FIN-TECH-FROM-A-SALES-PERSPECTIVE

FINICKY TECH

(Understanding Fin-Tech from a ‘Sales’ Perspective!)

About Me! – I have been in the world of sales since the past 31 years!  I have sold in every business vertical possible!  I enjoy selling technology the most as it is the toughest business vertical to sell!  I love challenges and there is nothing more difficult than a Tech sale.  But I love it! 

I have a strong Tech Background and will not get into details but I have come to realize a few things about selling Fin-Tech!  I simply call it Finicky Tech!  My justifications are stated below. 

Fin-Tech constantly keeps on evolving and is in some mode of eternal adaptation.  Within a nano-second what you have sold is archaic and you are a dinosaur because, some fifteen-year-old kid sitting in some backward country with no proper infrastructure just made your process better and more money from a ten second Tiktok video 

Most of the times I come across some great ideas that are doomed to fail – if you want to succeed then maybe these pointers below will be able to help you.  

Listen to understand your client, because I find that most client relations simply do not work when you do not have the ability to separate their needs from the wants! 

Ensure your client has a solid business plan and has their own future mapped out on paper.  If you do not know the future desires of your own client – how can you sell them or their product?

If simple basic IT software’s / SAAS or Fin-Tech products or services have to succeed then this journey towards success needs to start well before the tech development and a proper strategic business plan needs to be written down.

A brand needs to be created on paper and re-drafted several times (but it will never be perfect) and room needs to be left for constant evolution.  Never take on a client that does not have a solid business plan.

If they do not have one or are having trouble keeping their sales numbers up, do not be impulsive.  Take your time develop your own plan FIRST once you have gotten all the knowledge about the business verticals and present it in writing to the client – never work without a written down plan.

Before you design a business plan do a simple SWOT analysis on your client – then find at least four or five competitors or me-too brands and run the same SWOT analysis on them HONESTLY for yourself (not the client) – Once you work out the flaws within your own client’s products / service and then objectively compare them with the competitors – the answers reveal themselves and your path ahead towards selling clears up a lot more. 

AT THIS STAGE DO NOT BE TOO EAGER AND PRESENT YOUR RESEARCH FINDINGS TO YOUR CLIENT! - My reason for this is that innovators are very egotistical with an inability to understand or even listen to anyone constructively criticizing their work!

Most companies start of on one path but compromise their values by simply selling out the core ethos due to financial concerns.  Most of their present concerns happened due to their own decisions for whatever reason they may be so they need help BUT are too afraid or ashamed to aske for it! 

Forget Fin-Tech!  If you want to sell anything – have solid market research constantly going on – keep evolving NOT adapting – stick to the core principal matter at hand, always be patient and develop an ability to forget impulsiveness or money and stay focused on the client's  Macro picture (vision) at hand. 

If you need any help to sell your Fin-Tech product – I would love to chat and maybe learn a few things from you as well!  Simply reach out to me!  (My contact information is given below!) 

Hoping to hear from you soon & let’s be professional friends – (Do check out my linked in Profile & see my recommendations)

I really hope we can do something wonderful together to appreciate each other’s professional lives! - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amynaghulamali/

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If you would like advice or a direct FREE consultation please contact me here via e-mail - amyn@ghulamalis.com

 

HR OUTSOURCING

HR OUTSOURCING

How HR Outsourcing benefits your organization!

If you were a child in the 70’s or the 80’s then you would definitely remember the fact that your father worked only in one company and most likely his tenure (existence) in the company was well over two decades.  For all of us 70’s & 80’s children we could identify with the fact that our dad’s first job was their last job and that they would retire from the same company that issued them their first appointment letter.  In those days our fathers were defined by the company they worked for (irrelevant of the post) and then the post they held.  In those days your father was either an accountant, a banker or a lawyer or just worked in an office and maybe a celebrity doctor. 

As the 90’s ended colleges mushroomed and pseudo entrepreneurs bought licenses to open a huge number of colleges that started printing degrees and flooded the workforce with a mass volume of new and fresh young blood t take over after our dad’s retired.  This new youth being smarter and being weaponized by technology destroyed any and all jobs for secretaries and receptionists as they became a one window solution that was quicker and more efficient and could multi task. 

By the time people were itching with the Y2K bug colleges started specializing in ridiculous degrees such as a 12 month course in MBA which gave you a paper that said you were qualified in Marketing as well as Finance or were a Marine Biology Botanist.  The likes of Lipton with the introduction of a Major player such as Tapal started looking for people who were certified Tea tasters and finding the right kind of Human Resource made colleges churn out (By the thousands) HR executives (with no practical experience) as people who would facilitate HR departments in finding the right person. 

Sadly these two words “HR Outsourcing” became a cliché due to the fact that everywhere you looked you had some kid in his late 20’s who was pitching solutions to seasoned HR departments with only one years’ experience as an intern him or herself.  Over the past ten od years these money minded people trained themselves by working through daddy’s contacts and many organizations bore the expense of these kids trainings.  Suddenly the glamorized element of being a consultant made seasoned companies focus on only the three first alphabets of the word consultant and they recoiled and took everything back in their grasp.

Today in Pakistan we have a lot of job insecurity.  Many companies are faced with so many issues such as non-working days due to strikes etc. or face such bad luck that in the past few years what one would have thought to be a good company turns into a bad career choice.  I have seen many companies (big & small) simply close their doors due to external or internal matters beyond their control.   Also if one considers the fact and believes that CEO’s don’t run companies rather the ground forces do then one should note that “people” suffer the most when it comes to a company closing down or downsizing.

I would suggest that every organization utilize a HR Outsourcing company today to protect its employees.  If done with a solid company HR Outsourcing is one area that will benefit your workforce immensely because rather than pose as a threat the reasons given below will NOT only protect the employer rather provide immense benefits to any company as well.  Let’s begin with why you should outsource your HR and with whom.

1. If you run a huge workforce or have a small army of even 20 people you should always outsource your HR to a third party because in case you shut shop or need to downsize or replace an employee a good HR company will not only take care of the legalities for you as a company but will also find another opportunity for the person you might want to change or see as someone who is dead weight.  Not all marriage’s work professionally so why not protect your employee and yourself by having a vendor that can do just that for you. 

2. When it comes to benefits if you choose the right HR vendor that company will be able to get the maximum number of benefits even more than you could have provided for you as they would have an immense amount of workforce and the volume they can negotiate with an insurance company for example would really benefit your employees as well.  

3. HR departments go insane when it comes to medical compensation claims and the paperwork turns the organization into a glorified post office that deals in paperwork endlessly which creates an audit nightmare.  So why not have a company that is secure which will take care of these VAS elements of HR for you.  When you choose such an organization make sure they themselves have been in existence for over two decades and have a solid bank statement which will demonstrate a good “stable” business turnover.   Volumes do not matter because if you are consistent in what you do then the amount does not matter.

4. HR companies are only as good as the customer service they provide.  If they have the ability to provide solid “Human” resources where the owners are involved supported by solid technology and immense professional contacts only then should you consider talking to them.  These are not the times to test out newbies with such a service.  It may be ok to give a young pup two to three executive search tasks so that he may approach his college buddies but one should NOT risk a company’s workforce security to the likes of new blood as your employees demand security.

5. The last thing one should look for when you engage any outsourcing for HR is the actual number of placements it does and the value added service verticals that it has with its organization.  Good stable HR companies will always not only have a pool of quality resumes but will also have an immense databank of clients which will secure you if you need to replace an employee or need a career option as an employee within the same field internationally.

If you are able to consider a proper HR Outsourcing company as a strategic partner with whom you are able to sign a NDA and then lock in on a comfortable rate you will realize that you will definitely be able to control on your COGS and eliminate a huge amount of the stress you have.  It’s like when P&G decided to eliminate all sales positions within its organization in Pakistan and only have a Director Sales that sat at IBL and controlled the sales team to work smarter and captured the entire market with Always when advertising sanitary napkins was thought to be un-Islamic.  Also this outsourcing of the sales force played a major part in Pakistan for the change of a company name from Inter-Pak Shaving to what we know as Gillette (the best a man can get)

Before you disqualify HR Outsourcing know that not only will you save in money rather your HR department will save time and an immense amount of hassle when you eliminate many factors beyond your control when you secure the best interests of your organization.  If you would like to talk to someone in the HR field who is actually good at what they do and can deliver all the above services then e-mail me and see what the world has in store for you.

Disclaimer! - The opinions I post are my own and I do not intend to hurt or offend you!  If you cannot allow me my freedom of thought then you have the right to voice an opinion and navigate away on the web.  If you follow my blog I thank you as it’s quite ridiculously entertaining...that is if you like what & how I write! If you need to contact me or wish to befriend me then please... 

Let's be professional friends - (please see my reccomendations) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amynaghulamali/

If you would like a direct FREE consultation please contact me on - amyn@ghulamalis.com

HOW TO SELECT AN ADVERTISING AGENCY

HOW TO SELECT AN ADVERTISING AGENCY

I was looking for something to write on and as I am a salesman I realized that I absolutely “HATE & DETEST” one core vertical in the business world and that is “Advertising”.  My suggestion is to sack the lot of them and warn your security guards not to let them back in.  Also put in your spam filters to delete these two words “Advertising & Agency” if they are anywhere in the body or subject of any e-mail that touches the domain.  Finally if I could delete the day that some academic decided to include them in a college curriculum I would gladly do so that I may change history and rewrite it.  Kindly bear this in mind I am not referring to any business that is forced to inherit it’s agency due to regional or global restraints.

My reasons are as follows from what I have seen over 25 years as a salesman…  Advertising Agencies always come up with extremely expensive plagiarized, preconceived notions every month on how they can better business with cliché’s such as “brand appreciation” and “packaging it better”…  They always have been a creatively expensive solution to executing that one “Big idea” plagiarized off the web and TV whilst totally ignoring the core attributes of the business.  Bottom line at the end of the day a salesman like me has to convince himself that he can deliver the numbers to keep the lights and fans running whilst these guys keep adding to the COGS like mad.

Ok now realize this.  We are living in Pakistan and our International Brands are heavily localized to suit the Pakistani hypocritical pallet which will never accept any form of change that has NOT originated from the west or not endorsed by the Indian Silver screen.  We are slaves to foreign brand names and as of late that is why the knock off capital of the world Thailand is blossoming because of our business.  Also with the rising inflation and instability in the exchange rate any campaign is like a rouge nuclear warhead that today can make or break a Public listed company’s yearend closing!  However, this post is from a sales perspective how one should select an Advertising Agency and not to highlight even more the issues we are aware of already yet choose to ignore.  There are three main elements.

1. MEDIA BUYING – To protect yourself as a business when selecting your agency ensure it is not a 360 solution where your releases are in the same hands that are responsible for the creativity.  Go to a buying house directly and get a better deal and save money directly from the source… More value in a collectively shared media buyout deal and a lot of extra candies. Bottom line… you do not need someone who is a GP to remove a brain tumor so ensure you give your business to a specialist and keep the core focus of the job as a primary.

Should you decide to give your media in the hands of an agency check its APNS ratings and analyze its payment, credit & banking history to the end recipients?  As a customer you have the rights to ask such questions after all you will be getting into a professional marriage and in every marriage background checks are thoroughly done.

2. CREATIVE AGENCY – Two decades ago ever since these two words “entrepreneurship” & “democracy” became a war cry of the educated lot all off a sudden started spinoffs on assumed good will from many old legendary agencies and went on a personal crusade to do the job better.  These pirates broke people from the same institution where they trained and swore allegiance to with greed being extremely poorly funded and sadly destroyed the sanctity of the goodwill that the industry held. Out of the few hundred spinoffs only two to three agencies have withstood the test of inflation & time and still exist today.  Now that you understand the history let’s get to what to look for.

a.       Your creative agency MUST at all times need you as their first choice rather than your business want them as an only choice where your management is chasing them down for deliverable and they are only proactive when it comes to calling your finance department.

b.      The investors must have an active personal involvement in the management of the creative agency and must respect time at all costs as well.

c.       Whilst they creative agencies cannot predict the economic future they must have it in their SLA’s (Service Level Agreements) with you that if they choose to predict your brands future and you choose to accept spending or investing in their idea then a certain percentage or a number must be involved with every campaign where they always guarantee a return on your investment.

d.      Also when selecting a creative agency a key element is to ensure that the agency does not have a huge attrition rate as far as its own Human Resource goes.  Just imagine running a campaign conceived by one creative head, amended by another and tweaked by the third during a complete roll out over the second business quarter.

e.      Keeping the element of focus in mind to the job description as well as allowing a creative agency to earn negotiate where you as the business that are entrusting your company’s future to them will ask them to invest their ability to earn with you by

i.         taking a nominal retainer fee along with a fat royalty cheque for the idea that you will buy and also add a cherry to the pie with a bonus from the percentages in revenue that you will earn from the sales generated from your investment

ii.                   taking a 65% less than market rate standard retainer with yet again a percentage in revenue that you will earn from the sales generated from their campaigns

f.        Vendors and their payments are a big grey area when it comes to payments and businesses being held at gunpoint when “immediate” funds are required for Editing, BTL activations, Ooh campaigns or any other nonsensical excuse that the agency can find to flex its muscles.  Nobody likes any form of insecurity so why should you and then again pay for it not only in hard earned cash but also with the loss of respect because you are working to support your business and the agency is actually a solution and should never add to the problems.  In any relationship professional or personal if there are any discrepancies regarding money or respect then that relationship needs to be addressed at the source and often a divorce is the wisest choice to protect one’s self and the professional family.

So in short it is advised that since the agency has the ability to stay focused a business should also hunt down alternatives to curb on COGS and have a directory of multiple vendors as in independent production houses, animation studios & BTL activation companies and social media popups.  Since your finance department takes at least 5 quotes to get the best deal for your computer hardware & physical assets then you should apply the same law to these advertising value added services.  

g.       Agency contract should be for a maximum of 180 days or two business quarters so that as the economy changes or the business trends change you have the right to go for a new position change for your business and can always get fresh ideas and concepts.  This will keep your agency on its toes to work for the cheque and your contract with your agency must state penalties for not only you on defaulting on credit terms but dire financial consequences that will be borne by the agency in the case your business or its good will is affected due to their mistakes. If a woman can get 20 million US dollars because a cup of coffee singed her legs from Mc. Donald’s then it is only fair if you ask someone to guarantee their promise of quality service with a financial penalty should they defalt.

3. MERIT BASED APPOINTMENT – I have been a salesman selling a vast diverse range of services and products for 25 years and in that time only three people who knew me or my family gave me business and actually did not take me for granted when it came time to pay me.  The rest were all professionals who paid me on time.  Imagine you import a certain service or product at a certain dollar rate of 96 rupees what is the point of getting your cheque after 18 months when the dollar is at 120 rupees?  Most people who do business with you will take you for granted and always play a personal card to get something better for them thus removing the transparency element in any agreement so when you choose an agency ensure that if you hire the agency through a reference that the entity that referred the agency is also financially liable for its misdemeanors.  In our country people will say what they have to get the deal they want to and then leave you hanging like a teenage boy at the mall waiting for the promised Cinderella.  If you can remove any and all forms of personal interaction with your agency and strictly forbid non official interactions between your employees and your vendors.  Would you go to have coffee at 11pm to butlers with your Maasi?  After all she is also a service provider!

Anyone who has read this post from the marketing & advertising world will absolutely detest me for bringing these key elements to light! The reason is because I have asked you to focus on two elements with your agency that any relationship is based upon.  1. Mutual Respect & 2. Honesty, sadly no relationship can exist because we cannot have one without the other.  Should you follow this there will always be transparency within your Marketing Department!  A few people might even resign, but I hope not!  

However if there is transparency where it begins I will be able to deliver the numbers much more easily from a sales perspective!

Let's be professional friends - (please see my reccomendations) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amynaghulamali/

If you would like a direct FREE consultation please contact me on - amyn@ghulamalis.com