At naseba, my job was to setup a marketing department. Setting up a marketing department can be a daunting task, especially when you are in a company which survives and earns its bread and butter only through sales (sales people who are hard-wired to sell to a the CXO level audience), it's a strenuous job. Phew! Your a$$ is on fire most of the time but then it makes you a seasoned salesman and I guess you can crack any sales interview or negotiation anywhere across the globe (or this is what everyone thinks). And yes, I was supposed to set up a marketing machine which generates quality leads for the sales guys to close and generate continuous revenue.
Well this brings me to a point on - How to sell to CXO level audience? Which I will discuss sometime else but now coming back to the topic, I have moved on....
In the last yr, I believe I have learnt a lot...
- How to establish a Marketing Machine
- Getting to work with Multiple Cultures
- Getting Management Buy-in
- How to influence people and get things done (making it happen)
- Email and Online media - the new marketing mix
- How to manage people (especially when they are older than you)
- How to build relationships and how to break them
- Grass is NOT greener on the other side
- Consistency is a choice
Well, the one thing in my life which is constant is my Passion and Consistent Love for marketing. Many people are of the opinion that my passion for marketing is insane but I feel that's the depth of my passion which keeps me awake and kicking day and night.
I was your regular guy out of the school who thought he is one day going to be a big time engineer in some power plant as this is what was told to him at that point in his life. You can blame the Indian education system and partly the protective nature of parents in India for drilling these engineering/medical dreams in children. Till the time the children reach their graduate school, they have not made any choice of what they want to become in their life. It's all driven by someone else's wish. This simple guy who passed out of college after doing his graduation in Engineering, realized during the course of 4 year's that he is made for something else. Off-course, realizing what you want to achieve is one thing and realizing what you can achieve with what you are good at is completely another ball game.
But the self realization of your skills is something which takes you a long way. Not only do you get a clear focus in life but, you aslo get to learn and work towards your goal faster and in a more focussed way. It brings a purpose to life and helps you strive harder to achieve success. Who would have thought a small time software engineer from Wipro Technologies would aim to become a techno-marketing guru and would actually keep getting closer to it in this much time.
Now, I have moved on from naseba and joined a small start-up in the suburbs of Mumbai. It's called www.games24x7.com . Yes, as the name suggests it's a online gaming company. It's a humble start-up with a simple goal - of providing a platform to play online, Games like Chess, Rummy etc.
A new start, a new effort, a new business! Wish me luck.
