“I can’t pick the tops, but I can pick the bottoms.”


wealthymattersJeff Sandefer was once my teacher in school.Since graduating from Harvard Business School in 1986, Sandefer has had many successful business ventures, amassing a personal fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Here is the story of how this Texas oilman acquired 17 billion barrels of Australian shale oil reserves in a controversial deal that eventually generated roughly $150 million for his philanthropic organizations. Those nonprofit groups now play a major role in Sandefer’s efforts to change higher education in Texas.

Confidentiality agreements prohibit Sandefer from revealing details of the Australian play. He says he can’t even confirm the identity of his partners, the Ziff brothers of New York, even though their involvement is widely known.

Some in the Australian media have portrayed Sandefer’s 2003 investment in Southern Pacific Petroleum as a calculated ploy to force SPP into liquidation and hijack the company’s vast reserves and technology. Read more of this post

Barbie Weds Superman – Wedding of the Century !


wealthymattersLast night I heard confirmation that  Team 2 (consisting of myself and fellow IndiBloggers Akshay Iyer, Leena Singbal, Vanessa Rowe, Subham Singh, Bikash Bhandary, Prashant Kharkhera, Aditi Pathak, Mohit Chabria, Chirag  ) had been judged a winner of the Ad Mad Event at ‪#‎Flipkartkids‬ for our improv perfomance: “Barbie Weds Superman – Wedding of the Century !”.

And the judge was no less than Ace Adman O&Ms Piyush Pandey!(intelligence as per the person shooting the official video.)

Yay !

I played Masoom 05151 and anchored the show we put up. And ‘Barbie Weds Superman – Wedding of the Century !’, is probably how I will always best recall last Saturday’s ‪#‎Flipkartkids event.

Hopefully I can track down photos or even the official video of our performance. IndiBlogger founders and crew can you help?

I initially attended this event to launch Flipkart Li’l Stars – India’s Biggest Online Kids Store, to get some insight into how I could invest in the “Toy Story”. After all we are now an increasingly young nation with a lot of children and parents who are more aware than ever before of toy trends world-over. Moreover we now have greater means to indulge our children. So there must be money to be made in the situation. And I had heard that people from Disney, Mattel and Chhota Bheem were to attend the event. Read more of this post

Why Does An Online Term Insurance Plan Premium Differ Between Companies?


wealthymattersWith an ever increasing awareness about term insurance policies, there is a lot for a person to choose and gain from.Insurance companies are  making it much easier for people to purchase term policies. One such initiative is online term insurance that allows you to seek life cover from the comfort of home, a fuss free way to buy insurance!

Statistically, one online term plan is bought every five minutes in India. The number of customers buying online term policies have risen from 500 to 15000 per month. However, there is still great concern among buyers as to why the premium of online term insurance plans  differ from one company to another. Here are the reasons: Read more of this post

Yes, Brands Are Listening.


wealthymattersHere’s what I wrote on 3Nov,2015 :

The Long And Short Of Blogging?

Hopefully.

Great to connect with Christoph Trappe, IMA Marketer of the Year – 2015,and hear my thoughts and pitches to clients repeated almost verbatim.

Pity that with most of my clients my work still gets stuck in “Approval Hell” and the end result passed by committee, lacks the fire of the original.

Old ways of marketing still work just about enough for people to continue doing more of the same and whole job descriptions and organizations remain relevant only if things continue the way they always have. So understandably the resistance is fantastic.

Here’s hoping that I too can team up with people, open enough to do things in a new way, to deliver the sort of results Christoph is able to deliver with his authentic-story telling.

But today on 18November,I can say YES brands are listening! At least some companies with receptive top managements are willing to have their marketing staff and SEO teams sit down with the likes of me and they do value our ideas on brand building via content marketing etc.

 

Letting lt All Sink In


wealthymatters4Nov,2015

I always find it worthwhile talking to entrepreneurs who have been there, done that. I learn most of what I find truly worthwhile that way.

And when the entrepreneur is Bruce Dickinson of the Iron Maiden, I’ve found its really quite something!

Initially, I was inclined to downgrade any interaction with Bruce. After all what could I really have in common with the lead vocalist of a band I’ve never bothered to even listen to before? And anyways I’m not fan material .I like certain performances of a few musicians/bands here and there and that’s it. I have them stored in my i-pod/phone/you-tube account. These pieces touch me and I listen to them over and over again.

But boy was I wrong! Read more of this post