BUSINESS AND ECONOMY : CHE ENTREPRENEUR: MISSION BEHIND THE SCHOOL OF FAMILY BUSINESS

BY ROBIN GHOSH ,

ECONOMIST AND BUSINESS MENTOR

KOLKATA, 4 JULY 2024:

If you are a Bengali, you cannot but admire Che Guevara, the Cuban Revolutionary, a master strategist, adventurist, and a robust gorilla leader.

Bengal economy, though, is very strategically placed, richly endowed with natural resources, and blessed with a pool of rich human capital, yet it continues to be on a slow track.

Since the flight of capital, during the sixties, big-ticket entrepreneurship and investment have been more or less on a diminishing scale, and hence Bengal’s industrial landscape continues to be cloudy and dark.

However, the only light in the tunnel is the growth of small and medium business enterprises spread across the state.

The Old School:

Owned mostly by native Bengali and Marwari communities, and mostly involved in trade and traditional industries like Jute, Iron Steel, Agriculture, Cold Storage, Textile, and so on.

And is generally managed by first-generation owners having old-school values and outlooks.

If Bengal has to turn its economy into a new spin and into new direction, the quickest path would be to cohort the second generation of Family Business owners to step out & set up business units producing products and services demanded by contemporary customers.

Shantiniketan School of Family Business:

The basic mission of the Shantiniketan School of Family Business is to create a band of revolutionary entrepreneurs who, with their gorilla-like mission shall bring a major organic change in the complexion and template of Bengal’s economic portrait.

Now , what is the model path for this kind of revolution we are talking about? We call this the path of the Che Entrepreneurship Model.

Unstable Position:

We shall now understand the road map of this unique yet very simple model.

This is a six step model where as an entrepreneur, you start from an unstable position and gradually climb up to a status where customers flock to you and you don’t have to search for customers.

Once you decide to detach and decouple from your family business and decide to set up a new business in a new domain you are financially insecure and you do not know how you are going to pay rent, staff salary, electricity bills and so on.

Invisibility:

The second stage is invisibility, or you are in a mask, and nobody knows you. You may be the best, your products & services may be par excellence but no one can pay you since you are out of attention and out of sight. Customers can’t wait to buy your products and services.

Marketability:

Third stage is marketability. It is a stage where people are doing business with you.

They are buying your product and paying you intermittently, but they have started referring your brand to their friends and relatives. You have reached level three.

Credibility:

The next tier is what we call credibility. Customers now know you, they are happy with you, and most importantly, they trust you.

Visibility:

Having achieved credibility, you have to ensure visibility. What is that? This means you are the first person the customer wants to call and when he goes online they find you.

Here is the catch. You don’t have to find clients or customers. Customers will find you. But are you available? Are you available on YouTube, or Instagram? Do you have impressive content online? When they can’t find you, they switch to others.

The truth is you have to stand out in the marketplace. There is so much noise and signal in the marketplace but you have to stand out & stand out. Essentially, therefore we are in the media business. Maybe selling meal coupons or selling apartments.

Celebrity:

The next stage is when people consider you a celebrity. Customers flock around you. You get calls after calls. You don’t know how to handle it. You have achieved a great degree of freedom. You can now choose who you want to work with.

Once you have become a celebrity, you have now been crowned as the top brand – you now control the market i.e. 80 % of the money goes into your pocket.

Therefore, if you are in second or third, or fourth place – in customers’ minds – you practically don’t exist- the customer recalls the top brand.

It Is Who Knows You

So dear friend, where are you now and where do you want to be?

The journey from instability to celebrity is hazardous but surmountable. It is not what you know. It is not even who you know. It is who knows you.