MakeMyTrip.com's Founder & CEO Deep Kalra shares best advice he got in people management, marketing and finance
Deep Kalra, Founder & CEO, MakeMyTrip.com <em>Photo: Aditya Kapoor/www.indiatodayimages.com</em>
It is difficult to pin-point one 'best' piece of advice that I ever received. Therefore, I'd like to offer my toppers across different areas.
People Management: Dhruv Prakash, executive coach, encouraged me to play to people's strengths rather than try to make them change their working style. During the initial years of MakeMyTrip, I would urge my colleagues to work on their rough edges. It's only after this valuable piece of advice that I changed my approach fundamentally and stopped trying to make all-rounders out of specialist bowlers! It paid rich dividends.
Marketing: Sanjeev Bikhchandani's unforgettable advice on how to pick the right TV commercial. Given the high cost of media, it's imperative to get the creative right. So they kept rejecting the concept scripts at Naukri till they got a real zinger, irrespective of how long it took! Helped them get "Hari Sadu", and us "Beta Mahesh" and "Chicken/Dog meat" TV commercials.
Finance: Perhaps the only issue that Ravi Adusumalli, our lead investor, has been emphatic about was to list our shares in the US market. I started out a nonbeliever, but the more I researched, the more convinced I was of this being the right thing. The rest, as they say, is history.
People Management: Dhruv Prakash, executive coach, encouraged me to play to people's strengths rather than try to make them change their working style. During the initial years of MakeMyTrip, I would urge my colleagues to work on their rough edges. It's only after this valuable piece of advice that I changed my approach fundamentally and stopped trying to make all-rounders out of specialist bowlers! It paid rich dividends.
Marketing: Sanjeev Bikhchandani's unforgettable advice on how to pick the right TV commercial. Given the high cost of media, it's imperative to get the creative right. So they kept rejecting the concept scripts at Naukri till they got a real zinger, irrespective of how long it took! Helped them get "Hari Sadu", and us "Beta Mahesh" and "Chicken/Dog meat" TV commercials.
Finance: Perhaps the only issue that Ravi Adusumalli, our lead investor, has been emphatic about was to list our shares in the US market. I started out a nonbeliever, but the more I researched, the more convinced I was of this being the right thing. The rest, as they say, is history.
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