Arriving at the corporate HQ of Perfect Relations, it was the first agency environment that we had come to that had some of the superficial trappings of prestige. Sitting in the boardroom, presentation set up, Dillip and two of his team Dev and Poonam came in. Dillip welcomed us with his smooth openness ‘we must have some samosas, it’s 12 o clock, we must have food.’ So we had samosas, paneer and pistachio biscuits and more coffee (I thought India was a tea nation… from what I’ve seen India seems to run on coffee!) I think this is a practice we should start at Trinity – though I don’t know anyone in the UK who makes samosas that good.
Dillip and his team, Dev and Poonam, took us through an overview of the Indian marketing space. We talked about the challenges of e-commerce amongst a nation of customers that ‘likes to squeeze it before they buy.’ Where these guys really came to life was their heartland, PR. The PR industry in India is thriving business, grappling with the same issues with the internet and online PR as we are, but where I found them most interesting was in how important PR is in alcohol and tobacco marketing (where there is an ad ban) and lobbying, for which Dillip himself leads the charge.
Having run a very successful business for over 20 years, I found Dillip’s insight in to managing his overhead concise and inspiring. 1) Reward the people who hit the spot. 2) Don’t carry the people who don’t. 3) Don’t sell to Martin Sorrell where suddenly you have to worry about EBITDA every year. 4) Make sure you’re having fun.
Dev & Poonam from Perfect Relations
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