not overshadow the present effort and future prospects.   


We often get caught in the glorification of past success accentuated by praise of others and tend to miss the present opportunities. When achievement becomes achieved, politely accept it and move forward to achieve the next big target. 




Dwelling on past success is affair of an average mentality, its affair of those who does not have anything exciting at present to share or waiting in the cards. Dwelling on self glorified past is a habit, which makes you self obsessed, its little difficult to break, but it’s better to shed. Those memories of successful moments in life of course give you a positive kick, just keep those alive in your mind to share with your grandchildren, but don’t linger on it, don’t dwell on it. Those who dream big, they are always on the move, always chasing, with occasional pause to rejuvenate their mind, body and soul, 

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How to earn money fast and how about a second job?

There are no shortcuts as such to earn money fast, but there are ways and tricks to enhance the possibilities and probability of earning money faster than business as usual. It needs hard work and determination backed by industry knowledge. You need to choose an industry, which is your area of interest, but be cautious to choose an industry which has either future growth potential or proven good track record.  One has to be persistence with a touch of patience, but should be ready as well to take the risk.

Risk has to be calculated and you should not put everything at stake in one go. One should be ready with a realistic backup plan as well. 

One suggestion for people with regular job who are also aspiring future entrepreneur is that you should expand your knowledge base in your future business area while you are continuing your day job and you can also expand your area of operation, may be a secondary income apart from your day job either in your chosen field or through, blogging, affiliate marketing, writing, freelance job etc. to support your dream. When there is a regular and sufficient income from your second job you can either continue with your second job with continuously reinventing your strategies or you can switch your job for a full-fledged launch of personal business. 

Learn how to materialise every Business Opportunity which comes your way in the following post - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/never-miss-business-opportunity-again.html

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Do you need to go to college to be an entrepreneur?

It partially depends on what kind of business you want to start. Formal educations up to the college might not be necessary for some creative entrepreneurs but it helps you on many fronts like personality development, interaction skill, of course industry knowledge, business intricacies etc. but usually pre-college education can help understand the basics of business dynamics, and will help interact with people in general and specifically client. Whether college or not one should definitely learn basic finance and one can always keep increasing their business and industry knowledge while keeping track of market affairs. 

In this information age it’s easier than ever to acquire knowledge, through different social media streams. It’s an open knowledge economy; people are much more open and willing to share their success stories, business tricks, business pitfalls and lessons compared to past. Feedback was never so readily available through the emergence of blogs, forums, etc. There are ample success stories to justify the need of formal education and equal ample stories where successful entrepreneurs have emerged without formal college education, but there were few common traits in both the categories, which is – Vision, determination, hard work, persistence and continual search for knowledge while reinventing themselves. 

Learn how to read a business bestseller before it’s written in the following post

http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/03/reading-bestsellers-before-its-written.html

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What should be the Long-term Targets of an online business and startups?

It’s very important to have a vision for any company and its process and strategies should be aligned to that long term vision to make it sustainable. Long term targets are generally macro level targets spread over the period of 10 to 15 years or more. Some of the essential long term targets for any online business can be-

To get established as a trusted and honest brand

To get recognized as one of the leading business faces of the industry

To get recommended as a stable brand with strong track record and consistent performance

To be known for excellence in service and product

To globally establish itself as a known brand

Should have a client portfolio which showcases some of the biggest and trusted  brands nationally and worldwide

Should have a project portfolio which showcases a healthy mix of projects which help establish company’s expertise

To accomplish some of the most challenging tasks in their industry

Should have a well established company culture and Vision in which employees have faith.

Learn Top 10 suggestions for new start-ups and entrepreneurs - http://bit.ly/zU5soj

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Some tricks of the tech-trade for service delivery business-

You need to have strong data base (single largest qualification criteria) of all the existing and future prospective clients, (let it grow)


You need to track your transactions using behavioral tracking software/ systems, 


Understanding nature of customers in terms of frequency, choice of product, etc.. and offer similar promotional products and services 


Technology will help provide tailored service experience to individual customers.


It will help you make loyal customers by exceeding there expectations, every time they come back to you


Word of mouth Publicity

Learn about the top 5 problems faced by new startups in providing customer service here - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/top-5-problems-faced-by-new-business.html

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Never miss a Business Opportunity again

Never say No to any opportunity - if it aligns with your company vision

Never say No to any opportunity - no matter how challenging is the work

You should be either able to accomplish the work or should be able to convince the client to modify the nature and scope of work itself, - Just don't give up

Learn to operate in adverse financial situations- know where to cut the cost without compromising the quality of work- learn to bootstrap, learn to scale down when needed

Prove one now secure one for future - win the trust of client by accomplishing given project well and don't hesitate to ask for another project in advance from client

There are ways and means to accomplish the job - for each part of work where you lack expertise; there are people to help you out in those areas.

Be always ready with several versions of Business Plan, for different prospective clients

You should have a scalable, flexible and realistic business plan  

Learn best ways to make a realistic business Plan, here http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/how-to-keep-business-proposal-and.html

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Business on the go - Ever ready entrepreneur

Always be dressed and presentable in business hours and beyond - 

  *You are the image of your company

  * Well dressed look increases your confidence level
 - Let the people enjoy your company and presentable personality 

Always keep your plug and play USB storage device with you-

                                You never know when is the next presentation

·                            You don't want to lose that precious new client  

·                             Keep Your Company information / proposal ready in different format

·                            Keep your company profile presentation updated

Keep your business relevant numbers and information at your fingertips

Keep one page profile/ project summary with you 

Learn tricks of “one page” business success strategies in the following post - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/one-page-business-philosophy.html

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The most crucial period on business timeline

Every Business has a growth timeline and it witnesses many ups and downs as well as achieved milestones on its growth trajectory, but one of the most important time period in its growth timeline is the time when business expands- "scaling up business". Expanding and taking business to the next stage is a volatile time period unless perceived and planned beforehand. Its the time when many individuals at middle management level gets involved in a business which was originally started by one or few enthusiastic entrepreneur with few helping hands at bottom level of business.

In business or corporate arena it is said that "one should hire smarter people "  but at times in course of business expansion, business owners feel little threatened  by the pool of smart middle management which they just hired, it becomes little difficult for the owner to handle sudden growth in number of employee. Founder entrepreneurs can't do every work on their own, they should learn to develop trust in its employees and should focus on most important aspect of business development, finance and macro management.

Entrepreneur should develop a company culture from the get go to encourage and develop trust of employees in the vision of company keeping inevitable future expansion of the business.

Business expansion demands thoughtful consideration of acquisition, merger and partnerships. Learn what precautions need to be taken while forming partnership with friends and close associates in the next article - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/what-precautions-needed-to-form.html

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10 suggestions for new start-ups and entrepreneurs

Find out a market which has growth potential

Move out of your comfort zone

Keep your expenses low

Don't get spread too thin managing multiple aspects of business yourself

Manage and maintain your account book and project portfolio from the get go

Strategies need to be translated into achievable numbers 

Create flexible business model to adapt to changing business dynamics and accommodate initial business errors

Continuously educate yourself - industry update, best seller books, emerging business strategies, and upcoming technology

You cannot afford to wait for launch of your product or service till its 100% satisfactory; otherwise you will be too late for the market

Don't simply imitate leaders in your field, give your own unique and valuable input- don't pretend to be someone else

To know what’s common between successful business leaders see the following article - http://fromthediaryofmentor.blogspot.in/2012/02/what-is-common-between-successful.html

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