imran jafri — verbose mode

So everyone knows, I work 7 days of the week, and Sunday is no exception, so this morning I had received an email with a zip file. Honestly I am always very wary of opening of Zip files, you never know what is packed inside.

But it looked like a gentle email requesting our services to clear his DHL package that he had received from China. So I unzipped the file, and there were 7-8 docs inside., and then suddenly the description of goods caught my eye Bam! ‘silicon sexual toy’ .… and I kind of jumped out of my chair, and carefully observed the sender of the email, he looked like a 26 yo bloke working in a far far away factory, and he had given his room address. I could understand his pain, he perhaps got tired of watchin’ pr0n and fapping on his laptop screen, and now wanted the next level of fun., during those lonely-factory-night-shifts. But sadly we are a very modest company.

If the tariffs are strictly restricted to China and do not affect the cross-border supply chain, Vietnamese exporters will be more competitive and will see an increase in demand for their products, especially textiles and garments.

Yeah I have been pondering over it, how this would effect the Vietnam exports, they are likely to have very competitive advantage and increase in the demand exponentially.

I hate to break it to you, but I don’t like activism at least in sports, we have media, literature, art and political rallies of all sort to demonstrate that. Yes we are humans as a sportsman, but we should keep our motives out of it and instead entirely dedicate our efforts to recreation for the masses.

I actually have been very critical of skype redesign and almost had ditched it since ever.

June 5 2018

I guess there is a fair skepticism over the acquisition. Despite they didn’t screw up linkedin yet. They however did ruin Skype, which was an enterprise instant messenger and wildly popular everywhere, and turned it into a cheap snapchat wanna-be clone. I guess there is a fair skepticism over the acquisition. Despite they didn’t screw up linkedin yet.

So this weekend, I’ve been pondering over, which kind of marketing is more difficult .. since we are a B2B .. or business to business service provider, so I have no clue how B2C works, but apparently it looks like consumer marketing is very easy … shinny colors, catchy phrases, emotional and viral content … that’s all …

whereas B2B marketing is really tricky … despite that on the other side there are still humans who are making decisions, but they are rather making a business decision to choose our services and a lot of thought goes into that process.

I guess a good B2B marketing is all about building trust and ensuring … that you will deliver on your promises and take the responsibility for your product or services.

And the most common mediums of B2B marketing are of course advertisement ..’ targeted ‘ Adwords campaigns, SEM is as important as SEO, Content Marketing very vital too, and Email Marketing (bit tricky but avoid sending too many nevertheless do send them at regular intervals) … remember the old saying, out of sight … out of mind … so never ever be out of sight … be there … make your presence known … keep showing up … keep knocking .. but do not be annoying in the process.

Ironically, Steve Jobs didn’t have technical skills neither in Industrial Design nor Software coding, But he was gifted with an exceptional ability to distinguish what is ugly, good, better and the best.

He would keep asking Jony, kid! could you make it better. and then, is it the best you can do? …

compared that to Bill Gates, the ‘Chief Architecture’ of the Microsoft Windows, handed coded, perhaps billion upon billion lines of code himself, But he never had a good understanding what is a Good Design and User-Experience.. very mediocre in his skills of perceiving it.

Also Steve had a prophetic 6th sense, to accurately predict the near future trends. Gates lol, took 10 years to catch up with Gmail, remember ‘hotmail’ … which has changed as many domains and sign-ins gateways as there are stars in the universe, and yet no one in their right mind uses it …

When Gmail was offering 1 Gb space in the early days of ‘cloud’ storage, Hotmail still capped it at 10 mb., and could not predict the near future trends.

So moral of the story, being visionary is more important than technical skills., I don’t wanna undermine its importance too. But one can hire technical folks, but being visionary is solely the result of in-depth knowledge, attention to details and god-gifted too.

Microsoft Outlook is the worst thing ever happened to the freight forwarding industry … coupled by the invention of a USB stick, peeps back up their emails on a USB even in 2018 …. an entire morning is ruined, because the POP server won’t deliver emails. Frenetic calls are made to the 1-Man-Army-Web-Hosting-Shop … who has been hosting 1000s of websites on a single shared web hosting account.

I guess part of the reason, why freight forwarding industry globally at an SME level lacks web based software and tech, is that to become an ‘expert’ it does not require very high qualification, anyone who can read and type emails.. can be an expert in a span of 2-3 years .. it also happens to be very lucrative, for less qualified middle class individuals.

Highly qualified individuals very rarely choose this industry, because it’s immensely hectic and stressful. So therefore only less qualified individuals stick around… having said that, more qualified folks have very higher chance of career growth in a lesser period of time. If they are able to take stress and pains of this industry.

Sales folks make a lot of money, most of them got elevated from a peon level … but they are making more money than a more qualified person in another industry …

I had only accidentally got into this business at the age of 17, because my father who ran this business, at the time, had badly needed my assistance, and I was the eldest among my siblings… I was only ambitious to be a ‘cricketer’ and play for the national team… however.

Folks! I can’t emphasize enough 😐  .. email subject is the most sacred space on the whole worldwide web or wwww .. a lot of of ‘important’ emails get buried under the mountain of threads and loops because their subject is ‘shipment inquiry’ or ‘shipment from China’ when you are coping with hundreds of emails on a daily basis, it’s more likely you are going to prioritise emails by their subject.

An email with a subject ‘shipment ID number from China by Customer Name shipment Mode shipment weight volume’ is going to get more attention than merely ‘shipment from China’ I always strive to properly format the subject to help myself., Because I know once it becomes a ‘thread’ everyone is going to follow its subject first typed.

Phuck! Gonna shell out $6000 for a one and half month of container detention 😑, I doubt phucking 🚢 Maersk makes that much off a single container in a whole year. Container Detention is the hidden Gross Profit in a balance sheet.

Ironically the container itself would cost much lower than this. 😐 I guess it’s about time all freight forwarders should transform into a container line NVOCC and grab these profits for themselves., and use these 🚢 steamship lines as a glorified ferry service.

It would require a bit of initial capital investment for licensing and container leasing but I am sure in the 3rd World countries where Customs are overly strict on imports, hence would take much longer in the clearance process, ROI would be 500%, Esp., on the shorter transit times routes.

Oh wait. It’s actually already happening.. freight for an FCL from Dubai to Karachi is hilariously $5 per 20’ and has only 3 days TTime. And an NVOCC makes money off the container detention averaging at $50 to $80 per day.

Success of a ‘PR STUNT’ primarily depends on its viral reach as well as ability to keep the press engaged for as longer period of time as possible. And it has ticked mark the both boxes.

I’m not implying an entrepreneur in the ranks of Musk, would be dependent on that. He is just reckless like most of the self made billionaires. I applaud his efforts regardless of that.