Navtej Kohli Business Blog

Dog-gone Amazing

A man was out driving, when he came across a flock of sheep. He got out of his car, and walked over to the shepherd tending the sheep. He asked,

“Are you a betting man?”

“Why do you ask?”, said the shepherd.

“I’ll bet you $20, to one of your sheep, that I can guess the size of your flock.”, he said.

“You’re on”, said the shepherd, “How many sheep have I got?”

“367″, came the answer.

“That’s amazing,” exclaimed the shepherd, “You’re absolutely right! go and pick yourself a sheep.”

Having claimed his prize, the man was walking away, when the shepherd called out to him.

“How about another bet- double or nothing.”, he challenged.

“What’s the bet?”, said the man.

“I’ll bet you that I can tell your occupation, and who you work for.”

“That’s a bet.” said the man. “What do I do?”

“You’re a marketing consultant, and you work for the government.”, said the shepherd.

“That’s amazing,” said the man. “How did you figure that out?”

The shepherd smiled. “Put down my dog, and I’ll tell you.”

Informed Choice

When a young marketer met his untimely end, he was informed that he had a choice about where he would spend his eternity: Heaven or Hell. He was allowed to visit both places, and then make his decision afterwards.

“I’ll see Heaven first,” said the salesman, and an angel led him through the gates on a private tour. Inside it was very peaceful and serene, and all the people there were playing harps and eating grapes. It looked very nice, but the salesman was not about to make a decision that could very well condemn him to so sedate an eternity.

“Can I see Hell now?” he asked. The angel pointed him to the elevator, and he went down to the Basement where he was greeted by one of Satan’s loyal followers. For the next half hour, the salesman was led through a tour of what appeared to be the best night clubs he’d ever seen. People were partying loudly, and having a, if you’ll pardon the expression, Hell of a time.

When the tour ended, he was sent back up where the angel asked him if he had reached a final decision.

“Yes, I have,” he replied. “As great as Heaven looks and all, I have to admit that Hell was more of my kind of place. I’ve decided to spend my eternity down there.”

The salesman was sent to hell, where he was immediately thrown into a cave and was chained to a wall, and he was subjected to various tortures. “When I came down here for the tour,” he yelled with anger and pain, “I was shown a whole bunch of bars and parties and other great stuff! What happened?!”

The devil replied, “Oh, that! That was just the Marketing Presentation”

Hope you enjoy them.

*Source: eszes.net

Real Life Dilbert-Type Managers Memos, By Navtej Kohli

“My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn’t edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected.” (CIO of Dell Computers)

Quote from the Boss: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.” (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, “That would be better for me.” (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

“We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.” (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

We recently received a memo from senior management saying: “This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above.” (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, “If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!” (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards.)

As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company’s training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director’s office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn’t stand for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired and the word “pedagogical” circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)

-Enjoy!!!!

Every company big or small has to do marketing for their products and services. Well, many have faced a situation that their entire marketing campaign became a joke by going global….

I have shared some cool marketing blunders on my Navtej Kohli busines blog here:

1. Coors put its slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish where it was read as “Suffer from diarrhea.”

2. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.

3. Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick”, a curling iron, into German only to find out that “mist” is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the “manure stick.”

4. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what’s inside, since most people can’t read.

5. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

6. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of “I saw the Pope” (el papa), the shirts read “I saw the potato” (la papa).

7. Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” translated into “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”, in Chinese.

8. Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish as “it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.”

9. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as “Ke-kou-ke-la”, meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”, depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent “ko-kou-ko-le”, translating into “happiness in the mouth.”

10. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, “it won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” Instead, the company thought that the word “embarazar” (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”   

-Navtej Kohli

Navtej Kohli blog brings some humor to cheer up your day.

Today morning I stumbled upon some very funny business jokes on Google. I thought it will be good to share this on Navtej Kohli Business Blog.

All Is Fair In BusinessA shopkeeper was dismayed when a brand new business much like his own
opened up next door and erected a huge sign which read ‘BEST DEALS.’

He was horrified when another competitor opened up on his right, and
announced its arrival with an even larger sign, reading ‘LOWEST PRICES.’

The shopkeeper panicked, until he got an idea. He put the biggest sign
of all over his own shop. It read: ‘MAIN ENTRANCE’…..

What makes life 100%?Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?

We have all been to those meetings where someone wants more than 100%.

How about achieving 103%?

Here’s a little math that might prove helpful.

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

then:

H A R D W O R K
8 1 18 4 23 15 18 11 = 98%

K N O W L E D G E
11 14 15 23 12 5 4 7 5 = 96%

but:

A T T I T U D E
1 20 20 9 20 21 4 5 = 100%

and:
B U L L S H I T
2 21 12 12 19 8 9 20 = 103%

So, it stands to reason that hard work and knowledge will get you close,
attitude will get you there, but bullshit will put you over the top.

And look how far this will take you…

A S S K I S S I N G
1 19 19 11 9 19 19 9 14 7 = 118%

Think about it… and have a nice day at work…

Hope you have fun with these jokes….Enjoy!!!!

The way Americans go bust has changed fundamentally, and the implications for financial markets are both important and negative.

In the more innocent days before the debt bubble popped, vulnerable borrowers tended to do everything they could to hang on to their houses. The result was that they’d stop paying off their credit cards first, the car loan second and only last would they default on their mortgage.

But for many Americans in the credit bust, especially an overburdened minority, that set of priorities has been turned upside down.

“It’s the American way of deleveraging,” said Jochen Felsenheimer, credit strategist at Unicredit in Munich.

“First you sell your house, second you sell your car and in the end you also sell your TV set.”

The numbers bear him out. Subprime house loans started to go bad first, followed with a lag by subprime auto loans and now credit cards. Federal Reserve data show credit card debt more than 30 days delinquent increased sharply in the second half of 2007, by about 14 percent to 4.55 percent, the most since 2003.

In contrast, in the mid 1990s and during the slowdown in the early part of this decade credit card delinquencies rose before mortgage arrears, according to Federal Reserve data.

There are, of course, some crucial differences between then and now. Deteriorating lending standards allowed a group of less creditworthy borrowers to buy houses, and the amount people were obliged to make as a down payment fell. That meant that borrowers had less incentive to stick with their loans, as house prices went south and they found themselves owing more than the place was worth.

But the preference for car and TV set — or as it may be for car and groceries — over bricks and mortar suggests another disturbing possibility. A lot of people were living above their means and financing the shortfall through debt extracted from housing, credit card and auto lenders. While they had jobs, the jobs didn’t pay enough to actually retire the debt, just to keep current with the interest.

When housing started to fall, the natural thing to do was to preserve the car, which allows you to get to work, and especially the credit card, without which modern life is very difficult.

The implication is clear: credit card debt should continue to deteriorate as we’ve see mortgage debt do. This is bad for the people who make credit card loans, the already creaky and heavily hit financial sector.

Source: reuters.com

I stubmled across this intresting story that shows a dim light on the sexual discrimination at work place. I felt that it was something that I should mention on my Navtej Kohli Business Blog.

“God, I’ve been thinking..” says Eve one day.

“What’s on your mind Eve?” says God.

“Well, I know that you created me and this beautiful garden and all of these wonderful creatures, but lately I’ve been feeling that maybe there’s more to life.”

“Go on…” says God.

“Sometimes I get a bit bored - I fancy a bit of fun. And I get a bit fed up with all the heaving lifting and carrying, and warding off the mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers, not to mention that bloody snake. This garden can be dangerous place.”

“I see,” says God, pausing for thought.

“Eve, I have a cunning plan,” says God, “I shall create Man for you.”

“Man?” asks Eve, “What is Man?”

“Man…” says God, “Is a flawed creature. He will have many weaknesses and disgusting habits. Man will lie, cheat and behave like an idiot - in fact mostly he’ll be a complete pain in the backside. But on the plus side he’ll be big and strong, and will be able to protect you, and hunt and kill things, which might be handy sometimes. He will tend to lose control of mind and body when aroused, but with a bit training can reach an acceptable standard in the bedroom department, if you know what I mean.”

“Hmm,” says Eve, “Seems like this Man idea might be worth a try, but tell me God, is there anything else I need to know?”

“Just this,” says God, “Man comes with one condition… In keeping with his arrogant, deluded, self-important character, Man will naturally believe that he was made first, and frankly we all have better things to do than argue, so you must keep all this a secret between us, if that’s okay with you. You know, woman to woman..”