Uncategorized

At its core, business is a venture that provides value to a customer. Value can be to satisfy a need, to bridge a gap or to increase comfort or pride. A customer is paying the business for the perceived value from the product or service offered by the business. It is critical for businesses to have a clear understanding of customer perception of value and designing its operations to be well aligned with this perception thereby ensuring long-term customer loyalty and profitability. Effective business leaders invest time to clearly understand customer’s ongoing perception of the value and proactively incorporate changing trends into the product/service design. The word ongoing is the key here, given that customer preference and perception is bound to change with time and trends in the industry. To be really on top of the value game and to differentiate from the alternatives available for the customer, business leaders should approach value by designing a holistic end to end customer experience through every moment of truth interaction. For those unclear of the term, ‘Moment of truth’ is every moment when a customer/user interacts with a business, brand, product or service to form or change an impression about that particular business, brand, product or service. So this includes advertising, initial contact (phone/website/app/sales person/or other), a positive purchasing experience, the product or service experience, customer service and ease to return for future services. It is important to think through each of the moments of truth that a customer will experience while connecting with…

 We all are born with a concept of being good! Given the trials of daily life, it is helpful to have a quick reminder on the fundamentals of being consciously good. At Mindful Solutions our usual focus is on being good in business,  this time let's try to look at being good holistically.Being Good to Self:Three areas where we need to be mindful on a daily basis is how well are we taking care of the three components of our self - our body, our mind and our soul. Body – Let's be more cognizant of what we eat, ensure adequate physical activity and find useful hacks that can be moulded into routines that we can follow habitually as part of our daily life. A good example is a four-minute Tabata workout every time before you shower!Mind – It is important to focus on our mind to ensure we are fostering positivity while controlling the primal urges for protection from perceived threats. While the mind is naturally wired to focus on the negative - coming from our ancestors need to survive in very hostile conditions, we need to reaffirm to our selves that we live in much safer times today. The best approach here is to be grateful for the success and learnings of the past, build affirmations to program our mind positively and to focus today on taking actions towards clear future goals. An active focus on learning is an important element of keeping a sharp mind.Soul – We all have a spiritual element within us…

Why is a business consultant or a business coach critical to the success of a business?Having spent over 8 figure budgets on hiring consultants, I know that consultant can add significant value or act as a sinkhole where money disappears. There seems to be no middle ground here, as its always either very good or very bad. With many success stories of hiring consultants, I would like to share my approach on identifying the right consultants and managing them, thereby adding significant value to your business.Given that we are a business consulting firm focused on small and mid-sized business, I would like to highlight that this article shares more of my thinking behind starting Mindful Solutions but is not intended to act as a business pitch. This is more like how I would go about choosing one if I had the need todaySo is it a doctor or a personal fitness trainer?This depends more on the reason you are seeking a consultant. If you are having a specific problem or concern area to address, use the 'when you are sick, go to a doctor' approach to identify the best fit business consultant. If you are seeking someone to help you grow or scale into an interesting opportunity, then you seek someone like a personal trainer to help you successfully see you through your journey towards that opportunity or goal. The doctor approach:Some of the key factors you may want to consider are:Education - initial and ongoing, is the person having an adequate academic…