Last weekend, I got the opportunity to attend the event “Organizing your sales to grow” – A master class by Mr Kiran Deshpande.
About Mr Kiran Deshpande
Mr Kiran Deshpande is the co-founder of Mojo Networks and the president of TiE Pune. He is having around four decades of experience in entrepreneurship, business leadership, and technology.
He shared with us his work experience and how he contributed to the growth of Tech Mahindra during his tenure as CEO. His leadership skills to grow the company revenue from $7M USD to over $125M USD was inspiring for all.
The core agenda of the master class included
Session 1
- Core
- Scaling your business – key points
- What are the sales?
- What is the market?
- Different types of enterprises
- The sales process for different enterprises
- Sales model
- Scaling methods
- Special topics
- Government as a market
- Account management
- Ethics
- Competition, financial ratios
- Founders’ role
Session 2 – Case studies
- Put together scale up a road map for two startups from TiE Pune
- Create scale up roadmap for your own startup
Here is my takeaway from the event organized by TiE Chandigarh
The theory of constraint
It was my favourite part of the class. No one is your enemy but you, so you need to stop blaming the external factors.
The theory of constraint is a methodology to identify the factor that is restricting you to achieve your goals.
Identify all the factors that are restricting you to achieve your goal and then improvise on those factors to achieve success and happiness in your life.
Hire people who are smarter than you
“As the business grows, you’re not the only face of your company.”
It is not a fact that a great team plays a major role in the growth of an organization. In order to scale your business, you need to build a great team.
When you hire a great team as a founder you can focus more on business strategy as the smarter people will work independently and will be the leaders of their domain.
Identify influencers in your market
Influencers play a major role in the growth of your sales. So it becomes important for you to identify the influencers in your market segment.
In the early stage of your business, you are the key influencer of your organization. Your personality and ethics will play a key role in sales growth.
Mr Kiran presented to us the case study of Indigo Paints and how they targeted the right influencers in this market segment to grow their sales and expand their business throughout India.
Business ethics
Business ethics and best practices work as the foundation for the organization. As a founder, you need to create a strong ethical culture and build a good reputation which will serve as an asset for your organization.
There is no grey area in ethics – either it is right or it is wrong. Mr Kiran initiated very good communication around this topic with the audience by giving a situation and then asking us as what we will do in that particular situation.
It was a very healthy discussion and some very good points were presented during the interaction.
Let me ask you the very same question, Mr Kiran asked us –
Your turnover is Rs. 100. You have worked hard on an opportunity and have been selected. The contract is Rs. 12 (12% of the revenue). Head of Procurement asks for 2% of the contract value.
What will you do?
Do let me know in the comment section as what you will do in this situation?
