Why I Stopped Wearing My Socks

by Alok Kejriwal

As parents, we must remember that our conduct, fears, aspirations, prejudices, desires, and preferences all get passed on to our children. Even when things may not be going well, we must try and not expose our paranoias and deep-seated regrets to our children.

I believe that entrepreneurs must learn business development and sales skills early in their careers. Generating business needs passion and drive. The salient process of sales must be experienced first-hand by an entrepreneur, and not delegated to someone else. I believe that a market is available to anyone who has the persistence to keep knocking on doors and asking for business. The simple lesson I learned was that business begins to happen when you work towards activating it.

If you are a parent, don’t discourage your children from trying their hand at a simple startup such as operating a YouTube channel or selling goods through social media channels. A small, harmless venture will give them many valuable, real-world insights about business. If you are a young person interested in becoming an entrepreneur, do think about starting a simple service or enterprise that might help you understand the basics of doing business. Many millennials nowadays launch small online advertising, social media and app development services startups. By the time you graduate, you will learn something about most of the pitfalls of business without losing time or money. Whatever business you want to pursue, try and spot a real problem (like the IPO refund issue I identified) and build a solution around it. If your solution is scalable and affordable, it can become a great business that will not just make you wealthy, but also help many people too!

There is an inexhaustible reservoir of lifelong lessons a person can imbibe by just being aware, and by asking the eternal questions of why, when, what, who and where, as often as possible.

I firmly believe that every business must be broken down into the atomic details of its costs. The most critical metric entrepreneurs must know is the margin (profit) on what they sell, and that can only happen when they know their costs. I insist that entrepreneurs must understand their business costs as intimately as possible and not just rely on accountants to figure out or advise them. Costing is the lifeline of a business and must be appropriated, reviewed and actioned upon by the owner and founder directly.

Being correct was not even half as good as being truthful. I learned that respect and trust are won by being frank and honest. And when you have trust, respect and belief, there is no looking back at anything you do.

In the life of an entrepreneur, many opportunities present themselves, and each one must be evaluated meticulously before being accepted or rejected. I learned there is no need to say ‘yes’ on the spot in any situation, be it business or personal.

Each entrepreneur comes across a profound, personal moment of calling—when leaving behind the past and starting out and doing one’s own thing seems to be the only logical way ahead. I would implore readers never to ignore that calling irrespective of how difficult or impossible the occasion appears. In those moments of utter despair, you need to have a firm resolve, and take a single step forward, with a prayer in your heart. The rest happens magically.

I firmly believe that entrepreneurs and professionals must meet at least one new person daily in their lives. It does not matter what the agenda is or how the discussion pans out. I have met over seven thousand people so far and have learned something unique from every one of them!

learned that when an entrepreneur starts to do good work, there are many people including some silent ones who notice. These are the people who will reach out to you proactively to guide, mentor and support you. Just keeping doing good work and the angels will come. I was also blessed to experience that miracles do happen in businesses when you least expect them.

An entrepreneur must develop the confidence and courage to seek partners confidently and without hesitation when he thinks they are the right people to partner with. Being meek and reserved are qualities unbecoming of an entrepreneur.

As I mature, I have learned that even though fame, fortune and glory are important, it is utterly futile and silly for an entrepreneur to sacrifice precious personal moments to chase transient business events. I believe that a person’s highest success is best demonstrated by the happiness of the people closest to him. The most significant lesson for me was that everything else could wait when it comes to one’s family and their happiness.

When Renuka and Bala arrived, I began the conversation and rambled a bit about how contests2win.com was growing and how our business was scaling. Then I looked at Renuka and said, ‘Ma’am, we need more money to grow. Can you please help us with a small round of funding just to tide us over for the next year or so?’ Renuka kept silent for a long while and then looked at me, smiled and said, ‘Alok, when we have small children, they fall when they start walking. As parents, we can easily prevent them from falling, but we don’t. Allowing them to fall is what teaches them to walk.’ That’s all that Renuka said! She then signalled to Bala, and both of them left the meeting. GK and I were shell-shocked. Our only hope of raising funds had vanished on the back of a Zen-style philosophy statement that had lasted for less than ten seconds.

This incident also helped me evolve a vital caveat of mine: ‘You never get money when you most want it, but it’s always available when you least need it.’

I believe that everyone must acquire the skill to sell. This applies to entrepreneurs, businesspeople, professionals, homemakers, artists, students, everyone, anyone!

The third sale to the same customer is what I consider to be the ‘real’ sale. The third time, the buyer buys if there is real, tangible value in your product or service that is useful to him.

I always tell people that their eyes should magically twinkle when they sell! Many of my clients have told me about my sparkling eyes when I have sold to them. The passion, the energy, your joy of offering your product or service should be so intense that the person on the other side feels your deep conviction and says, ‘Done deal’ without hesitation.

I make it a point to observe my buyers’ gadgets, toys, collections, anything that can give me something to start a discussion about. One of my clients loved Montblanc pens, and I would discuss pens and ink with him before talking shop!

Selling is a skill acquired by training. It takes oodles of common sense, passion and the love of people and product to make things happen. There are no finite rules of sales. You can invent your own. Awareness above all, is a salesman’s best friend.

A great speaker and storyteller makes a great salesperson. You must practise public speaking. Try and accept as many speaking invitations as you can.

Reading voraciously, immersing yourself in passions that interest you outside of work such as sports, art, music, literature can go a long way in building a personality that becomes magnetic and sales friendly.