LITERALLY…

I just learned recently that we are living in the same area that the movie was shot in.

As a matter of fact, I have a direct view out of my bedroom’s window of the house that the “DON” a.k.a gangster lives in (the same guy that whines about how bad his sandwich is)…

This is the house that the boy sneaks into acting to be a dishwasher, but the gangster thinks he’s the new cook and demands he make a sandwich…

Ironically, this house is actually used to host weddings, really loud ones at that….

Look At These Views…

Now, at another scene in the movie, the main character is staying shortly with his brother and looks out and they show the following view…

Now, compare that to the following view:

Here’s the difference. We have two wings in our apartment, the character from Slumdog is in Wing A (to the right of my building). Also, he’s higher up.

Interesting to also see that the buildings under construction are about HALF the size they really are now.

Anyways, just a little interesting tid bit I thought I’d share!

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3 days ago I just read a chapter in the book “Influence.” The chapter talks about “concessions.” The book is all about how to influence people, a.k.a, how to get your own way, a.ka, how to manipulate people

This particular chapter teaches you to go in with a HIGH demand with the expectation that the person will reject it. Here’s the neat part…

It’s proven that when someone declines you, a small part of them feels a bit guilty for doing so. Now, if you come back at them and DECREASE your demand and re-position it, they’re mind thinks “Oh…he’s willing to work with me, he’s making exceptions” - I should say yes.

Here’s the example used in the book to explain this (I only roughly remember it):

As a research experiment, a few people set out on a campus to ask students the following question:

“Would you be willing to commit 2 hours of your time to help guide and mentor a young child?”

If I remember correctly, about 15% said yes and the rest said no.

As a part of the research, they changed it up. Now the LEAD question became:

“Would you be willing to commit 1 day a month to guide and mentor a young child?”

Not to their surprise and overwhelmingly large percentage said no. However, they had a follow-up “decreased” request:

“OK…we understand, that is a LOT of time, how about just 2 hours ONE TIME deal to help mentor a young kid really in need?”

Guess what the results were?

A 233% increase in the number of people that said “Yes.” From 15% to 50%! (Again, I don’t remember the exact numbers but the increase was HUGE).

The only difference was that they changed the LEAD question.

Why am I talking to you about this today?

A) It’s a freaking awesome strategy, I just realized how often I personally use it without even knowing.

B) I just realized how often it’s used on ME.

Also, the day after I read that chapter, I witnessed in-front of my very own eyes, the concession sales technique being used and it worked amazingly.

My roommate in Mumbai, Ankur and I were at dinner and he got a phone call from someone who was at the house trying to deliver a package (but we were not there).

Ankur asked if he could bring the package where we were and the man declined.

Ankur flipped on the salesman and pushed hard, but the man insisted that he had “other things to do…”

Immediately Ankur offered him a concession (realizing that the REAL problem was not that the guy was busy but that he did not want to pay the fare to come to where we were).

Ankur offered to pay the taxi fees for his commute if he would bring the package that night itself to where we were eating dinner.

The result? 30 minutes later, Ankur was collecting his package!

I laughed after seeing this and then also realized how many times Ankur has used these mind jedi tricks on ME. I’ll give you another example of when he used this very example on me.

Ankur does design work for me sometimes. About a year back, I was not happy with his design work and actually got upset. I was about to “fire” him or at least pull my projects from him and he again put his salesman ship hat on.

I told him that I could no longer afford his high rates for the quality of work and that I was going elsewhere.

He did not want to lose a client so his next offering was: “Fine, I want you to be happy with me and I refuse to lose you as a client - you don’t have to pay for this or pay me whatever you want, but I need you to be happy.”

How does someone say NO to that? Of course I said OK and since then he’s collected MANY new projects from me.

I can give you yet another example from when Ankur (again) used these tricks on me (I really need to be careful of this guy).

Again, for design work, he quoted me a price and I said “WO! way too much buddy…”

His concession:

Don’t pay it to me now, just pay me over 6 months…all of a sudden the cost was really just 1/6th to me. I said “that sounds fair, let’s do it.”

Again, MY thinking is that “Man, he’s really willing to work with me, how can I say no?”

So, there you have it Fighters - use the concession technique. Use it wisely and for good only.

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I know there are a few of you reading this who never thought I’d do it - but I DID! In YO FACE! haha…

About 1.5 years ago I started visiting Mumbai for business and I absolutely fell in love with the city. Why? I have no idea, I just did (isn’t that enough).

A few months back I started declaring that I was going to eventually MOVE to Mumbai and spend most of my time there. Of course I still have to frequent the US, my entire life and business started there. However, I wanted to spend most of my time in Mumbai.

I wanted to get my own place and really experience living in India.

A LOT of people thought I was just “talking out of my ass” and not really serious - even my friends in Mumbai. They’ve lived here their entire life and could not imagine why anyone would want to leave US (where everyone fights to get to) and come to a overly polluted and traffic jam filled Mumbai.

Well - guess what people…

I don’t have an answer for you but I will say one thing.

When I say I’m going to do something - I do it. I don’t care what it is.

It’s a mistake to doubt me! I can be persistent as he** and I like doing *different* and weird things that many would not have have a chance or the balls to do.

What’s the lesson here? Or Am I just bragging about myself?

I’m not bragging, there is a lesson. The lesson is that you need to be open to experiencing different things.

Come on, do something crazy - what’s the worst that can happen? Just do it! (as Nike would say).

Take some risks…that’s the only way life can bring you something different and special.

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That’s right, I said BRIBE. Before you go and start judging, hear me out. Lately, I’ve really been stroking my own ego about my ability to “network.” Needless to say I’ve been very pleased with the results I’ve been getting.

In the last 4 years, I’ve gone from being practically a “nobody” to being a very well connected person in our industry (and even outside this industry). I pretty much know everyone in our industry and if I don’t know them, I’m only one person away from getting to know them.

How Do I Do It?

Great question and until recently, I would have told you - I have no freaking clue.

However, lately, I’ve taken some time to really look at myself from a bird’s eye view and I definitely see some trends:

1. I’m pretty darn charismatic - I tend to switch on the “charm” the instant I meet someone new (more so in business settings, not sure why that doesn’t carry over at social situations like clubs).

2. I take it slow - I don’t snap right into “what you can do for me” or even business in general. I take my time to get to know the PERSON and go from there…

3. Give FIRST, Then Ask - Yes, try to DO something for the person first before you go asking them to do something for you. The principle of reciprocity is enormous and works 99.5% of the time.

You do something nice for someone (even if they never ask for it) and all of a sudden they are obliged to you.

4. I talk their talk - I almost feel like an iguana sometimes. You can see me at a networking event, I’ll be cursing with one person and then immediately turn around and grab a glass of wine (with my little finger sticking out as I sip).

I get to know someone and can pretty quickly talk their talk - this instantly creates a connection and makes others feel comfortable around me.

5. I BRIBE.

Let me explain before you judge. I’m not saying I go to them and slap $10,000 in front of them and say “do this…” Well, at least I don’t do it in THAT fashion.

I may very well HIRE someone for $10,000 to consult (but that’s a different strategy - I call it “buying your way to the top.”)

Allow me to use an example to make my point…

At the end of 2008, we were sitting on some profits and great cash flow. We had made some serious new relationships in 2008 that turned out to be very profitable. These new relationships also opened doors into many new possible relationships.

I wanted to do something to really STICK OUT at the end of the year. Going into 2009, I wanted to do something memorable.

Sending thank you e-mails, calling people, sending greeting cards, blah blah blah - BOOORING. EVERYONE does that and you’ll just blend right into the background.

I thought about the group in general that I was trying to “schmooze.” Mostly male, all young or middle aged and all making good money. Also, all these people are VERY used to competing in sales competitions where they win cool electronic gadgets.

“Ah hah…they like electronic gadgets, even the demographics fit.”

So, I thought, “rather than sending a stupid greeting card that gets thrown away, what if I go over the top and send some electronic gadget - a big box they get to unwrap and something they can’t really throw away - even if they won’t use it.”

Let’s face it, who doesn’t like unwrapping big boxes, who doesn’t like a new electronic gadget to play with (even if it’s only for minutes)?

I instantly made a list of all the people I wanted to be more *memorable* to and it came out to 30 people. Now, I didn’t want to “bankrupt” the company and I didn’t want to go OVERBOARD.

I pulled a random budget out of thin air and ran the numbers. I budgeted a $150 gift for everyone. $150*30 = $4,500. So, I would have to spend near $5,000 to make this happen.

Now, $5,000 may SOUND like a big number, but lets BREAK it down.

The people I was sending these too were all qualified to generate a MINIMUM of $10,000 in sales (easily) if they participate in just ONE product launch for the company.

So, if ALL I did was get ONE person (out of 30) to appreciate the gift enough that they would promote, I would instantly see a positive ROI.

You can’t argue with those numbers! I sure couldn’t…

Well, we sent the gift with nice notes. Wanna know the results?

Within 1 month of the gifts, we’ve SPECIFICALLY heard back from at least 7 people who have never promoted our products before (or at least not promoted hard). Each of these individuals is capable of making way more than $10,000 in sales. However, for consistency let’s just use $10,000 as the number.

Let’s also assume that these new relationships only promote ONE product the entire year of 2009 (unlikely since once we have the relationship they’ll likely support everything we do).

JUST worst case scenario, we can safely say that we have already created $70,000 in extra revenue - that is a REALLY conservative estimate!

So, let’s calculate the ROI on that. I spent $4,500 and created $70,000. That’s a 1,455% return on investment.

Take THAT to your stock broker and see what he says.

I don’t understand why we all don’t invest more into RELATIONSHIPS and NETWORKING - it’s the best kind of marketing. It will out do the results you get from investing in direct marketing, tv ads or brand building any day.

Bottom line, invest in your relationships and networks. Even if it’s not for business purposes, it can pay VERY large dividends in your personal life too.

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