#AskRai: Building and Selling More Effectively with Rai Chowdhary

Source: GeniusDen archive transcript checked against the recording. Administrative opening and closing material is omitted; the presentation wording is otherwise preserved with light readability edits.

Good afternoon. Good evening. I don't know what to say. I'm on a different time zone. So Excuse my ignorance about the time zones in the U.S. We are We are what one hour ahead of mountain time. Is that correct? Yeah, one hour ahead of mountain time. So it's It's probably five thirty where I came from well first of all Let me thank you that you took the time to come here the weather is terrible and hopefully you didn't have too much trouble Getting over here and attending this event We will definitely make sure that it is worth your while and you get a good good value out of your time My name is Rai. I'm going to work with you for the next maybe What five six hours something like that? Right? Yeah, okay, you came prepared, right?

So the idea the idea is that uh You probably have some burning questions you probably are entrepreneurs or maybe some of you are Want to be entrepreneurs. I don't know what your background is. So what we will do is we will pass out Three by five cards and on those three by five cards There is a couple of pieces of information that I would like for you to write down. Okay, so Give me a second. Let Can we pass out the three by five cards? And here is what I'm looking for from you. I would like to know What Is the nature of Your business Okay, I mean are you trying to do apparel are you trying to do Develop apps, you know, what is what is the nature of your business and if you don't have a business that's okay What is it that you're thinking about you know Not everybody here may have a business at this point, but some of you may have an idea that you want to Pursue the next question I would like for you to put down is

What are The key Challenges Ahead of you So here if you already have a business, what are some burning questions that you are struggling with what what are the issues that bother you If you don't have a business, that's okay, then write down What is holding you back? Why are you not starting it? What is holding you back? And the third one Is I am about to start a newsletter with Do Magic for Your Business or Do Magic for Your Life. That's the title of my book, by the way, Do Magic with Your Life So if you want to be on my mailing list, then I would like for you to tell me your email address Okay, there will be no No selling of any email addresses or anything of that sort. I assure you that's not where we are going The idea is only to assist entrepreneurs Get started and give them some tips I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs And believe me many of the new new entrepreneurs are so lost

That I am shocked So hopefully All the dues that I paid I lost a lot of my hair Most of my hair has gone gray and I'm saying if you can benefit from my experience then why not right All right, so those are the things that I'm looking for and Once I start getting the the three by five cards back from you I will read What the nature of the business is and I will read these two items And then I will try to address the questions that you are posing Could I have done this in a different way? I mean I could have come here with a canned PowerPoint presentation right and tried to to push my agenda On you the audience. I didn't want to do that To me, that really doesn't make sense If you are trying to get something started. This is not about me. This is about you So that is why I did not come here with a PowerPoint presentation Although I have several sitting in my laptop and I can rattle those off

Until you are blue in the face, but that's that's of no good to you That's of no benefit to you All right So this card says that You design and build a new type of clock that is the business that you are in And my clock is different All right and lack of money and time How burning is this desire? How burning how much of a burning passion do you have Are you willing to really give up What you are doing and jump with both feet Lack of money and and time so think about it this way. I am an investor also If I see a good proposal Regardless of whether the economy is in recession or whether the economy is booming If I get a good proposal and I see that I can get good returns Then the lack of money issue tends to fade away into into insignificance So lack of money I would not really hold that back if you are really solving a problem that somebody has You can probably find an investor Who is willing to put money into your project? The next question is

How much control of the company are you willing to give up? With money comes constraints and loss of control So that is something that you will have to think about And time Look If you have a dream And if you haven't started pursuing your dream You are on a one-way street each one of us is on a one-way street You know what I mean by that Time is a one-way street You lose money you can regain the money You lose property you can go buy property you can regain property you lose time January 20th 2016 is never going to come back So when I hear this thing that I don't have time I say if you have a strong and burning passion And a dream Why are you holding yourself back?

Why are you not moving in that direction? Okay, I understand you may have family responsibilities or whatever At least start taking some steps At least start defining what your dream is I believe I have answered this question if you want me to elaborate more I'm happy to go into it or you can meet me after the session is done Okay Have I answered this question reasonably well I don't know your exact situation, but all I can say is lack of money I don't buy that Lack of time You really need to think about is this really important to you. Let me ask you this Do you have a guarantee that you will be alive tomorrow? Not a single person in this room can give me a guarantee that you will be alive tomorrow. Is that correct?

And when that call comes Do you want to be in remorse? That I should have I should have created this clock and solved this problem in the world Think about it You want to discuss more meet with me after the session. I'll put this away The next card says global strategy consulting funding for my non-profit That is the biggest challenge that you are facing So is this global strategy consulting a not for profit organization or is this going to be for profit So are you setting up two different organizations? Oh, you do okay, okay And what is the objective of the non-profit? Okay, so you would like to set up a not for profit organization for empowerment education and training in Parts of the world where it is most needed Is that correct?

Wonderful. That's a great noble objective And your challenge is to get the funding for the not for profit Is that correct? So not for profit organizations typically do not get funded by investors It is very difficult very very difficult because at the end of the day the investor is going to say how do I get my money out? And what multiple will I receive back? Right So your sources of funding probably will be sponsorships Or some of some money from your pocket to fund that organization Or you can try UN and you know the bureaucracy the bigger And the and the more worldwide organization that you deal with the more bureaucracy you will have to deal with Okay Right, right. So that that is going to be a huge challenge I would say if you can align with Another organization that is not competing in the same space even though that would be a not for profit as well then you can start small and work

in parallel with them and add more value to their organization And be able to channel some funds towards your dream which is which is what you just described That would be my recommendation Otherwise you are going to deal with a lot of bureaucracy and keep fighting all the time to to get you know funding for your organization believe me there are thousands and thousands of not for profits Who are all competing for the same pie? So now you become one more person who is competing for the same pie Many times it is a lot easier to form an alliance And then use the alliance to further your objective and your dream Does that make sense? Yeah, so I would I would recommend taking that route because it just makes life easier for you and believe me Running two or three different organizations Is really going to take a lot out of you. So think twice before you Get serious. So at some point you will have to decide

whether whether to continue the not for profit company or whether to continue with your global strategy consulting because Unless you have very strong partners Who can take over some parts of the business This will become a very very draining and time consuming for you. So be aware of that All right Absolutely. So so so find out corporations is what you said, right Find out corporations who are willing to work with you. Is that what you said? Right Right that's a good idea. So I would encourage that as well again keep in mind that I don't have all the answers, right? Nobody in this world has all the answers. So I'll share with you My thoughts. I'll share with you my experience and some of you may also want to talk to each other. So feel free to network Okay, let me move on to the next one Nature of the business is HR. I'm assuming that is human resources Key challenges, but you didn't write down the key challenges. So I don't know what

What to make of this Yes, please So you your key challenge is to spread the awareness of what you are doing Is this something that you have started or you want to start You have started, okay Okay, all right May I ask how long have you been doing this More than 12 years Oh the HR business here. You just started in two months. Okay. All right So I have been down this journey before many times. I forgot to give you my introduction. I was so eager to get started Today I am in my seventh and eighth Startup just so you would know and my kids many times asked me dad When are you going to retire? And I say retire is made of two words, right? re Entire so first I have to get tired Then I will retire The bottom line is, I don't know what retirement means anyway Starting something from ground zero is something that I have done Let's see Seven times now and I am on my eighth I've never bought a running business the only running business I got was from my father

When I lost him at age 12 so at age 13 all of a sudden I found myself Running a business and that was in India It's a long story if I tell you that story it'll be tomorrow morning and my story still would not be done So I won't I won't go there Let me ask you this Do you know what Customer segments and what are the profiles of the customers that you want to go after Have you identified that? See in the book on Do Magic the D is to define what your business is about D is to define Who are your likely customers and then the D is to define What are the needs of those customers? What are the needs that are already being met and what are the needs that are not being met?

Okay, all of that homework has to be done because without that you really can't proceed further And then the question is Once I have that how do I get my word out? Okay, so The very fact that your business is in HR tells me that you will probably focus on medium medium-sized business organizations the small business owner may or may not need a whole lot of HR support But as they start growing bigger 30 40 50 people 60 people they all of a sudden need some HR people Okay to support them One model that I have seen succeed before So again in Do Magic the O Is to observe who has done this before And check the objectivity or how objective is your dream Okay, so observe who has done this before one model that has worked very successful is You work with business owners and let them know that you can be their outsourced HR manager And that has a certain nice ring to it because now they are not they don't have to hire a full-time HR manager

Show them your credentials. I don't know what certifications and stuff like that you have But if you have certifications show them that I'm certified by SPHR, which is the society for Professional human resource managers show them the certifications give them your credentials and say look you don't have to hire me I will be your outsourced HR manager and here are the things that you are doing It's taking your time away from running your business You can outsource it and I can take care of all of those things for you But the pounding of the pavement and making those contacts is something that you will need to do Outsourcing that I don't think is possible The at the end of the day the owner has to have the passion to drive it forward Okay, did I answer your question? Did I give you some ideas? All right The next card says nature of business is video marketing key systems for freelancers and small businesses

I don't know what is meant by key systems For freelancers and small businesses. I don't know what Okay, so is video marketing a separate business and the key systems for freelancers a separate business Okay, okay got it Challenges keep getting the word out getting in front of people with a clear concise message Okay, if you are targeting small businesses, that's what it looks like freelancers and small businesses A good way to reach them is through chambers of commerce. I have done that myself And what I would do is I would look for speaking opportunities through the chambers of commerce and register with as many chambers of commerce as possible And see if they are willing to host you as a speaker now What they will not like is you pitching your business?

There are different forums that the chambers of commerce organizes for pitching your business When you go there as a speaker Make sure that you have a clear sense of whether you are allowed to pitch your business or Are you going to run a tutoring or a training session? You get the idea because there are times when you should not pitch and just run a training session And let people ask you how can I use your service or whatever? So be careful about that because if they start If the chamber of commerce senses that all you are doing is pitching all the time They may not invite you again to be a speaker or something Then then then the negative publicity starts spreading. So just be careful on that So challenges is to get the word out get in front of people with a clear concise message So chambers of commerce meetings are where most Small business people congregate and I think there are meet-ups also where small business people might be coming together

now It is just not enough to To run a tutoring session or or pitch your business the the thing I would try to figure out is what is my value proposition? Why would Rai—I'm taking it upon myself—why would Rai spend one or two hours You know listening to your speech What am I going to get out of it? So think about the value proposition and then benchmark your competition The third thing I would recommend there is to find out what are the pain points Now small businesses are spread across You know dozens and dozens and dozens of sectors. Are you trying to focus on You know food service businesses? Are you trying to focus on Retail operations? So you may need to think in terms of how you can tailor your message for those different segments one of the challenges in this one is going to be What is the cost of acquisition of a customer and how easy or difficult it is for you to acquire Customers

So that is another point that you will need to think through Because if you are doing this single-handedly, I am assuming you are single-handedly doing this right now Then your time is at a premium right And very quickly you will need to Figure out who is your target audience and then how do you reach them? And then how do you custom make your message for these two or three or four different sectors Small businesses are spread out all over the place right from laundromats to Retailers to car wash operations every kind of thing is there. Are you trying to reach all of them at once? Okay Yeah, so you are already beginning to kind of stratify and segregate the different segments in different ways Geographic segmentation is is quite fine, but within the geographic segmentation You will still have many verticals and many sectors So you will need to think through all of that Okay, have I answered your question?

All right, very good this card says this card says Economic oh, sorry e-commerce site launch Okay, that is the nature of the business limited time and Is it hierarchy limited time and hierarchy? I don't know how hierarchy is coming into this But the Okay, let me repeat that so make sure everybody got that So you are not really trying to start a business of your own But you are promoting this idea within an organization and you are running into hierarchy Issues, is this within a government organization? NGO, okay a hierarchy typically Gets in the way especially if the organization has very tight Silos and people are paranoid about other people stepping on their territory So the question is Do you have a feel for whether the hierarchy that is trying to hold you back Is just one level above or is it two or three or four levels above? Do you have a clear sense of that?

Two or three levels above So it is the hierarchy that is all the way the one above you and the one above you and the one above that Is that correct? Okay Again here you may want to think in terms of value proposition and find an opportunity where the organization gets stuck Let me give you another hint because I have done this many times in my in my career I have worked in companies like DuPont I have worked in companies like Applied Materials. I also worked for a medical products company over my career I worked for a company that is here in town and it's called Frito-Lay You have heard of Frito-Lay? All right, so I'm very familiar with this hierarchical issues What I would do is if the people Above you two or three ranks above you if they have annual objectives and goals that they need to meet Figure those out Or at least ask them to share those with you Are you with me so far?

Once they share that with you Find out how you can add value To their achieving those goals Through what you are trying to provide See now all of a sudden you have changed that you have turned the table around It's not your idea against what they want to do You are saying okay, this is what you are being held accountable for right And here is a way to do it plant the seed It may not work right away But in the future it might work And I would not give it up, you know first time you plant the seed Then you say I'm not interested whatever they said in the other Find another objective find a place where they are having trouble where they are getting stuck Trying to meet their objective And come at it from that angle Does that help?

Okay, all right the next business is analytical insight through geolocation IoT swarm Internet of things swarm The swarm is throwing me off. What do you mean by what do you mean by IoT swarm? Thousands of devices are already there Okay, and you are trying to boost your selling efficiency Right, so is this something that you are trying to start or is it already happening? It's already in motion, okay And you are trying to increase your selling efficiency. Do I understand that correct? Yes Okay, and what is the so the product or the output from your service is analytical insight is that correct? Yeah, essentially we Okay So I'm gonna have to use the board for a second now Here are some things to think about Who is the user?

And what is the benefit they are going to get? And who is the payer? In those situations where these two Are the same entity building selling efficiencies is somewhat easier. I don't know in your case Been down we have been down that road as well. It was in medical products because in medical products the user is the patient The service provider is the doctor The payer is the insurance company And then the regulations on top of that made life even more difficult so that that was a nightmare that we had to go through We came out of it. Don't get me wrong, but we had to think about all of that. All right So I don't know how you are pitching your idea and to whom but I can guarantee you one thing This person is not sold on the idea You are not going anywhere Just not happening So the question is Can you create a value proposition for which this payer cannot say no That will be the trick

And simultaneously Work with the user So that the user doesn't get a chance to say I used their service and if it was of no use to me Does that make sense? So you'll need a dual strategy You'll need a dual strategy. In my case, I needed to have a four prong strategy because I had the regulations on one side Hospital on one side insurance company doctor And the patient was totally ignorant the patient didn't even know What the product does and how they benefit so leave that aside. So you'll need a dual strategy Addressing both of these stakeholders Okay, now To carry to carry that just one more step further I would recommend that you create a analysis matrix where you find out the needs and wants of both of these constituents And then distill them so that you can Extract out the most critical needs and wants for both of them Some of them may overlap some of them may not overlap at all And then create your strategy around it and that will cut out a lot of fluff that might have gotten into your system

Now granted I answered this at a higher level because I don't know the intricate details of your business But at a higher level I gave you a direction hopefully That you could use going forward Does that help? Awesome import export international supply chain service company So this person wants to Find and meet potential customers who need pipe equipment and cement How to find and meet potential customers who need pipe equipment and cement and then the other one is factory machinery Oh, okay, so those are two different There are three different product lines pipe equipment cement factory machinery All right, have you narrowed down the countries that you want to deal with Or is it wide open please go ahead Yeah, please speak up. Yeah You are trying to market in the us You are trying to expand your market in the us Okay, so your major market is in africa right now But you are trying to enter the us market

Okay, okay Have you started any work yet or are you just beginning to think about it? You are one dealer Okay Pipe equipment cement and factory machinery is what you would like to market right in the us Okay Have you identified what are the major customers for these types of products Yes You have Okay Here is what I would do Unless Unless you are backed by a very powerful multinational company lot of these big names like Home Depot or Lowe's or Other types of big chain distributors are not going to talk to you Most likely it will be very difficult Okay, I don't know if you are trying to contact them getting them to return phone calls is nearly impossible I'm in that boat on one of the products. I'm trying to create so I I've decided I'm not going to chase the big names I'm going to go after the second and third level customers Who don't have the leverage to command good prices from the bigger suppliers overseas

Are you with me? The big multinationals don't want to deal with the smaller distributors here So that would become my focus and I would start a dialogue with them Okay That would be my recommendation And once you grow big enough then the Home Depot and Lowe's will be interested in talking to you There is one caveat though the caveat, or one exception The exception is that if you have a unique product that is new to the us market Then you might still have a chance to get into those bigger stores But if you have products which are already competing with other products I would take the approach that I just mentioned to you Okay. All right. All right. This card says OD How many of you are engineers?

Please raise your hand when you hear the term OD. What does that mean to you? Overdrive. What does it mean to you? Say that again Overdose That coming from an engineer. That's interesting Yeah, what does it mean to you? You are an outlier because you are already in HR Okay, so a typical mechanical engineer when they see the word OD you know what it what it means to them outside diameter Okay, anyway, yeah here OD means organization development. This card says This person wants to do OD and employee engagement consulting The challenge they are having is finding customers Remaining profitable and hiring additional consultants. All right. So this means this is an ongoing business. Is that correct?

Yeah, it's an ongoing business This is from Thomas so y'all can talk a little later All right, so Keep in mind one thing. I'll I'll be brutally honest with you. Okay If you are trying to offer this as an external resource, which is what it seems like When the economy turns down Your organization will be one of the first contractors to be let go Okay, every business has Certain anchors or moats. Moats is a word that Warren Buffett uses. I use the word anchors What does it mean? Moats and anchors are those things that act like hooks So if I am providing a service That my customer can easily bring in in-house Then the anchor I have is not a strong anchor If I'm providing a service that my customer thinks Is not all that value added, but it is good to have but not essential to have Then my anchor is not a strong anchor Are you with me? The only reason I'm cautioning you about this is There is an economic downturn that is likely to set upon us

I don't think it is here yet and I don't think it will be as bad as 2008 And if you haven't understood what I'm saying is what I'm telling you is that the market is experiencing very very high volatility How down it will go how deep it will go is anybody's guess The people who are meeting at Davos are probably writing your future and my future So we don't have control over those things in those types of situations If I see that the business I am in doesn't have deep anchors Or deep moats my guard goes up very quickly And I started and I start thinking about if there is a downturn, how will I survive? Okay. I'll give you an example 9-11 happened Nobody could have predicted that and overnight I lost more than half of my revenue source I mean it was like 9-11 and two days later I am seeing 50 to 60 percent of the contracts I had were being cancelled And you know what business I was in I was in the training business

Which is similar to what what this is OD and employee engagement consulting Okay, I'm not trying to discourage you all I'm saying is Watch out The way the economy is going and the way the Fed is acting we don't know if the Fed is going to do Two more cycles of tightening or four more I can guarantee you if the Fed does four more cycles of tightening The market is going to take a very very big hit So we and we can't control those things Yes, you have a question You may not like my answer Let me let me sketch out something for you Can I ask you why you got into this business? Yeah The question of passion has come out People who are entrepreneurs They are a crazy bunch of people And it includes me because I'm an entrepreneur and I'm crazy enough to do it for the eighth time Look This is in my book, but I'll sketch it out for you and there is a lot more detail in the book as well When you create your dream when you think about what business I want to get into

There are three forces that you need to look at One is your passion What am I passionate about? The other force is your skills and abilities. Okay? And the third force is market opportunity. You may be the best trainer in the world you may be the best HR person in the world you may be the best organizational development person in the world If the market opportunity is not there in other words if this circle has moved out Then you don't have the confluence of all the three forces What I tell entrepreneurs day in and day out your dream Should lie at the confluence of those three If you are independently rich and you have got tons of money And this market opportunity moves out you can still sustain yourself Because you are not dependent on the revenue stream you can do what you want And do it all day long no problem at all So, let us be very practical and not lose sight of it. Okay, okay I'll come to you in just one second. Let me finish this thought and I'll come to you. Okay

So the question here is finding customers remaining profitable And hiring additional consultants given the situation of the economy What I would do is Immediately I would establish a metric and that metric is called dry well time Okay dry well time means if my revenue spigot Is shut off today How long can I last as a business before the business goes belly up All right, and the reason I'm saying is because that is the state of the economy and that's where it seems to be headed Now I would create that metric and I would compare that to another metric and the second metric is From the point of contact to the point where I can get cash from a customer What is the cycle time on that?

Okay, so let us say that the dry well time Is four months in other words, I have got cash that will last me only four months You got the idea and if you find that your point of contact excuse me time of contact to the to the cash time is nine months What does that tell you? That tells you you are in very deep trouble Loss of revenue you are not going to be able to withstand that in a pretty way at all So those are important things I would start putting in place at this point And finding customers we have already discussed you know depending on the nature of who your Target segment is you know chambers of commerce Working with other organizations in the area giving speeches. I give speeches at many professional meetings all the time American Society for manufacturing engineers American Society for quality speaking almost Two to three days a month on pro bono basis because

it keeps my network very fresh have a good LinkedIn profile Right on LinkedIn I'm beginning to pick up business through LinkedIn If you don't have a profile, please create one and start posting articles you will get noticed Believe me It takes time but you will get noticed and having said all of that just keep in mind You know keep your guard up with regard to the economy as well Okay Let me move on to the next one Financial services is the nature of this business and gaining the trust of my potential clients. Okay Let me put myself in the shoes of a potential client. You tell me you offer financial services Why would I first of all Why would I believe that my money will be safe or you will really take care of my money and my finances more than me How will you convince me that So here are things as a customer. I'm telling you I'll be looking for I'll be looking for credentials I'll be looking for references

But the trouble with references is most people give you references who are already going to say a good word about you Right So instead of asking you for references, I'll just ask you who are the customers you have dealt with over the last five years Give me some names And who can vouch for you? Yeah, that's correct Okay Right Okay, great. So it is payroll and those types of things not financial management for high-net-worth individuals, right Okay, so here I would first of all Gaining the trust of your potential clients. So let me ask you this. [Audience response unclear.] Potential clients, okay, so these are new clients Got it new clients. All right Uh What what registrations or certifications has your business already acquired?

Okay, so has anybody said that They find it a little difficult to get started with you because of a trust issue or is this your fear Trust issue Right, so it is a newness. I'm meeting you for the first time, right? Why would I trust you? Correct. Yes The best way to to work around all of that is to network Look at your existing customers And just ask them for a referral and don't ping them too much. I do this all the time And I'll give you an example. There was one Referral I got and through that referral I got into Dell Dell became my customer And I did more than five million dollars of revenue with Dell in a matter of six years as a training and consulting services provider the power of word of mouth is Totally invaluable Regardless of what the internet says and what anybody says you get referrals work your referrals Do you have any customers there? Not yet. Okay. Do you have any customers in an adjoining town?

Okay Use them You have to start somewhere. So this is something that you are just starting. Is that correct? Yeah Right, right. What I meant is this is not ongoing. This is a new thing that you are going to start Yeah, so in that case you don't have customer referrals, but you can use friends or other you know People that trust you and they can give you referrals. That's how I would start Okay, and it doesn't hurt to do one or two pro bono assignments And let the customer check out your services They have got nothing to lose Exactly, exactly. So de-risk it from a customer standpoint What is at stake for them? So de-risk that so you get referrals and you de-risk that should give you an easy entry Okay, this one says social e-commerce for clothing and funding Okay Wonderful First of all in the clothing business, there is lot of competition already Yes, please Okay So if I if I can summarize what you just said

You would like to sell clothing online. Is that correct? And be able to take measurements online. Is that what you said? Okay Yeah, yeah, okay. So So your question is how do you get funding? Yeah, you want somebody to invest in your company and then take you to the next level Add value Use their connections. So you want to do what people do on Shark Tank. Do you see Shark Tank? Yeah, okay Okay, let me ask you this What is in place today that an investor would want to Get started with you. Do you have any revenues? Do you have any basic infrastructure? You have the prototype ready. Have you sold anything? Oh, so this is still an idea Beyond an idea. You have a prototype Yes Your prototype website or your prototype?

I would I would okay. So let me ask you this. What is holding you back from doing some sales and establishing your record That you can build some customers Those customers were happy and they came back or they referred other customers to you What's holding you back from doing that if your website is already ready Okay Of course Okay, so you have a prototype of the website ready But it is not a fully usable website from a customer standpoint Are you are you completely out of money at this point or do you have some more money that you can put in You are done. How much of the company are you willing to give away? Are you willing to give away 70 80% of the company?

Are you willing to give away 60% Are you willing to give away 51% good luck. I'm sorry. I have to be brutally honest I'm not here to sugarcoat things or lead you down the wrong path. Okay, honestly speaking You are pre-revenue And the hurdles needed to go from a prototype website to a customer usable website has other risks and pitfalls in it You understand my point? So if I'm an investor and I don't get 80% control of the company Highly unlikely that anything is going to move forward. I'm not saying it is impossible All I'm saying is it will be very very difficult and you will still end up giving away a lot of your company So think about it provide services to small retailers. The challenge is how to get my people to perform highly How to get my people to perform highly or to care and how to get myself to lead Better Is this something that is already ongoing or are you thinking of starting this?

Ongoing, okay How to get my people to care, right? There is a very good book. It was written by an author out of India. I don't remember the name of the author Many people say customers come first But what many business owners are realizing is employees come first Okay, because employees become your first point of contact with the customer very often So if the employees are not treated well It is very likely And I'm not saying that's happening in your case. Don't please don't misunderstand. Okay. All I'm saying is the better you treat your employees The better the chances that your customer interface and customer experience will be great and the customers will come back Okay, look at the difference between Walmart and Starbucks granted. I'm giving you two extremes Or other companies where employees are treated very well another one that comes to mind is Chick-fil-A Their employees are treated very well. Whole Foods employees are treated very well

Whereas other grocery store employees are not treated very well Naturally it reflects on the interface between the customer and the And the employee and the customer sees the company Through the experience that they got dealing with the employee, isn't it? So so that would be a good place to start And how to get myself to lead better That I will have to work with you for two three months if I have to watch No, everybody can be a great leader. Don't get me wrong Leadership can be learned. Some people are born with it. Some people need to learn it, but that's okay You can learn to be a great leader A few basic things to keep in mind We all have this tendency We all have this tendency to judge and evaluate I'll tell you what the leading companies are doing in terms of employee engagement and treating employees fairly And this goes counter to What many people believe and what many people think one of the first things they have done is give up

annual reviews Annual reviews are one of the worst ways to evaluate employees I know I had to do it when I was in the corporate world and I used to fight it I used to fight it. I used to sweat it. I used to postpone it How can you evaluate a person's performance for the whole year in a matter of one hour And pass a judgment on that Right and then give them a grade on a scale of one to five And the poor poor folks if they fall in the bottom 10 percent many companies have this policy That everybody who falls in the bottom 10 are going to get thrown out. Are you nuts? If you have to lay off people Who is really responsible for that? Tell me who wakes up in the morning and goes to work with the intention of screwing up There is hardly any person who does that So 80 to 90 percent of the issues lie with the business leaders and the managers Okay, I've been in that boat and I have fought it So yeah, go ahead

Yeah Absolutely, absolutely So here are things that I have implemented and I inherited a department where the employee turnover was 30 percent Okay, in other words every three years my whole department had turned over and it was a deeply technical skill-based employee base that I was dealing with In a matter of one year. I took that down to less than five percent and the VP of HR came to me and said What are you feeding your employees Why is it that employees from other departments want to join your department So I'll share that secret with you. I think you want to make one point So make your point quickly and then I'll share that secret with you and this will be very useful for you right away. Yeah, go ahead Yeah Sure [Audience comment unclear.] Yeah, yeah. Very interesting Sure, so here are three things you can do And I have done all of these things and more with phenomenal results first thing ask

What They like about their job and what they hate About their job Okay This thing should be done anonymously And in today's world you can set it up on SurveyMonkey or hire another independent organization to get that done for you When you find that there is commonality between the things that they hate That means you need to do some introspection look inside as to why is it that So many employees are talking about the same thing start getting rid of those Point number two none of this is rocket science and none of this is difficult I just don't understand why companies lose sight of this okay point number two ask And this you can talk directly to the employee And ask them what work They would be interested the most One of the girls that used to work for me She was always at the edge of getting written up for absenteeism She would sit in her car until it was eight o'clock and exactly at eight o'clock

She would enter And exactly at five o'clock she would walk away even if some work was pending exactly at five o'clock She would walk away because the clock said I need to go that was a clear indication that she was not engaged All she was doing was coming there to collect a paycheck That was the department that I inherited with 30 percent employee turnover So I sat down with her one day and I said Cindy you are a great person. I respect you a lot But help me understand Of all the work that is happening in my department You know some people were cutting metal samples some people were polishing metal samples Some people were taking pictures of you know cross-sections Some people were operating microscope. Some people were doing chemistry work I was running an R&D group at that time Out of all the work that you see in the department Give me one or two assignments that you really would love doing

And she said I enjoy photography And you know the work that she was doing That poor lady was cutting metal samples and polishing them Now how stupid is that? And I had no idea why she had to do that and who started her on that I just inherited the department So the next thing I do is I say Cindy okay I'm so glad you shared that with me. Would you like to switch your role And have half of the job content Become what you really enjoy doing and the other half We all need to put up with So at least half of your job will be directly in alignment with who you are At the core you are a photographer She was delighted and in one month She was there inside the door at 730 I didn't have to do anything. All I did was reassign the job roles and responsibilities How difficult is that?

It's not difficult but even today how many managers really sit down with you and ask you the question honestly What is it that interests you? What are your skills? What are your abilities and what do you want to do? It is so simple and still people don't do it You know and the third thing invest This investment You demonstrate as a leader that you are taking a personal interest in their career You are investing in them for training and education and taking their abilities to the next level That shows them that you are committed to them And a small amount of investment here pays enormously rich dividends Now people say that oh if I train this person I invest You know two three four thousand dollars in them on training tomorrow they may walk away And I say you are out of your mind to be thinking like that You want to retain an employee That is performing much below where they are capable of just to save three thousand dollars

[Unclear phrase about not investing in an employee who stays]—and do you know what you are losing? So even if they walk away, even if the tendency is there to walk away, you did some good in this world That's okay, but this investment sends a very big message to all your employees Don't hesitate don't cut corners on that last one We are out of time Let's wrap it and then we can do this Okay, great. So I have one I'll just read the question if you want to meet with me I'm happy to do that and then we can do it one on one. Okay. I would love to be Oh, I would love to be the Amazon and Ritz-Carlton for dental equipment distribution Somebody here wants to get into the medical business distribution business Unfortunately, I cannot answer this question because our time is out But I'm happy to entertain the question one on one visit with me. I'm here for a little while. How's that? Okay, very good. Thank you