Demystifying SEO

There is nothing esoteric about SEO. Search engines are channels that a very large audience can use to reach you. SEO has become such a rage because: ‘How do people reach you when they do not know you?’. The answer lies in good, simple, consistent and regular marketing. If you want quick and great pointers to SEO: Here is what Google says. You can also read a Google Knol here and this is what Bing says.

Good Marketing Always Prevails

The best way to get picked by search engines is not to worry about getting picked. While Sales enlists new clients, Marketing should focus on portraying the organization’s strengths and purpose through clear and concise marketing messages.

Marketing campaigns should be consistent, regularly executed and monitored and be constantly directed towards finding a positioning plank that sticks in the minds of buyers. This should obviously be backed by great products and great services.

Good marketing is careful planning and dogged execution while remembering that you exist for your customers and not for search engines.

Use all channels for marketing including client references, seminars, clubs and associations you belong to, that leisure trip, those early morning walks in the park and more. The Internet is a great medium and a fabulous and highly effective channel. However it is the message you present to your users that wins the deal for you.

By the way, I got married to Prachi by signing a simple legal document. Here is a snap of both of us proudly displaying our marriage certificate.  The marriage took place in Bangalore on the 18th of April 2009.   Now that is a roundabout way of telling that I got married !

Dheeraj and Prachi with their marriage certificate

Group photo of family and friends

The physician enquired if the villaged owned cattle. Yes he did. He further enquired if there was a calf among them. Yes there was – in fact, a cow had just given birth two weeks back !

‘Great !’ said the physician with unconcealed  glee. “Have your child carry the new born calf on his shoulders once around your compound and twice up and down your terrace”. The puzzled villager agreed. The physician said that the routine was to be repeated every day without fail.

Soon the able physician left for learning more from renowned gurus. He roamed the peaks of the mighty Himalayas and amassed a wealth of knowledge that he generously spread wherever he went. After a gap of twenty years, he thought of paying a visit to his village.  He went to each and every house. People greeted him everywhere.

He then stopped by the house of our man - the villager with the listless child. The villager and his wife hurried out and welcomed the physician. The physician enquired about their son. The father proudly hollered out a name and his son came down the steps carrying a huge bull on his shoulders.

The strapping youth was over six feet tall and had rippling, shining muscles, charm and a winning smile that characterises those in the pink of health.

‘Is this the child who was weak when a kid ?’, asked the awestruck physican. Yes, was the answer. The father hastily added that the bull was the same calf born twenty years ago. The kid had religiously carried the calf on his shoulders everyday for the past twenty years !

Well ! Tackle your problems. If you grow with them, you would always be able to tackle them, howsoever large they become. You would also emerge stronger and formidable to behold.

Chierro !

~Dheeraj

On entrereneurs born during recessionary times:

• “Hard time entrepreneurs are disciplined ones. They learn the value of money…. money is tougher to come but is definitely available. You just need to go a little further.”
• Kanwal brought up the point of discipline many times over during the Q&A session.
• He initiated the talk saying that entrepreneurs as a breed are ‘undisciplined’ insofar as they are non-conformists. However real discipline on all fronts is the hallmark of a successful entrepreneur.

On the life on an entrepreneur: 

• “[You go through] very high highs and very low lows in rapid succession…. you need to manage yourself in these times… there would be long periods of low satisfaction… you have to learn to become super-disciplined.”
• “You will not get feedback from anybody… learn to become self-reliant.”
• “Everybody would discourage you… you become a very lonely person.”
• “You cannot have any self-doubts [of the like of]  “Is what I am doing the right thing” (with reference to your business)”. However, Kanwal stressed on questioning oneself about day to day activities. Those kind of self-doubts are healthy. “A successful entrepreneur always worries about what he is missing”.
• “As an entrepreneur you have to be honest with yourself … be brutally honest – set some goals”
• “You’ve got to be credible”

On being questioned about when to seek investment:

“If you can do with your customer’s money [internal accruals, cash ploughed back], great ! …. investors bring in different kinds of risks …[losing a little control of what you want to do, losing a little freedom]… a company that has grown like that [self-funded] has shown the staying power !”

On being asked as to what does he look for while investing in companies:

• “I invest in the individual…good team, large market, some innovations”
• “An ‘A’ team with a ‘B’ idea is better than a ‘B’ team with an ‘A’ idea”.
• While talking about the US versus Indian market: “The US also has a lot of entrepreneurial customers [people who are willing to try new things out ... are willing to experiment with new people and experience new ideas and products].”
• On whether or not to invest in marketing and how much to invest: “Get your message out as cheaply as possible”. This was a winner for me personally !

On the worth of ideas:

• “Ideas are dime a dozen. There are very few Einsteins among us – selling [what comes out of your idea] is the key… Value is in the creation of the whole machinery”.
• Kanwal said that if you had an idea that someone else also thought about at some later dater and “If they out-execute you – you had nothing to offer anyway”.
• “Value creation is in the insights in the marketplace.”

On staying, failure and deciding to quit:

• “Your income will drop when you are establishing yourself…”
• “[If you are left with a choice of] ‘feed my kids versus feed my whims’ you know what to opt for [the former]“
• “Failures are due to [innumerable reasons]… many fail because of lack of money, financial mismanagement, leadership..”

On competition:

“If you are the only one running, even a 13 minute mile would look good but if there are two of you and even if you lose, you would do better than 13 minutes… in a competition, everybody is a winner”