• Marketing or Branding: 
• It is critical for brands to ensure that the brand experience is consistent across all touch points that customers have with the brand.
• Brands need to be transparent & consistent in their behavior. 
• Digital or social is still a very small segment of the market. There is still a large customer base which is not yet on digital or social. As marketers, we should not only understand this fact and hence our marketing mix should also reflect this reality.  
• An open mind is what can make marketers successful.  
• Marketing can not work in isolation from the organization. Its primary role is to bring new customer to the business. 
• It is critical to continue to ensure that the brands remain relevant. 
• Transformation:
• Listen to everyone but make your own judgement calls. 
• If you want to transform your organization, it is much more profitable to study and learn from different industries. 
• For Start-ups: 
• It is critical to manage cash flows and make investments in technology. 
• What matters most in a business is the product or the service itself and creating a bit of stickiness in the product/service itself. 
• Think long term. Valuation, by itself is not an end that one should look at. 
• Success needs you to beat the street by getting your hands dirty. 
• Hire right. If you are a small start-up, hiring people from the same industry can be more fatal than hiring no one.
• Customer Loyalty: 
• The question with regard to customer loyalty is not about whether the brands know their customers or not, but what do they intend to do with the data. 
• Small mom-and-pop shops do much more for customer loyalty than most of the brands. 
• The very definition of customer loyalty needs to evolve with the consumers.
• Should we reward customers to keep coming back or for introducing new customers to the brand.
• You can't be a carbon copy of any other loyalty programs. Each program needs to be individual to the brand and reflect the brand promise.
• Role of a CEO: 
• Build, Own and transfer an institution. 
• CEO's focus is mostly outward focus - manage the stakeholders, customers, partners. 
• CEO should also groom someone as a COO, who is inwardly focused, improving processes, productivity and organization. 
• Biggest mistake that CEO's do: 
• Ignoring the importance of communication - with your teams, partners, customers and other stake holders, consistently and constantly. 
• What matters is how you solve the pain point & communicate and how you execute on the ideas. 
• The overarching theme was that keeping things simple and common sensical is critical for success.

You can find more information about Anaggh and follow him on twitter @anaggh. 

PS: This episode is sponsored by Audible. Visithttp://www.audibletrial.com/PBTO to download a free audiobook and a 30 day free trial membership.

In this wide ranging discussion, we talk about entrepreneurship, leadership, selling, marketing, creativity, the importance of culture and how to build a culture, conflicts and a lot more.

• Leadership:
  • The most important role of a leader/founder/CEO is to be able to create a good team and an open and honest culture.
  • It is also important for a leader to disconnect from all the bustle of the day-to-day work to reflect on what they are doing and if they are indeed on the right path to make their vision a reality. Neil talks about a practice that he refers to as “Monk Days” where he completely disconnects himself to think about his business and makes notes about the course corrections that he wants to make or ideas that he wants to discuss with his team. He does this every month.
  • He also advices that it is ok to not hire someone who could potentially not be a cultural fit and wait for some one, i.e, hiring for cultural fit is more critical than hiring for talent.
• Marketing:
  • The most important skill that a marketer needs to be successful is the ability to be creative.
  • It also helps a lot if they are able to work with techies and engineers so that they can growth hack or master the techie side of  marketing.
• Managing Conflicts:
  • When it comes to conflicts, I learn that conflicts by themselves are not good or bad. However, every conflict holds a seed of growth, that can grow into something beautiful provided it has the right environment, which in this case is the culture of the organization. Neil, personally believes that the best way to resolve conflict in his organization is through data.

The overarching theme was that keeping things simple and common sensical is critical for success.

You can find more information about Neil and follow him on twitter @NeilPatel.

PS: This episode is sponsored by Audible. Visit http://www.audibletrial.com/PBTO to download a free audiobook and a 30 day free trial membership.