More Challenges

Challenges:

Its a long time since my update, the reason being, i wanted to put something positive, it has been hard 2 months may be because of general problems in business environment, I did get few few orders but the operational cost exceeded than expected and hence could not make any margin.

Learning:

Never reduce your margin to get the order. Normally when getting orders become difficult the general idea is to reduce the margin and hence reducing the cost to get the orders to stay in business, i have learnt that it is a bad idea to reduce the margin.I was convicing myself that i would get furthur reference, but the idea of barganing goes as reference, any reference from the installation will be a reference for a low cost product and not a refernence for a great product at lower cost, references do not speak technically about the product but speak about the cost of the product.

Learning for people in business:

I have learnt the following from people in business, i understand its common sense but it is very difficult to follow:

- Reduce the cost on other areas and not on Margin.
- Increase the product range to target customers
looking for Quality low cost product.

It is very easy to say this, but when it comes to operation, there would be no place to reduce the cost. I have now figured out few cost reducing stratergy for my business.,

E.g: For every installation we used to buy a default set of acessories required and was validating the purchase for future use, now I have reduced the accesories purchase to only to the required amount, not in excess, we no longer buy 20 feet long pipe, we buy exactly how much is required, also identified supplier who case give small pieces of pipes.

I am deeply worried about the ongoing attacks on Mumbai, it has brough a very negative sentiment, I am very happy that there is geat sense of unity felt all over
the place to fight these ****** terrorist, we will all have to fight these idiots in some way. Politicians are not worried about this instead they are worried about the forthcoming elections, are these people worth the respect and fame they get.

Meeting with Key members of Karnataka Power Sector

I am pleased to say that i got an opportunity to meet big people in the Power sector in Karnataka. It was a 5 hours interactive meeting with the board involving Mr.K.Jairaj, I.A.S, Pricipal secratory, Energy Department, President FKCCI, President BCIC, Managing director BESCOM, Managing director Ms. Latha Krishna Rau, KPTCL, Mr.Hiremath, M.D, KREDL and leading industrialist in Karnataka.

The areas of discussion was

1) Generating more power by various means.
2) Government support for Renewable energy and Enterprenuers
3) Current Problems with Power shortages, (like T&D losses in different states).

The board provided lots of data, which was very useful, it thought i would share.

For all information on Renewable energy development in Karnataka visit www.mnre.gov.in they suggest that information on customs, government subsidy, excise, income tax etc are available in this website.

They also spoke about important topic based on "PUNE" model, which involves load sharing, invloves buying power from local consumers running generators in diesel etc etc.

It will be pages and pages to discuss about these, but i would able to provide the information i have, to anyone interested. I am trying out a new Energy project, pilot project would be comissioned by the end of October 08 or Mid november 08.

Processed few good orders

Now after processing few orders i have decided to share my "temporary" hapiness and challenges i faced during the process. The orders which are processed are for a product which is first of its kind in India as far as i know, hence it was a more complicated to make the customer go for a new latest technology product rather than conventional product.

Challenges:

1) It took me 2 complete months to convince ONE customer and during the process i had to travel to the customers place about 14 times explaining him about the product. Finally it turned Postive, and also turned to a REFERENCE.

Lesson Learned: Such customer may at first glance look very troublesome but once they are convinced, they do the marketing for us.

2) They were days when I too did not know information about questions asked by the customer, but i gave a very fast response to his query, which i felt pleased the customer.

3) Spent 75% of my margin / Profit on Travel and accesories required to answer the customers questions.

Leasson Learnt: Cosider any costs that would occur when you first give a quote, the quote cannot be changed later and should also match the industry. Keep enough margin so that you don't incur a loss, it can be at cost but not loss.

4) Learning about taxes is a very difficult task, within India, within state there are various taxes regulations like Octrai, CST, KST, VAT. As one of my orders for this Nano technology product was outside my state, i had to go through all the legal regulations and finally handle them.

5) Transportation seems very easy, problems like damages to the product, packing, Delivery charges will occur. Luckly for me i had all the problems together, the product packing was damaged, hence repacking had to be done, there are package experts, and government prescibes packing standards, Box types etc etc., and for Airworthiness the packing should be hard plastic and should be certified for Airworthiness. Complex man.

But now i have gone thorugh all these. Any one have any questions i can pass information i know.

Happiness:

1) This first customer acted as a reference and got me one more order, this time i did not do any explanation, all i did was sent the order and got the payment.

2) Confidence is starting to increase, may be bcos of getting orders.

When to start taking employees on board ?

The answer to the above question is completly dependent on the Type of business. In my case, the company is just a specialized distribution unit (The manufacturing company does everything as per my design and delivers it to me). I have been doing all work by myself, from office cleaning to CEO meetings, but i just have started relaizing that in about 2 months time i should have 1/2 employees. I have to convert all the contract technicians to Permanent technicians.

Based on the input from many business owners, they suggest to start employing someone when we exactly know what the new employee is going to be doing for the next 5 months, if we do not know that, it might not be the right time to get an employee. This decission is very important as the costs start exponentially increasing when permanent employee gets on board, their travel allowances, their holidays, their salary, their welfare fund, their personal development. So carefull thought is necessary before emplyoment decission is taken. Also the business becomes answerable to the government, if there is any issues with the employee.

Few other business owners suggest that, when the business owner feels that he cannot handle all by himself or feels he is doing lots of things, then start recruiting, but since "feeling" is perspective based idea, i would not go with this option.

With me i will wait untill i know what the new employee will be doing for 5 months. The contract employee are costing higher but i will have to continue the same for a while.

First generation enterprenuers - After 2.5 months

After a bit of gap i am back on track to write blogs.

We have a general feeling that the first 3 months in any business would be the hardest, atleast i was thinking that after 3 months of struggle it should start getting easier, but it is turning opposite.

For the first 2 months, the only contacts you have are the people you know and friends contact. No special marketing just word of mouth. By the end of 2 months, your contacts base is empty. During the 3 month there might be a maximum of one lead because of your previous contact. By the end of 3rd month, no contacts, no orders, meaning its time to do external marketing or time to spend time and money, on Marketing your product.

I am on the verge of completing my 2nd month of business and my contact list is already empty, i have started with Direct Marketing.

My score rate for proper profit making orders is 0 currently. Huge amount of stress is building up as this is stage where money out is fast and Money in is NIL.

Any comments please suggest.

The Struggle - The Experience

I am still in the same state as far as the orders are concerned, but i have made few contacts which i believe are very good contacts. I also got a chance to get to the government level seniors, great experience, i am happy to have convinced them to provide 50% subsidy to farmers if they put my water treatment unit, now i have to catch farmers who would buy my unit. I used to think it is easy to get contacts, but it is not easy. We might know many people, but contacts would not turn into possible messenger for our business, lots of hard work and repeated follow up seems to be very required. I can now see why many do not continue to do business, its the initial struggle, when we talk about business we do know there will be struggle, we cannot imagine the extent of struggle we might have to go through, when seen practically there are 1000's of factors which forces you to feel, its tough and gets you depressed, few people who have failed also give discouraging comments, equiping ourselves to handle these, is a key factor for an Enterprenuer.

With me, i am now in a state where i feel there is lots of long term opportunities, but short term lots of pain to suffer. Pain is very emotionally related and sometimes can be financially related, for now i am not under financial trouble, thanks to my U.K employers for 4.5 years. Pain can be Like a customer would give you an appointment for 10A.M and makes you wait for 5 hrs as if he is doing a favour and meet you at 3:00P.M. and speak to you as if you made him wait ha ha ha. I have made one possible customer just because of waiting for hours, he is supposed to be very arrogant to many people, but he was very silent and soft when speaking to me, may be bcos he made me wait. I hope he would give some leads, lets see.

Fear of not getting orders sometimes pushes me down, but i have read many business articles where Business people wait for years to get their orders. Also my Dad and mom are very encouragind and they give me examples of perseverance. Also few very good friends, keep on encouraging me, i am blessed to have such people around me. I am confident of getting big orders in 2-3 months, or may be 6-8 months, whatever it may be, all i am going to put is Hard work, extreme hard work, everyone believes there is always returns for hard work. I too believe in it, lets see what hard work means ha ha ha.

There is a saying "To meet the GOD, you might have to first meet GOD's messenger", similarly to meet the actual official who can authorise some purchase, we might have to speak to 10 people on the way, even the security to the door would ask 100's of questions. I had same sort of experience in one of the insititutes, Oh My God, each of these people want your Bio-Data ha ha ha...Not sure how many of these i might have to go through untill customers contact me for orders.

Great new exciting world of Business. Lots of learning and lots of sturggle seems to be very necessary.

Perseverence - Lesson

Last week was travelling week, i visited 6 different places in 4 days. It was really difficult task, it became even more difficult when i could not manage to confirm a single order at the end. The lesson which i have learnt is "i was approaching the wrong people". They were people who have heard of Water treatment but know nothing about that. There was one case when i was worried about not wearing a formal shirt to meet the client, it turned out that the client was a farmer who did not even wear a shirt/tshirt on ha ha. This sector seems to be very unorganised. After all the struggle, i was a bit upset, so spoke to few friends. Now i can see what perseverance means. Today i am starting the day with lots of hope and i have decided not to give up however long it takes. I spoke to one my friend who is in Granite Industry, he was saying it took 3 years to get his first order, that sorted me out.

When investment keeps on going and you do not see anything coming back to you, it is easy to loose hope, but it is all definetly exciting and different when compared to siting in the same place for hours doing same task again and again and always wanting to do something differnt and exciting.