Kamasutra is an ancient Indian book, probably the first book ever written on the subject of humanity and relationship management. It talk about how to add pleasure to sex. I took three core concepts from Kamasutra and brought it to business and created a business process automation workflow.

Don't mate the wrong person. When you mate the wrong person, winning will be insignificant and losing will be embarrassing. 

• Business Translation: Segmentation. Know who you are, know who you are for, know how you want to please them, find out how they want to be pleased, make sure can you please them that way, and be prepared to be happy with the paycheck that comes by pleasing them that way.

• Business Translation: Focus on the experience of the transaction. Add pleasure to the relationship before, during and after the transaction. Because a well foreplay deal will mean they would want to mate more, mate more often and when they tell their peers about you, they will not only tell them what you did for them but how you made them FEEL. Customer experience matter because people share information about you by describing how they feel about you, and the sum of how everyone feels about you leads up to your reputation.
• It actually is very EASY to add pleasure to the relationship. In most cases, the expectation is that you will do what you say you will do. So, be careful what you say before you get the deal, be cognizant of what you are doing once you get the deal and make an exciting event out of delivery process. In today's day and age when paying customers are being dragged out of their seats and thrown off the plane and precious guitars are being thrown around like unwanted luggage by an airline… people are so used to getting screwed, they probably have a budget for it. SO, to be different, if all you do is actually give a damn and put yourself in your client's shoes as you are dealing with turbulence in the relationship, most clients will love you most of the times. As long as they are getting value out of the relationship and you can measure the output and outcome of your efforts that are visible and measurable, and you build  a transparent relationship with open architecture where everyone is open to all possibilities, you can pretty much GUARANTEE customer satisfaction. Once you achieve customer satisfaction, little (usually trivial) unannounced 'extras' thrown in to the relationship can ascend satisfaction to delight.
• Customer Delight matters because customer delight is an absolute necessity for ascension, retention and advocacy.

• Business Transaction: When you establish your ACE, (Authority, Credibility and Exclusivity) you don't have to persuade in the relationship, you automatically prevail in the relationship. They stop buying, you stop selling and a mutually respectable, emotionally engaged, happy time relationship is born where both parties join their strengths, compensate for each-other's weakness and together solve the business problem that you are hired to solve.
• I routinely tell my clients "I will not bill you for your time, but here's what you need to do in order to make this work and do it on time, on scope and on budget". You can't do that unless they trust you.
• So, how do you acquire trust? Well, it is usually granted to you at the beginning of the relationship in form of temporary suspension of disbelief. It is yours until you break it, it is yours to build on and amplify. You can acquire and enhance trust by client education and keeping the lines of communications open. Share as much knowledge as you can, take responsibility for client's understanding and hold their hand as they walk through your maze. Most of us fail to realize that what is common sense to us, is not so common sense to clients. Most of the time, it does not even make sense to them.
• Invest in building a healthy web presence, a deep-rich blog, publications, info-graphics, books, workbooks, worksheets and documentation binders. Be approachable. Be generously available for one on one phone call.

EXAMPLE: I recently saw a post on facebook by a close friend who is using this amazing resource. It is some sort of a technology platform that you an agency can buy for eight or ten thousand dollars (so not a trivial purchase). I asked my friend to make a warm introduction, saying 'yeah, I will buy that'. It was deal ready to close. I knew I was buying, I knew how much I was going to pay and my friend who is actually their client did the selling for them. So my friend made the intro. 'Melanie, this is Parthiv. He owns an agency. Parthiv, this is Melanie from such and such software company'. Within a minute, Melanie writes an email: "Chris, thank you for the introduction. Hey Parthiv, nice to meet you. Please watch the following eighteen videos, and AFTER you have watched my videos I will send you a link to schedule a call with me.  It's a ten thousand dollar purchase and I was a direct referral from a current client. Would it kill you to get on my schedule and talk to me for ten minutes to find out who I am, what I do, how I consume information and send me the same videos in form of a transcript with visuals and info graphics printed and organized in a binder? Melanie probably has a line at the front of her office with people like me holding ten thousand dollars in their hands… or may be not. (Full disclosure, her name is not Melanie but the story is true. I asked Chris, (Chris is his real name) "Hey man, I am not watching no damn videos" and he said "But Parthiv. She is a straight commission sales person, her time is money. She can't justify just chitchatting with you. All the information you need is recorded in these professional videos. Just watch videos and call her when you are ready to buy." I am out.

These three concepts, expanded in to a seven step business process workflow became the core engineering of Business Kamasutra campaign. This campaign was first implemented in Infusionsoft and eventually built out in Hubspot and ActiveCampaign so I guess the workflow is technology agnostic. Last week someone asked me if it can be built in Zoho. I said, 'it can be built with a box of 3 x 5 cards and a binder if you like'. It does not matter where you build it, just build it.

Here are the seven steps of Business Kamasutra:

1. SEGMENTATION: Once you know who you are, who you are for and how you want to please them; you want to create a Customer Avatar diagram and develop your strategies on who you will approach, and what you will do when they respond to your approach.  Data Intelligence and Market Research = SEGMENTATION.
2. APPROACH Once you know who you are after, you will organize, orchestrate and execute your approach. This is where you marketing mix come in to play. Multi-step, Multi-channel market outreach with targeted message(s) delivered to selective audience = APPROACH.
3. CONSENT: If your approach goes well and if the prospect is interested, they will give you a consent. It is important that you acknowledge consent immediately, express gratitude and take them to the next phase of the relationship immediately, otherwise the consent will become watered-down and eventually negated. Consent is a very perishable thing. Oh, and on your first approach, they are giving you consent to dating, not mating, so be careful with your aggression and on first approach, use language to amplify the dating ritual with a subtle mention of the mating ritual. Landing pages, Conversion Funnels, Inbound Call Center, Fax Back Reply Forms, Business Reply Cards and Inbound phone calls/text messages = CONSENT. (Another important thing about consent it connecting with them when you said you will connect with them).
4. TRUST: Now that you are in the door, give them value, share your knowledge, generously give education and information and show them that you genuinely care about them and you are in no particular hurry to monetize the relationship. When you can demonstrate that you are willing to patiently wait until the relationship is ready to start and you will not push them to 'buy now', they will calm down. Peace = TRUST.
5. FOREPLAY: Add pleasure to the relationship. When you give them information, you are establishing trust. When you listen to what they say and convince them that you have heard them, you understand them and you will treat them the way they want to be treated, you are adding pleasure to the relationship. Comfort + Communication = FOREPLAY.
6. MATING: This is the actual act of closing the deal and facilitating the transaction and delivering the products and services. This is what we call 'doing business'.
7. RELATIONSHIP TRANSFORMATION: When you take a prospect through the Business Kamasutra process, and if you can demonstrate the output and outcome of your efforts and their positive effect in the life of a client, you will transform a one night stand into a lifelong relationship. When you can depend on a client to stay with you for an extended period of time, spend more money with you and become an overt advocate/ambassador for your brand giving you testimonials and referrals… you have elevated your customer lifetime value, and for that reason you can afford to spend more to acquire a new client.

• Want to read more? Download the executive summary of the book. 
• Want to read the WHOLE book? Sure thing. Here's the link to the digital version of the book.
• Want to see how this workflow is implemented? Here's the complete campaign binder. 
• Want to talk to me about bringing this workflow in your business? Book a call with me at www.elaunchers.com/client.