Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Feb 05, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Feb 05, 2009 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs |
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Brand Line
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Books Columns - Book Mark Art of selling 
Reality Check Guy Kawasaki
A key lesson in selling is ABC, or ‘always be closing,’ as a chapter emphasises in Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki ( www.landmarkonthenet.com). “That is, you should always be trying to make a sale. You can overdo this — or more accurately, you lack subtlety and make people resent your efforts,” the author explains. The ‘Art of selling,’ as he outlines, begins with seeing the gorilla — something that 50 per cent of students in Christopher E. Chabris’ experiment had missed! “Decades ago, Univac was a leader in computers, but it believed that the market for computers was scientists; it did not see that the gorilla market for computers was businesspeople,” reminds Kawasaki. Compulsory read. Energetic suggestions
Factor Four Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use Ernst von Weizsäcker, Amory B. Lovins & L. Hunter Lovins
When Morro Bay, California, was short of water in the late 1980s, what did the town authorities do? They told homebuilders, ‘If you want to build a new house here, then you must first save, somewhere else in town, twice as much water as your new house is going to use.’ How did the homebuilders then respond? Wanting permits, they “went door-to-door installing water-saving appliances in one-third of the town’s entire housing stock in the first two years,” narrate Ernst von Weizsäcker, Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins in Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use ( www.earthscan.co.uk). Another ‘energy’ example is about PG&E (the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the largest investor-owned utility in the US, serving most of Northern California). The company found that, “rather than paying 1.9 cents to save a kilowatt-hour by rebating buyers of energy-efficient refrigerators, it could achieve a bigger saving at a cost of only 0.6 cents per kilowatt-hour by giving a cash bonus of $50 to the retailer who sells an efficient refrigerator — but nothing for selling an inefficient one.” Worth studying. Buy local
Saving the World at Work What Companies and Individuals Can do to go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference Tim Sanders
The more you purchase locally, the more you’ll establish vital connections with your community and improve your reputation as a corporate citizen, not just a cohabitant, writes Tim Sanders in Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference ( www.doubleday.com). He cites a study by the Produce Marketing Association in 2000 of about 1,000 consumers, which found that more than half the respondents placed the highest importance on social responsibility and sustainability when choosing a vendor. “When researchers measured what constituted responsibility and sustainability, they discovered that distance from the farm to the store was the second most important factor, behind paying a living wage.” Consider, therefore, local alternatives in all your proposals or purchasing habits, Sanders advises. “Be willing to pay a small premium. After all, you’ll be able to make up for it in quality, consulting with local partners and monitoring the results firsthand.” Forceful arguments. D. Murali More Stories on : Books | Book Mark
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