Intellectual Mediocrity

Over the years, I have spent time in the company of several great thinking minds, who helped me question things in a rational and humane way. During my studies and travels I have attended several seminars and conferences where some great minds have stimulated my grey cells like no substance could ever do.

But leaving some greats aside, I have started to see a pattern within the wider community of intellectuals. The pattern of being self absorbed, false open-mindedness of the other intellectual’s point of view, a strong desire to win support and get the listeners and other intellectuals to confirm with his / her line of thought and last of all, heightened tension enveloped within a senseless superiority complex. Which has seen me, as a attendee, who truly wished to be enlightened, leave the seminars feeling empty and cheated and find the whole purpose of intellectual discourse completely pointless.

In my opinion, a true intellectual is one who as according to the Oxford English dictionary “understands” (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/intellectual) a thought, an event or an idea and is able rationalize that by accepting opinions from other intellectuals, scholars and thinkers who put forward their opinions and suggestions and is able to ‘truly take on board’, not pretend to, these ‘other’ opinions and explanations and then is able to reason it and able to present the most intellectually stimulating, rationale argument.

Unfortunately, what I see in the current situation is that the intellectuals have stopped “listening” or are “pretending to listen”, are more concerned about how many articles and books they got published and how many international seminars they attended. It is a humble request to our intellectual community, in this age of cut throat commercial competition and confused social and political times, we the people, are in great need of sensible well reasoned intellectual advice. Don’t go for the momentary applause and try and win some nods in your seminars or rave reviews for your articles from fellow pseudo intellectuals. Try and do the job of an intellectual, which is to provide the society with a well rounded, balanced, mature argument and food for thought.

I am waiting to be intellectually stimulated. And I am sure millions of others are, all day, round the clock, either knowingly or unknowingly.

How to put Relationship Marketing into practice?

Relationship marketing as a vague concept, which becomes clear only when put into practice. Purely because building a relationship is the primary goal or should be the primary goal of every business endeavour at every stage of its interaction with its customer. You should clearly not aim to just get an impulsive buy from your client and then forget about them and move on because then that is not business, it is immoral opportunism.

A good moral and ethical business will develop a relationship marketing plan and allocate a budget for it. In my opinion relationship marketing kicks in from the very first contact the company makes with the potential client. and through the journey of trust building and helping the prospect to turn into a client. and then keeping the client a happy client as part of the acquisition stage. and then into the loyalty stage. You build relationships at all stages of your customer journey. Just like a real life relationship with family, partner or friend.
But you got to remember that relationships will not always be positive, they might involve, conflict, struggle, negotiation, unhappy moments, disbelief, discomfort, malice.

It is here that the company needs to behave like a modern father to a child. Where it should be patient and if the child is making unreasonable demands, take the argument on board and then try and resolve the conflict through the eyes of the customer / child. But equally, if you were in the wrong go forward and apologise to your kids and pick them up, hug them and kiss them and maybe buy them their favourite treat. I hope you get the drift.

Interestingly enough, I feel relationship marketing is very similar to improvisation in theatre practice. You Accept what the customer says or reacts, ie action and then you build upon it. Rather than having a monologue of trying to just sell sell sell. You understand what the customer is trying to say and then react accordingly. Establish a Dialogue, which is the basis of all great relationships.

I must confess that the closest any marketing tool has come to creating clear communication or dialogue and trust building, besides face to face meetings is - video marketing. Produce a short 30 sec to 2 min short film on what you are trying to communicate to your customer at the level of relationship you are at with them and then allow them to feed their responses back to you via social media, company website, emails, letters or blogs.

If you would like to know more about how to best utilise video production and video marketing in your endeavour to champion relationship marketing, then please feel free to contact Mike Saraswat or Indu Pillai at Ekstasy Ltd (mike@ekstasy.co or indu@ekstasy.co)

Comments On Clothing

Wearing clothes is a good idea, as not wearing them might cause greater discrimination on the basis of other physical facets!

And must I say, they also keep you warm and protect you from dust and other harmful substances. In other words, wearing clothes cause social, cultural, sexual and economic discrimination, whereas not wearing clothes causes physical discrimination. Is discrimination wrong?

Well to me, this discrimination is nothing more than a form of differentiation, it is just another way for humans to identify themselves. 'You are what others are not!' But try not to be rude in the process.