An officer & a gentleman

One day when I was in my teens, our doorbell rang late in the night just as we were preparing for bed. We opened the door to a very frightened young lady. She was a young IRS officer from the West Bengal cadre who lived alone in a flat within our colony. She  was in tears as my parents ushered her in. In between her broken sobs we could make out that she was A) Suffering a mild viral fever B) Missing her parents & C) Feeling lonely and frightened.  Without a fuss, we kids gave up our tiny room for her, Mom made her some hot milk and whipped up some home remedies which helped her ease into  sleep. By the end of the next day she had suitably recovered and was a very different cheerful person when she joined us for dinner. She said something at the dinner table that left a lasting impression in my mind.  "As I lay alone & terrified in my bed thousands of KM from home, I wondered who to turn to for help. Immediately your father came to mind. Having worked with him and seeing him conduct himself, I knew him to be a thorough gentleman and I knew I would be safe and cared for. I didn't hesitate to search him out and knock on his door however late the hour." I turned to  my sisters. They were looking at father with adoration in their eyes. 

#gentleman #womenatwork #realmen #respect

Professional Etiquette

Not winning at a pitch does not mean defeat. It's an indication that someone else was better on that day. It is important to accept the client's decision with grace, improve from the feedback and maintain the relationship. In a world where nothing is permanent you never know when the winner of yesterday will fail tomorrow and you may be called again. So it is with interviews and job offers also. If you're not selected, understand why and improve. Nurture the contact. Treat it as an opportunity to grow your network and let the person know you beyond your CV. Do the same even if you are unable to take a client on board at a low cost or if you're not taking up a job being offered. Maintain that outlook with your vendor-partners as well. The world's a funny place and you never know when, where and in what position you meet the same people again. Sometimes it's you making the pitch and surprisingly at other times, the tables are turned and you're the person deciding. A calm, mature perspective marked with dignity and a genuine effort to maintain and nurture relationships is what will hold you in good stead. The world, after all, is round.

Rules of Entrepreneurship

How to lose a customer.

As marketeers, we need to understand consumer behavior better and treat the consumer's interest with patience, especially online. Today a consumer who shows interest by clicking on an ad is immediately taken to a microsite that attempts to capture his contact details in excruciating & unnecessary depth. This is the first put-off point. Not all customers are happy sharing personal details. The customer is further harried by an irritating OTP mechanism that tries to verify his details are accurate. If he hasn't lost all interest by then, a pop-up window asks to chat, once again seeking information. All this for a customer who perhaps just wanted a quick summary of what's on offer. But the consumer's ordeal is far from over. S/He is then hounded by call-center and sales people who keep asking and repeating the very same questions! After a fortnight of hounding all contact stops! The consumer is forgotten, no updates are sent to him, nothing to remind him, to keep his interest perked. He's simply forgotten. This process is ABSOLUTELY HARMFUL to the brand-consumer relationship. Marketeers must review this process immediately. DO NOT leave this to your digital agencies who're thoughtlessly slapping an ancient template onto your precious and costly consumer-engagement process.

Heroes and Leaders

Interesting analogy between Indian mythological characters and leadership styles: 1. The right-action driven leader -The Rama leader: Never takes a decision that is unethical or could cause harm or damage. Even if it means enduring losses. Values societal good over everything else. 2. The objectively-clear coach. The Krishna leader: Extremely clear on purpose and objective and ruthless in its pursuit. Marked by a team of extremely diverse and talented CEO's who head verticals, all of which are market leaders. 3. The flawed-great. The Ravana leader: Builder of conglomerates that are fundamentally anti-life. Everything else about them is as remarkable as the Rama leader, however the biggest problem is their denial that what they produce is harmful to Earth, nature and life. 4. The Negative loyalist. The Duryodhana leader: They create the greatest challenger brands. This leader inspires tremendous personal loyalty. Such companies often resort to fraudulent means to win and get caught. A pity for the companies could have been great if not driven by the negative trait. 5. The invisibles. The Bhishma Leader. Rarely heard or seen. Often unknown. These leaders build great companies under the shadows of big names and then quietly fade into oblivion.

Client-Servicing: The Heart Of the Communications Business

Communication is the core of every living being. In business and in branding great communication is often the driving force that keeps consumers and the community at large interested and hooked. The core of every piece of communication machinery is like our heart, which pumps blood to every part of the body rapidly, providing oxygen to the cells keeping them fresh & throbbing with ideas.

This heart of the communications business is the function of client servicing. Just as a weak heart translates into a sick body, Client-servicing is today sadly mistaken for and reduced to the image of a diffident and duh waiter at a lowly roadside 'dhaba'. The ills that plague the communications business I reckon, is due to a marginalized role for this most important of functions. For the advertising and communications business to thrive, it needs to have its heart back, healthy, bustling and pumping. This article is about what is client servicing and who does it. To begin, let me address the 2nd part first. Who does client servicing?

Everybody. As simple as that. Some of the best client servicing people I know are actually guys with the title of 'Creative Director' and 'Planning Director'.

That's right. Client servicing isn't about taking down a client brief. It's not even about having lunch or a drink with the client or having his family home over the weekend. And it's definitely not about arguing over what is good communication for the client.

1. Client servicing is about EMPATHY. To listen and to learn. To not rush into giving solutions. To have the patience to understand the unique details and differences in the client's business. To take the effort to scour every alley the brand sells in, to sift through tons of research that nobody went through, to study and evaluate the competitors, to look for similarities in other countries, categories, industries. And after doing all this, you need to get under the skin of the person sitting opposite you. What is she/he struggling with? What are his/her strengths? Where does she/he get stretched? What is the organization culture, the founder, his value-system, the key people in the company and their views. The people dynamics of the place. Also open up. Share bits about yourself and your company, personal, work...but in a constructive framework, in keeping with the line of the discussions. Let people know you & your organization, let them get comfortable with you. If you do not provide information about yourself, people will get it from other sources which may not paint the right picture about you and your organization. The best solutions are well-informed solutions. By displaying empathy, considerable information begins to flow between the client and the communications company, building the foundation of trust and creating the right environment for development of a framework for the eventual solution.
2. You are the LEADER, act like one. I have often heard Account Managers and Account Executives whine: What can we do? I'm just an AE. I've heard them say the same even when they become GM's. Such words earn no respect. Neither from clients, nor from the creative/media/partner team nor from juniors. Great servicing people always have a plan in place. Don't worry, there's nothing like a perfect plan! 50% of all plans fail!! But a well thought-through plan improves your chance of success. You don't have to begin with a well-developed plan. Begin with many tiny ones and bounce them off your team and client to develop each on merit. Finally, you will have about 2-3 workable ones. Always walk into meeting - with clients, bosses, creatives, partners with a plan in your head. Draw ideas from anywhere around. People sense and gravitate towards those who have clarity and a plan. Be that person.
3. Be BRAVE and always go beyond the brief. Problems are never the same, so how can solution be the same? Reflect and evaluate your work constantly. Is it similar to your past work? is there a pattern? Only print? only TVC? only digital? Only Hindi? only advertising? only GEC channels? ....If yes, it should be clear that you're not growing and neither are your solutions. You could argue that your client only asked for that much. But then you have to raise the question if that much would do the job? And if you know that it won't, then don't keep silent. It won't help to retain the client. Or your job. Give solutions that are honest. Give the right solution, even if you aren't making a rupee from it. Because the short-term never matters. Your work and advise will linger on. You client will return to you, in a bigger avatar. Quality and integrity never go out of fashion.
4. BELIEVE. In yourself, in your team, your work and your solution. And in the fact that you can make anything happen! Yes. Seriously. You can. Send a rocket into space? Yes you can. There's always a way. Everything can be done. ANYTHING can be done. In a week. In 3 days. In 1 day. Overnight. That's because good client servicing people know, if something can be imagined, then it can be done. You simply have to find out how it's done, simple! The best part is that the more incredible the task, the more you learn and grow. If you can make one impossible task happen then you've done what millions of people don't achieve in the lifetimes. Client's don't buy work. They buy your CONVICTION in that work! A word of caution here, belief is great, but it needs to be backed by hard-work and detailing. Conviction doesn't come from knowledge. It comes from having made thing happen.
5. CLARITY & ANTICIPATION. At any given point, good client-servicing people know exactly what is happening in their worlds. From the macro to the micro. From the smallest counter to the biggest event. Every bit is playing out in their heads, busy as they may be elsewhere. Such managers know how to 'flit back and forth between the balcony & the dance floor'. They're never pressurized by the quantum of work for they asses each task quickly, break them up into components, assign responsibilities and set them all rolling as separate balls. Then they step back to monitor the progress of every ball they've set rolling. If they see a ball lose steam, they give it the required nudge. If another's losing direction, they get it back on course. If one is hurtling towards the edge, they re-direct it. A million rolling balls are inside their heads. As they keep their eyes on them, they do one more thing. They ANTICIPATE what could go wrong. Therefore long a problem occurs they've taken corrective action to account for it.
6. ATMOSPHERE. Well before a presentation, a good client servicing executive knows what the outcome is likely to be. That's because he knows the mood of the team doing the work. He knows the confidence levels in the work, the quality of the information used and how much of what's needed to be done has been ticked off. Which is why MANAGING work atmosphere is critical to client servicing. Ideas aren't logical. Indeed the best ones defy all logic. Ideas don't just happen. Someone, somewhere takes a LEAP. And in an atmosphere of fear and risk, I can assure you, none will. The greatest servicing people absorb the pressure to keep the work atmosphere clear, buzzing and full of excitement. That gives teams the courage to take leaps. That feeling is intoxicating. Soon ideas flow unchecked and before long you have a winner.

Client servicing is not just 'client-servicing'. It's the heart of the communications business. It's what you touch when you want to reaffirm the faith. Client servicing is to be the GO TO person in the ecosystem. For the client, for the team, for the solution.

You have to be everything: creative, problem solver, psychologist, doer, thinker, fighter, researcher, analyst, talker, sponge...yet you have to be the person in the shadow: the voice of reason, the sense of belief, the conviction in the idea, the detail in the God...

Client servicing is to be the 'Dasavataar': The 10 avatars of Lord Vishnu, taking different forms, shapes, doing different deeds and acts, setting the wrongs into rights...To be the Protector, the person who keeps the world in order, safe, secure and thriving with life and ideas.

Insecurity. A bane & a boon