Bump up the value: Secrets that can fetch biggest price for you business

The Economic Times 9th Feb 2013

Here are some secrets that can fetch you the biggest price for the smallest slice.

Dream Team

The ideal management consists of people who have been part of successful mega-deals, have depth in your industry, and worked together as a team. Sadly, there's no such group. But some get close. Tap them.

Board Seats

Ensure a majority of board consists of outsiders. Try and attract some well-known luminaries without cash, and build on their reputations to benefit your own valuation.

Clever Affiliations

Part of the concept in both Dream Team and Board Seats is to build value by affiliation. The concept can be extended to contract, outsourcing, and joint venture deals.

Solve a Problem

Whatever the product or service you offer, it must solve some human problem that is not solved better elsewhere.

Know Your Rivals

To prove that your solution is the best, you must also expose the failings of the competitive solutions available in market.

Spiffy Testimonials

If you have customers, showcase them. It helps to put a face on real-world problems solved for real people.

Intellectual Property

To maximise valuation, you need to anchor down the intellectual property — via patents, trade secrets, and noncompete clauses.

Wide and Deep

Investors want to see a whole family of products for today and beyond. But they also want each product to be robust. So, focus on your best product.

Be Honest

Unlike selling a second-hand car, a company's valuation is best maximised with honest disclosures.

Financial Stuff

When you do your projections, go out 5 years, then cut it back to 3 and compare them. If the three-year projection is almost as good, just show the three years, otherwise five.

Deal Structure

Depending on your goals, sometimes deal structure can be traded off against a higher valuation. Properly done, both sides can stand to benefit, and the valuation zooms.

Business Plan

There is no one standard outline for a business plan. Each has to be tailored to the qualities of each company. Have a plan with all the key information.

(Source: harvardcapital.com)

Abraham Lincoln's letter to his son's teacher

Abraham Lincoln's letter to his son's teacher

He will have to learn, I know, 
that all men are not just,
all men are not true.
But teach him also that 
for every scoundrel there is a hero;
that for every selfish Politician, 
there is a dedicated leader...
Teach him for every enemy there is a 
friend,

Steer him away from envy,
if you can,
teach him the secret of
quiet laughter.

Let him learn early that 
the bullies are the easiest to lick... 

Teach him, if you can,the wonder of books... 
But also give him quiet time 
to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky,
bees in the sun, 
and the flowers on a green hillside.

In the school teach him 
it is far honourable to fail 
than to cheat... 
Teach him to have faith 
in his own ideas, 
even if everyone tells him 
they are wrong... 
Teach him to be gentle 
with gentle people, 
and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son 
the strength not to follow the crowd 
when everyone is getting on the band wagon... 
Teach him to listen to all men... 
but teach him also to filter 
all he hears on a screen of truth, 
and take only the good 
that comes through.

Teach him if you can, 
how to laugh when he is sad...
Teach him there is no shame in tears, 
Teach him to scoff at cynics 
and to beware of too much sweetness... 
Teach him to sell his brawn 
and brain to the highest bidders 
but never to put a price-tag 
on his heart and soul.

Teach him to close his ears 
to a howling mob 
and to stand and fight 
if he thinks he's right. 
Treat him gently, 
but do not cuddle him, 
because only the test 
of fire makes fine steel.

Let him have the courage 
to be impatient... 
let him have the patience to be brave. 
Teach him always 
to have sublime faith in himself, 
because then he will have 
sublime faith in mankind.

This is a big order,
but see what you can do... 
He is such a fine fellow, 
my son!

ABRAHAM LINCOLN's LETTER TO HEADMASTER

ABRAHAM LINCOLN's LETTER TO HEADMASTER
A letter written by Abraham Lincoln to the Headmaster of a school in which his
son was studying. It contains an advice, which is still relevant today for
executives, workers, teachers, parents and students.
A WORD TO TEACHERS
"He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just and are not true. But
teach him if you can, the wonder of books.. but also give him quiet time to
ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a
green hillside.
In school, teach him it is far more honorable to fall than to cheat.....
Teach to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him he is wrong.

Teach him to be gentle with gentlepeople and tough with the tough.
Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone getting on
the bandwagon...
Teach him to listen to all men; but teach him also to filter all he hears on a
screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.
Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad... Teach him there is no
shame in tears.
Teach him to scoff at cynics and to be beware of too much sweetness.. Teach him
to sell his brawn and brain to highest bidders, but never to put a price on his
heart and soul. Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob.. and stand and fight
if thinks he is right.
Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine
steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient.. Let him have the patience to be
brave. Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will
have faith in humankind.
This is a big order, but see what you can do. . He is such a fine little fellow my

son!
- Abraham Lincoln"

"If" poem by Robert Kipling

a simple poem with profound philosophical theme...

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 

Rudyard Kipling

Negotiation Skills in life.

http://www.speakingtree.in/spiritual-articles/new-age/what-you-resist-persists of Deepak Chopra

Here are some guidelines for learning how to negotiate, because I sense that may you have lost the skill —
and the will — but also that you have to be the one to make the first move:

1. Stop blaming the other side

2. Respect the other side’s position

3. Take seriously the fact that the other person could be just as right about life as you are

4. Take responsibility for your side of the disagreement, and if you can, take responsibility for more than
your share. Bend over to be generous

5. Work from points of agreement

6. Only address issues when both parties feel good. Don’t negotiate when secretly you are just arguing
and trying to win

7. Don’t be competitive. This isn’t about you winning and her losing. When a relationship suffers, nobody
wins

8. Listen and learn

9. Call in an impartial mediator

10. When there are moments to be close physically or emotionally, don’t let them pass you by

If you want to take this whole thing seriously, sit down with these 10 points and a piece of paper. Write down specifically how you intend to act on each one. Once your list is complete, consult it every day and check off what you have accomplished. No check marks means no progress. I know that readers will be struck, unfortunately, by your tone of righteous smugness — all the good is on your side,

Five ways to make the boss listen to you

14 DEC, 2012, The Economic times


Despite consistent performance, the boss often does not listen to the subordinate, whatever the issue. ET suggests ways to deal with this.

Don't confront publicly

Never confront the boss in public, especially in his or her boss's presence. "In front of anyone else, you should look as a team," says K Sudarshan, managing partner, India and regional VP - Asia, EMA Partners International.

Build a good rapport

To exist in a team and perform smoothly, we need to have a good relationship with the boss. "Not all bosses take the initiative of reaching out, so the onus lies on the subordinate," says Kamal Karanth MD, Kelly Services India.

State your challenges

Often bosses ignore the challenges their subordinate face as the sole objective is to get the task done. Subordinates too don't bring up issues in fear. "People shouldn't wait for a crisis to communicate," adds Karanth.

Make boss look good

Whenever there is a chance, try to make your boss look good. "For instance, try helping with a presentation but praise your boss for it when you are lauded," says E Balaji, MD & CEO, Randstad India.

Disarm the boss

If you want to talk to your boss about his or her lack of 'patient hearing', try disarming him or her. "Do it tactfully, in a friendly way, so the person understands your point of view," says Karanth.

Tools for windows

From Digitalinspiration.com

Here are some of the most useful software utilities that you wish were part of standard Windows. These tools are free, light-weight and can be installed on all versions of Windows including the newer Window 8.

1. Eraser – When you delete a file in Windows, the contents of the file can still be recovered using other utilities. Eraser lets you permanently delete a file making recovery nearly impossible.
2. Unlocker – If you are trying to delete a file (or folder) but unable to do so because the “file is in use” by another program, just use Unlocker to end all the locking processes.
3. ShellExView – As you install new programs, the contextual menu gets cluttered and confusing. With ShellExView, you can clean up the right-click menu and remove all the useless entries.
4. Everything – Windows includes powerful desktop search capabilities but Everything goes one step further. It looks for files and folders irrespective of their location  (including temporary files and system folders) and you can also use regular expressions in your search queries.
5. Always on Top – This tiny utility lets you easily keep any window on top of all other windows on your desktop. For instance, you can answer your emails, work on an Excel sheet while a YouTube video plays in the foreground.
6. SyncToy – One of the most useful software utilities from Microsoft that lets you keep different folders in sync with each other. You can configure it with Windows Task Manager to run file synchronization jobs automatically at custom intervals.
7. WinDirStat – Running out of space on Windows? WinDirStat helps you reclaim disk space by creating a visual treemap of your entire hard disk where the area of the colored rectangles is proportional to the size of the underlying folders.
8. Double Killer – This is the only tool you need to get rid of all duplicate files on your computer including images and music files. It compares the file hash to identify duplicate files.
9. TCPView – It will list all the software programs (or processes) on your computer that are accessing the Internet including the IP addresses that they are connecting to. Ignore all the columns except Process, Remote Address and State.
10. Droplr – This is the easiest way to upload your desktop files onto the web. Droplr adds a new option to your Windows “Send to” menu and also places a drop zone on the desktop. Any files that you place in the drop zone are instantly upload and the public link is copied to the clipboard automatically.
11. TinyGrab – Press a hotkey to grab a quick screenshot of anything that’s on your desktop screen and TinyGrab will put it online in a snap. The screen captures will stay online forever until you remove them.
12. Mouse Borders – Another useful utility from Microsoft that lets you control multiple computers from the same keyboard and mouse. A better alternative to Synergy.
13. KatMouse - You can scroll not-in-focus windows with the mouse wheel without selecting the window. Originally written for Windows 2000 but works in Windows 8 as well.
14. Mouse Jiggler – You computer screen may enter the “sleep” mode if the mouse or the keyboard is not used for a certain period of time. Mouse Jiggler keeps your computer awake by “faking” mouse input thus letting you watch that entire movie from a distance.
15. AltDrag - It lets you move and resize windows without reaching the borders of a window. Simply hold down the Alt key and then left-click to  drag the window or use right-click to resize the window.
16. ClipX – When you copy anything to your Windows Clipboard, all the previous content is overridden. ClipX preserves the clipboard history and lets you access your previously copied items from the system tray.
17. RBTray – Sometimes you want to hide windows instead of minimizing them to the Windows task bar. RBTray lets you minimize any window to the system tray by right clicking its minimize button.
18. MiniBin - This puts the Recycle Bin right into your system tray so you don’t have to minimize all your desktop windows to access the Bin icon. You can also also empty the bin from the system tray.
19. GearMage – Running out of space in your web inbox. Use the Gearmage utility to find and download email attachments that meet your search criteria to the local drive.
20. MailStore – If you want offline access to your emails, use MailStore as it helps you download all your emails  on the computer or even a USB drive.
21. MediaInfo - If an audio or video file refuses to play on your computer, chances are that the required codecs are missing on your system. MediaInfo will let you know what codecs are required to play the media file.
22. DropIt – It is like an advanced file sorting utility that will help you automatically copy or move files into relevant folders based on their extensions, date and other criteria. In the case of music files, you may even sort them by artists or album names.
23. Teracopy – It takes forever to copy or move files from one folder to another and if the operation is interrupted, you have to start from scratch. Teracopy improves the file copying speed and offers a detailed report in case of any errors.
24. Soluto – It helps improve the boot-up time of your Windows PC by removing unnecessary programs from the start-up routine and also delaying the launch of certain programs.
25. Sizer – It let you resize program windows to any fixed, predefined size. Quite handy when you are capturing screenshots for documentation and also for screencasting.
26. Background Switcher – It pull pictures from your Facebook, Instagram, RSS Feeds, Picasa, Google Images and uses them as rotating wallpaper backgrounds for your desktop.
27. f.lux – It adjusts the color temperature of your display based on your local time (warm at night and bright during the day). It does this by calculating the sunrise and sunset times of your location.
28. ZoomIt - It turns your desktop into a virtual whiteboard allowing your to draw /annotate anywhere on the screen using colored pens. An essential tool for presenters.
29. LockBox – Put all your confidential files into a folder and then use the LockBox utility to completely hide that folder inside Windows Explorer.
30. Safehouse Explorer – It is easy to misplace USB drives. Safehouse lets you quickly encrypt and password-protect data inside USB drives so others won’t be able to view your files and folders.