Dear Self,
Howdy from your favorite alien!
My day started with dropping my son and the two girls who carpool with us to their school in the mornings. Listening to their innocent chatter is why I love to drive them whenever my schedule allows. I dashed back home to eat a small healthy meal for breakfast and off to ThinkSpace to catch up on the day's action.
The first meeting was with a friend I had worked with about 10 years ago when she was a Marketing Manager in a large B2B company. Since then she has gone on to found an e-commerce toy startup company doing $100,000 a month in revenue. I was so impressed with her and congratulated her for her newfound passion and success. She wanted help in creating a strong brand foundation as she is looking to scale, seek funds from a VC, and drive market entry in international markets starting from the USA. We discussed the approach, timelines, and fee and realized that we weren't the ideal partner for her at this stage of growth. It was a short and sweet conversation with a definitive ending. I liked it very much as it saved us both precious time engaging in something that was not viable for either.
This was followed by a management review with a a FMCG client's category head of Tea. He drives two brands. One of them is a green tea brand with excellent variants for those who seek really good quality green tea that doesn’t taste bitter and can be brewed with ease. A few months ago, we had shaped its creation and launch. The second brand is an everyday desi chai brand that tastes amazing and leaves an excellent after taste. We had a role in shaping its identity and go to market strategy as well. During the meeting, we addressed several challenges the brand was facing. We discussed about changing their gift packaging vendor and about bringing focus in the sales strategy with a stronger emphasis on D2C. In order to demonstrate, I placed an order real time on their e-commerce portal and shared insights on how they could improve the buying, messaging and delivery experience. Will share more with them once I receive the pack of Detox Kahwa Green Tea at ThinkSpace.
Right after that, I jumped into an internal meeting with our pitch team for planning our approach and proposal for creating the GTM and brand narrative for a multinational in the channel engagement space. They are planning the global relaunch of their channel solutions offering backed by a really solid digital platform. We had some serendipitous breakthroughs! Cannot disclose much yet. More on it later. This was actually enroute to meet the new hospitality business unit leader of an emerging hotels brand we are shaping currently. We discussed starting the phase two work after successfully completing their positioning and brand architecture strategy. They have a had a leadership transition since then, so it was all about rebuilding trust and new relationships.
I could complete this meeting in time and get back to ThinkSpace for a lunch / zoom meeting with an ethical fashion manufacturer for whom we are shaping the growth strategy. Thankfully I had very little talking to do in this one. I could switch off the camera, finish my meal and address important client questions whereby my colleague and fellow consultant led the conversation from start to finish with confidence and poise. The client was left very impressed with our consultant’s skill and so was I. I immediately congratulated her for her diligent work.
I stepped out to get some fresh air on our balcony with my first coffee of the day (black) and a Senior Consultant and a very young and bright designer who are both staffed on a very challenging brand architecture and design assignment for a global tech group. This was all about uninhibited appreciation for the young designer’s effort, her problem solving skills, her quality of work and how she delivered it super confidently in front of a highly sophisticated and large team of brand custodians and marketers. It was a very proud moment for me the previous day watching her perform on the big stage. We take pride in nurturing young promising talent at our firm and giving them opportunities to be on the big stage a lot faster.
As I completed my coffee and thanked the designer while guiding her for the future, a very promising candidate was waiting for me for a final salary negotiation discussion to join us as a Sr. Consultant in our Mumbai office. We shared expectations from each other openly. I feel it’s always good to be clear and transparent, address concerns and insecurities where necessary. I am hopeful we will have an agreement soon and that would strengthen our presence and client relationships in Mumbai.
This was immediately followed by a meeting with a multidisciplinary internal team that included our Head of Design, UX Strategist, Verbal Strategists and the Consultant working for a textiles manufacturer catering to extreme outdoor and tactical wear needs for global clients. We are in the process of shaping their new identity and rollout. One of the key points in this meeting was to ensure that the ball doesn’t drop from brand strategy to verbal and visual identity to creation of touchpoints before launch. Creating a truly integrated brand is a challenging pursuit that requires tremendous amount of collaboration between multiple teams in addition to exceptional skill. We are blessed to have teams who are trained to do that and value such crucial processes.
I ended my day a bit early than usual, around 1800 local time. While walking out, my Sr. Engagement Manager ensured we ran through our opportunity pipeline quickly to track progress on new project conversions, something we are very focused on. I am extremely grateful to his proactive approach and for ensuring we are always on top of key processes at the firm.
I left ThinkSpace, headed to a very popular mall to exchange a few clothes my wife bought for me as a gift. Some were undersized. She thinks I am still “Medium”. I avoided the urge to eat anything unhealthy at the mall, skipped coffee and rushed back home to enjoy a relaxed dinner while watching Einstein and the Bomb on Netflix with son and wife.
What else? Good night I guess.
Saurabh
Howdy from your favorite alien!
My day started with dropping my son and the two girls who carpool with us to their school in the mornings. Listening to their innocent chatter is why I love to drive them whenever my schedule allows. I dashed back home to eat a small healthy meal for breakfast and off to ThinkSpace to catch up on the day's action.
The first meeting was with a friend I had worked with about 10 years ago when she was a Marketing Manager in a large B2B company. Since then she has gone on to found an e-commerce toy startup company doing $100,000 a month in revenue. I was so impressed with her and congratulated her for her newfound passion and success. She wanted help in creating a strong brand foundation as she is looking to scale, seek funds from a VC, and drive market entry in international markets starting from the USA. We discussed the approach, timelines, and fee and realized that we weren't the ideal partner for her at this stage of growth. It was a short and sweet conversation with a definitive ending. I liked it very much as it saved us both precious time engaging in something that was not viable for either.
This was followed by a management review with a a FMCG client's category head of Tea. He drives two brands. One of them is a green tea brand with excellent variants for those who seek really good quality green tea that doesn’t taste bitter and can be brewed with ease. A few months ago, we had shaped its creation and launch. The second brand is an everyday desi chai brand that tastes amazing and leaves an excellent after taste. We had a role in shaping its identity and go to market strategy as well. During the meeting, we addressed several challenges the brand was facing. We discussed about changing their gift packaging vendor and about bringing focus in the sales strategy with a stronger emphasis on D2C. In order to demonstrate, I placed an order real time on their e-commerce portal and shared insights on how they could improve the buying, messaging and delivery experience. Will share more with them once I receive the pack of Detox Kahwa Green Tea at ThinkSpace.
Right after that, I jumped into an internal meeting with our pitch team for planning our approach and proposal for creating the GTM and brand narrative for a multinational in the channel engagement space. They are planning the global relaunch of their channel solutions offering backed by a really solid digital platform. We had some serendipitous breakthroughs! Cannot disclose much yet. More on it later. This was actually enroute to meet the new hospitality business unit leader of an emerging hotels brand we are shaping currently. We discussed starting the phase two work after successfully completing their positioning and brand architecture strategy. They have a had a leadership transition since then, so it was all about rebuilding trust and new relationships.
I could complete this meeting in time and get back to ThinkSpace for a lunch / zoom meeting with an ethical fashion manufacturer for whom we are shaping the growth strategy. Thankfully I had very little talking to do in this one. I could switch off the camera, finish my meal and address important client questions whereby my colleague and fellow consultant led the conversation from start to finish with confidence and poise. The client was left very impressed with our consultant’s skill and so was I. I immediately congratulated her for her diligent work.
I stepped out to get some fresh air on our balcony with my first coffee of the day (black) and a Senior Consultant and a very young and bright designer who are both staffed on a very challenging brand architecture and design assignment for a global tech group. This was all about uninhibited appreciation for the young designer’s effort, her problem solving skills, her quality of work and how she delivered it super confidently in front of a highly sophisticated and large team of brand custodians and marketers. It was a very proud moment for me the previous day watching her perform on the big stage. We take pride in nurturing young promising talent at our firm and giving them opportunities to be on the big stage a lot faster.
As I completed my coffee and thanked the designer while guiding her for the future, a very promising candidate was waiting for me for a final salary negotiation discussion to join us as a Sr. Consultant in our Mumbai office. We shared expectations from each other openly. I feel it’s always good to be clear and transparent, address concerns and insecurities where necessary. I am hopeful we will have an agreement soon and that would strengthen our presence and client relationships in Mumbai.
This was immediately followed by a meeting with a multidisciplinary internal team that included our Head of Design, UX Strategist, Verbal Strategists and the Consultant working for a textiles manufacturer catering to extreme outdoor and tactical wear needs for global clients. We are in the process of shaping their new identity and rollout. One of the key points in this meeting was to ensure that the ball doesn’t drop from brand strategy to verbal and visual identity to creation of touchpoints before launch. Creating a truly integrated brand is a challenging pursuit that requires tremendous amount of collaboration between multiple teams in addition to exceptional skill. We are blessed to have teams who are trained to do that and value such crucial processes.
I ended my day a bit early than usual, around 1800 local time. While walking out, my Sr. Engagement Manager ensured we ran through our opportunity pipeline quickly to track progress on new project conversions, something we are very focused on. I am extremely grateful to his proactive approach and for ensuring we are always on top of key processes at the firm.
I left ThinkSpace, headed to a very popular mall to exchange a few clothes my wife bought for me as a gift. Some were undersized. She thinks I am still “Medium”. I avoided the urge to eat anything unhealthy at the mall, skipped coffee and rushed back home to enjoy a relaxed dinner while watching Einstein and the Bomb on Netflix with son and wife.
What else? Good night I guess.
Saurabh