Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E126 | Unlocking the Secrets of Personal Branding | Harish Bijoor
Unlock the secrets of hands-on learning and personal branding with renowned brand consultant Harish Bijoor! Ever wondered what it takes to rise from a management trainee to a senior product manager at Hindustan Unilever Limited? In this episode, Harish shares his unique philosophy of "being the worm," advocating for deep, grassroots-level engagement before stepping into advisory roles. Get ready to hear fascinating anecdotes from his early career, selling products in narrow city gullies, and how these experiences paved the way for his illustrious journey.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the importance of maintaining a consistent and authentic personal brand. Harish opens up about a significant marketing failure that profoundly shaped his approach to brand management, emphasizing the value of setbacks as learning opportunities. We also touch on the critical role of mental health in the workplace and the necessity of having supportive mentors. With candid insights and personal reflections—including his passion for Cafe Coffee Day and admiration for its founder, VG Siddhartha—this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone looking to build a meaningful and successful career.
Have you purchased the copy of Inspire Someone Today, yet - Give it a go geni.us/istbook
Available on all podcast platforms, including, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify
What do I mean by that? Be the worm is, you know, I think all of us are very, very you know we love the macro and hate the micro. The macro is, you know, sitting on top of a function like sales and giving gyan. Now, gyan comes so, so cheap. The thing is, it's not enough to give gyan, you should have gone through the rustic end of it, that hands-on stuff, and only then you can start touting and spouting gyan. And therefore, one of the things I learned is be the worm, be that earthworm, you know, which is into the earth, into the cutters.
Speaker 2:you have, you know, understood every small bit of reality welcome to inspire someone today podcast, a show where we dive into the stories and insights that has the power to create ripples of inspiration in your life. I'm your host, shrikant, and I'm thrilled to be with you on this journey of inspiration. Hey, my dear listeners, welcome back to yet another episode of Inspire Someone Today. Malcolm Gladwell mentioned about the 10,000-hour rule, and with me today is somebody who has not mastered a 10,000-hour rule but two eggs of it. Somebody who has done close to 20,000 hours of consulting, coaching and mentoring in the field of brand management. A connoisseur of great food, lovely coffee and wonderful places. He fascinates about a lot can happen over coffee and I will fascinate over a lot can happen over this conversation. An absolute joy to welcome Harish Bijur on this episode of Inspire Someone Today. Harish, thanks for joining us today. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Shrikant, my pleasure being with you and I love the title of your program, which says Inspire Someone Today. So I hope that's possible.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. The mission is even if one individual can get inspired listening to this conversation, our mission is accomplished. With that said, Harish, could you outline what has been the pivotal moments in your career that has shaped you to be the number one brand consultant in the country and worldwide?
Speaker 1:let me put it this way that I started my career, as most people do in the world of business, right at the bottom of the round. Okay, so maybe not right right at the bottom of the round, but then I joined as a group management trainee with what is today hindustan Unilever Limited. So this was a company called Brookborne Lipton India Limited which became Brookborne Lipton Ponds and then it became Hindustani Indriyuga and now it's a much, much bigger entity. So I joined there as a group management trainee, spent two years as a group management trainee and that was the beauty of the job, my first job and that's why I love hul the way I do, which is to say that you, they put you through the grind and you know.
Speaker 1:You started by working as a salesman in the narrow gullies of bengaluru and bradham and equally kolkata, where I've sold tea and coffee and spices and condoms equally into the narrow gullies of these places. You tend to understand hands-on what's important. You tend to learn sales like nobody can ever teach you. You do it all. So three months as a salesman and then you become a controller who's the boss of the salesman? Then a deputy area sales manager, area sales manager, and that's when you get big time. So I moved on from from there and then you're rotated across accounts, your real finance. Then you're rotated into tea tasting I've done a fair bit of tea tasting, coffee tasting and then of course you move into the business side of it, the brand side of it, and finally you're put in charge of a particular carrier sales office. So I spent some time there. I spent eight years totally there. I joined in as a group management trainee and in those seven years plus I actually left the company as a senior product manager in charge of the coffee brands of the company.
Speaker 2:And along this journey, harish, if you were to kind of pick one or two pivotal moments that shaped you from your career development standpoint, what would those pivotal moments be? See one of the big pivotal moments that shaped you from your career development standpoint. What would those pivotal moments be?
Speaker 1:See, one of the big pivotal moments is learn on the job and learn hands-on. Do not depend on any book that will tell you how to do something, because no book can ever teach you that. That book has taught the person who wrote the book that, but it can't teach you that. Therefore, what I learned is hands-on stuff. I mean, do everything hands-on If you have to. You know, stick maybe 2,000 stamps on 2,000 envelopes which have to reach out to your sales team, and there isn't enough manpower, you sit down and do it yourself. So, extremely important One of the things I learned is to be the worm.
Speaker 1:What do I mean by that? Be the worm is, you know, I think all of us are very, very you know we love the macro and hate the micro. The macro is, you know, sitting on top of a function like sales and giving gyan. Now gyan comes so, so cheap. The thing is it's not enough to give gyan. You should have gone through the rustic end of it, that end zone stuff, and only then you can start touting and spouting Gyan. And therefore, one of the things I learned is be the worm, be the earthworm, you know, which is into the earth, into the cutters. You have understood every small bit of reality. Be the earthworm, which is very, very micro, and then aspire to be the bird which flies higher, which correlates one to the other and which actually makes meaning and method out of the madness and mayhem that's out there. Therefore, be a worm first and then a bird is possibly something that I learned. I think that was big for me.
Speaker 2:And in your experience of building huge corporate brands, how do you differentiate creating personal brand vis-a-vis creating a corporate brand? How can one kind of go about creating their own brand? What are the similarities, what are the differences of either of this?
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll tell you what I come from an ethos which says you must never personally brand yourself. Okay, I handle personal brands today. I handle cricketers, film stars, politicians, businessmen, businesswomen and businessmen so I handle a fair number of them. But you know, I keep telling everybody you mustn't brand yourself. What's the meaning of that? It means to say that when it comes to personal branding, don't Others must brand you, you must not brand yourself. So if I ask someone who is Shrikant and how is Shrikant, that image and impression of who is Shrikant and how is Shrikant is your brand Shrikant? How much ever you try to cultivate that and build it, you'll never build it with integrity. Of who is Shrikant and how is Shrikant, is your brand Shrikant? How much ever you try to cultivate that and build it, you'll never build it with integrity. Therefore, the moment you say I want to build my personal brand, there's a certain lack of integrity in that statement. So I don't take on a single client unless I've had my chat with them. There's a famous Harish Bijur chat which is now branded, and that chat is a sit with a guy or the lady and I say see, one of my ethos is never brand yourself, let others brand you and brand yourself naturally. And the next thing is if you are a wolf, brand yourself as a wolf. If you're a sheep, brand yourself as a sheep. Don't try to brand yourself as a sheep if you're a wolf. Now, in the realms that I handle sports, politics, business we have lots of sheep and we have lots of wolves equally. So I keep saying you know, one of the best brands, biggest brands we have had out of India is maybe the decoy and the poacher, virappan.
Speaker 1:There is a brand of mustache wax which is available in London which is branded Virappan and it sells one hell of a lot. What's Virappan? Virappan is a decoy. And what's brand Virappan? It's the decoy mustache wax. Who should buy it? Well, not if you aspire to be a decoy, but if you say that I use a decoy mustache wax. So the idea is that if you are a negative entity, brand yourself negative. You'll do exceedingly well. Don't waste money trying to brand yourself to be a positive entity, because you'll fail and you'll get exposed sometime down the line. Plus, facial branding does not have integrity unless you do it correctly, in sync with who you are Full stop.
Speaker 2:I think you have taken this definition completely in the other direction. What I kind of infer is that have authenticity around building that personal brand and be who you are rather than trying to be somebody else.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think. You know authenticity is a big word, which you mentioned, shrikant, and that's bang on right. You know, a brand is about authenticity. A brand is a trust.
Speaker 1:You know, my definition of a brand is a simple one. I defined this about 19 years ago and that's the title of my new book as well. It says the brand is a thought, cool stuff. And then people ask me and I say and nothing else, Nothing else. The brand is a thought is my definition. And why do I give this definition? Simply because the brand is a thought that lives in a person's mind.
Speaker 1:To that extent, the brand Amul is a thought of the brand Amul that lives in millions of consumers' minds. Amul is not that yellow and white pack, it's not the Amul baby, it's not the butter, it's not that butter paper, it's not the salty taste, it's much, much more. It's a thought. It's a thought that says Amul never gets it wrong and that thought lives in millions of people's heads. The brand is a thought, it's not a promise. Older definitions said the brand is a promise. I don't believe in it. A brand is a promise which a maker, a manufacturer, gives to a consumer. Who the hell are you, dear manufacturer, to give me a promise. I don't believe in you, dear manufacturer, and therefore what I say is the brand is not a promise. The brand is a simple thought, a thought that lives in a person's mind. What, then, is the complexity? The complexity of branding, then, is as many minds as there are in the market, that many thoughts of the same brand in the market, that many thoughts of the same brand.
Speaker 1:So let's take Bengaluru, and let's say that in Bengaluru we have 146 lakh people. All 146 lakh people know a cricketer in Bengaluru. Okay, you give me a name. Who's the best known cricketer out here? You give me a name. Who is the best known cricket out here? Gundappa Vishwanath. Okay, gundappa Vishwanath is known by 1.46, 146 lakh people in this city.
Speaker 1:Gundappa Vishwanath. Right, what is Gundappa Vishwanath? It is not Vichy, it is not his cricket, it's the thought of Gundappa Vishwanath. What does he do? How does he do it best? It's the thrill that the name Gundappa Vishwanath gives to you when you think of him playing cricket in the old days. Okay, youngsters don't know who Gundappa Vishwanath is, by the way. Okay, sadly so. I thought you'd take a contemporary name, but let's go with Vishy. Another thing is, I've grown up with him as a kid. I was five years old. I watched his cricket and felt very, very excited. Now, bread is a thought.
Speaker 1:Gundappa Vishwanath is a thought in these people's mind. The complexity is in 146 lakh people in Bengaluru the thought is different. Some say what? Who is Gundappa Vishwanath? Which means that thought occupies a position of literally zero in their mind. Some get very excited and say gundapavishwana, my hero, hundred on hundred. In between the zero and the hundred lie the rest of bengaluru. Therefore, as many people in bengaluru, that many different thoughts of gundapavishwana. The brand gund Gundappa Vishwana is an aggregate of what these 146 lakh people in Bengaluru think of Gundappa Vishwana and therefore the brand is a thought, a simple thought that lives in a person's mind, complication as many people, that many thoughts of this brand, best brand, when everybody in Bengaluru thinks the same of this one brand, oh, that's the ultimate brand.
Speaker 2:So brand is a thought. Brand needs to be authentic. Having worked with a lot of brands, what are some of the ingredients of making a great brand?
Speaker 1:Okay, One of the biggest ingredients of a good brand is that it must relate and it must resonate with the person who is absorbing it. So the minds of humans are like sponges and these sponges absorb brands that come at them. So all of a sudden there will be a brand which will hit them. So suddenly Virat Kohli comes out and hits your head and you say, oh, oh, my god, he's my favorite. Okay, rcb has never won an ipl tournament till now, but never mind, virat kohli is my hero, hero, hero, cool, stop. There are lots of people who think like that.
Speaker 1:So, if you ask me, the brand should resonate with you. The brand should click. The brand should click. The brand should have authenticity. The brand should be treated as a trust, somebody I can go to Not that you can approach a cricketer who's reasonably unapproachable most of the time, but the point is, you feel there's a comfort when you think of your heroes. So a brand is all about comfort. How much comfort are you getting and how much comfort are you giving? I mean, that's the whole issue. And then the brand is also about does that brand do good? Does that brand do bad? You will never gravitate towards a brand which does bad, you'll gravitate towards a brand which does good and therefore my view would be to say that you know brands do good and people like to be with brands that do good. So you must jump out from the business you're in. You could be a toothpaste, but you can't be about cleaning the teeth, the whitest you have to be giving back to the earth.
Speaker 2:Talking the macro language, talking asg goals, 20 other things one last piece around this particular theme of brand is because a lot of our listeners are corporate athletes. One key element of that brand is about brand transfer. When people move between organizations or between industries, how can professionals effectively transfer and adapt their brand.
Speaker 1:Well, this is easy. It's a very easy question you've thrown at me after giving me all the tough questions till now. So let me say that you know, a brand for me is a reputation. There's a friend of mine, let's say, who's working at PwC, and my friend decides that I'm going to move to KPMG tomorrow. Guess what? This friend has a name and he has an identity and he has a reputation. His name is a reputation and that reputation is his brand. Therefore, when he moves to KPMG, let's say, he takes that entire reputation and goes in. By the way, even before he comes in, his boss has obviously done the homework, the HR team has recruited him, bases all of that, and then they disseminate the information of his heroic deeds at the previous company.
Speaker 1:So you are a function of who you were at PwC plus who you have become at KPMG, who you will be at EY tomorrow and who you will enter at your final job at Deloitte or maybe the day after day after tomorrow. Therefore, repetition is what you carry. So the best thing to do is, if you want to brand yourself, don't comb your hair in a particular way, Don't use Virupan's mustache wax, Don't smoke that snazzy cigarette which all the good guys are smoking. Don't start drinking black water out of a bottle which costs 4,000 rupees. Don't do all those stylish things. Just create your reputation. Your reputation is the most portable thing that you can carry with you.
Speaker 1:Everything in life changes except your reputation. You as a human brand are a function of your reputation. You're a function of your acts of commission, your acts of omission, Both, and therefore be careful about how you build your reputation. The beauty of it is you can't build reputation falsely. You have to be who you are when you behave with humans. You have to be who you are. Your current set of subordinates define who you are, and that's your reputation. Your bosses define. You define yourself to your bosses. You're a function of what your bosses think of you and what your current set of subordinates think of you. That's your reputation. What your vendors think of you, what the outside clients think of you, who you deal with, that's of you. Who you deal with, that's enough. You become a magnet. Either you repel people or you'll attract people.
Speaker 2:Choice is yours. Choice is yours. Your reputation precedes you, isn't it? Absolutely Great, harish. We have been talking about brand brand building, and a key element of this along the journey is also about the notion of learning. This along the journey is also about the notion of learning, continuous learning and mentoring. I want to draw your attention to an element of setbacks. How have setbacks contributed to your approach to lifelong learning and continuous improvement?
Speaker 1:Okay, see, setbacks are an equal part of a good life. If you haven't had setbacks, that means that you haven't participated in the activity of life at all. And therefore, when I look at myself, I mean you know, I've had N? Numbers of setbacks. Maybe I'll just pick one of them, which is to say that in my earlier career, early career, I actually put together a massive film with massive sets of actors and it was for a brand of coffee which I was handling and I had spent something like 25 lakhs of rupees, which is like something like eight crores of rupees today, to make one 23-second film. The film was made, it was laid out, it went out and it bombed in the market. So eight crores equal value of today, which is 25 lakhs those days went down the drain, literally.
Speaker 1:But the point is, at that point of time I was a very young guy. Yes, once upon a time I was also young, and when you're young, that young, you tend to believe a lot in your gut, feel Tend to say that you know, hey, listen, this is the way to go, this is the way to do it. Particularly, marketing is a very glamorous terrain, you know, particularly when you're a brand manager, you tend to bite into some glamour and what really happens is you tend to think of yourself as the cat of the walk and the cat of the catwalk and therefore what you typically tend to do is you tend to think no end of yourself. And I think that was my mistake. I had not done adequate research, I had not believed in adequate research. So I came back to the drawing board. My boss was a very kind man. He could have sacked me, but he didn't. He said that this is what's going to make you learn and become a terrific, terrific brand guy. So he brought me back and he used to be in a wheelchair those days. He brought me back and he said now I wanted to go out there and research, go out there and research what went wrong with the film and correct everything that went wrong. So we went and did research. We came back with the thought that we knew exactly what went wrong with the film. The film was not custom made to the diverse audiences of South India. So we said we had to custom-make it to each of the states.
Speaker 1:A person from Andhra Pradesh in those days will not see eye-to-eye with a Kannadiga and a Kannadiga does not look eye-to-eye with a Tamilian. Fundamentally, the Kaveri agitation was in good steam and so also with Kerala. Now, you cannot take one story, one theme, one tone, one tenor, one set of actors, one style of dressing and go to all four states, because you will make a film which looks like one state's film this is the Tamilian film or this is a Karnataka film, depending on what the people are wearing. If the lady in the film is wearing the orange concombra flower in her hair, it will look like a Karnataka film. If she's wearing Manleepoo in the air, it looks like a Tamil film. So a saree that she's wearing. If she's wearing a white Kerala saree with a gold border, it looks like a Kerala sari. A Pochampally sari will tell you it's an Andhra sari. So it keeps going this way. Therefore, we did customization, went back, spent another 11 lakhs and made four different films, and it was a big hit. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now the thing is that was learning. What did it teach me? It told me that one never feel your gut and take decisions Less. They told me that one never feel your gut and take decisions. Lesson number one market research. Market research, market research. Be in touch with the market. Make sure you understand how consumers react Customize, customize, customize. Do not generalize. Generalization is not for you, customization is for the marketer and therefore, when you customize, you can't go wrong.
Speaker 1:Ever since, the big lesson I learned is every step you take, every breath you take market research your way. Don't let your boss come up to you and tell you that you go up to him and say I want to do market research and he says market research Are you crazy? But your young friends listening to this program will understand this. When I tell you, the guy will look at me and say your age is less than my service. This has been told to many of us and I'm sure many will amount to this. You just need to tell your boss please go fly a kite, dear boss, because what you know is all you have.
Speaker 1:I want to know what people think today. We live today in the day and era of the alpha generation. Children born from 2010 onwards, right up to 2025, is called the alpha generation and none of us none of us know the alpha generation. We get to know them. Research, research, research that's how we need to go forward. So the biggest lesson that I learned from my follies was every step you take, every breath you take market treats such a way, you're not God. You're not God particle, neither do you want to be God.
Speaker 2:What a great lesson there, and in the process you had a 25 lakh fund or 25 lakh investment made in that life lesson, which also kind of touches upon an interesting point about the concept of mentoring, if not for that boss of yours nudging you saying that, okay, that's a lesson learned a costly lesson at that point of time, but still a lesson learned and you turned out to be what you are today. What do you have to say in the current day and age of so much of change happening around us? The importance of mentoring and what makes a good mentor mentoring process successful.
Speaker 1:You know, shrikant, my problem with today's business is we're all on a roller coaster much of the time. I work a fair bit with the startups of the day. In fact, 85% of my clientele come from the startup world. Only 15% come from the brick and mortar old world. And guess what? Nobody has the time for anybody in the startup world. Okay, and guess what? My latest set of work with tech companies some of the biggest tech companies I work with, or end-to-end services companies nobody has the time for anybody.
Speaker 1:What really happens is bosses don't have the kind of integrity they must have as far as their subordinates are concerned and I'm going to shout this from the rooftop your boss is possibly talking something to you, but he's always got an agenda maybe talking that to you. The moment he keeps that agenda aside and becomes a real human being and talks to you, then he's a real good boss Because, gender aside, he becomes a real human being and talks to you and he's a real good boss. So, in terms of mentoring, if any of you youngsters are really lucky to have a boss you can go up to and who you can look up to and who shows you integrity and who stands up for you in the toughest of situations, you're blessed. So I did a massive study across ITES IT Enabled Services Organizations in Bengaluru, and it was run only in ITES and I came up with the fact that only 2.1% of Bengalurians who work in the IT industry think that their bosses have integrity as far as they're concerned. Okay, this is bad stuff. Bad news Delhi 1.6% of people tell me that my boss is a good man.
Speaker 1:Okay, kolkata about 4.1% say my boss is a good man. No wonder there aren't enough cutthroat IT-enabled services businesses coming out of Kolkata at this point. Throat IT enabled services businesses coming out of Kolkata at this point. Therefore, anything between 4.6% to 0.9% in another center, which is crazily, chennai. It simply is to say that bosses who want to be good mentors must be honest bosses. So, finding the? You know there was a title. Oscar Wilde wrote a book finding the perfect husband.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, finding the perfect husband very difficult, finding a perfect boss more difficult, that's shocking numbers out there and why do you think it is what it is and what can be done to those stats?
Speaker 1:well, it's all about the fact that many of us are I mean myself centric. It's all about saying I'm the most important element in this entire thing. All of us know that the world is a competitive place. We work a certain number of hours and people want us to work more number of hours. We work, you know, jobs at, jobs from the home and from the workplace. Equally, we have pressures which are crazy. We have not only physical pressures anymore, we have mental pressure.
Speaker 1:You know mental health is one of the most most serious items hitting the tech sector in a big, big way in the country the tech sector in a big, big way in the country. So let's say that you know maybe 53 lakh people in India in the tech industry. If you actually do a tipstick study, you will find that as much as 4.5% of people have expressed the need to talk to someone or the other because of mental health issue affecting them. Now, 4.5% are people who talk. For every person who talks, there could be five people who don't, and that's why I'm saying this is a very, very serious issue to managers. So getting a good boss is more important than getting a good salary. Getting a good work environment is more important than getting a good salary. Getting our priorities right is very, very important.
Speaker 1:For instance, there's this debate to say how many hours must an IT worker work. So we've had different kinds of numbers coming up and the state government of Karnataka has also decided to look at it and put together a number. I would say like this yeah, I put it this way who must decide how many hours an IT worker must work? I say not the central government, it's not your business. Not the state government, it's not your business. Not the employer of the IT employee, it's not your business. The person who must decide how many hours an employee must work is the employee himself, herself or themselves. An employee must have the wherewithal to decide that.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, my lifestyle today, due to my various issues in life I have an old father at home who has to be taken care of, and numbers of issues, issues, issues. I want to work maybe only six hours a day, and somebody said I want to work 16 hours a day. Well, bless you both. Both of you are good guys. The kind of skill that you bring to the party is fantastic. You give me six hours, you get six hours of pay. You give me 16 hours, you get 16 hours of pay. The pay must decide. Pro-related pay is what I am begging for, shrikant, what I am saying that employees must decide along with this work. Work-life balance completely important.
Speaker 2:Mental health very, very, very important so, very true, these are all contemporary issues and you need to have to look at it a fresh pair of lens than looking at some an archaic set of rules and principles. Here we are talking with Harish Bijur and in the power of three round, harish, the first of the power of three round is what, according to you, are the three best places in India and the world to savor coffee.
Speaker 1:Coffee. It's my first love and I think a great place to have coffee is, of course, the Cafe Coffee Day, which I love quite a bit. Secondly, I also love drinking coffee globally, on the streets in Hanoi and Vietnam. Vietnam's coffee is fantastic. It's got dollops of condensedi and Vietnam, vietnam's coffee is fantastic. It's got dollops of condensed milk and coffee. And the third place is Maya's. In Jainagar, Mr Sadanand Maya puts together a fantastic coffee and Maya's coffee.
Speaker 2:That's the reason I said you're the connoisseur of good coffee. Are there three individuals you would like to have lunch or dinner with Not really three individuals? This is going have lunch or dinner with not really three individuals.
Speaker 1:This is going to be very, very tough for me. Who I want to have lunch or dinner with? I want to. I want to name a film star, but if I name one film star, the other film stars will get angry. I want to name a business person, and if I want to name a business person, the others will get angry. And I want to name a sports star, and the sports star we're getting. So let me go a little neutral and gravitate towards a very senior persona of Indian business, which is NR Narayan Murthy. I'd love to have lunch or dinner with him. I mean, he's a fascinating mind. I respect him. Would be a good lunch, a good dinner, though I might eat very little, that's a good answer.
Speaker 2:Apart from film stars, industrialist and sports person, you have mr nrn, whom you like to have lunch with, harish. Of all the work that you have done, three brands that you have worked closely with that you are very, very passionate about brand ads or brand campaigns. Okay, there's also tough.
Speaker 1:You know I can't be partial to people, okay, but let me tell you one brand which I really think started from scratch and did a terrific job. And, crazily, today is 29th of July, 24, when we're recording this, and this happens to be the fifth anniversary death anniversary of VG Siddhartha. So Siddharth's brand I mean you know this is a favorite brand of mine for sure. The brand that Siddharth built is something called Cafe Coffee Day. I worked very closely with him from day zero until literally a year old, whatever number of years, maybe two decades and more. So my favorite brand is certainly I mean, mean, you know it started from scratch a small little enterprise from chick mongrel suddenly deciding that you know, hey, listen, I'm in coffee estate business, let me go and put a cafe together. And the guy said sits down. So that sits down. And then everybody's ideating and saying what shall we call it then, jokingly, so that says that. That you know, abc Coffee. What's in a brand name? Abc Coffee.
Speaker 1:And then, okay, my mother invited me to a coffee trading company which is the name of the company Coffee Day. What do you know? We sell coffee, coffee Day. What a simple, stupid name, right, coffee Day. Like you know it's so generic, but today if you look at it it sounds fantastic. Yeah, what a brand. A lot can happen over coffee. The slogan, which was put together by an advertising agency for us at that point of time, it wonders. So I think you know Coffee Day is a great brand, great example, and I want to talk about that brand and not any of the other brands, because I'm a very partial guy Siddharth is no more so me talking about Coffee Day is okay because I'll not get anything out of my bragging about brand Coffee Day. But if I talk about any of my other brands which I handle, it'll be like saying that I'm expecting something in return from the bosses who I'm talking about. So don't undo that.
Speaker 2:I'm a very, very neutral person and a fair person hopefully Three micro experiments that you would recommend the listeners to practice.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the micro experiments is that, you know, getting in touch with customers in a very, very intrusive manner, understanding your customers at the level of their gut biome. Okay, what do I mean by that? There's something called the gut and within it we have a biome, and the biome is so, so nano that nobody knows what it's all about. Of course there are packages now which will tell you what your gut biome is all about, etc. But getting to the customer, into the level of the gut biome, understanding that customer intrinsically being within the customer and not being over the customer, you know, not being at the level so that certainly would be an experiment.
Speaker 1:Truth speaking, I think, is an experiment. It is an experiment because many of us don't do that at all. We don't speak the truth, we don't talk from the top of the roof about the truth, we don't stand up for the truth. We don't stand up for our subordinates when we should stand up for them. Okay, if you don't stand up for your subordinates when you must stand up for them, your officers superior would not stand up for you when you need somebody standing up for you. So I think that's the second one in terms of saying that you know what you must do and I think you know the third micro experiment would be to actually experience how it feels to disconnect yourself from all the goodies of today's life. And imagine that. You know what would life be without all these goodies around. You know, disconnecting yourself totally from every digit, wise, everything that comes by, what would you do? How helpless would you feel? I mean how, how incoherent would you become?
Speaker 2:that's a good one. What do you do after you disconnect? Let your wild imaginations to come through. I know, I guess it's going to be a challenge. Yeah, what would three pieces of advice be for Harish Bijur of the future self?
Speaker 1:well, I will never give a piece of advice to anybody without being asked for it. Okay, that's a piece of advice to anybody without being asked for it. That's very important. People like I who work in the realm of research, market research, work in the realm of cutting edge, bleeding edge businesses like AI. We tend to be very prescriptive. We tend to think that we know a lot. The day I can tell myself I don't know anything, I think I've arrived and I think that humility, that's the first thing I would give to the future Arish Bijur, as you put it. I mean that's very, very important. Second thing is be brief, be candid. Don't talk so laboriously as you're talking on this program with Shrikant. You're not. And the thirdly, the third thing I'd say is stay hungry, stay hungry. Never lose that hunger. To myself. I'd like to tell myself these three Yep, wonderful.
Speaker 2:Harish, this has been fantastic. The last of the power of three round question is three book recommendations for all of the listeners.
Speaker 1:See, I'll tell you what. There's a book called Animal Farm by George Orwell. It's my favorite. Okay, these are not necessarily all business books, but you can see a lot of business in all these three. If I have to pick a business book, let's say, is Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman. That's something interesting and the ultimate one of them all, even though it's not relevant today, because a lot of the things that he said is Alvin Toffler's Future Shock. So I think these three books my favourites, these are your all time favourites, can't say, because behind me, where I'm sitting, I guess you have a huge library there. I must have a library of about 16,000 plus books. And guess what? I've read every one of them, except maybe 70 of them which are new books which have just come. So I look forward to read them.
Speaker 2:What should inspire someone today? Message.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think a simple message would be be real, be who you are. That itself is an inspiration. The moment you start aping someone else, the moment you start becoming someone else, the moment you go to someone and say, please brand me to become someone else, we're losing the plot. So I think my one inspire someone today message would be be you. Okay, you know the new language which comes by. People will tell you and people have told me this youngsters you be you, you, be you, you. And that is my message and that is my inspire someone today message you be you.
Speaker 2:Ex mark fantastic. Couldn't have asked for better than this harish brand is a thought you be you on that note. My dear listeners, this is harish bijur and srikant signing off on this episode of inspire someone today. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Inspire Someone Today. This is Srikant, your host, signing off. Until next time, continue to carry the ripples of inspiration. Stay inspired, keep spreading the light.
