The Chauffeur

#People build #businesses 🙌. I love to help them when they are busy building it, unconditionally. 1 Cr. to a 1000 Cr. INR of ARR, from D2C to B2B, from domestic to international markets.

 

Once I had an opportunity to advise a vineyard on creating a category, wine in a can. On another occasion, coffee in a jar to compete with the mainstream products. On PE funding, on IPOs, on saying no to a stingy “slump sale” agreement. The founders of those businesses have been extremely attentive to my well-wisher’s advices and at times I have played the role of the future teller to them. Remember, they’re busy building, heads down. An onlooker can always have a 360 degree view, always.

 

People may think that I work on building my #networks, I build strong, long-term, #sustainable relationships. And those relationships are built on a collection of small things. Ronan Fearon had shared a story of a Front office assistant, Victoria in a hotel who used to stash aside apple cinnamon jelly bellies for a guest’s 6 years old daughter. Sanjay Bhattacharyya had shared about his diplomatic stint in Egypt, when Reuben Kataria and his team had made his event memorable, on his farewell dinner and the hotel GM in Dubai had created a customized cake depicting his career journey. I’ve incorporated dozens of those small, but BIG gestures in my forthcoming book and learnt a lot from the stories.

 

During my visit to Les Roches in Crans-Montana, I took the high-speed train from Geneva to Sierre and was welcomed with a snow ❄️ shower, and biting cold. I called up the college’s front desk to send me a car for pick-up. Till then I was not so familiar with the funicular rail to a village named Bluche, within a 200 meters distance from the campus.

 

A Mercedes van screeched to a halt in 15 minutes. A tall, Portuguese man took my luggage 🧳 and stuffed it in the backseat. He was engaging with me in a real conversation. I told him about Goa, In India, the erstwhile Portuguese settlement. He told me about his retirement plan to move back to his country with his wife, retirements are expensive in Switzerland. His two daughters, one who is working, and the other one is studying would stay back, though. By then, he will have enough savings to manage a couple of travels every year to his daughters.

 

We arrived. He took my luggage and safely placed it in the luggage room, took my jacket and placed it in a rack with hundreds of hangers holding jackets of every shapes and sizes. Joao was too sophisticated to hand over a little tip or a token of gratitude to. I asked him if he had his lunch. He clearly had no time for that, he wanted to do a couple of more drops and pick-ups.

 

The next morning at breakfast in my small hotel, resembling a nineteenth century hunting lodge, I assembled a sandwich for him, sliced a hard-crust bread, some ham, cheese, a splash of mustard sauce, wrapped in a paper. I met him at the reception and handed over the small package. I received a hug from him in exchange.