Here’s How Marketers Can Do Better Through Facebook

You’re a small startup. You need to grow your business and expand your customer base quickly without spending a lot of money. Online marketing is definitely a great way to go, but the tried and true methods – display or search ads – vary greatly in cost, management time, targeting capabilities and results.

Another obvious target for online marketing is social media sites such as Facebook. With more than 700 million active users, Facebook can be a potential goldmine for small businesses to reach new customers. On any given day, more than half of its users log on to interact with friends, play games and post content, which translates into more than 11 billion hours a month spent on the social network.   
This article is not going to focus on Facebook 101 – that is, setting up a static page, building up your friends list, posting content and blasting out information and offers to your followers. These can be effective, but they really only target people you know or who know you, and maybe a small percentage of people beyond your immediate circle.
In order to reach a broader audience, you should seriously consider advertising on Facebook. Recent improvements in Facebook’s advertising platform have made it more powerful than before and even easier to use – all the while giving you greater control over audience targeting and ad spend.
Facebook has great targeting capabilities and allows advertisers to reach people based on gender, geography, marital status, time of day, education and basic profile information. However, the secret sauce behind Facebook’s ad platform is a “Suggestion Tool” that allows advertisers to reach people based on other interests and information that its members share. It works by analyzing and cataloging mountains of data generated by the entire Facebook community, giving you superior targeting power and the ability to drill down deep. It also blows the doors off Facebook’s previous attempts at targeting (e.g., generic filters such as “18 to 24 males”), which could quickly burn through your budget and not deliver the audience you need.

How Do I Begin?

First you have to ask yourself – who is my audience? What types of people am I trying to reach, and who would be most interested in my business? Targeting and timing are critical for success, and that’s where the Suggestion Tool excels.
For instance, a good friend recently started a personal chef business on the side, targeting busy working families in Silicon Valley. For $50 plus the cost of groceries, she would prepare and serve a gourmet meal at the client’s house. Initially, she started with a simple Facebook page and began reaching out to her friends, acquaintances and former colleagues.
However, she soon realized that she needed a little more reach and started advertising. Using Facebook’s Suggestion Tool, she targeted married, career-oriented women ages 35 and up who lived in more affluent areas of Silicon Valley. She timed her ads to appear in the mid- to late-afternoon, when these women began thinking about dinner plans for the family. On the very first day her ads ran, she acquired two new customers and eventually she quit her day job to pursue her newfound career full-time.

Creating And Managing Your Ads

As a small business, chances are you and your employees have your noses to the grindstone 24/7, and are wearing multiple hats – none of which say "Official Facebook Advertising Campaign Manager." Fortunately, Facebook makes it easy to manage your ad campaign. With a self-managed interface, Facebook provides tools that let you set daily spend budgets, analyze how your ads are performing, and manage the frequency of your ads so you can stick to your budget.
The key to successful Facebook advertising is having compelling images and copy that attract the user’s eye– after all, what good is having pinpoint audience targeting if your ads are mediocre?
Because images account for 50% of the real estate, it’s crucial to draw the user’s eye to your ad and get them to click. Refreshing your real estate (e.g., rotating your images) will increase your chances that a given image will resonate with the people you’re targeting. Depending on how many ads you run, Facebook offers a bulk image uploader so that you can refresh your images to your heart’s content.
You should also try changing the ad copy as often as possible to keep it fresh, with messages that speak to your different audience targets. Creating a promotion or discount offer will incentivize them to click on your ad…or better yet, to call. Including a phone number on your ad is ideal for service businesses, like plumbers, personal trainers, mechanics and others for whom having an in-depth Website is not crucial to their business.
While this sounds cumbersome, the effort could pay off handsomely. Facebook’s analytics tools can tell you which images and copy resonated best with which audience segments, allowing you to spend more money on the ads that are generating the most results.

Pricing

So how much is this going to cost? That’s the $64,000 question. Unlike display or search advertising, where you’re bidding on site content, context or keywords, buying advertising on Facebook lets you buy audiences. The more valuable the audience, the higher the cost. That said, given the ability to micro-target audiences with the Suggestion Tool, chances are slim that you and another advertiser will be bidding on the exact same audience profiles.
Aside from that, Facebook gives you the flexibility to set your own ad budget. You can spend as little as $1.00 a day. However, in order for your ads to be effective, they need to be seen. The bigger your daily ad spend, the more likely it is that your ads will be seen by your desired audience throughout the day. All in all, you can’t beat Facebook’s precision marketing – especially during a recession.
Regardless of whether you’re a VC-backed startup, a sole proprietor or a small mom & pop shop, Facebook’s enhanced advertising platform gives you a cost-effective and manageable way to reach a large, savvy, well-connected audience, making it an essential part of your online marketing strategy.

Facebook commerce has a long way to go before it's on par with traditional ecommerce. But many ecommerce merchants report that Facebook Ads, a self-service, pay-per-click advertising platform similar to Google AdWords, generates positive returns. In this article, I am going to outline the details of running a Facebook advertising campaign and provide helpful tips to improve its effectiveness.

Facebook advertising helps merchants promote their businesses.

Facebook Advertising Basics

Facebook Ads come in two forms: Premium and Marketplace. Premium Ads are reserved for those companies that have lots of money to spend — at least $10,000 monthly.
For the rest of us, there are Marketplace Ads, which can cost as little as $1.00 per day. These appear in the right-hand column on pages throughout the site. (In order to alleviate "banner blindness," Facebook has moved ads to the right-hand border on user profiles so they appear to be more a part of the profile itself.) Facebook Ads allow merchants to advertise either a destination within Facebook such as a Page, Event, Application or Group, or a separate website.
Facebook recently introduced a new type of ad unit called Sponsored Stories, which are ads that companies — only Premium advertisers, currently — can purchase that will show up to the right of a user's news feed and let users know when their friends either (a) "Like" a company’s product, (b) check-in at a company's location via Facebook Places, or (c) post a comment on a company’s Facebook page. This approach has sparked controversy with some, as a Facebook user's Likes can appear in a news feed, whether the user approves or not.

Creating a Facebook Ad Campaign

There are three main steps to creating a Facebook Ad campaign:

1. Identify your goals;
2. Define who you want to reach with your ad;
3. Create your ad and set your budget.

Identify Advertising Goals
Just like advertising on any other channel, running a campaign on Facebook requires that the merchant first know what goals he wishes to achieve. These may include goals such as: increasing Likes on the company's Facebook page, increasing traffic to the ecommerce website, building brand awareness, selling products or generating leads.
The best way to use Facebook Marketplace Ads is to create one advertising campaign per stated goal. Here is an example of a smaller online retailer who had two goals in mind: (a) get more Likes to the company Fan page and (b) sell products. The retailer created separate campaigns to match each goal, each with its own series of ads.

Online retailer's Facebook Ads campaigns.

Target the Audience You Want to Reach
One of the benefits to using Facebook advertising is its ability to create highly targeted segments. Very often, the narrower the target the more effective the campaign becomes. In the past, I have created campaigns targeted to a little as a few hundred people.
Thanks to the amount of information supplied by Facebook users through their profiles, more demographic data is available to advertisers than in any other advertising channel, including Google AdWords.
One key to running a successful advertising program is to tailor different ads to reach individualized segments. Facebook offers targeting based on the following parameters:

• Location. By city, state, province, or country.
• Demographics. By age range, gender, language or marital status (you can even target users based on their birthdays).
• Likes and interests. Unlike Google AdWords, which uses keywords people search for, Facebook offers targeting based on their Likes and interests. For example, I may indicate in my profile that I enjoy camping. If a company sells camping equipment, that would be a term the retailer would want to include.
• Education and work. You can direct your campaign to students in a specific college or people with a particular level of education.
• Connections on Facebook. Includes connections to Groups, Pages, Events or Facebook apps.

Depending on the goal of the campaign and assuming the merchant has a Facebook page, a couple of targeting options I often choose are: Facebook page Fans, and friends of Fans. (Facebook will not allow you to choose both categories in the same ad.)

Friends of Fans are one targeting option for ads.

Once targeting options have been selected, Facebook will list an approximate number of people the ad will reach. Keep in mind that only those included in that number will ever see the ad. In terms of minimizing wasteful spending, this is an attractive factor.
Create Your Ad and Set Your Budget
Facebook Ads is a self-contained, self-service, bid-based advertising system. If a merchant is used to running pay-per-click ads via Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing, this will feel somewhat familiar. My experience is that Facebook Ads is a much less complicated system than the other two, which I appreciate.
To create an ad, merchants need to:

1. Design the ad;
2. Determine the target audience;
3. Select a name for the campaign;
4. Set pricing;
5. Submit the ad for review by Facebook.

Design the Ad
Facebook Ads look very similar to Google AdWords with a couple of exceptions: (a) there is room for more text in the body, and (b) the use of a thumbnail image is permitted. Facebook Ads consists of a title, body copy, a destination URL that is hyperlinked from the title, and the aforementioned image. (Facebook Ads allow the same amount of characters — 25 — for the title as Google, but permits up to 135 characters for the ad itself, versus the 70 characters allowed by Google.)
If a merchant is promoting the company Fan page, Facebook's policy is to use the name of the page as the title. When choosing that option, be aware that the ad platform will not allow you to change the title. In terms of creating interest, I find this limiting, as most Facebook pages simply list the name of the company as the page title.
As an alternative, you can create the ad to direct users to a site other than the Fan page, then include the link to the page URL. That provides the ability to create a title that is more engaging and interesting. One drawback to doing this is that you lose the social actions aspect of ads — the Like button — that is included when ads that promote the Fan page are auto-generated by Facebook.

Examples of Facebook ads.

Name Your Campaign and Set Pricing
There are some terms with which you need to be familiar before creating an ad campaign.

1. Campaign.
   A campaign is an ad or group of ads that share a daily budget and schedule. Campaigns can contain as many ads as you wish to create. I recommend creating at least five to ten ads (or more) each containing variations in title copy, body copy, calls to actions and images. Once an ad has been created, Facebook offers advertisers the ability to create a similar ad with just the click of a button.
   
   
   Facebook makes it easy to create new ads.
   
   
   Monitor the campaign once it is activated to see which ads generate results in terms of impressions or clicks and which do not. You can alter the copy of the non-performing ads, or pause or delete them.
2. Ad Pricing Types.
   Facebook offers advertisers the ability to set bids based on either Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM). Using the former, payment is only required when someone clicks the ad. With the latter, payment is made each time the ad has been shown 1,000 times.
   I have found that, by bidding using the CPC, your ads are likely to get more clicks. That is because Facebook tends to position CPC ads in areas of the page that will generate more clicks. Because Facebook presumably generates a lot of its revenue from ads, this may appear self-serving. But, because it also generates more clicks for the merchant, it's seems equitable, too.
   In his blog post, "Is Facebook Really Worth It?," ecommerce merchant and Practical eCommerce contributor Dale Traxler makes this recommendation: "When you do decide to advertise on Facebook, here's a tip, just ignore Facebook's recommended PPC bids. They are ridiculously high compared to what you actually need to bid for good results. Also, use CPC bidding for your ads as you'll likely get better results than CPM bidding."
3. Daily Budget.
   Facebook allows advertisers to set a daily, maximum budget. However, my experience is that you may not reach the budget limit every day.
4. Lifetime Budget.
   Lifetime budget works at the campaign level and is very similar to daily budget, but instead of entering an amount to spend per day, you may enter an amount to spend over a campaign's lifetime, over a specific period of time.
5. Max Bid.
   Facebook will suggest a minimum and maximum range for your bid. Invariably, this will be higher for CPC and lower for CPM. You have the option of setting a different bid if you choose.
   Though your goal is to keep the bid rate as low as possible, you are bidding against other advertisers. Therefore, it pays to be competitive. I think the best way to ensure the lowest rate is to do the best job possible when selecting the target audience.

Submit Your Ad for Review
Once the ad has been created and you click the "Submit" button, it is reviewed by Facebook to confirm it meets the site's Advertising Guidelines. Only on a few occasions have I had an ad be disapproved. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to acquaint yourself with the guidelines.

Summary

The benefits to using Facebook advertising are three-fold:

1. Targeting. Facebook offers greater targeting capabilities than any other online channel, including AdWords.
2. Cost. At least for now, Facebook Ads can be bought for pennies on the dollar compared to other forms of PPC advertising.
3. Word of mouth. Facebook Ads take advantage of the viral, word of mouth marketing capabilities inherent with the platform. Therefore, social sharing capabilities such as the Like button are included in Facebook Ads, too.

Some Management Tips You can benefit from

Stop Surfing the Internet Now

How much time do you spend checking Facebook, sending and reading Tweets, and buying things you don't need online? If the answer is “too much,” try these two ways to battle your internet addiction:

• Eliminate temptation. Choose specific times each day when you’ll turn off all technology. Mornings are ideal, when you’re likely to have more energy to get challenging tasks done.
• Carry a notebook. Write down ideas that come to you, things you want Google or emails and Tweets you want to send. Keep this running list rather than opening your browser whenever an idea strikes you. Later, at a designated time, you can knock several things off at once. 

Job Seekers: Social Media Is Your Friend

People may go online to goof off but before long, they talk shop. Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, and even Pinterest can be valuable job-hunting tools. Here are two things social media can do to aid your job search:

• Build a better contact list. Lots of recruiters, hiring managers, and industry networkers are swapping job leads and industry updates on Twitter. Follow decision makers in your field. Publish links to interesting articles. Some of the people you follow may start to reciprocate.
• Share your work portfolio. High-traffic sites such as YouTube and Pinterest can showcase great work in any field. Recruiters are increasingly prowling these networks for the best candidates—even if it means poaching people from their current jobs. By displaying a strong internet portfolio of your work, you increase your chances of getting noticed and hired.

Know What Makes Your Company Special

Companies that focus on their unique abilities are best-positioned for growth. But most firms, like most people, aren't very aware of their extraordinary capabilities, not to mention their extraordinary deficiencies. To achieve growth you need to know what makes your company special. Seeing the world through your customers' and competitors' eyes is the best way to understand what sets you apart. Ask the following three questions to pinpoint the assets that can catalyze new growth:

• Why — really — do customers choose our offerings?
• Which of our capabilities are distinctly better than those of competitors?
• How difficult would it be for a garage-based startup to replicate what we have done?

Make Emotional Connections with Your Employees

The higher up you go in an organization, the more important is to connect with your employees on a personal level. Show people you work with that there is more to your relationship than the job. Here are three ways to forge these connections:

• Give your undivided attention. This sounds simple, but it's easy to overlook when you are overloaded with ringing phones and packed inboxes. In conversations, put everything down and focus exclusively on what's being said.
• Remember emotions are contagious. If you're feeling particularly anxious or negative, make an effort to quarantine yourself. When you're feeling especially buoyant, go to more meetings and spend more time with others.
• Get out there. Even if you’re an introvert, reach out to people, engage them in discussion, and actively provide feedback. You can’t connect from behind a closed office door.

Stop Regretting Your Career Decisions

"I should have never chosen this field." "I should have left my job long ago." It’s no fun to lament over decisions you’ve made in your career. Instead of letting remorse suffocate you, face it head on:

• Get input. Ask some trusted friends to brainstorm ways to think differently about your regrets. Choose confidants who are imaginative and positive — not cynical and snarky.
• Ask “what if” questions. Using the input you got, formulate questions that help you view your career from a fresh angle. For example, if you regret going into PR, you might ask yourself: What if I did PR for a cause I believed in?
• Explore ideas to act on. Look deeper into a few of your “what ifs.” If you find yourself getting excited about one possibility, keep working on it until it pays off.

Tips on Interviews

Promote Yourself without Being Self-Promotional

Explaining why someone should hire you, or introduce you to a friend who is hiring, can be uncomfortable. You need to sell yourself, but you don't want to sound like a salesperson. Instead of detailing what's so great about you, tell a story that covers the following:

• Situation. Explain the problem or situation that you, your unit, or your company faced.
• Tasks. Outline what your responsibility was in solving the problem.
• Achievements. Make clear what you did to meet your responsibility.
• Results. What happened as a result of your achievements? Did revenues increase? Did customer satisfaction improve? Use specific examples to pique your audience's interest.

 

Three Tips for Acing an Interview

During a job interview, it's important to explain what you can do for the company, but it is just as imperative to build trust with the person interviewing you. Here are three ways to align yourself with the interviewer:

• Mirror body language. Even if you aren't comfortable, portray yourself as poised and friendly. When the interviewer uses open body language -- leaning in toward you or keeping her arms open -- do the same.
• Find common interests. Look for ways that the interviewer and you are alike. These may be shared interests or experiences. Ideally they are work-related; for example, you may both have a passion for solving tough problems.
• Tell stories with a moral. Every anecdote you tell should have a point. Well-shaped stories with a purpose can convey your most desirable qualities -- loyalty, work ethic, or trustworthiness.

 

How to Talk About Your Weaknesses in an Interview

One of the most hated, yet frequently asked, interview questions is, "What is your greatest weakness?" We all have faults, but the last place we want to talk about them is in a job interview. Next time you are up for a job, take these three steps to prepare for this dreaded question:

• Prepare an answer. Yes, you need one. Make it brief, honest, trivial, and not a fault. If possible, use something out of your control. For example, "My biggest weakness is that my professional network is in Boston, but I'm looking to relocate to Los Angeles."
• Get input. Run your answer by a few friends and colleagues to make sure it sounds reasonable.
• Ask a question back. In the interview, deflect the attention away from you by ending your response with a question for the interviewer.

 

Evaluate Your Future Manager

Almost every job interview ends with an opportunity for you, the candidate, to ask questions. Don't treat this time as another chance to impress. Instead, use this time to assess your future boss. Ask your potential manager about a past project. This should give you a sense of how she works. Inquire about customers or colleagues. Her attitude toward others may reveal how she treats people. Watch how she answers the questions. Does she talk about herself a lot? Does he take credit for accomplishments? This data can help you better understand the manager you are getting along with the job offer.

 

Three Tips for Conducting an Internal Interview

Internal interviews are often thought of as something to simply check off on a hiring to-do list. Yet, these interviews can be a valuable source of information and the key to helping you make the right hiring decision. Here are three tips for getting these interviews right:

• Dig deeper. Even if you already know the candidate, you can learn more. Ask about experience outside of the company, either in previous jobs or through volunteer work.
• Assess role readiness. Because the candidate will be moving into a role she is already familiar with, ask specific questions about what she plans to do with the role.
• Make it real. Too often, internal interviews are done out of courtesy. If you aren't serious about the candidate, don't bother with the interview.

Tips on Managing Difficult People

Three Ways to Deal with a Passive-Aggressive Colleague

It can be incredibly frustrating when a co-worker agrees with a plan of action, only to go off and do his own thing. This type of sabotage is all too common and can make it difficult to achieve your goals. When you have a co-worker who says one thing and does another, try this:

• Give feedback. Explain to your co-worker what you're seeing and experiencing. Describe the impact of his behavior on you and provide suggestions for how he might change.
• Focus on work, not the person. You need to get the work done despite your peer's style, so don't waste time wishing he would change. Concentrate on completing the work instead.
• Ask for commitment. At the end of a meeting ask everyone (not just the troublemaker) to reiterate what they are going to do and by when. Sometimes peer pressure can keep even the most passive-aggressive person on task.

 

Keep Your Composure, or Walk Away

With offices becoming more physically and metaphorically open, the privacy of a room with a closed door can be difficult to find. More often, everyone from the CEO to the receptionist is visible to everyone else. This level of exposure can encourage transparency but can also put you on display in fragile moments when you are stressed or upset. Next time you feel like you might lose your cool (and who hasn't had these moments?), take note of where you are. If you might be observed by others, take a deep breath or a drink of water. If that doesn't do the trick, get outside. In these new open work spaces, it's critical to maintain professionalism by being calm and supportive of others, and by doing your venting somewhere private.

 

Three Tips for Resolving a Conflict with Your Coworker

Differences of opinion between coworkers can be useful and even productive. But when clashes turn ugly, conflict can be harmful to working relationships. Here are three tips for handling the next disagreement you have with a colleague:

• Identify common ground. Point out what you both agree on at the beginning of the conversation. This may be a shared goal or a set of operating rules.
• Hear your coworker out. Allow your colleague to share his opinion and explain his point of view. Don't disagree with individual points he makes; listen to the whole story.
• Propose a solution. Use the information you gathered in the conversation to offer a resolution. This should incorporate his perspective and be different from what you originally thought.

 

Turn Your Competitors into Allies

When a colleague's agenda is seemingly opposed to your own, it can be tempting to demonize him. Distorting other people is a common response to conflict, but not a particularly productive one. In fact, doing so undermines your ability to exert influence. Instead of deciding that everything about a colleague you don't get along with is hateful, get to know him better. Sit down and talk about what he cares and is concerned about. You may find that the source of your conflict is actually an area of mutual interest and rather than being enemies, you are natural allies.

 

Stop Being So Nice

Conflict avoidance is a common trait of most corporate workplaces. But, steering clear of disagreements and leaving things unsaid creates unnecessary complexity and needless anxiety. To get better at confronting conflict constructively, follow these three steps:

• Reflect. Ask yourself whether there are times you should've spoken up but held your tongue. Do you avoid certain types of conflicts?
• Get feedback. Ask trusted friends and colleagues how they perceive your readiness to engage in constructive conflict. They might see patterns that are less obvious to you.
• Experiment. You don't have to change overnight. Try pushing back on a request or speaking up in a meeting and see how it goes. Preface your comment with an admission that you are working on getting better at conflict. This will help demonstrate your sincerity.

Tips on Meetings

Exercise Good Meeting Hygiene

Meetings, meetings, and more meetings! Don't contribute to the dread. Next time you need to gather people together to advance your project, make sure you do the following to make your meeting worthwhile:

• Make sure it's necessary. Before sending out the invite, ask yourself whether there's another way to move the project forward. Can you get input via e-mail? Can you gather a sub-group to solve the current issue?
• Be clear about the objective. State the purpose of the meeting in the invite and again at the beginning of the meeting. Be sure to explain how the meeting will advance the overall project goals.
• Focus. Just because you have an hour scheduled, don't take it. Keep the discussion centered and avoid unnecessary side conversations.

Take Back 10 Minutes

A day of back-to-back meetings is exhausting and overwhelming. Running from meeting to meeting, you leave an inbox full of unanswered emails and undoubtedly start to run late to your afternoon appointments. Stop the madness by insisting on 50-minute meetings. What can be done in 60 minutes can easily be done in 50 with some focus and discipline. Defy the default in your calendar and send meeting requests that end 10 minutes before the hour. This will allow you, and everyone else, to take a quick break, check email, and restore some sanity to your day.

 

Three Ways to Encourage Meeting Participation

You know the drill: A meeting is called to discuss an important issue but only the usual suspects participate. Everyone else is quiet and their opinions go unheard. Meaningful contribution is the key to meeting success. Here are three ways to get more people involved:

• Don't dominate. This not only gives others less time to speak up but also conveys that only your ideas are important. Let at least three people speak before you  talk again.
• Be positive. Demonstrate that all ideas are valuable by restating important points. Thank people who are usually reticent for their comments.
• Ask directly. To get input from everyone, ask each person for their thoughts. Don't do it in a confrontational way. Try, "Do you have anything to share?"

Two Rules for Making Global Meetings Work

With people spread across locations and time zones, global teams can struggle to run effective meetings. Distance isn't an excuse for bad meeting etiquette though. Here are two policies that can make your far-flung team's meeting easier:

• Share the inconvenience. It's not fair to force a few people in Delhi to always take the call at 3am local time. Rotate your meeting time so that everyone shares the burden of an inconvenient time.
• All together or all separate. The dynamic of a meeting can be thrown off if some people can see and talk to one another offline. If one person is separated from the rest, ask everyone to call in from their desks. This means no one unduly benefits from side conversations or  facial expressions.

 

Makeover Your All Staff Meeting

When executives want to communicate important messages or engage employees, they hold town hall or all hands meetings. Gathering everyone together is meant to convey the importance of the topic and get the biggest bang for your communication buck. Yet, employees often rank these meetings as some of the least effective. Don't give up on bringing everyone together. Instead, give your all staff meeting a makeover. Make your message resonate by explaining what's in it for everyone. Forego the PowerPoint presentation in lieu of a more personal communication. Make the conversation two-way and engage your people in a discussion. Lastly, don't hog the stage. Even charismatic leaders can sound like broken records. Staff often want to hear from others in leadership for a fresh perspective.

Tips on Decision Making

Stop Making Decisions That Waste Time and Money

Many managers rely on gut instinct to make important decisions, which often leads to poor results. On the contrary, when managers insist on incorporating logic and evidence, they make better choices and their companies benefit. Here are three ways to introduce evidence-based management at your company:

• Demand evidence. Whenever anyone makes a compelling claim, ask for supporting data. Don't take someone's word for it.
• Examine logic. Look closely at the evidence and be sure the logic holds up. Be on the lookout for faulty cause-and-effect reasoning.
• Encourage experimentation. If you don't have evidence, create some. Invite managers to conduct small experiments to test the viability of proposed strategies and use the resulting data to guide decisions.

  

Three Tips for Making Trade-offs

Every important decision inevitably involves a trade-off. Knowing what you can't pursue is as valuable as articulating what you will. But how do you know which trade-offs are acceptable and which are losing propositions? Here are three ways to help make the distinction:

• Get input on pros and cons. List advantages and disadvantages and ask others for their perspective on which carries the heaviest weight.
• Balance short term with long term. Determine what you'd be willing to give up in the long run for some important short-term gain — and vice versa.
• Gauge support. While weighing alternatives, think about who will support a particular idea and who will oppose it. Ask whose support you can live without, and whose backing and buy-in you absolutely need.

Schedule Time for Second Guessing

Questioning whether or not you've made the right decision can be a useful way to make sure you're on the right track. But if you second guess yourself at the wrong time, you may feel tempted to give up on important commitments. Don't question yourself when you are most vulnerable. Instead, schedule a time to review your decision critically when you are in the right frame of mind. For example, don't wonder whether you should abandon a plan to talk more during meetings when you are walking into the conference room. Rather, tell yourself that you will question the decision ten minutes into the meeting, once you've had time to get used to the idea. Setting a time will also help you second guess once rather than nagging yourself with doubts.

 

Avoid Three Common Decision-Traps

Making decisions is your most critical job as a leader. The more high-stakes a decision is, the more likely you are to get stuck. Here's how to avoid three of the most common traps:

• Anchoring. Many people give disproportionate weight to the first information they receive. Be sure to pursue other lines of thinking, even if the first one seems right.
• Status quo. Change can be unsettling and it's easy to favor alternatives that keep things the same. Ask yourself if the status quo truly serves your objectives and downplay the urge to stay in your current state.
• Confirming evidence. If you find that new information continually validates your existing point of view, ask a respected colleague to argue against your perspective. Also try to avoid working with people who always agree with you.

Rely on Others to Improve your Judgment

Reversing a decision that isn't working out can be a painful experience. Perhaps the product you launched isn't selling, or an ad campaign that you were behind is falling flat. Whatever the issue, accepting failure and changing direction can feel like a comment on your judgment. In these situations, call on others to help you evaluate and redirect. Ask people with a variety of perspectives — peers, direct reports, customers, family — to give you input on what went wrong and what to do now. The collective wisdom of this crowd can turn a bad situation into a winning one. Reversing a decision shouldn't be a reason for shame, but a badge of honor in that you lived and learned.

Know Marketing !!!!!!! How does it help Business??

Marketing is the holistic relation of an institution with the various markets it serves or would like to serve. This broad definition includes all aspects of the institution and its approach to offering products to its current and potential clientele.

Marketing is not only a means of selling more products more effectively or of developing new and more customer-oriented financial products. Rather, it involves the entire institution, from the accounting department to the training department, from headquarters to branches, from the General Manager to the front-line staff.

Marketing brings together information from internal and external sources to determine the best answers to the following questions:

1. Which products and services are needed and will be bought?
2. What price is acceptable to clients?
3. How can products and services be sold in the most efficient and effective manner?
4. Which information channel is best able to reach clients to make the product known,valued and demanded?

Marketing plays a very important role in business and the success of the organization. The various areas of production and services depend basically on marketing style. As sales and marketing are thought as the similar concepts but these two concepts are very different from one other. Sales are the part of marketing. Marketing deals with vast process, which covers Advertising, sales, PR, customer satisfaction etc. It is the process by which we introduce and promote the product and services into the market and encourages the level of sales that is going to be from the buying consumers. Sales mainly deal with the actual transactions of the products consumed in the market.

The main goal of marketing is to create a recognization of the product in the market, for which marketers must be intelligent and creative in their marketing activities. In this competitive nature of many businesses, getting the product noticed is not that easy.

Marketing is a broad topic that covers a range of aspects, including advertising, public relations, sales, and promotions. People often confuse sales with marketing, when in fact the two are very different. The former involves getting a product or service into the market, promoting it, influencing behavior, and encouraging sales. Sales are the actual transaction of getting a product or service into the hands of your customers.

With so many messages bombarding the consumer in the marketplace today, it is now more difficult than ever to get your product noticed, so marketers have learned to be creative. 

Companies without a marketing mindset are at a disadvantage in today's business world. Those who are still centered around their products, rather than their customers, are doomed to fail. Knowing what your clients' expectations are, exceeding them, and building a reputation based on that is the key to success. Pay attention to your customers, and they will come back time and time again. Ignore them, and they will disappear faster than you can spend your marketing budget to try to bring them back.

Many people do not know much about marketing and they always feel that the marketing staff in the company is a burden on the company and they do not justify the dollars spent on them. But the fact is that sincere marketing efforts never go waste. When you invest in marketing related activities, you are sure to reap benefits. Well run marketing campaigns can help you earn good profits. 

Some people have a misconception about the term marketing, they feel that it is an easy task and anyone can do it. But as a business person you have to get rid of this view point and employ a professional marketing agency that will device your marketing strategy and help you execute it as well. Or you can also have the assistance of an independent marketing consultant who can oversee the marketing efforts that are being put in by the marketing department.

The world today is globalizing and many of the business are centered on the customers more than its product because the customers are only the one who keeps the business alive. The good quality is also the essential part of the product but the buying public for that product stands the most important and strong part. If we could create more of their need, their want and their desire then they will come back again and again and also brings long retentions. And if you focus more on the product rather than the public need then your business is going to fail and you will lose your buying public at no time and to recover this again is the crucial part task and depends upon again the situation and the strategic move of marketing activities.

 

Some of the importance and facts about Marketing

Creates image and awareness of the product to the market

As in the previous paragraph it has already been mentioned that the primary goal of marketing is getting product and service reorganized. Unless you have already established an image and recognization in the industry, probably no businesses do ever think of letting the public to find out the business themselves. But if it comes to the new business then the only way to create the image and awareness to the public about your product is the means of advertising and promoting. You business spends much time on promotional programs and advertising but the most important thing is that the product and the company information is disseminated to the potential buying public.

There are various types of marketing approaches and strategies that can be utilized by any company. All approaches of marketing tries to introduce recognize and promote the product awareness and try to build a good image to the market as large. There is possibility for the public to be educated with products and can take advantage from them and this make possible by offline and online marketing. Many of the companies invests in marketing so they would not miss thee marketing and the opportunities in the market with will get discovered but if the thing comes to the expense to be considered then there are many other cost effective marketing technique which can be applied and some of the good examples are blogs and pay per click add posted in the internet. This process helps the company to create awareness to the public about their product and forms some image by with public spend their income on the product.

Increasing the sales

We came to know that marketing plays a vital role in creating awareness to the public about the products and services. Not only the awareness, marketing also helps in increasing the sales, productivity and generates maximum profits. Through advertise, radio, news paper, pumplets, online ads, public learns about the product and it creates an image and the public starts buying if the product is worth buying. The more these strategies of advertising are applied the more the public hear and see and get interested to buy your products. If any of the company tries to increase the sales and increase the production and have the double profitability, then the marketing department must be able to apply the right marketing mix and should choose the right type of promotional strategy and come up with correct and valid strategic marketing plans.

Reputation

Reputation is the main tool of any company to ply in the market in long run. In order to capture the market, the company or the marketers of the company’s product should create the brand name. This is a technique by which consumers know about the brand with their images, logos or they can remember the caption that they hear on the advertisement.

For example, KFC is known for its brand name which identifies the fast food restaurants for chicken and it attracts the mass of people who knows what KFC is and hears about it. Some companies may take time in building these reputations and creating the awareness to the public but some companies are fast and it depends upon the type of the product they are producing and the strategies they are applying for the promotion of their product and the values the product is going to deliver to the consumer in the market. The established name and fame of the company helps it to grow continuously and expand because more and more consumers will buy the products and take advantages of the services due to the good reputation of the company.

Encountered with the example, 

Sony music system is famous on its quality and its performance and has a good reputation and so people feel comfortable to buy their product. The innovation and the marketing strategies they apply is they focus on the price and the quality and the consumer taste and income and they gain maximum retention from the public and the public no doubt purchase their products.

In conclusion we can say that Marketing is a very important and essential part in the companies success , it plays a vital role in the whole process of the business. It furthermore gives information to the public and people about the latest market trends and helps to increase the sales and gain profit and also develops product and reputation. To do this Marketer must be innovative and clever enough to place their product applying the right kind of marketing strategy at the right time. We know that marketing is important and useful, but if it is not done in a proper way the company might have to bear a very heavy loss and also my have to quit the business platform. So it is for sure that it should be conducted and researched critically.

The Choice (Story)

 

Disclaimer

If the characters and events of the story bear any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, then it is totally by choice. The story can take you back to past, think about your present and make you ponder over your decisions. It may seem strikingly similar to what you or someone you know has experienced or felt.  So if you can relate the choice to few choices you have made then it will seem very real.

In the end, we are whatever our choices intend us to be.   

Prologue

He gave me an option. I had never thought he would agree for something like this. As usual, he managed to surprise me. I could not fight my tears now. Sobbing in his warm embrace, I could smell my favorite perfume on his shirt. This is what I wanted today and forever. And I knew it was not possible and definitely not easy. But then I always opted for easy way out, he had often complained. Did that mean I was selfish? I didn’t know then.

And that day too, I had chosen, with a heavy heart, despite myself. What I had not realized was that this choice will be my decision and others later. The choice seemed painful but I thought I could pull it of. How naïve of me.!   

 

Vineeta: Present

I am sitting here by the windowsill, tired and drained. And lonely. Thinking about the chaotic morning that just passed by, I sip my coffee distractedly. I wonder how am I so used to it now. It was this usual morning mess filled with screams, chaos and angry bark outs “Vineeta, where the hell are my shoes? Cant you be a good wife for once in your entire lifetime.” 

“They are there under the bed.” I shouted back. Every one is in such a hurry in morning. I think we need to change our waking up patterns. This chaos gets too much to handle at times. Telling Chanda, my servant to keep his briefcase in his car I called out “Snow don’t you dare step out of the house unless you finish your breakfast.”

“Ughh.. Not again! Take a chill pill.” She made a cute gesture. And I smiled to her across my new Italian Modular Open Kitchen done in pristine white. Aahh! I love my kitchen, I thought to myself. Not because I love to cook or something but for the simple reason that its so beautiful. While I was busy admiring my modular cupboards, they went off to their schedules. Akash did not say bother to say bye. And I know I don’t care. He knows too.

Now everyone is gone and the house is scarily quiet. But I then like it this way. May be I don’t. Somehow I have learned to find peace in silence. The silence is interspersed by the sounds of occasional honking of cars outside. Despite sound-proof glasses, echoes of life do manage to come in to this rather lifeless sitting room. It is usually quiet outside at this hour. In a superior and slightly snobbish colony like Hauz Khas, where I live in a one-floor bungalow, people don’t really venture out much sans their swish cars. And vendors and hawkers are anyways not allowed. Hence it is mostly still at all the times. The colony is known for its plush green cover and glossy residents. I like the greenery part more. 

 Not knowing what else to think about, looking at my reflection in the dark tinted glasses of the window, I see a familiar face. Although she does look like me, she is not the Vineeta, I had known earlier. At 38, I look nothing beyond 32 years. Not that I am vain but people have often told me “You don’t look your age Vineeta.” Some of them think I take huge doses of botox frequently, few of them think its magical. But one thing is common to everyone. They are surely jealous. I know many women my age will kill for this charm but it does not matter to me anymore.

 Vineeta: Past

I was not careless for myself always. There was a time when I was one of the most gorgeous girls of the snooty south campus college Sri Venkteshwar, or Venky as it was fondly called. I was happy-go-lucky, vivacious and a bold girl. I had everything a girl could ask for. And people were jealous then also. There were times I thanked god for such a life. Living in that huge GK house was just perfect, full of parents love and loaded with friends. I had been a good student and a nice girl, too involved in my life to bother about anything outside. Time was just flying by watching movies at Chanakya cinema, enjoying evening walks in Saket market, shopping for all new trends, attending college and studying at times. I loved to dress up for evenings. I wore my silk churidar suits with stilettos. Little compact touch up and I was a glowing beauty ready to attend social dos. Mumma’s friends often commented in weddings and parties “Rama, you better beware. Someone will just steal this beauty one day. And you will just watch dumbstruck.” I blushed and my cheeks flushed red. Like all young girls I knew my marriage is going to be the turning point in my life. I got shivers whenever I thought of my marriage. Though I had no specific plans or clear dreams, I just knew it would be special. Whenever that would happen.

Amidst all the fun in life, he came into my life. I still remember, it was a usual sunny march day. The weather was beautiful with slight february chill still lingering in the air. A light breeze blew all over and filled the entire campus with sweet fragrance of fresh flowers. It was the blooming season. All the lawns were painted in various hues of purple, yellow and pink clusters of dahlias, roses and small little flowers. I always liked this season. In fact I always loved all the seasons be it the Delhi chilly winters or brown autumn. I was sitting in the canteen with friends planning for another movie outing. It was Dil playing on theaters and it starred my favorite Amir Khan. How amazing can he look, I always wondered. To any onlooker, we definitely looked like a bunch of jumping and squealing, very excited girls. Just a little short of crazy. And we loved it.  

 As engrossed I was in my plans for my Amir Khan, I did not notice when Raj came and stood near us. Raj, a final year senior with light brown eyes and similar tone hair, walked up to me and said “Vineeta, I think I need to talk to you.” And my heart fluttered for unknown reasons.

Just when I was delving into my past memories, a phone ring brought me back to reality. “Mom, I am gonna go for movies with Sid. Will head back home around dinner. And I if I am late then you and papa go ahead. Don’t wait for me. kays?”

“Hmmm. Have fun sweets.” I replied not thinking.

Vineeta and Snow: Back to Present

It was Snow, my sunshine and my daughter. And before I could say anything further she had disconnected.  I wasn’t really listening anyways. I was still in the campus wearing the same blue dress with a white scarf. And I could still smell Ram ki canteen’s special chai on my table. Even today it seemed so real. For the first time, I had felt speechless. It was so filmy and it was happening to me. I was exhilarated and I didn’t exactly know why.

But Snow’s call did pull me back to reality, my present life with an adorable daughter and a husband. And that life seems perfect and glossy from outside, another reason for people to feel envious. What they don’t know is what happens after the perfect and happy family mask is worn off. I know the reality of this façade. It’s not pleasant.

Behind the pretense of a rich, classy, almost perfect and happy family, lives an unhappy and cold couple. I am not happy and he is not happy too. For our own reasons. And we have given up the hope and efforts to be happy a long time ago. I tried to love Akash. I really did. And I failed. And so did he. He tried to love me too. But he could not find me. I was a changed girl after marriage. The vivaciousness of me he had liked had gone away. Something in me had died or given away to a new Vineeta. We both did not recognize this Vineeta. One choice and one decision had changed my life and his too. And made him bitter and disappointed man. I don’t blame him completely for that. I know I am one of the reasons but I cant help it, even if I want to. I know I had failed him as a wife. And there was nothing I can change about it. I don’t like it either. After 19 years of staying together I am now sure of one thing – our marriage was never based on love or compatibility. And it was an unhappy one. It’s a mere formality, for all the reasons I know of.

The only respite in this rather unwanted and mundane life came from my dear daughter. She makes me feel alive. She makes the life feel worthwhile. I do not think we get along like friends but she is the only person alive I love totally. She is probably one of the factors I am holding back to this defunct marriage. She is the only thread that keeps us tied at the corners of this very weak and tattered fabric called marriage. And the irony here is Snow always reminded me of a person whose memories just refuse to go away, even after 19 years. 

And these days she is in love with Sid. Well supposedly. He is a nice boy. I have known him for quite a few years. We might not be the best friends-type-mother-daughter but I do understand her even if her father has constantly blamed me for ruining her ways. Apparently I gave her a lot of undesired liberty. I know I chose rightfully when she went to the prestigious Modern School. Akash was barely there when she was growing up. He was always way too much engrossed into his work. She was extremely social even as a young kid. She loved to have people around her. If she was not my darling daughter I could have called her an innocent attention monger. Just like old Vineeta. She anyways never had to do much to grab attention. Her natural beauty and charm did that. 

She has always surprised with her strength in many matters. She could be cute, strong, bold, demure, naughty, all in one go. I wanted her to be strong enough to take her decisions, independently and to be able to fight for her choices. I know what not-so-right decisions can lead to and how difficult it becomes to take a decision out of no choices. I want to give her the choices I was never given – to live and find her own happiness, her way. And I want her to listen to her heart and choose wisely, unlike me.

Vineeta and Raj: Past

Between so much thinking, my coffee has gone cold. It tastes stale. Keeping down the cup with a puckered face, I flew back to my campus in my thoughts. 19 years back, I had committed the unforgettable felony and fallen in love. That one meeting with Raj had taken me to another rosy world, altogether. He had asked me to help him with the reservations for upcoming annual trip to Simla. He was the president of CBS - Co Curricular Board of Students. “My dad has one of the most popular travel agencies in area is just a coincidental fact. He definitely is looking for lame reasons to talk to me.”  I thought to myself, hopefully.

I had heard about love at first sight. Suddenly I wanted to believe all of romantic crap I had read in novels. Something took over me, like some spirit just enchanted me. In one moment, I wanted him to be my Rhett Butler and Mr. Rochester. “Oh why can’t you be my Darcy?” I could remember all the characters so clearly. “My literature professor Mr. Ahuja will be so pleased if he could hear my thoughts about whatever he had taught. “ I chuckled to myself. The funniest part was despite thinking so vividly I could not cough up words. I am so stupid, he must be thinking. “Well, No. Aah! Yes. Sure. Let me see. I could always help with that stuff.” I finally managed to blurt out.  

 I still don’t remember what had pulled me strongly towards him. He was just another above average looking boy. Not worth anything more than a second glance. I had been pursued by many good-looking hunks of Venky. But I had never shown any interest. And here he was a simple boy with no pretentious attitude, still I could not help myself falling for him. His integrity and principles were definitely a huge draw. A small conversation about trip reservations soon led to movies and lunch dates. It  gradually became a routine. Even after being with him for more than 10 months, I could still feel butterflies every time I met him. With him I was suddenly looking into mirrors much often than before.

All those stupid romantic songs and poems seemed more meaningful now. I wrote real long letters for him. But never gave him those. I was scared that he might think I am some type of psycho. Suddenly I liked and understood Romeo and Juliet better. And Mr. Ahuja appreciated that. A pretty girl had become glowing prettier. He had changed me and in some ways bettered me. He had become my personal Amir Khan. 

Ours was not the most perfect couple but it did catch an occasional jealous glare when we walked hand in hand.  And how I loved it. All the times when he waited outside college gate waiting for me so that we could walk in together, made me realize I was special. The best about him was that he accepted me with my slight mad streak. Even if I was not the perfect girl, I knew for him I was right. With him I was completely myself at times and a different new girl at times. And that made me love him again every time.

On a freezing January evening, he picked me up from our usual pik-up point, just outside GK, and we went to Saket market for a stroll. Enjoying my favorite strawberry ice cream in a cold winter evening was yet another perfect date. We interlocked our fingers as we walked. Despite the chilly wind, I felt cozy and warm. Relishing my ice cream I realized he had stopped, rather frozen. Confused I looked at his face to catch an expression. Confusion, fear and determination, all of these passed by in quick succession. “What’s wrong baba?” I asked perplexed. I did not know what he had seen.

“Shweta aunty. Shit…” was all I could make out of his slight mumbling. And then I saw her. Right in front of us she stared at both of us with shocked expression. I could still smell her imported perfume from a distance. I was numb. But I had realized Raj had not left my hand. He was the only reminder of a live world around me. I dropped my ice cream on to the grass. It seemed all the hustle bustle of the market was still on. But two of us had frozen. And our worlds too froze.

 I wanted to say something but I could not find words. Neither did he. The silence was getting increasingly awkward now. “I had to come up with something and salvage the situation some how. But what?” I quietly asked myself, trying not to show the panic.

“Namaste aunty.” Raj had broken the ice and spoken before me. He knew I hated to face and react to such awkward situations. I liked my life slightly easy. And he always made it so.

“Ummm…You and here.?” I could see the question and suspicion in her eyes.

“Wel yeah aunty. We just bumped into each other.” Raj quickly replied as I shifted right next to him. But he did not leave my hand. He was there for me and will always be. He assured me without saying a word. I fell in love with him again.

Shweta aunty quickly left dazed and shocked to some extent. Raj looked at me and we burst out laughing. We laughed a lot that evening. This is how our relationship was. He stood by me when he knew I could not face it alone. And we laughed it off later, despite the fact that we both knew we had just escaped being caught.

But this happiness phase did not last long. And Papa soon found out about us. We expected him to be angry. But he was just quiet and that scared me. “It will be alright. We will work out a solution.” Raj told me and I felt relieved.

One day without asking me any questions, I was told I was to get married in 2 months to Akash. He was Aggarwal Uncle’s son. I had known him socially. But how could I marry him?

I met Raj in college lawns under the pretext of literature classes and told him the entire scenario between sobs. He asked me if I wanted all this. I wanted him to go and talk to papa and get married to me. He was too nervous to do the official talk. First time I doubted him and his love for me. But his eyes could not lie. He was just as scared as I was. I convinced him. But the efforts turned fruitless and papa refused to budge.

Vineeta : The Choice 

He gave me an option. I had never thought he would agree for something like this. As usual, he managed to surprise me. I could not fight my tears now. Sobbing in his warm embrace, I could smell my favorite perfume on his shirt. This is what I wanted today and forever. And I knew it was not possible and definitely not easy. But then I always opted for easy way out, he had often complained. Did that mean I was selfish? I didn’t know then.

And that day too, I had chosen, with a heavy heart, despite myself. What I had not realized was that this choice will be my decision and others later. The choice seemed painful but I thought I could pull it of. How naïve of me.!

I thought I would be able to survive a marriage. So what if I loved Raj with all my heart but I knew I did not have strength to elope and start a new life altogether, even if it meant being with him forever. I knew Akash, and he was a smart educated boy. We could definitely maintain a marriage.  And in two months I was married. I was no longer Vineeta Goyal but Vineeta Akash Gupta. A different unhappy woman. And still in love with Raj. After almost a year of trying to be a good wife, me and Akash had realized, our marriage was not working out. Consequences of 

Thinking of all the years after that, my life just flashed in front of me. And reliving the memories, I smile helplessly just as when a tear crossed my cheeks. Is the doorbell ringing, I wonder. Oh yes. It definitely is. I don’t know how long has it been ringing. “Chanda open the door, it must be Akash.” I yelled, wiping my face. But no one responded. The bell rang again. “I will have to go and get it myself.”

Reluctantly I got up and went to the door. “He has got the keys. Why can’t he just open the door himself? Had I been sleeping, he would have to do it.”

Tying my long hair with a clip, I open the door little irritated. Whoever stood at the door was totally unexpected. It is the echo of past few hours and memories I had just re lived, standing in person. It is the man I have been thinking about for past 19 years. It is Raj, well an older version of my Raj. It is not even a dream come true for me. I had never imagined seeing him again after the last time I met in college. For the longest moment, everything stopped. I do not know how to react. Can I cry or should I laugh?  I am at a loss of words after a very long time. It seems as if we are meeting in college canteen again for the first time. All I could manage to do was to hug him. And all the questions and loneliness and despair flowed down in tears in his arms.

Snow: The Daughter in Present

“C’mon Siddie, I don’t wanna miss the beginning. And if I do then you will have to tolerate this girlie movie all over again with me.” I giggled as I pulled him along for yet another movie. How much I loved to torture Sid. My poor Sidharth Sharma. And how strongly I felt for him. He is the stabilizing factor in my eccentric life. At 18, we have been going strong for past two years, after being best buddies since grade 9. I often tell my friends that he is my blessing in this world. Everyone in college knows about us and is jealous of us. I love that part.

My life seems perfect from outside. I am a typical South Delhi girl enjoying her youth with a handsome, caring boyfriend cum best friend, a promising career in fashion design and a nice loving family. Well almost. Between all of this cool life, my family is not perfect. There have always been underlying tensions in my not so warm house. All of us realize that something is missing but I can’t point what it is.

As I disconnected the call I told Sid, “Today again mom sounded so lost. Only if I could know why.”

“Snow baby this is your favorite actor. Focus on the movie baby.” He whispered to me. It seems as if she is looking for something always. And she doesn’t know herself what is it. I have asked her quite a lot of times.

“Oh its nothing. Just like that house and family and things.” And she ignored.

There have been times when she was happy and content. But the intensity has definitely been lower.  Dad has been quite busy and cold himself all his life. May be its him or his schedule. I do not really know. And at times I don’t want to know.

Popcorn in my hand and Sid’s arm on my shoulder brought me out of my thoughtful world. The movie ended at a happy note. Life should also be like it. After a nice quick dinner I am back home. I do not like the thought of another tense night in this silent and cold home. But today something was different. Mom was a little awkward in the silence. But then whatever, I shrugged.

This uneasiness has been continuing for a few months now. I am now noticing mom is behaving a little weird. She seems happier than before but eyes seem to portray something else. Like before they seem to be looking for something, but with a different zeal. Its like she wants to hide something and feels its not right too. I asked her what is the matter but mom changed the topic.

I think I need to discuss this with Sid. “Oh Just chill Snow. It might be the grown up phenomena. Why do you need to interfere?  Give your mom some time. If things still don’t work out then may be you could have a girlie discussion with her.”

“Yeah may be. I don’t need to. It’s her life after all. But what the hell ! She is my mom and I ought to know.”

It’s almost 5 months and I had actually forgotten about the talk I intended to have with mom. Last week I went to mom’s room to ask her for her new silk scarf. I saw few of bags packed. And mom was sitting on the windowsill, her favorite place, lost in her own world. She was looking at my childhood pictures and admiring them. A tear dropped on my first birthday picture. I sensed something was drastically wrong. He air felt heavy suddenly.

“What is the matter mom? You going somewhere? With Dad?” I asked with a lump in my throat. I knew it in an instant. Mom had a huge fight with Dad and she was going to GK to her parent’s house.

“No. I wont let my family slip away like this. No ways. I will speak to Dad if that is what it takes.” I resolved before she even said something. 

“No I was.” Mom replied with a sigh. And I was suddenly relieved. I wanted to go hug her and tell her how much she and Dad meant to me that moment. But I stopped. I could see she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red. He really had cried a lot. It worried me all the more. And then she told me the truth.

 

Snow: The Truth

I always said truth is the most overrated virtue. There is no place for saints in the world. And it is because everyone puts the truth in such a high regard, people end up lying and hiding things. I do believe in clarity in relationships but till the time the truth doesn’t kill the people involved.  And I am not ready to face or accept any such truths now.

Mom told me that she was supposed to be going. Forever. With some one else.

Two sentences and my world shattered in front of me. My mom was actually having an affair with a man and she intended to elope, leaving all of us. How could my mom do it? My mother.!!

I ran away from there and hid myself in my room.  I could not believe it. Mothers are not supposed to fall in love. My mom couldn’t. This only happens in American sitcoms or the stupid novels. It can’t be real. I called up Sid. 

“I did not even hear her story, who was the man…No I cant talk to her….How does it matter…Sid, but she is my mom. What will happen to dad, to me…and Nanaji, you think he will be able to take this…how could she not think about any of us…” I was howling and shivering with anger, shock and grief. “She can’t go. I need them both here.” I told Sid. He suggested me to talk.

After a few hours of relentless crying and anger breakouts I was able to think. Not clearly but yes I thought I was ready to talk to mom.  On my way to her room I was thinking of my life and childhood. It felt strange. I have played in this corridor and suddenly it seemed so dark and never ending. I could see no light at the end .

I always knew something lacked between my parents. No matter how hard they tried to put up a pretense of a normal couple, I could see beyond Dad’s bitterness and mom’s withdrawn attitude. But I could not believe my mom was in love with some one else. She had an extra marital affair for past 8 months. Was Unhappy marriage really a license? Where did you get the get the strength of going against the moral fabric of society? Dad knows? Will you both stay together? Will you actually move out? I will be asking a lot of questions today. 

 

Vineeta and Snow: The Truth and the Final Choice

A very distraught Snow came to my room. In one moment I was thankful to see her but in next moment her state worried me. Anxious I got up and rushed to hold her. But she blocked coldly. “Mom I need to talk. Please. And you probably know what I need to talk about.” she said curtly.

“Yeah I think so.” Explaining about your love affair to your teenage daughter was the last thing I had imagined myself doing. I hope she will understand. Seeing her I realized all hope had not been lost. And I gathered courage. I was ready.

 Starting with how we met in college, I told Snow about how I loved and lost and loved again. A whirlwind romance followed after that brief encounter in afternoon. I knew it is not right. It is against the society and morals. But this time I was determined not to make the easy choice and was ready to fight for it. I was not a18 year immature girl anymore. I love Raj and have always loved him, even in moments I did not know about it. I told Snow how one wrong choice for a seemingly easy life had changed everything for me. And for Akash too.

Snow blamed me for Akash’s behavior. But I had accepted that reality long time back and learned to live with it. May be Snow too was used to Akash and his indifferent anger.

“But you decided to go mom? Wasn’t I a reason enough anymore for you to stay and continue?” Snow asked with tears in her eyes. She could barely speak.

“Hmmm…if you really want to know then Yes Snow. You were primarily the reason I held onto it.” I wiped her tears with the end of my scarf.

One day while having coffee in our favorite coffee shop in Taj Ambassador, Raj asked me to move in with him. “We can always file for a divorce later. But you don’t have to live in that unhappy place anymore.” He held my hand.

“But I have a lovely daughter in that unhappy place. Raj.” I told him. And I can’t just abandon her for my own selfish reasons.

“You have to make a choice this time again, Vineeta. Snow is more than welcome to live with us. And you know I am saying this with all my heart. You just have to talk to her. She is 17. I am sure she will understand.”

“I had really decided to go Snow. Despite everything. But you are still my reason for my life. And I am so sorry for letting you go through this ordeal. I really am.” Before I could complete, Snow moved closer to me and laid her head in my lap. Just like old days. And I felt complete. Could there be anything in this world that can make me feel more content and happier than seeing her smiling in her sleep? I caressed her and kissed her lightly.

“I don’t know mom what’s wrong or what is right, now. But I really think if you think you want to go then you must. I know you are my mom and I still cannot accept that you love some one. But you are entitled to make your own choices. It is your life after all and I will not judge you. I will try to love you the same way. Despite everything.” Snow told me tired and drowsy. I patted her and she drifted off to sleep in my lap.

“Lets see. I still have to make the choice. And this time the decision will be hopefully right if not easy.” I whispered to Raj on phone. I smiled lightly with a tinge of sadness and pain.

We are our choices after all.   

The Choice is about choices we all make. At times they are simple and easy to follow and at times they just seem to be.

Its about Vineeta and Snow. Their conflicts and their choices. The story is about how choices made by these two women change their own lives as well as of those who are connected.

It traces their journey across the path of these choices where Snow finds herself and Vineeta. For Vineeta she looses herself, finds her lost love, redefines her take on life and ultimately realizes the consequences of accepting her own choices.

The Choice affirms my philosophy “ We seldom make our choices independently and un-influenced. And they never affect only us.” 

Vineeta, a married woman reminisces about her past and ponders over her decisions as a young girl. She wonders if life would have been different if she had chosen differently, then and now.

Snow a modern young girl faced with consequences Vineeta’s choices has to make her own choices. Her decisions today will influence her life with same intensity as her mother’s did 19 years back.

Akash and Raj, the men, their lives changed with Vineeta’s choices in past and will change again.