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5 Valuable Skills You Need to Study For an MBA
Updated on 28 November, 2022
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Nowadays, almost everyone aspires to complete a Master’s in Business program and get an MBA. This is because a) the degree is relevant for all fields and all domains and b) it’s usefulness extends outside of business settings as well. Read our article about 6 reasons to do MBA. Directly or indirectly, an MBA degree teaches one how to better manage the professional and personal. Whether or not the person puts it into practice is up to them, of course.
That being said, how do you manage the journey of getting a management degree like an MBA? You only have 2 years to learn all that you can and the workload is immense.
Skills You Need to Study an MBA:
Communication skills
Oral and written, you need fluency in both to truly shine as a business graduate. Your work will involve a lot of human interaction and it is imperative that you master the art of both verbal and non-verbal communication. Doing so will help you to strike deals, size up potential clients, and turn situations to your advantage. People and relationships will be a major part of your job description and you cannot take care of both without ace communication skills.
Initiative
Instead of the word ‘leadership,’ focus on developing initiative. When you take initiative; when you are the first to raise your hand; when you are the first to step up- you automatically become a leader. A leader is someone who goes first. So, work to overcome your hesitancy, your fear of being seen, procrastination and overthinking. Reframe your mind to replace the word ‘failure’ with ‘lesson.’ Take baby steps and aim to become consistent.
The ability to pivot
You can remember this from Ross Geller’s famous admonitions to pivot the sofa in Friends. The fancy and go-to word for this is adaptability but pivot is much more concrete and accurate. When faced with unexpected circumstances or problems, you must have the ability to pivot. When your professor demands 5 essays for the next morning at midnight, you must have the ability to pivot, cancel your plans, and get working. When the company faces a loss where it expected a profit, you must have the ability to pivot and work to recover it step-by-step.
Planning and organization
If you don’t plan your assignments and workload, you can very well drown yourself in exhaustion and backlogs. Because you’ll be learning so much in a relatively short amount of time, you need to be strategic and carve out time for all essentials (like rest and leisure). This can only be achieved when your classroom and extracurricular activities are scheduled in and organized. These traits will come in handy when you move to the office and manage large teams in addition to your own work.
Strategic and analytical thinking
This is a core part of every management practice. A business graduate needs to be well-versed in strategic and analytical thinking. They should be able to develop a long-term vision and think rationally while keeping their emotions and personal judgments aside.
Also, you do not need to become a master of these skills right away or even in the immediate future. Small but consistent applications of the same will reap noticeable and amazing results during your degree as well as beyond it! If you think you can improve these skills and excel MBA, check out upGrad’s MBA From Golden Gate University.
Learn MBA Courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is an MBA?
MBA is a program that deepens and broadens your business knowledge in such a way that you can put it to practice. It helps you hone practical skills. All this goes hand in hand with a higher salary, more work responsibilities, and powerful designations. MBA is for you if you want to learn management skills and advance your career. It is for you whether you want to be an entrepreneur or progress within your current company. MBA gives you wonderful networking opportunities that can last a lifetime.
2. What kind of preparation should I do before pursuing an MBA?
One of the basic things to do is to reflect on your career goals and aspirations. You can pen a few things down. You can write down your goals, what you want to do career-wise, what it is that you want to achieve in a business school. You can practise your elevator speech, prepare a powerful resume, and build a potential company list. You could even connect with alumni and take their advice on areas where you need guidance. You can spend time reading relevant books. Knowing what’s in store will help you mentally prepare.
3. What are the skills required to be able to study for an MBA?
There are skills you should have that will help your MBA be more valuable and beneficial to you. Your ability to pivot, take initiatives, and plan effectively are some of them. No matter what kind of a company or role you choose, you will be working with people. So investing time in honing communication skills will be worth the time spent. You could try to understand how to prioritise tasks when there is a mountain of work in front of you. Strategic thinking is crucial in MBA and any business. MBA requires reading, writing, presenting, and studying. So your desire to learn hard work will always benefit you.
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Growth Hacking – The New Marketing Buzzword
New and hot, indeed! According to Google Trends, growth hacking has been one of the most-discussed topics last year. It is also a fundamental business and marketing practice and hence it is likely to continue to trend and stay around for a while.
What is growth hacking?
Growth hacking is a method that enables you to increase your customer base and ensures that they continue to stay active by influencing their network. It could be a single tactic or a combination of many hacks that coaxes these customers to create a domino effect in their online ecosystem.
Increasing the customer base as an objective is vintage but the ways to accomplish it has evolved over time. The most recent ones which have worked wonders are popularly called as growth hacking strategies and now is a great time to explore them, if you don’t want to be left behind.
How to use growth hacking to your success?
There are millions of ways to adapt growth hacking trends but there is no hard and fast rule that defines which one is the best. Here are some stepping stones that have been explored by some of the most popular growth hackers out there.
Ideate
With growth as your central theme – be it measurable marketing objectives, competition, business evolution or use of technology in marketing; give yourself a brief to crack. Once you know which verticals to tackle, round up your team and ideate on the best ways and latest technologies that can be used and tested as a growth hack.
Experiment
Newer the technology the better, as it makes way for a plethora of digital marketing experiments. These experiments will help you learn which growth hacks work and which don’t. They could be related to the best use of latest platforms like Periscope, Snapchat, Instagram etc. or simply building a beautiful website that bridges the gap between you and your customers. Make a note of the key learnings and measurements as they might come handy in future.
Monitor
Growth hacking is heavily dependent on data-driven marketing and vice versa. Your ideas and experiments will hold water only if they are supported by strong numbers. Hence, monitor and measure every experiment or campaign you run to increase your customer base. Their results give you a bird’s eye view of what you need to do next – whether to optimise the same campaign/experiment or adopt a new growth hack.
Optimize
Campaign optimisations are often looked upon as a key to improving the numbers. Businesses resort to them only when they have unrealistic marketing objectives to be achieved against tight deadlines. But if used properly, optimisation could open a treasure trove of great growth hacking strategies. For e.g. the experiments that you have conducted so far may not have given you great results but they look promising. Here, optimisation can help in tweaking the experiments enough to enhance the outcome.
Grow
Finally, everything will boil down to how you chart out your growth journey using these hacks. Out of 10 ideas, you might have experimented with 6, monitored them all, optimised 3 of them and only one of them actually worked in scaling your growth. So, does that mean you should explore newer growth hacking strategies? The answer to that is yes and no. Yes, keep looking for the latest hacks and no, don’t give up on the old ones as you never know which one is gold.
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Growth Hacking Realized – Airbnb
While the above steps sound great theoretically, you might be screaming for an example that puts things in perspective. So, let’s consider the growth story of Airbnb – the poster child of growth hacking strategies. Airbnb is an online platform that allows people to turn their bedroom/ spare room into a lodging space that can be rented by strangers. Today, it’s a revolution but it all started with two individuals who decided to do things differently.
The Idea
Designers Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky were not able to afford the rent of their San Francisco apartment. So, out of survival instinct, they decided to rent out their loft. They had the option of posting their listing on Craiglist (a portal where people look for accommodations), but they felt that it would be too impersonal. So they gave it some thought and decided to build a simple website instead that would make their listing look personal and warm.
The Experiment
They built the website in a time when a design conference was coming to town and there was a lack of hotel space. They put up pictures of their loft-turned hotel space along with an appealing offer of home-cooked breakfast in the morning. Then they waited. They didn’t know how well this would work or whether it would even work. But eventually this got them three renters and within a week they started receiving inquiries asking when this facility will be available across cities and countries. This came as a surprise.
The Smart Hack
After some in-depth market research and planning, they set up a website for the international audience where people world over could list properties or book them for lodging. But now the problem was, how do they let people know about the existence of Airbnb in the smartest and cheapest possible way? They went back to the drawing board and decided to leverage Craiglist for its massive user base. They created a form that suggested the users to post their listing on Craiglist as well to get better traction.
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Optimisation
While they did this, they optimised the user experience on their website with great pictures, warm language & story like descriptions and also ensured that the property listings earned more through Airbnb than on Craiglist. This changed the game for Airbnb as their customer base shot exponentially at minimal cost.
Growth Journey
Airbnb could have continued with their Craiglist hack but they were smart enough to move on in time from poaching customers to focusing on augmenting their own product. They found out that they were not very popular in cities like New York, London, Paris, Vancouver, and Miami. The reason – renters were posting poor quality pictures of their properties and the users didn’t get to see what they are paying for.
They could have tackled this by sending out a series of ‘How to’ emails. Instead, they sent a group of professional photographers to these places to click good quality pictures and posted them on the listings. Needless to say, this worked wonders for them not only in terms of increased bookings but also a spike in the trust factor owing to the authenticity of the pictures.
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Since then, Airbnb has explored unique and human growth hacks like turning mere homestays into local living experiences, thoughtfully rebranding itself into a lovable brand, etc.
Have you ever used a growth hack to leverage your startup? Which growth story has inspired you the most?
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Brand Positioning – A Focal Point of All Marketing Efforts
“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.”
– Tom Fishburne, Founder and CEO, Marketoonist
Several times, we come across advertisements which do not sell the product or service directly. For example, soft drinks like Thumbs Up and Mountain Dew sell an idea of being adventurous and fearless instead of the drink itself. Banks like ICICI do not explicitly discuss a range of banking services that they offer but evoke a sense of security, a sense of being cared for through their ad campaigns with taglines like “Hum hain na” (We are there for you) or “Khayal apka” (Care for you). These companies persuasively align their products with ideas, values or emotions. It is a part of their marketing strategy – in the form of brand positioning.
Positioning in marketing is used to place your brand in the minds of the audience in a particular way. It defines the brand and what it does for a customer. It defines what value it offers and what it stands for. In this way, customers slowly and steadily align these values or ideas with a particular brand and connect with it.
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It is extremely important to learn about brand positioning to excel in any kind of marketing job. If you want to upskill yourself, check out our digital marketing courses. Positioning in marketing is important as it plays a crucial role in making the product relevant to your target audience. It explains and strengthens the value of a brand i.e. why and how it solves the problems and makes life easier; or simply why every penny spent on buying this product/service is worth it.
Therefore, every business, whether big or small needs to position their product or service in a certain way. To achieve this goal, a marketer should know what exactly is brand positioning in marketing, how it works, how to write a well-defined positioning statement, what are the different types and methods to perform powerful brand positioning, etc. This knowledge will give an insight of how marketing experts strategize their efforts. Overall, it will help you understand the dynamics of marketing, inside out.
The origin of brand positioning in marketing
The concept of positioning in marketing was popularised by Jack Trout, Al Ries and Philip Kotler in ‘Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind’ – a Bible for positioning in marketing. It spelled out the mantra of success in branding through positioning.
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According to these marketing gurus, customers are bombarded with advertisements on a daily basis and they deal with it by filtering the information and discarding useless information that they cannot connect with. To effectively place the brand name in the minds of the target audience in such a ‘media-blizzard’ as they call it, brand positioning is a key.
What does brand positioning mean?
Philip Kotler defines brand positioning as “the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market”. In simpler words, brand positioning describes how a brand is different from its competitors and where or how it should be placed in customers’ minds.
Types of brand positioning in marketing
There are various brand positioning strategies at your disposal to achieve your brand positioning goal. The most popular ones are:
Quality positioning
While positioning a product, a company assures a customer of its highest quality. Tropicana Juice – 100% real fruit juice, is an example of quality positioning.
Price positioning
There are two ways of positioning while using price positioning in marketing. High-value positioning and low value (reasonable pricing positioning). For example Big Bazaar positions itself with an idea that customers will get the best products for cheapest rates – isse sasta aur accha kahin nahi (it can’t get better and cheaper than this) while Taj group of hotels’ venture Vivanta’s positioning efforts clearly states that their service is dedicated to a more aspirational consumer. Words like ‘stylish and sophisticated’ used in their positioning statements give us an instant idea about the quality of their services.
Benefit positioning
This type of positioning offers an exclusive benefit of using a product/service that no other brand can deliver. For example, Motilal Oswal Financial Services assure solid research and solid (financial) advice.
Solution (problem-solving) positioning
In this type of brand positioning, a company offers a solution to a problem of the target audience. Like LIC offering the comfort of being secured. It positioned itself as an insurance company that would offer solutions to all your worries related to money management and as a friend that would look after your loved ones in case of a calamity – “Zindagi ke sath bhi, Zindagi ke bad bhi” (With you; for a lifetime, and even after that).
Subjective (competitor based) positioning
Positioning a product in the minds of the audience with respect to a competitor by implying that no other brand can serve them better. For example, Malayala Manorama, a newspaper in Kerala, sets itself apart by assuring, “Nobody Delivers Kerala Better”.
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How to strategically design your positioning statement
A key to robust positioning in marketing lies in writing a strong, well-defined positioning statement. The following steps will definitely help a marketer to write a fitting positioning statement:
Identify the target audience
A thorough understanding of how segmentation and targeting work in marketing will help identify a target market. A target market is essentially a segment or group of people who are most probable to be your customers. It can be the urban youth, the middle-class segment or even population belonging to a particular geographical region.
Read the signals through research
Understand what the target market wants to hear, define its needs and wants, the communication method it is most comfortable with and then prepare your plan.
Communicate the value that the brand aims to create
Deliver a message in a way that it assures the customers that this is all they have been looking for. Make a promise of quality, most reasonable price, benefits that none other can offer or value addition over and above what a rival company is offering based on your assessment of the product/service and a USP (Unique Selling Point) based on which you are selling this product.
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Examples of noteworthy positioning statements
Amazon for its books segment:
“For World Wide Web users who enjoy books, Amazon.com is a retail bookseller that provides instant access to over 1.1 million books. Unlike traditional book retailers, Amazon.com provides a combination of extraordinary convenience, low prices, and comprehensive selection”.
Zipcar:
“To urban-dwelling, educated techno-savvy consumers, when you use Zipcar car-sharing service instead of owning a car, you save money while reducing your carbon footprint”.
Notice how both of these businesses define clearly the target segment, what their company does, how it helps you and what is the value that it promotes, and the range of benefits that it offers.
Such well-defined positioning statements, in fact, such remarkable positioning in marketing has multiple benefits. First and foremost, it makes every department of an organisation, market-oriented. It becomes a part of organisational philosophy and value.
It creates loyal customers. It helps you stand out in stiff competition. And most importantly, it attracts your target audience in a very powerful way. It helps them remember your brand a certain way, a way you want them to remember it.
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How to learn about positioning in marketing?
You cannot master marketing without a profound knowledge of brand positioning. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that it is a focal point of all marketing efforts. Reading books and online articles won’t take you too far. For a deep insight into how positioning in marketing works, you should undergo formal training and educate yourself thoroughly.
If you wish to explore and become an expert in Digital Marketing, check out upGrad & MICA’s Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing & Communication. Become an expert in social media marketing, content marketing, branding, marketing analysis and PR. This course helps you to not only understand brand positioning but gives you an opportunity to apply learnings from real-time case studies and industry projects to create a robust marketing strategy and scale new heights in your career.
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Read More07 Feb'18
5.74K+
Do You Really Need an Offline MBA to Become a Great Manager
A Disclaimer: I refer to those professionals who don’t have a Management Degree and are striving to make a transformation in the managerial role in their career.
The business ecosystem is changing every day and so are the requirements from the business professionals. Accelerating and augmenting the business to sustain in the market, has been a consistent pertaining need of the hour. The growth of high-end technology has enabled to automate the business processes and reduce the mundane labor of work. Yet, the role of management to develop, plan, strategize and execute the operational business tactics is inevitable for any organisation. Most of the corporate career path, especially non-technical and non-engineering channels of business, leads to this management segment or the managerial role. A leadership role which is alluring and encouraging to seek greater success in the corporate arena. Is the path to the Managerial role a straightforward route?
The initial formative years in the corporate world sows the seeds and dreams of a dynamic career. The peers and managers influence and strengthen our dreams. Most of us look up to these managers and wish to achieve the same. But, after the initial phase of sugar and spice, the reality checks-in when the professionals face the real competitive environment for the managerial role. The path to the managerial role comes with a great responsibility and vision.
A professional management certification on your sleeves is a perfect incentive and an entry ticket to achieving this managerial designation and can offer an upper hand when compared to others who do not have one. At this juncture, most of the corporate enthusiasts go through a midlife crisis. Confused whether to quit the job, pursue a degree from a reputed B school such as IIM, ISB or International Institutions, or get a management degree from some random management institution.
Real Individual Growth, the Catalyst for Success
A low CAT score also sometimes forces them to settle for something very less and eventually hits them hard on their pockets. Most of us believe just a paper of certification would suffice to pursue this role, contrary to the reality. A lot of corporate professional’s dwell in this dilemma for a very long time and sometimes miss out the major career turning point of their life. If you are sailing on this boat, we are here to anchor you and show you the right path.
Even after more than two decades and tremendous technological advancement and process automation, the implications of managerial role and management skills have not come down. Having said that, there is a steady decline in the fad of the management studies and certifications from B Schools. The lure of being an IIM or any other B school alum has been declining for quite some time. Research studies conducted by ASSOCHAM show that only 20% of students passing from B schools end up in jobs which are aligned with their studies. The campus placement scenarios in these management institutions are extremely grim and have dropped down severely.
Most of the students end up in low-salaried jobs and struggle for years to pay their educational loans. So, why take the pain of writing a CAT examination, quitting your job and pursue a management degree which might end up in a path filled with the bumpy road in your career than the present scenario? You might be wondering what could be the other ways where you don’t have to take a break as well as get a management degree? We are here to help you out.
Gone are the days when Management studies were a lucrative and luxurious educational stream, mostly pursued by professionals who have a strong and wealthy background and who could afford to take a break whenever they wished to. Today, Management studies with a certification in hand, are vital to growing up in the corporate ladder. Having said that, the online and distance education system of learning and acquiring skill sets has enabled professionals to look at the pros and cons of entering the campuses of B Schools with a different perspective.
The corporate programs offered by online educational institutions such as UpGrad, inspire professionals to take up Management Studies and transform their careers without pausing or halting in the middle.
This transformational journey is like The Road to El Dorado filled with bumps and potholes. From being a subject matter expert to a managerial role without quitting the job requires an investment of time and conscious efforts to balance the ongoing role and acquire skills for the new role. Some of us might be doyens in our area of expertise and possess in-depth knowledge about the domain. However, we might lack the managerial skills to plan and execute the business improvement ideas.
For example, as a developer, you might have a fresh and great idea to augment the features of the product you are developing and make it more conducive for the customer and incur more revenue for the organisation. Nevertheless, you might not be able to forecast, plan, budget and execute the different aspects of the business to implement your idea. This is where the necessity of acquiring managerial knowledge and skills comes handy.
The need of proficient business managers is on the rise to tackle the challenges of the dynamic and fluctuating business environment. In the present scenario, most of the business managers are required to look beyond the present and foresee the challenges of the future and be planned and prepared for any type of crisis. The product managers are in a constant battle to grow the business with creativity and speed.
These online management courses will help build and hone the necessary skills such as researching and synthesizing information of the business, communication skills and project management along with knowledge and application of diverse management tools. The Certification of Management Studies would empower the students with the knowledge to handle the projects from the business profit and loss perspective and augment it creatively to the best of the business needs.
Though these are not a full-time professional degree course, there are impeccable advantages of opting for such online management certifications. These corporate online programs have endured giving a virtual learning experience just like a real-time educational institution. The best feature of these online management certifications is that most of them do not have any entrance exams. So, zero fear of passing or failing at the entrance exams. Above all, these online courses can be pursued with or without taking a break from your career. After all, who would wish to take a break, make a huge investment and live in financial crunches for years?
These online courses and certifications do require an extra little time investment in your daily life (of course every course has a time limit). These courses, besides giving in-depth theoretical knowledge about the business concepts also help you understand the practical real-time business scenarios and the challenges of the industry. These courses also impart insights and information about the changing trends of the market through applied projects along with personalized mentorship.
The plethora of options for the corporate professionals available in the education world would help them seek the required managerial and leadership skills without any hindrance in the career. An online education which is exclusively skill-based training along with intellectual and innovative awareness and application of the business tools to provide exception management services for the business. Much for the best of the students and professionals, these management programs are certified in collaboration with reputed national and international business schools.
Once acquired the degree as well as the essential skills, the corporate professionals can showcase their talent to grow up in the ladder. As these courses are pursued as an on-the-job educational enhancement, it will be a perfect way to apply the management skill in your daily professional life and show your peers and seniors the innate potential and the acquired new skill for the optimum career growth. With the timely execution of the skills in the business and visible impact on the business, the transformational journey from a subject matter expert to the managerial role would take place.
The expedition from a subject matter expert to a managerial role not only requires the technical skills and managerial skills but also needs a shift in the mindset. When you are a subject matter expert, you must be a pro at your subject. You need to be a master of your domain. The go-to person for all the product development problems.
Why Skill Development is Really Important for Success
You need to help the team solve the problems when under the technical crisis and find solutions to the product issues. But, the scenario completely changes when you are looking yourself for a management role. You are not just a problem solver. You need to think and forecast when and how the problem would arise, how many resources would be needed to solve the issues and what is the time-delay which would happen if problems arise. An end to end overview of the project in terms of business vision and mission.
As a Manager, the way you approach the business would change drastically. These management degrees will help you visualize the day to day problems of the individual projects from the business perspectives. You will start looking the projects in terms of revenue generation and contribution to the profits of the organisation. As a manager, you would need to have a much profound thought and views about the resources available and the future necessity of the resources, along with the time management, so that the project schedules are met in a timely fashion to the customers as per the schedule. You also need to overview the performance of the individual team members depending on their contribution to the projects.
In short, you as a manager must have the potential to show the entrepreneurial skills such as resource management, time management, business operations management besides having the knowledge of the product development.
Learn MBA Courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career.
Do You Have All the Skills Required to Start a Business?
This revolution in the mindset does not happen overnight or just by possessing the theoretical knowledge. This change in the way of thinking and execution of the business goals comes after a lot of daily business crisis encounters over a period. The best way to kick off this journey of managerial metamorphosis is to pursue an online management degree along the side of your ongoing corporate career. Sow the right fertile seeds today for a better constructive and thriving professional career.
Read Moreby Deepak Singh
01 Mar'185.88K+
Get an Edge in your Management Career: UpGrad and IMT Ghaziabad
Across the globe, for quite a few decades now – getting a post-graduation management education has been a tried and tested route for employers to hire high caliber managers. It also gives an edge to aspiring managers for transitioning into higher paying roles.
But not everyone who gets a management degree achieves success.
In India, tens of thousands of management graduates are churned out by the 100s of colleges, but only 7 percent turn out to be employable, says a study conducted by ASSOCHAM. In fact, only a top few colleges are able to boast of quality education and great career impact. Beyond the top 20 colleges – all metrics related to career impact, whether it is post-college CTC or percentage of class employed after 3 months, fall drastically.
This shows, it’s not enough to just get a management education – the college you get it from is very important.
For a lot of working professionals, going back to the campus is not the best alternative. Many of them can’t spend 5-15 lakhs on getting an on-campus MBA. Some want to continue their jobs and get promoted and some are not able to get into campus programs of a reputed college. As a result, every year approximately 140,000 people enroll in distance education management programs available in India (MHRD report).
Do You Really Need an MBA to Become a Manager?
But in most of these distance education programs, the quality of education is substandard. This also is not much of a secret – all recruiters understand this well.
To help aspiring managers to actually achieve their career goals without taking a 2-year long break, we joined hands with IMT Ghaziabad to develop a PG Program in Management. IMT Ghaziabad is widely regarded as one of India’s leading B-Schools. The alumni of IMT Ghaziabad can be found in almost every industry in leadership positions. IMT G alumni are serving in senior leadership positions in organisations such as Google, Genpact, Verizon, Ashok Leyland, Citibank, Credit Suisse and Zomato.
What are some unique features of PG Program in Management
Become a graduate from one of the best B-schools
Having a great B-school on your profile benefits you throughout the career. Be it getting shortlisted for interviews or getting promoted faster – there are lots of intangible and tangible benefits. You will also have access to campus facilities and be a part of IMT alumni network.
UpGrad learning experience: Tailor made for busy working professionals
This program requires only 6-8 hours of time per week. In a typical week, students go through lectures and assignments by taking out 3 hours from Monday to Friday. All the live lectures are scheduled over non-work hours for their convenience. And all deadlines are on Sunday midnight – so that you have the entire weekend to complete everything.
Learn from top professors and top industry professionals
One very unique feature of the program is that the lectures are not only taken by professors from IMT Ghaziabad – but we also have lots of industry leaders teaching you in the program. These industry leaders have decades of experience and work in leadership positions in top companies and access to multiple networking sessions during and after the program.
Learn by doing; go beyond learning through lecture notes
We believe learning doesn’t happen by going through lecture videos or Hangouts – learning happens when you apply the lectures taught you to real-life problems. This program will have 13 case studies based on actual problems faced by companies. It will also have live projects where you will be running digital marketing campaigns on Facebook and Google Ad platforms.
Get mentored 1:1 by industry leaders
In this program, you will get 5 sessions with an industry professional with years of experience. You will get to choose this mentor from a pool of mentors. In these 1:1 sessions, your mentor will help you develop a better resume, conduct mock interviews and help you understand what kind of roles should you apply to.
Get career opportunities
Through our network of over 200 industry partners, we share career opportunities with our students. Additionally, students get to be part of IMT Ghaziabad official alumni group – where a lot of top opportunities are shared.
Transition into your dream role faster
Unlike most management programs that take 2 years, we have designed this program to be only 10-months long. A short MBA program helps the students achieve their career goals faster and are ideal for experienced professionals. Many top MBA schools like the Indian School of Business, INSEAD France, and HEC Paris also offer short duration management degrees.
No need to take a lot of leaves for the end exam
In a usual distance management degree, students have to take end semester exams. Most students end up taking a 10-15 day leave to give these exams – which is a big pain point. To solve for this – we have a lot of smaller components throughout the program where you will be graded. These include case studies, assignments, live projects and so on. This means, you just need to turn in your assignments on time and there is no end term exam.
Real Individual Growth, the Catalyst for Success
We are excited to train the next generation of leaders for the country. Check out the PG Program in Management now if you wish to race ahead of the curve in leadership roles!
Learn MBA Courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career.
Read Moreby Apeksha Minz
20 Mar'185.36K+
4 Customer Retention Strategies You Never Tried
We live in a world of constant competition. When it comes to the business, brands are working rigorously to make sure that consumers don’t buy from their competitors. In such situations, the best option is to work on your customer retention strategies.
Customer retention, in a nutshell, refers to the process of keeping and nurturing your existing customers. It involves building trust among existing consumers and earning their continued patronage.
According to Invesp, the probability of any business selling to existing customers is 60-70%. The study further shows that existing customers are 50% more likely to try out your brand’s new products. They are also likely to spend 31% more compared to new prospects.
These statistics explain why you should concentrate more on customer retention rather than focus only on getting more customers.
And due to all these benefits, customer retention is one of the key factors that drive the success of any business. So for optimum results, your brand should have proper strategies in place for retaining your existing customers.
Here are a few tried and tested strategies you can use to excel at customer retention:
#1. Add Value to Your Products
Providing something extra to customers so that they don’t buy from your competitors is a good way to retain customers. It is not only limited to providing benefits and features, you can also provide unique experiences to your consumers that no one else provides.
You can alternatively provide unique benefits and experiences to certain groups of customers rather than providing them to everyone. This way, you can also reap huge benefits by offering a sense of exclusivity to certain customers.
An example of a company that adds value to its products and provides unique experiences to its customers is Apple. Apple has always been known for making products that are easy to use. In its recent development, the iPhone X is one of the first mobile devices to have facial recognition technology.
This allows you to you scan your face so that it can only be unlocked by you. Not only this, Apple perfected the face ID technology significantly so that their product is one-of-a-kind. They have yet again managed to set themselves apart to continue retaining their loyal customers.
Brand Positioning: A Focal Point of All Marketing Efforts
#2. Delight Your Customers
As a business owner, there’s no doubt that you can offer your product at a fair price and deliver it to your customers in a timely manner. However, this does not give them an unforgettable and meaningful experience. Nor does it ensure that you’ll gain their loyalty.
In order to retain customers, your brand should think of effective ways to consistently provide memorable experiences to customers. There may even be times when you go above and beyond to ensure that their experience is unique and pleasant.
To delight and surprise your customers you can:
Ask customers to take part in surveys to show that you care about their opinions.
Bring them onboard for product testing so they have a unique pre-launch experience.
Celebrate their birthdays by sending out exclusive gifts or discount offers.
This way, your customers will know that you truly care about them and not just about their business with you. It will help them understand that you’re serious about delivering a one-of-a-kind experience to them. And this will enforce their trust in your brand. Foundr magazine recently published a guide anyone can use to start and scale an online store.
In 2012, the people of Bethel, Alaska were delighted to hear the news of a Taco Bell opening there. But they later discovered that the opening of the Taco Bell in their remote town was merely a hoax.
Not long after, the news reached Taco Bell. The company understood the amount of excitement that was built around the potential Taco Bell opening. This is when the company thought of surprising the citizens of Bethel.
Taco Bell soon executed an event named “Operation Alaska.” During the event, the company sent out a helicopter carrying a Taco Bell truck to the town of Bethel. This truck was filled with enough food ingredients to make 10,000 Doritos Tacos for the people of the small town.
Taco Bell did this to surprise the people of the town and appreciate the brand’s loyal fans. Although they were unable to open up a physical store in Bethel, the company went out of their way to address their customers’ demands.
Learn How To Use Audience Targeting In Marketing!
#3. Provide Great Customer Service
It doesn’t matter how good your product or service may be if you can’t deliver good customer service. If your customer service is not up to the mark, you will have a hard time retaining the customers who choose to do business with you.
Brands should understand that the quality of service they provide is the main factor that differentiates them from competitors who sell the same products as they do.
That’s why it is of the utmost importance that your company has effective customer service strategies in place if you wish to boost customer loyalty. This would also include everything from setting up a proper after-sales protocol to providing a good user experience to your site visitors. They need to know how to build, launch and grow a profitable online store.
Just think about it – will visitors return if your web pages load slowly, or if it takes several minutes for them to find the information they need?
It will not only frustrate them but also increase their sensitivity towards price. And this could significantly affect your brand’s revenue in the long run.
By focusing on personalized customer service solutions, brands can easily retain the majority of their customers. Here’s an example of great customer service being provided by Amazon.
Here we see that the customer has reported that the product order is yet to be delivered. The customer support agent Jeff informed the customer that the product has been delivered to Australia. He apologized for the inconvenience and created a replacement order for the customer.
Jeff also went on to provide an expedited delivery of the replacement order. This way, he not only answered all the customer’s questions but gave her a personalized solution to the issue.
Segmentation in Marketing: Get Started with Effective Strategies
#4. Boost Your Content Marketing Strategy
By understanding the customer’s perspective, you’ll realize that consumers are more comfortable buying products and services that they think they’re familiar with. So when it comes to purchasing decisions, they choose products and services they’ve heard of from some other source. This source could be anything – from friends and family to news articles.
That’s what makes content marketing so effective for businesses. Content marketing involves publishing content in a way that not only reaches out to the masses but also influences them. It helps consumers learn more about your product or service in a way that’s not overly promotional. Additionally, it also provides useful information to existing customers on how to further benefit from your product or service.
There are a few steps you can take to optimize your existing content marketing strategy. Here are some ideas you should implement:
Combine Content Marketing with Influencer Marketing – Work with influencers who have a voice in a relevant niche. You could have them create content in which they talk about your products or services in front of their audience, which can help you win over an engaged audience.
You could also have them vouch for your products or services in testimonials, expert roundup posts, or interviews. And since the recommendation is coming from someone they trust, this audience is highly likely to be smitten about what you’re selling. This will give you an easier time winning their trust and loyalty, which is vital for retaining them.
Keep Track of Where Your Content Stands – It’s also crucial that you ensure your content remains consistently visible and valuable. The goal here is to ensure that you continue to attract and engage a highly relevant audience and win over their loyalty.
Additionally, strategies such as updating content can have a significant impact on your content visibility and customer retention efforts. The strategy involves picking out older pieces of content and updating them with new information, new ideas, or new images that can continue to engage your audience.
Winning the Market with Consumer Journeys
Conclusion
It’s important to understand that your current customer base is the best asset your business has. These people are the ones who are already aware of your brand as well as its products and services. Focusing your energy and time on making these people happy will help you generate substantial revenue.
Do you know any more strategies that can help in customer retention? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
Learn MBA Courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career.
Read Moreby Shane Barker
27 Mar'185.46K+
The Ultimate Sales and Marketing Resource Guide
The present marketing world is evolving every minute. In a perfect world, sales and marketing work in collaboration. However, the reality is otherwise. The old-school approach of recruiting people with just sales knowledge or marketing experience is dying. The digital ecosphere has bridged the gap between the marketing and sales professionals. Today, no business organisation requires or recruits human resources who possess a very narrow knowledge and skill set. Today, every front-end professional who interacts with the consumers must hold knowledge about the end to end cycle of the business.
We all have the habit of bookmarking interesting and informative articles to be read in our leisure time, and that time never comes. The thought of acquiring all the knowledge of sales and marketing is in itself quite overwhelming. Even though the industry requirements are changing, most professionals are unable to stay updated with their skills and knowledge. Here we are sharing the ultimate sales and marketing resource guide for all the professionals who are into marketing and sales. This is an attempt to share the basic requirements of the industry and also the list of the resource from where one can gain the knowledge and skill set of Sales and Marketing Management.
While on hand, the marketing team would bring the latest ideas and strategies for advertising the product to generate leads. On the other hand, the sales team would be handling calls and answering consumer queries to convert them into loyal customers. But, this would happen separately and the information given to the consumers would be different. The biggest challenge which most businesses face is the gap between the sales and marketing team because of a lack of communication between each other. The efforts to convert the traffic to customers would be all in vain. In short, the business would run at a loss if both these segments work individually. Today sales and marketing team should know about the workflow and functioning style of each other and work in cohesion to drive revenue. Here are some of the mandatory knowledge which every sales and marketing professional must own.
Foundational Skills of a Marketing and Sales Professional
Hard Skills
Storytelling Thought Process
No marketing and sales professional should throw a direct pitch for purchase to the consumer. With the widespread use of technology, today’s consumers make better-informed choices and purchase decisions. Every marketing and sales professional should sell their products or services in the form of a persuasive tale to the consumers. These professionals must have a storytelling thought process to capture the attention of the audience at the first instinct. A journalistic mind along with a creative feature writer’s attitude and ability in dealing with consumers is one of the more essential hard skills of the industry.
Digital Media Skills
The digital world is evolving and challenging the traditional frameworks of marketing and sales. It is evident that digital media is the way forward and every professional must own digital media skills to flourish in this industry. The digital media is dramatically impacting the buyer-seller relationship and the brands. An effective and active digital media presence is the new path to enjoy the tangible results of sales and marketing.
Design Skills
Today, every professional is mandated to be a tech-savvy to grow in this field. The advancement of technology has automated the marketing and sales process. Hence, all professionals must devour the knowledge of process modelling, project management, web and graphic designing along with content curation. Possessing a technical know-how is a must to climb up the ladder of professional growth.
Data Analytics Skills
The technology has enabled to capture massive data about every step a consumer takes towards the brand. The knowledge to interpret these data into viable inferences and frame effective strategies is quite essential to gain and retain the target audience. The intellect to understand and appreciate the enormous data of the consumer and brand relationship involves exceptional analytic skills.
Domain Expertise
Yes, knowing the hard-core skills of sales and marketing are vital. Beyond that, professionals are also expected to possess domain expertise within the industry. The in-depth knowledge of the product and the technology and also the consumer’s requirements are inevitable to bridge the gap between the business and its evolving needs of the audience. Having domain expertise always would give an upper hand over other competitors.
Importance of Digital Marketing in Logical Business Decision-Making
Soft Skills
Creativity
Marketing and sales professionals are required to think and act creatively in every step to attract new consumers. The innovative designs, gratifying content writing, amusing and appealing concepts and exceptional skill to think outside the box are a must. Besides selling a product pitch, this would enable us to offer the customers incredible brand experience. Creativity is not just required but rewarded as well.
Communication
Verbal and non-verbal communication is a must. Most professionals overlook this skill. But to stay consistent and grow up in a career, strong communication skills play a significant role. The golden rule of every marketer or sales personnel has to appeal to the clients in a persuasive manner and help them solve their problems through the business products and services. Whether it is writing a marketing ad copy or drafting a sales pitch and presenting to the clients, a great orator and communicator could make or break the game of the business.
Collaborative Skills
No business segment works individually. Every team must collaborate with each other and work in tandem. The present-day recruiters and hiring managers look for individuals who are collaborative in nature and work well with multiple people at the same time. The emotional and empathetic connect within the organisation as well as with the customers are a necessity to shine as a true professional in this field.
Negotiation Skills
The most vital tactical skill is negotiating skills. The art of convincing and negotiating a client comes with experience. From negotiating to acquire a project with a client, to convincing on the timelines, budget, priorities, and expectations, every step needs incomparable negotiating skills. The capability to drive the hardest bargain is one of the biggest challenges as well as the notable skill to grow in glory for all the professionals.
Leadership Skills
A professional who goes beyond seeking one’s own growth. Taking risks, driving change, building trust, owning the failures and sharing success with everyone is the real traits of a great leader. Leadership skills are vital to make vital decisions and empower the ownership of the business to the professionals. Today, every marketer or salesperson has the opportunity to showcase their leadership skills in every aspect of their working environment. Every great leader is a mentor for the next generation.
How Does a Digital Marketer’s Salary Grow?
Business Models of Marketing and Sales
Renowned frameworks which are adopted by the marketers and sales professionals if the industry.
Pragmatic Marketing Framework: The Pragmatic Marketing Framework gives the end to end picture of the business operations for both the product and marketing and sales team.
Go-to-Market Strategy: A model that shows the collaborative interplay of the sales and marketing team.
The Startup Pyramid – Growth Frameworks: This framework is completely driven and help to determine how to grow when to expand and which metrics to be tracked in a specific stage of the business.
Technology Marketing Framework: Think beyond the 4Ps of marketing. Today 14Ps govern the marketing framework.
The 2016 TOPO Sales Framework: Decode the elements present in high-growth sales infrastructure.
Agile Sales Framework: The Ultimate Sales framework to Empower the marketing and sales professionals with decisions and results.
The CLEAR Culture & Framework of Sales: This framework will help to convert the audience into potential consumers and lead to conversions quickly.
Sales Enablement Metric: This metric will help to empower the organisation’s sales delivery strategy.
Books
Gain in-depth knowledge by inculcating a habit of reading books.
Most Popular books to read on marketing & sales industry:
Building a Story Brand: Donald Miller
Marketing: A Love Story, How to Matter to Your Customers – Bernadette Jiwa
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Digital Distraction – Derek Thomson
What Customers Crave – Nicholas Webb
Digital Marketing for Dummies – Ryan Deiss and Russ Hennesberry
Blue Ocean – W. Chan Kim
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
PRE-SUASION: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade – Robert Cialdini
The Sales Acceleration Formula – Mark Roberge
Predictable Revenue – Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
Thinkertoys – Michael Michalko
The Psychology of Selling – Brian Tracy
The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation – Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
Influence: Science and Practice – Robert B. Cialdini
Cracking the Sales Management Code: The Secrets to Measuring and Managing Sales Performance – Jason Jordan and Michelle Vazzana
7L: The Seven Levels of Communication: Go from Relationships to Referrals – Michael J. Maher
Digital Marketing on a Zero Budget
Online Courses
Popular Niche Courses for Marketing and Sales Professionals.
PG Program in Management – upGrad
PG Certification in Digital Marketing & Communication – upGrad
Executive Program in Strategic Digital Marketing – upGrad
Terminologies
Do research on these industry jargons and get familiarised to stay confident.
Sound Bite
Value Proposition
Service Level Agreement
Smarketing
GPCTBA/C&I – Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority, Negative Consequences, Positive Implications.
Churn Rate
ABC – Always Be Closing.
BANT – Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline
Buyer Persona
Lifetime Value
Qualified Lead
Social Selling
Adoption process – the buying process
Discovery Call
Net Promoter Score
Customer Acquisition Cost
AIDA – Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action
Cold Calling
Profit Margin
Conversion Rate
Marketing and Sales Management Tools
To automate and remove the repetitive, mundane tasks of the marketing and sales process.
Buffer – Manage all the digital media accounts in a single dashboard.
Canva – Unleash the creative potential of the professionals and build a brand for life.
Google Analytics – Free data analytics solutions to measure and optimise the growth of your business.
Hotjar – One stop solution for website optimisation.
Simply Measured – Offers enterprise-level analytics and management data for the digital initiatives.
IFTTT (If This Then That) – Single platform to merge all the cross-channel marketing and sales efforts.
HubSpot CRM – A perfect tool to manage and enhance customer relationships.
Adobe Spark – Create visually appealing stories and marketing designs with minimal efforts.
LinkedIn Sales Solutions – Find leads and close deals through the LinkedIn sales navigator.
InsideSales.com – Incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) to convert leads to loyal consumers.
ToutApp – Simple and sophisticated tool to transform the sales team into a revenue-generating machine.
SalesForce – Smarter and faster client relationship management infrastructure.
Calendly – Aids in scheduling and managing the appointments without the interaction of emails.
LeadMine – Look, capture and reach qualified business leads with corporate contact information.
Saleshandy – A suite of powerful tools for marketing and sales activities such as email tracking, mail merging, document tracking, auto-follow-up etc.
Yesware – Sell smarter with high-level actionable insights of consumers and make focused decisions and strategies to gain real-time results.
10 Influencer Marketing Strategies You Should Know [Gifographic]
Influencers and Experts to follow on Twitter
In times of crisis, lookup to these Industry Doyens for Inspiration and to stay focused.
Donald Miller – @donaldmiller
Tabitha Naylor – @tabithanaylor
Ann Handley – @annhandley
Matt Heinz – @HeinzMarketing
Avinash Kaushik – @avinash
Scott Galloway – @profgalloway
Danny Sullivan – @dannysullivan
Larry Kim – @larrykim
Vala Afshar – @ValaAfshar
Trish Bertuzzi – @BridgeGroupInc
Alice Heiman – @aliceheiman
Gerhard Gschwandtner- @gerhard20
Jim Keenan – @keenan
Peter Ostrow – @PeterOstrow
Jill Rowley – @Jill_Rowley
I hope this ultimate guide and comprehensive resource list would help you kick-start your career in sales and marketing and aid you to become a qualified professional and a significant player in your domain. Learning never stops. So, make it a part of your personality and always have an open mind to learn and adopt new ideas and knowledge.
Learn MBA Courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career.
Read More02 Apr'18