Bhai Dooj

Bhai Dooj or Bhaiya Dooj is a Hindu festival celebrating the unconditional love bond between a brother and a sister. Bhai Dooj defines the eternal love between siblings, dedicated to strengthening the bond between them. On this auspicious day, sisters pray to God for the longevity, well-being and prosperity of their beloved brother. With a decorated thali containing sweets, roli and coconut, the sister ceremonize the occasion by putting a tilak or a vermillion mark on the forehead of their brothers followed by an aarti of him. Then they sweeten their mouths with sweets and in return sisters are lavished with gifts from their brother. The festival is celebrated on the very last day of the five days long Diwali. According to the Gregorian calendar, the festival occurs on the second day of the Shukla Paksha in the Hindu month of Kartik which generally falls between October and November.

History, story and significance behind Bhai Dooj

The festival of Bhai Dooj has a literal meaning attached to it. 'Bhai’ means brother and 'Dooj’ means the second day after the new moon which is a day of celebration. In Hinduism, the day holds special significance into the lives of a brother and a sister. This auspicious occasion not only commemorates the strong bonding between two opposite-sex siblings but is also said to protect them from the evil forces and bring new hopes and prosperity in their lives.

Bhai Dooj is celebrated in different parts of the country with different rituals and has various folklores associated with it. The festival is known as Bhai Phota in West Bengal, Bhau Beej in Maharashtra and Yama Dwitiya in southern India and is celebrated with sisters applying tilak on the brother's forehead along with a special mantra that they chant while at it. While in Haryana, along with the ritual of the tilak, dry coconut is tied with kalawa thread along its width and offered at the time of aarti.

There are few Hindu mythological based stories related to the origin of this auspicious day. According to one legend, it is said that after defeating the evil demon Narakasura, Lord Krishna visited his sister Subhadra. His sister gave him a warm welcome with sweets and flowers. She then applied the ceremonial tilak on Krishna’s forehead. It is believed that this is the origin of the festival of “Bhai Dooj".

Another legend revolves around the story of Yama, the God of death. It is believed that Yama visited his beloved sister, Yamuna on Dwitheya, the second day after the new moon and she welcomed him with a tilak ceremony, garlanded him and fed him special dishes. They dined together after a long time and exchanged gifts. Yama, after the occasion, announced that whoever receives tilak from his sister on this particular day will enjoy a long life and prosperity. Since then this day to be celebrated as Bhai Dooj across the country.

Source : Times of India

Build You Brand With Jagdeep Kapoor's 9 Brand Shastras

Building a business is one thing, but building a brand is different altogether. Both are often confused to be one, but where business cannot always be a brand, a brand, in the way or another, is always a business.

You create a brand only to build businesses and you create a business to satisfy the customer and bring profit.

To make this journey easier for young entrepreneurs, we bring to you this nine brand shastras model that will help you grow your business multi-fold with the least amount of expenditure that it emerges out a brand. With a guarantee from Brand Guru Jagdeep Kapoor, these Shastras prove that people don’t buy products or services, they buy brands.

Need Shastra

This Shastra simply means understanding the need of the consumer.

Look back at your business and see if you have understood the need of the customer, if you haven’t, go back to the table because you shouldn’t build a product because you can produce it, build it because there is a need.

After all, the consumer doesn’t buy on the basis of face value, it buys according it his/her need.

Seed Shastra

How you execute your business idea is what is Seed Shastra.

Jagdeep believes that brand marketing is an earning concept and not a spending one. He says money is the last thing one needs to build a brand. What it really takes is time, then the effort and most importantly, the strategy used to execute the idea.

Your seed Shastra should be so strong that your advertising to sales ratio can operate less than 5%.

Heed Shastra

This Shastra breaks the myth that all you need to build a brand is money.

Brand awareness doesn’t take money to build. It requires communication, not advertising. Advertising is the paid form of communication and if you can’t spend there, look for alternate ways of talking about your business. Be it word of mouth, choosing a catchy name or even using online mediums.

Deed Shastra

This means that your product should have a trial period where consumers can try the product before buying. If yours is an industrial product, demonstrate; if it's a consumer product, sample; and even if it's a service, you can actually give a trial presentation.

If a customer wants to know why then give physical sampling if he wants to try, give financial sampling; it is then the customer would want to buy. It’s like a good trailer for a movie.  

Repeat Shastra

This means the ability to be able to put your product in front of the consumers repeatedly. For your brand to grow your consumer loyalty should be so high that the consumer buys your product again and again.

You can deliver the same thing again and again, but by adding something new to it or giving it a new angle, the product will produce repeat sales.

Speed Shastra

The real business talk starts here when you're looking to expand your business, be it to another city, state or country. To make this happen, you need to speed up and you need to be able to distribute your product. If you can’t distribute, put it online.

Once your first five strategies are in place, you need to expand aggressively so that people can see you. When you’re seen more in the market, you grow faster.

Trust Shastra

The trust a consumer has on your company should never be broken - that should be set in stone for any business. If a brand loses credibility once, it’s almost impossible to build it back. Take Pepsi and Coca-Cola for instance.

A customer should be able to trust you and you, who owns the business, should have self-confidence in your product. The brand should be able to build a relationship with the consumer based on their needs. This will not only increase business but also get customer loyalty.

Breed Shastra

You have to grow equal to or more than the market is growing.

Growing as the market grows is important as if you will not then you’re in loss and if you’re in loss, you can’t focus on building the product the way you want.

So, to grow as the market grows the entrepreneur should be updated on the market trends and know-how customer’s need is changing with time.

Exceed Shastra

You must exceed the need of the customer. Exceeding this need doesn’t mean that you shock the customer. No, it should come as a surprise where the customer is happy to see that their need is served without being asked.

If from the need to exceed you do it right, you’ll have a profitable and successful business. 

Source:https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/276902

Vanilla Ice Cream that puzzled General motors!!!!

An Interesting Story

Never underestimate your Customers' Complaint, no matter how funny it might seem!

This is a real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. Pls read on.....

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:

'This is the second time I have written to you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem.....

You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds "What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?" The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out anyway.

The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start.

The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: He jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas uses, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor.

Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Eureka - Time was now the problem - not the vanilla ice cream!!!! The engineer quickly came up with the answer: "vapor lock".

It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

Even crazy looking problems are sometimes real and all problems seem to be simple only when we find the solution, with cool thinking.

What really matters is your attitude and your perception.

*“Success is not a Long jump nor a High jump, its a Marathon of Steps"*

EXCELLENT CASE STUDY - MUDA

The Taj hotel group had invited Mr. Masai Imai from Japan to hold a workshop for its staff.

The staf were very skeptical - the hotel is doing excellent business, this person from Japan has no exposure to hotel industry - what exactly is he going to teach?

But everybody gathered as planned for the workshop in the conference hall sharp at 9 am.

Mr. Masai was introduced to them - a not so impressive personality, nor the English all that good; spoke as if he was first formulating each sentence in Japanese and then translating it into rather clumsy English.

"Good morning! Let's start work.

I am told this is a workshop; but I see neither work nor shop.

So let's proceed where work is happening Let's start with the first room on the first floor."

Mr. Masai, followed by the senior management, the participants, the video camera crew trouped out of the conference room and proceeded to the destination.

That happened to be the laundry room of the hotel.

Mr. Masai entered the room and stood at the window, "beautiful view!" he said.

The staff knew it; they need not invite a Japanese consultant to tell them this!

"A room with such a beautiful view is being wasted as a laundry room. Shift the laundry to the basement and convert this into a guest room."

Aa Haa!

Now nobody had ever thought about that!

The manager said, "Yes, it can be done."

"Then let's do it," Mr. Masai said.

"Yes sir, I will make a note of this and we will include it in the report on the workshop that will be prepared." Said the Manager

"Excuse me, but there is nothing to note down in this. Let's just do it,
just now." Mr. Masai.

"Just now?" Manager

"Yes, decide on a room on the ground floor/basement and shift the stuff out of this room right away. It should take a couple of hours, right?" asked Mr. Masai.

"Yes." Manager.

"Let's come back here just before lunch. By then all this stuff will have got shifted out and the room must be ready with the carpets, furniture etc. and from today you can start earning the few thousand that you charge your customers for a night."

"Ok, Sir." The manager had no option.

The next destination was the pantry. The group entered. At the entrance were two huge sinks full of plates to be washed.

Mr. Masai removed his jacket and started washing the plates.

"Sir, Please, what are you doing?" the manager didn't know what to say and what to do.

"Why, I am washing the plates", Mr. Masai.

"But sir, there is staff here to do that." Manager Mr. Masai continued
washing, "I think sink is for washing plates, there are stands here to keep the plates and the plates should go into the stands."

All the officials wondered - did they require a consultant to tell them this?

After finishing the job, Mr. Masai asked, "How many plates do you have?'

"Plenty, so that there should never be any shortage." answered the Manager.

Mr. Masai said, "We have a word in *Japanese -'Muda'.*

*Muda means delay,*

*Muda means unnecessary spending.*

One lesson to be learned in this workshop is to avoid both.

If you have plenty of plates, there will be delay in cleaning them up.

The first step to correct this situation is to remove all the excess plates."

"Yes, we will say this in the report." Manager.

"No, wasting our time in writing the report is again an instance of 'Muda'.
We must pack the extra plates in a box right away and send these to whichever other section of Taj requires these. Throughout the workshop now we will find out where all we find this 'Muda' hidden."

And then at every spot and session, the staff eagerly awaited to find out Muda and learn how to avoid it.

On the last day, Mr. Masai told a story.

"A Japanese and an American, both fond of hunting, met in a jungle. They entered deep jungle and suddenly realized that they had run out of bullets.
Just then they heard a lion roaring. Both started running. But the Japanese took a short break to put on his sports shoes.
The American said, "What are you doing? We must first get to the car."

The Japanese responded, "No. I only have to ensure that I remain ahead of you."

All the participants engrossed in listening to the story, realized suddenly that the lion would stop after getting his victim!

"The lesson is: competition in today's world is so fierce, that it is important to stay ahead of other, even by just a couple of steps. And you have such a huge and naturally well endowed country. If you remember to curtail your production expenditure and give the best quality always, you will be miles ahead as compared to so many other countries in the world.", concluded Mr. Masai.

It is never late to learn...let us take out all the MUDA OUT OF OUR LIVES.