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The Art Of Managing Clients

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Art Of Managing Clients, Client Expectations, Client Management, Client Management as An Art, Client Relationship Management, Client Service Management, Featured, Importance of Managing Clients, Latest Startup News India, Managing Clients Relationships, startup stories, Tips for Managing Clients, Workplace Tips


Clients. You know the ones who call you in the middle of the night or the ones who just forget you exist? From making you jump like a jack rabbit everytime your phone rings to making you wonder where they are, clients quite literally run your world. There are so many times you want to pull your hair out and yell your lungs out because they are either always up your case or just do not seem to care about their product enough. If you’re feeling alone in this myriad of constant confusion, then do not worry. We have your back. Here are the different types of clients and how you can deal with them without really losing your cool.

1. The “I want this yesterday” ones 

Cannot start this list without these type of clients. You know, the ones who tell you about something today and expected it to be done yesterday? They work all day, everyday and expect you to as well. You would think they would stop working at 3 A.M. in the morning, but no. They will think of something they just want done then and will rush to call you without thinking of the time or anything.

While the effort they put into their work is commendable, it isn’t really a healthy lifestyle pattern for you. The solution here is painstakingly clear: set boundaries. Learn to say no. Switch your phone off and do NOT run to pick up every time you get a call in the middle of the night. Let the client know that during work hours, they may have your undivided attention, but your personal time is yours and yours alone!

2. The “I don’t know what I want, but this is not it” ones 

These are the ones who know they have a specific idea in mind, but can never EVER tell you exactly what it is they want. They say one thing on call, but have a completely different input on mail, creating constant confusion for you and your team while doing this back and forth! Just when you send them something you think they will approve, they do a 180 degree turn and reject everything. NOT a fun client to work with, right?

The best way to deal with clients like this is to have everything on email the first time around. Send minutes of every conversation and make sure you get the client to acknowledge the mail. In order to ensure a smooth sailing discussion and timely completion of the task, take executive control in your hands and reject major course changing ideas. This helps in letting the client know you are at the top of your game and know exactly how to deliver what is required. A little time consuming, but an extremely effective workflow process!

3. The “I don’t care. You know what you are doing” ones 

There is something to be said about clients like these. They give you the project and wash their hands off the entire approach. They just do not care about what you are doing, the kind of strategies you have and the kind of work being done. However, they will suddenly wake up and realise nothing is going according to their plan, thereby throwing you off course completely.

To avoid confusion from clients like this, make sure you have regular meetings. Ask for regular feedbacks on what you send to them and make sure you have everything on record. However, if they still do not listen to you and if the client is an important one, let your superiors know what is happening and take complete reins over the project. The effort you put is going to be long, but the end result is definitely worth the effort!

4. The “I don’t know what’s happening, the world is on fire” ones

 

This client thinks everything is an emergency for them. They think their house is on fire all the time and nothing you are doing is right. They are the kind who think their world will fall apart if you don’t do the work you are supposed to be doing and make your life difficult. If you are not at the top of your game, then nothing will go right.

To deal with these clients, make sure you keep them updated on what is going on and tell them what is happening with their project. This will help in letting them know their project is okay and you are there for them if they really do need you.

5. The “I am always going to doubt you, no matter what” ones

Sometimes, you deal with clients who work with you because they have no other choice. They fall under the skeptical radar and will always question you on what you are doing, till they think you have proven your worth to them! To make matters worse, they poke fires into things they have no business tampering with and make working with them nothing short of a painful experience. They think they can do the job better than you and will waste no time in telling you so.

Be straightforward with these clients. Tell them things point blank, without sugar coating the good news or the bad news. Think of the bigger picture, but also remember the process of achieving the end goal is important to these clients. Reply to questions they think are important and always keep them updated on what is going on with their project.

Repeat after me. You love your clients. They may drive you just a little over the edge, but they still give you new challenges on a regular basis. It is only when you have to deal with them on a regular basis is when you forget how much you cannot do without them in life. If you have other clients we missed out on that fall under the difficult bracket, comment and let us know!

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How Does Investment Startup Robinhood Make Money?

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How Does Investment Startup Robinhood Make Money?,Startup Stories,How Robinhood Makes Money,How Does Robinhood Make Money?,How Robinhood Makes Money,How to Make Money Trading Stocks with the Robinhood App,Here's How To Make Money With Robinhood,My First Two Months Trading Stocks with Robinhood,How to Invest With Little Money: Our Beginner Guide,Robinhood,Robinhood Company

If you are an avid follower of news on the social media platform Twitter, chances are you might have read about GameStop and how a group of Redditors took on Wall Street hedge fund billionaires.  It all started when a Reddit user found Melvin Capital, a hedge fund company was shorting the GameStop stocks.  An analogy would be if a person x wants to buy 5 bananas which are being sold at INR 10 in the market,  and another person y already purchased 5 bananas.  X could borrow y’s bananas for a while and sell them with the hope the price will go down below INR 10.  Then x will purchase 5 bananas for a lesser price than INR 10 and give back the bananas to y thereby making a profit, in the difference of buying price.  A group of Redditers noticed what hedge funds were doing with GameStop stock and decided to buy all the available shares in the market which in turn led to stock value soaring through the roof.  Now imagine the bananas as GameStop stock and x is the hedge fund.  Now hedge funds have to return the borrowed shares but since they already sold, they had to buy it for a larger price than they hoped.  This in turn led to more than $ 5 billion in losses for hedge funds because they were shorting the GameStop stock.  

However, Robinhood, the zero commission investment and trading startup found itself in the midst of the storm.  This is because thousands of normal small investors wanted to purchase the GameStop stock and they did it via Robinhood.  Wall Street was not happy with the way a group of Redditors held hedge funds by their collars and lobbied to have the stocks delisted.

Mounting pressure from the Government and Wall Street forced Robinhood to delist GameStop, AMC and Nokia stocks from their trading roster which in turn led to huge customer backlash and lakhs of 1 star reviews on app stores of Apple and Android.  

Background

Robinhood was founded by Stanford University graduates Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev co-founded the company in 2013, with the aim of democratizing finance and making it more accessible to young and less affluent investors.  This was due to trading being carried on commission based platforms like ETrade and TD Ameritrade and by a very small set of people. What made the app so attractive to the normal public was the ease of using the platform and its zero commission slogan.   More importantly, Robinhood made the appeal of trading fun and interactive for the general public and the working class.  Investment applications normally charge a nominal fee or commission on the execution of any successful trade.

However, the app gained huge traction in 2019 just when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.  Stock markets crashed suddenly, wiping out billions of dollars in investor wealth.  However, this phase saw the rise of a new kind of investor.  Americans were given $ 1200 stimulus cheques to protect them from the economic fallout of COVID-19 pandemic.  Armed with these cheques, millions of trading novices began investing in the stock market via Robinhood.  

ALSO READ: How Does WhatsApp Generate Revenue

Revenue model

How does a startup which calls itself a zero commission brokerage earn revenue and manage to be profitable?  Robinhood was designed to make profits by selling the customer trading data to several investment firms on Wall Street.  This practice is known as high volume order flow.  In financial markets, payment for order flow refers to the compensation that a broker receives, not from its client, but from a third party that wants to influence how the broker routes client orders for fulfillment.  It is not illegal but it is often frowned upon, to use this strategy as it is also called a ‘kickback.’   This accounts for a lion’s share of revenue for Robinhood.

The second revenue generator is through interests.  Robinhood makes money from interest made by lending out investor’s idle cash.  Robinhood lends out uninvested cash sitting idle in customer accounts.

The third revenue generator is Robinhood Gold, the company’s premium account, allows investors up to $1000 of margin thereby allowing them to trade with more than they have in their cash balance on the app. 

While Robinhood has been caught in the middle of a nasty war between Wall Street and retail investors, there is no denying the fact that it changed the way people invest in the stock market.  

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How Do IPL Franchises Make Money

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How Do IPL Franchises Make Money

If there is one thing that every Indian and every cricket fan waits for all year, it is the Indian Premier League, which is the world’s biggest cricketing league.  Professional cricket players from all over the world vie to get selected by one of the eight franchises which compete in the league.  The entire league is a star studded affair and Indians manage to forget their differences and band together for all the time the league is aired.  Each franchise boasts of a loyal fan following who have supported their teams through thick and thin ever since IPL was inaugurated in 2008.  While the entire league is a melting pot of entertainment and competition, have you ever wondered how the franchises make money in IPL?  In this article we will decode the business models behind the IPL teams and how they earn money.

Franchises need to bid for players every year before the start of the IPL season in an auction.  Each franchise has a maximum spend limit of Rs. 80 crores to buy players in the auction.  Apart from buying players each franchise also needs to bear the cost of travel, support staff and logistics.  The following are the different avenues from which franchises earn money.

1) Sponsorships

Franchises earn a major chunk of their revenue from sponsorships, but they do not get the money from sponsorships directly.  The IPL governing council gets money from sponsors and in the case of this year it is from Dream 11, which is the title sponsor while VIVO was the title sponsor last year.  All the money which is earned from sponsorships is divided into a ratio of 60:40 with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) retaining 40% of the sponsorships.  The remaining 60% is distributed among the ten franchises.  BCCI owns and operates the IPL in India.  The ratio of distribution might change in the coming years depending on the decisions taken by the BCCI.

2)  Media rights

Broadcasting companies bid for the media rights and the winning bid will get to air the IPL on their channel.  Star India bagged the media rights for IPL with a bid of Rs. 16,345 crores for five years (2018-2022.)  The money from media rights are also distributed in the 60:40 ratio with BCCI keeping 40% and the franchises getting an equal distribution from the remaining 60%.

3) Franchise sponsors

Each franchise has its own dedicated sponsors which pay a huge amount of money to the franchise.  The logos and names of the companies which you can see on the sporting attire of every IPL team are actually the dedicated sponsors of their respective franchises.  The profit from dedicated sponsors depends on the deal the franchise has made with their sponsor. The income generated from dedicated sponsors might differ from team to team.

ALSO READ: 5 Cricketers Who Are Entrepreneurs

4) Sale of tickets

Each franchise can choose a home ground from the available venues in the BCCI roster like Sunrisers Hyderabad, choosing Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders choosing Kolkata.  Only the home franchise can fix the price of tickets for the matches happening in their home ground.  Bigger stadiums with large seating capacity earn the most from ticket sales.  Kolkata Knight Riders home ground Eden Gardens has the highest seating capacity in India and therefore KKR earns the most from ticket sales.  

5) Merchandising

Each franchise makes some money by selling official jerseys, caps, wrist watches, souvenirs etcetera.  The merchandise is sold through the official franchise websites.

6) Prize money

Franchises battle it out in a long season to become the winner of the IPL season.  The winning team also wins a hefty prize money which is an additional source of revenue.  In 2019, the winning franchise won Rs. 15 crores while the runner up won Rs. 10 crores.

IPL is a big stage for franchise owners to earn their revenues as well as the perfect opportunity for players to make their mark and win big auctions.  This is how franchises earn their revenues from the IPL.  As this year’s edition is off to a flying start, IPL has been a blessing in disguise for millions of Indians in the gloomy times we currently are experiencing.  

 

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How To Generate More Sales On Social Media

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How To Generate More Sales On Social Media

If you are a frequent Instagram user, there is a high likelihood of stumbling upon a business ad which interests you.  There are also high chances of you making a purchase from a business whose ad you might have seen on Instagram.  As the social media penetration into our daily routine gets deeper each day, businesses are realising the opportunity to sell their products on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat to name a few.  In the current day and age social media is one of the top avenues to generate solid sales and also gives a good return on investment.  However, figuring out a good approach for a business does not come easy and requires some time and effort to figure out how a social media platform works.  In this article, we explain some simple techniques to generate more sales on social media. A good organisation which has a proven track record in this arena is Whacked Out Media based out of Hyderabad.

1) Understand where the target audience is:

It is very important to understand what social media platform your target audience uses.  If your target audience prefers to use Instagram over Facebook, then it makes sense your ads should be running on Instagram.  The easiest way to find out where your target audience is is by identifying the right hashtags which are relevant to your product or business and find out where it is being used.  Once a business understands where their target audience is, it will be much easier to drive online sales.  Online streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon prime Video are known to promote their content on platforms like Instagram and Facebook in order to gain new subscriptions. 

2) Working with influencers

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field.  Influencers have a very high chance of generating sales on social media for your business.  Having an influencer tell a unique story about your brand or product, having influencers give honest reviews about your product or something as simple as an influencer promoting a unique discount code can drive sales effectively.  Noted South Indian actress Samantha Akkineni is known to partner with organic food businesses to promote their products.

3) Turn customers into brand advocates

When you make a sale on social media, it is ideal to request the customer to post reviews of your product or service should they like their purchase.  This will turn your customers into brand ambassadors and at the same time generate more organic sales.  It will be helpful if you can provide relevant hashtags to be used so as to accurately identify leads.  Take the case of mobile phone manufacturer OnePlus, which regularly posts or shares their customer photos and product reviews on their social media platforms.  OnePlus believes in storytelling through customer testimonials and customer content.  #NeverSettle is the hashtag which is most commonly used by the OnePlus brand to identify content relevant to them.

ALSO READ: How To Increase Online Sales Of A Business

4) Share customer generated content

More often than not, if a customer is satisfied with their purchase they will post it on their social media accounts.  For a business, identifying these posts and sharing the customer generated content on their own social media accounts will improve the authenticity of their products.  Prospective customers visiting your social media page can see honest customer reviews which will in turn bolster chances of a sale.  This is also an easy way to increase loyalty with your existing customers, and to add credibility to your brand whenever potential customers visit your social media profiles.

5) Creating content around products/inventory

It is highly recommended to create content around the products which are being sold on social media accounts.  For example, if you are a clothing brand, it will be helpful for customers/leads if they see content on how to mix and match various dresses, or what dresses can be worn in spring or summer.  This establishes a broader context for your brand and will also boost engagement with prospective customers.  This kind of content will also provide a reason for customers to buy your products.

There is no hard and fast way to figure out social media sales and each business should take the plunge themselves to figure out the best approach for themselves.  However, the above mentioned tips will definitely help the chances of success in getting sales.  Alternatively there are plenty of organizations which provide consulting services to businesses in order to help them with digital marketing and sales.  

 

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