HUMANS OF MARKSMAN

Mr. Manoj Kumar Pathak

President, Tarini minerals Pvt Ltd. -Akash Verma

What are some crucial life lessons that you have learned throughout the years?

The first has to be product quality and consistency. The strength of the product is what sells it Second, customer outreach It was figuring out demography to spread the product to the masses and creating awareness for it to have a mass appeal Third-customer commitment and delivery. In my 32 years of experience, a customeroriented approach has proven to be the basis of marketing. The customer is the most valuable asset of marketing Word of mouth is the most reliable advertising tool. These have to be the fundamental lessons to be kept in mind

Can you give insights about the industry or bust a few myths?

Steel advertising is purely based on performance and consistency. To outperform competitors, your product needs to perform better than others No advertising strategy can work until your product does. For FMCG, however, the demography you cover changes perception Another one, one should never assume that your product will be preferred, is the best, and will remain the best With technological development, change is the only constant to evolve with the market.

How did the industry cope with the pandemic, and what changes have been made post-pandemic?

The pandemic made us think differently out of compulsion, given the restrictions and changes that came with it We were adjusting to the brutal realities of business

Physical presence became unimportant - something we couldn’t have thought of earlier The steel industry, fortunately, reached great dividends during the pandemicdue to the demand and supply dynamic. Luck- I would say, was a factor here. Sometimes, logic and rationale don’t work since it is a demand-driven industry.