Indore · Business Advisor
The question is which one you are in.
Four decades of running businesses in Indore. Now spent on yours.
30 minutes · no charge
What I believe
I have worked in this city and around it for forty years. I ran an international agribusiness, spent years in real estate, looked after a hotel, looked after land. Some of it earned. Some of it lost.
One thing came up again and again. The owner here works hard, keeps his accounts straight, and knows his trade better than anyone. What he does not have is one person he can say this to without flinching — I do not understand what is happening.
He cannot say it to the bank; the limit gets stuck. He cannot say it to the staff; confidence goes. He cannot say it at home; the worry only spreads. And the consultants who come from outside show slides, take a fee, and leave.
I am not a coach. I have never built a course. I have run businesses, and I have fallen in them. If what I learned is of use to someone else, that is enough for me.
The most expensive thing in business is not a wrong decision. It is a decision never taken.
Who I work with
I do not work with everyone. The people I do work with usually look like one of these four. If one of them reads like your own situation, we will probably have something to talk about.
Pithampur
The machines are in, the orders come, but almost all of it from one or two large buyers. Payment arrives in ninety days; raw material goes out in cash. Half the capacity sits idle and still it feels risky to take new work — because nobody is sure whether that work actually earns. The day disappears on the shop floor, and at the end of the month the accounts raise one question: where did all that effort go?
Soya · namkeen
In season everything is needed at once — stock, money, labour, godown space. The rest of the year the unit runs at half. Prices move up and down, and the margin moves with the price rather than with the work. The real question is whether you keep selling a commodity or build a name of your own — and if it is a name, where the money for it comes from.
Sarafa · Malharganj
The shop is fifty years old and customers know you by name. But the same goods are now cheaper online, and the new customer never walks in. Three people from the family work in it and none of the three has a defined job. One looks at accounts, one at buying, one at nothing in particular — and every decision is taken together, which means no decision is taken at all.
Second generation
You studied outside, worked somewhere for a few years, and now the family business is yours to run. You can see plainly what needs to change — but the staff still listens to your father, and your father can see that what has been working is still working. Neither of you is wrong. What is missing is someone in the middle that both of you will listen to.
Method
A business does not climb in a straight line. It moves in a cycle, like a field. Each season has its own work, and the trouble starts when someone begins sowing in the harvest season. The only thing we settle in a first call is which season you are in right now.
Choose a season
बोना · Diagnosis and clarity
Sow
First be clear where the business actually earns, and where the money goes.
What most owners call the problem is not the problem — it is the symptom. Nothing new gets started in this season. We take your numbers, your customers and your time, separate the three, and decide what genuinely needs doing over the next year.
Signs of this season
सींचना · Systems and discipline
Tend
Anything that runs only because you are present is not a business.
In this season we separate the work from the person doing it. Who decides what, when the accounts get reviewed, when material gets ordered, and what genuinely requires the owner — all of it gets written down. One thing at a time. This season takes the longest and looks the least impressive.
Signs of this season
काटना · Profit and growth
Harvest
Now grow — but in the direction the first two seasons pointed at.
Here the work is on pricing, customers and capacity. A new line, a new market, a new plant — or simply charging two percent more for the work you already do. Growth is not always large. Very often it is the same work at a better price.
Signs of this season
परती · Succession and stepping back
Fallow
A field has to be left empty for a season. So does an owner.
This is the least discussed season and the most necessary. When and how much to hand to the next generation, which part to let go of, and what you yourself will do for the next ten years. Putting it off does not cost the business. It costs the family.
Signs of this season
Work together
The three are different, and none of them is for everybody. Under each one is a note on who it is not for. Read that part before you decide.
First step
Free or a nominal fee
Two hours · Indore · a few times a year
One room, thirty or forty owners, two hours. Nothing is sold. We take one subject — cash flow, pricing, or the line between family and business — and talk about it openly. It is the cheapest way to judge whether I am worth your time.
Who this fits
Who this does not fit
Group
Coming soon
Fee being finalised
Eight to ten owners · once a month · three hours
Eight to ten non-competing owners, once a month, three hours. In each sitting two people put their real problem on the table and the rest work on it. I run the room; I do not supply the answers — the answers come out of the room. What is said in the room stays in the room.
Who this fits
Who this does not fit
One-to-one
Fee discussed after the first call
Limited · begins with a full day
With you, on your business. It starts with a full day at the unit or the shop, with the numbers open. After that, fixed meetings and a phone call in between. I do not do the work on your behalf; the decisions stay yours. Only a few owners a year.
Who this fits
Who this does not fit
I take no commission from any bank, CA, software vendor or supplier, and I hold no stake in any client's business.
Results
Everything below will come from real owners, with their permission. Until that permission is in hand, this space stays empty. Invented praise will not appear here.
This section is incomplete — content is not yet verified
TODO — real client quote, after written permission. Do not publish without it.
TODO — real client quote, after written permission.
TODO — real client quote, after written permission.
A few outcomes
Book
Thirty minutes, on the phone or on video. No charge and no obligation.
Loading the calendar…
Calendar not opening? Pick a time directly hereOr simply call +91 99999 99999
Listen
Short videos, in Hindi, one subject at a time. And one message a week on the WhatsApp Channel — no more than that.
Recent videos
See everything on YouTubeOne message a week. No forwards, no advertising. When you follow, your number is not visible to me or to any other follower — that is how WhatsApp Channels work.
Follow the channelAbout
Born and educated in Indore. I started working at the end of the seventies, when trade here still turned around the mandi and the mill.
I spent years at Prestige and eventually ran it as Chief Executive — an international agribusiness headquartered in Indore. After that, my own ventures: real estate, hospitality and agriculture. Some awards came, some losses came, and both taught something.
These days I speak at the Indore Management Association, stay active in Rotary, and spend the rest of my time sitting with owners across Malwa. That last part suits me best.
Questions
Neither. A coach asks you questions and draws the answer out of you. A consultant hands over a report. I am the person who has done this work himself and will tell you what I did at the same turn, and what turned out to be wrong about it. The decision stays yours.
Thirty minutes. I ask three things — how long you have been in business, what is the biggest thing stuck right now, and what changes if it gets unstuck. No presentation, no form. At the end of it I tell you plainly whether I can be of use or not.
Three hours a month for the Baithak group. For one-to-one advisory, a full day to begin, then half a day each quarter with calls in between. Less than that and nothing shifts — and be a little suspicious of anyone asking for much more.
The open seminar is free or carries a nominal fee. Fees for the Baithak group and one-to-one advisory are being finalised and are stated plainly in conversation. The first call costs nothing, and fees come up in it only if you ask.
No. No commission, and no arrangement with any bank, CA, software company or supplier. If I suggest a name, I get nothing from it. And I do not take a stake in your business.
Yes. Size is not the thing that matters. That said, if the business has only just started and the first customer has not come in yet, I am probably not the right person. My work is with businesses that are already running.
Yes. What is told to me stays with me. In the Baithak group the same rule applies from the first day. If you want it in writing, that can be done.
Whichever you are comfortable in. Most of these conversations happen in Hindi.
Finally
No pitch.
Thirty minutes. You tell me about your business, I listen, and I say what I see. Whether anything follows is your decision. With plenty of owners there has only ever been one conversation, and that was enough.