Lessons for merchants from Chanakya, a 4th century BC Indian master
[Chanakya] Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to do it all yourself!
[Marketing Perspective – Research] Time is short and it is the most critical element. You don’t need to make the mistake and then change your strategy. While sometimes you will make mistakes but that should be accidental. You must do extensive research/homework before developing any plans. Take a close look at what the competition is, from a marketer’s perspective. This involves learning from competitor research: research on their positioning, segmentation, marketing case studies, and marketing strategies. Once you’ve done your research, you’ll know how to develop your marketing/communication plans more efficiently.
[Chanakya] A person should not be too honest. Straight trees get cut down first and honest people get screwed up first.
[Marketing Perspective – How to represent the message?] There is a way to communicate with your audience: Revealing all properties/attributes hasn’t helped many brands/companies. Several times, it has to be fixed according to the current situation and the understanding of the audience. This does not imply that you should fake things, but you should repair them the right way.
[Chanakya] Even if a snake is not poisonous, it must pretend to be poisonous
[Marketing Perspective – Confidence in your Plans/Strategies/Approach/Presentation] Try to be confident in the market. Unless it is a monopoly, brands/companies face a lot of competition and are subject to various challenges to grab a piece of market share. There are always bigwigs trying to discourage you and kick you out of the market, so you must be confident enough in your plans and strategies. Face the competition with the utmost confidence, show it through your marketing/sales/business efforts to your prospects, customers, investors, employees, analysts and other stakeholders. You know what they don’t and things said with confidence, backed up by facts/logic always work.
[Chanakya] Never share your secrets with anyone. It will destroy you!
[Marketing Perspective – Trade secrets] Perhaps the company deals with information that can make or break the company. Trademarks, copyrights, intellectual property rights, data protection and security are all directed to this maxim established by Chanakya.
[Chanakya] As soon as fear gets close, attack it and destroy it.
[Marketing Perspective: Change your idea/strategy/campaign] Juggling a known problem is never a solution. It will cause you to be defeated at one point or another. When you’ve identified a problem with a campaign, rectify it immediately or if a campaign isn’t working, change your strategy and switch to your other option instead of maintaining your ego and continuing to juggle making it work while wasting time, energy and resources on it. . A marketer must remember that it is not a personal defeat if the campaign/idea does not work, but rather it is to the benefit of the business he is working for and therefore he must make every possible effort to achieve the business and marketing objectives. established marketing.
[Chanakya] Even from poison draws nectar, washes and recovers gold if it has fallen into dirt, receives the highest knowledge of a lowborn person.
[Marketing Perspective – Innovation/Learning/Incorporating ideas] Untapped market segments – take ideas from each other – a small idea/innovation can make a big difference – get feedback from your stakeholders – open communication
[Chanakya] Before starting a job, always ask yourself three questions: Why am I doing it? What could be the results? Will I be successful? Only when you think deeply and find satisfying answers to these questions, move on.
[Marketing Perspective] In fact, it is true that planning is an important ingredient for the success of any campaign. A well thought out and researched campaign based on clear objectives has worked well in several cases.
[Chanakya] The greatest power in the world is the youth and beauty of a woman.
[Marketing Perspective – The right segments] These are the two segments that are really powerful. Brands/products/services launched in this category that have marketed well have performed extremely well. Taking the pulse of these two target segments and doing targeted marketing will pay off.