“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
If all of you are wondering why I start this week’s Dear MxM with this candid quote from Galileo, it’s simply because I feel that he was absolutely right!
One of the fundamental problems I notice with most of us today, be it the new breed of professionals or some of us oldies or stalwarts ( as the diplomat would say ), is that we lose track of core objectives and digress our interests into peripheral areas. Often just for the excitement of doing something new or just because we get bored of the umbra and want to explore the entire penumbra much like the Galileos of yesteryear.
Focus on service levels, business development, the passion to excel all take a beating and soon we are enjoying the lethargy of comfort. Earning potential ignored, individual capacity ignored, we amble along day after day, feeling happy that we have achieved and earn enough to keep us happy.
Often years go by before one realises that time is running out and we need to reinvent to survive the world ahead and our legacy means nothing today. You may be a legendary performer in your company or your entreprenurial venture may have been the talk of the town, but remember, in today’s environment you are as good as your performance yesterday!!
Sit up and take stock, my friends, be it in your career or your business, and see what has worked for you, and what hasn’t. Don’t bleed ahead, remedy it today. The world around us has loads of opportunity – let not lethargy and complacency make you blind to that.
Have the guts, take the winning strides and hold your head high to take the cruel world head on. All of us have space to do well, as long we build and disseminate our craft effectively.
Go for it now. It’s never too late. Use sense, reason and intellect and win day after day.
Let’s all put Galileo’s thoughts to rest!! He is in any case resting, after all, but boy, didn’t he do his bit before that?!
Yeah ok, I have to answer your questions… Here you go:
Q: I was reading with interest on your website the readership figures of various newspapers. It appears that the regional papers are the happening ones. Unfortunately, I am from Sikkim, and the only languages I know are English and Nepali. Will I ever be able to find work in sales or marketing in any of the regional dailies?
Yes indeed! English is more than enough in most cases, even with the regional papers, since clients and advertising agencies all essentially expect good English skills. Understanding the local language is an advantage but you can pick that up, am sure. Look at markets in the north, west etc as targets, where there is a better comfort level for you since Hindi is also used in these markets.
As long as you have good overall skills and acumen, the market will welcome you, be it the regional media or otherwise. Gain entry and some good experience, and soon you will be hunted down by recruiters to scale you up. All the best!
Q: At a coffee shop near my college I overheard a sales guy from a magazine talking about how he had inflated the circulation figures of his magazine by over 500 percent. He said that is the only way he could get ads even though agencies know that the numbers are trumped up. And, mind you, he works with a leading media and magazine company. My questions: 1. does this practice really exist. 2. Why? 3. Why don’t media associations do something about it?
Unfortunate but true, it does exist in some cases but essentially only when the brands concerned do not have an ABC certification, so there is no way to cross-check. Often these magazines also do not figure in readership studies, hence it is easy to get away with this since they are most often niche brands etc. It’s tough to monitor and curtail this incorrect practice; however, the final test is the response they deliver to their advertisers.
Hence, if advertisers are getting their response and it’s delivering the right audience to them, then figures really don’t matter much for the media planner or the client.
Q: I have been asked to either achieve my sales targets for December or take a walk. It’s an impossible task. What do I do? I’ve tried to make my bosses see reason. They should know the truth. I even took my sales head for one of my calls to know what the reality is. But it didn’t work. Please advise me on what I should do.
This is a common practice now, and it’s unfortunate if targets aren’t realistic. They must see reason, provided you can justify the effort and the actual scenario well. If they don’t value good effort, coupled with results in line with the current market, then my advice to you is look for another company. Pressures are high, so you need to be quick on your feet and do justice to your role. As I always say, master the craft and the career will follow!
Q: I want to be a business journalist. Should I do a course in journalism, an MBA or become a CA?
Learn to write well my friend, have your ears to the ground when it comes to business, build on your business acumen and get the analytical streak in you – and you can be a good business journo.
So essentially go ahead and do the course in journalism, think like an MBA and work like a CA, poking your financial nose into every little detail. Cheers, and all good wishes!
Take care and be good, folks, and we will be back next week!