India has been known for its spirituality, swamis and sadhus for as long as anyone can care to remember. Spirituality has been one of India’s most successful exports (Bollywood’s “soft power” notwithstanding). It would be most unusual to refer to the purveyors of spirituality as entrepreneurs but then that is what they, in a sense, are. They are on their own, they undertake their work with a great deal of passion and energy, and actually head organizations that generate serious revenues.
Given the vast spirituality “market” it is not surprising to find a bewilderingly large array of spirited entrepreneurs of spirituality. Yet there are only a few that have acquired a pan-Indian or global following. The success of these few therefore offers many interesting marketing lessons to entrepreneurs from the temporal world.
Lesson 1: Unique well defined customer segment
Each guru has a well defined set of followers. There are hardly any overlaps and fewer instances of cannibalization where one guru weans away followers from another. For example, one would be hard-pressed to find, say, a follower of both Sri Sri Ravishankar and Osho. Or of a Baba Ramdev and Mata Amritanandamayi. Each segment is uniquely defined.
Lesson 2: Unique Motifs
Each guru has a unique motif that defines his/her message or persona. For example, Sri Sri Ravishankar has his Sudarshan kriya, Baba Ramdev has his Yoga, Swami Prabhupada had his Krishna Consciousness, Maharshi Mahesh Yogi had Transcendental Meditation, Osho had Dynamic Meditation (most significantly), Mata Amritanandamayi has her unique hugs.
Each guru also has a unique pre-fix or suffix that defines them. “Sri Sri”, “Baba”, “Swami”, “Acharya”, “Mata”, “Bhagwan”, “Ma”, “Maharshi”, “Amma”, and so on.
Some perform “miracles”; Others talk in “holistic” terms integrating everything from Christianity to Zen; Others advocate a back to basics or back to nature approach. But each is unique in its appeal to a target audience!
Lesson 3: Laser sharp initial focus, Growth in concentric circles later
Each guru initially just had a focused simple spiritual message usually of enlightenment, how to live a stress free life, deal with personal angst and so on. Later, as the number of followers grew, the messaging reach spread up and down and across different customer groups. For example, Baba Ramdev, primarily a Yoga guru, now holds forth on AIDS, role of MNCs and fast-food; The Art of Living movement offers spiritual solace to Defence personnel and to prisoners; Deepak Chopra from mind-body medicine to “Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” and “Kama Sutra”. Swami Sukhbodhananda has corporate training programmes.
Almost all gurus today predominantly perform social service reaching out to many tens of thousands of people every day. They have established disciplined and sophisticated structures for co-ordination, command, and control of operations.
Lesson 4: Communication, Branding and Positioning
The communication techniques are interesting as well. For example, some adopt the time-tested formula of having celebrities endorse them (politicians, film-stars, sports personalities). Others use the well-known MLM (multi-level marketing) model where each follower organizes local gatherings (usually a home) where the uninitiated are invited and so on down the hierarchy. Yet others use mass media (e.g. TV) for reaching out to large numbers at a time. Mega events such as meditation camps, international meets on spirituality and consciousness with several national and international dignitaries in attendance. Aggressive pamphleteering, noisy processions and colourful banners proclaiming the arrival or presence of the gurus are employed usually catering to the mass audience.
The creation of the personality cult via the addition of adulatory prefixes and suffixes. For example, a recent banner in a city proclaimed the arrival of “His Holiness Shree Shree Param Pujya (insert guru’s name) ji Maharaj”! Clearly, some organized group of people is bestowing these honorifics and popularizing them.
Usage of modern communication tools such as TV, Events, Audio, Web-sites call for a sophisticated understanding of the role of these tools and the target audiences for each of these media vehicles.
Sample this from the web-site of a spiritual leader with a reasonable name-recall:
QUOTE “Times of India in their recent poll on “who talks the best” places Swamiji as the one, who tops the list on all counts as the best speaker; The Week magazine acclaims Swamiji as one among the top five best exponent of spiritual knowledge (sic); His other English books are marching best sellers; Swamiji was invited as a dignitary in five different panels at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and was a special invitee to the United Nation World Millenium Summit of spiritual Leaders” UNQUOTE
Clearly, gaining recognition abroad is an important element is gaining acceptance at home. Indians love things “phoren” and spirituality is no different. Most gurus started out at home, acquired celebrity Indian followers and then acquired foreign followers, which helped increase the following in India; Some like Swami Yogananda and Swami Prabhupada (ISKCON founder), and Maharshi Mahesh Yogi emigrated to the US; However, with India’s rising self-confidence (thanks to the attention in the international arena and recognition by the global press!), gurus like Baba Ramdev have gained immense following in India even with a negligible international following with their simple earthy communication bolstered by savvy TV based messaging.
Well, what do you think of these four lessons?
[Guest post by Sanjay Anandaram. The article was first published in FE'07 and republished with author's permission. Image credit]
Amazing stuff!! I really like the statement about unique motifs!
Take Indian startups – none of them have seems to have unique motifs (i.e. clear differentiation)
Awesome!
It would be nice ashish, if you could connect me to original blog please.
Hey Piyush
The original post was printed in financial express (financialexpress.com) This is an as-is (as sent by Sanjay to me) article.
-Ashish
PS: Thanks for the rectification comment (earlier post)
interesting post….but is it just me or was this post written the wrong way….? I mean I get that these sadhus are running their cults like a business, but not sure if they do anything differently than what most (successful) businesses do…..so I am not sure what these budding entrepreneurs can learn from these guys that they don’t already have through b-schools, random how to books and seminars….and while working in their previous jobs?
I think the title should have been the spiritual world utilizing marketing 101….again not trying to nitpick, but it seemed a little odd….
@Sunil – typically, we tend to not look at sadhus as marketeers, but the core of this article is that every successful sadhu has done whole lot of marketing/differentiation (without having any marketing
agency!) – i.e. no marketing, no success.
The lesson for startups is very simple – differentiate your offering and grow your product in inner circles first. Also, like it or not – create noise about your product!
Ashish,
I am looking for a marketing firm for my spiritual leader. Do you have any recommendations?
Thanks for your great article!
Best,
Rulin Xiu
Cell 808-937-9792
See with out knowing what is what dont scam about the Richness of India……Feel pity for the one who had posted this message potraying as though u are not a part of all these ….
Ashish, I am curious as to how this article could have a contextual reference to Vipassana, as taught by Goenka Ji. Vipassana, practised by millions around the world, does not follow any of celebrity endorsements, neither unique motifs/ branding, neither is it written about frequently in spiritual columns of main line / business dailies to tap into the “self-awareness” aspect of one’s life. Infact the primary goal of their website is to list of schedule of courses etc, and is so unpretentiousness or non-attention seeking http://www.dhamma.org . noone needs to pay anything to learn or follow this. So, my point here is not to compare one guru / one path vis-a -vis the other, but to bring to the attention that
a. one can learn a lot more by just practising these
b. to question how something like vipassana be applied to the above mentioned lessons.
@Aparna I think that’s an integral part of business creation which the article missed out….”have a great product” without that everything else is fluff and will get weeded out soon….Vipassana is practiced by millions without any marketing because its simply a great product….
I think the article is great in referring to the fact that business principles are universal and can be applied anywhere….it(article) however is incomplete because it doesn’t talk about the product creation piece…..(which ties into the current Indian web scene….a lot of me toos but no good products…except Zoho)
@Ashish I hear what you are saying….but my point was that the article is written in a wrong way…..it should be what Sadhus have learnt from traditional marketing….not what entrepreneurs should learn from Sadhus….I think it touches a very important node and an oft mentioned cliche that marketing is a lot about commonsense, which even Sadhus, who don’t drop $100 K in B-school education can use to grow their cults…..while most entrepreneurs get trapped in bars and graphs and ROI and a ton of numbers and miss out on basic things…..
As others said, great post! I agree that Indian startup founders need to learn some lessons from the _babas_
The only catch in this category when compared to other business categories is – huge customer pull……there is an inherent need in the spirituality industry which is very emotive in nature and behaviour…so it becomes that much more easy for the spiritual leaders to connect with their audience because there is also an expressed ‘need’ from the audience to understand the brand promise. Communication therefore cuts through the clutter and traditional media serve as the optimum platform…
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I dint like the post. I think spirituality is much beyond marketing and we should not look at everything in the same lenses.
Om Sai Ram
NADIA SHIBPUR SAI SADGURU SAMITY
Regd. No S/1L/45375,West Bengal Act XXVI 1961
REGD. EXEMPTION U/S 80G(5)(VI) OF THE I.T. ACT 1961,NO-CIT-XXI/KOL./80G/ITO(T)/2008-09/1591
REGD. U/S 12AA OF THE I.T. ACT 1961, NO-CIT-XXI/KOL./12AA/ITO(T)/2008-09/1588
To
The All Sai Devotees
Sub: An appeal for generous contribution to construct the first Sai temple in Bengal.
Dear sir,
We the Shibpur sai sad guru samity wants to build a permanent structure of Sai temple at our village. The temple we are going to build will not only be a place for prayer but it will be a place for cure for the thousands of suffering people. We have attached a history with this letter so that you know the reason for which we want to set up our dream temple of Sai baba.
Your help will mean a great relief for not only us but for lakhs of people of our Nadia district and West Bengal state. This will be the first temple of sai baba in West Bengal. Please help us so that we could achieve what we have fixed as target for ourselves few years back.
With many thanks,
Yours faithfully,
Prabhat Joardar.
HISTORY OF SHIBPUR SAI TEMPLE
Way back in 1850, Ramdas Biswas a wealthy villager of Shibpur village of Nadia’s Nakashipara established a temple in the compound of his house to offer daily puja in it. He never took any help from anybody but set up the temple on his own cost.
Past facts did not establish whether Ramdas set up any idol of Shirdi Sai Baba as he was alive then. But so far the information are available, the daily prayer was stopped in the temple of 1920. The reason behind it is hitherto unknown.
The prayer stopped and the temple slowly became birth place of venomous snake with dense bush and cobwebs surrounding it. Forget offering prayer, local residents dared not to go anywhere near to the temple site fearing snakes would take their lives.
However, as lights follow the darkness, rainbow follows rain; villagers of Shibpur in 1992 saw a neem tree sprouting out of the dense bush adjoining the crumbling structure of the temple.
What made them more surprised that deadly snakes also stated fleeing after the neem tree was born there. With snakes making exit, villagers started cleaning up a part of bush and a green field was born there with children began playing near to it. A way to enter the temple was also found thereafter.
The villagers took all these things lightly till 1999 when during Guru Purnima, Sai Baba, who died in the year 1918, appeared in the night dream of Amit Biswas, the great grandson of Ramdas.In the dream Baba told Amit that long before Ramdas used to offer prayer to him in the temple where the neem tree has suddenly sprouted up.
“Your great grandfather used to offer daily puja to me 100 years ago. He was my devotee and used to pray for me sitting in the temple for hours. But all have gone after that. So I have planted the neem tree there to eradicate all evils. I now want the prayer should be restarted in the temple. Make that temple a heaven for the people. Whoever would visit the temple would get all he/she wants,” Baba told Amit.
Amit woke up with the divine instruction next morning and rushed to the temple area. He cleaned up the area and got rid of all bushes and cobwebs used to remain there.
Amit established a clay idol of Sai Baba and began offering puja. After he spread the message, he got from baba in sleep, to local villagers, the villagers got inspired. Leaving fear and evil spirit behind them, the villagers started pouring in the temple and began offering pujas.
Believe it or not, within days Sai Baba’s promise started becoming true. After offering puja in the temple, though dilapidated, a woman gave birth to her first baby after 12 years of her marriage. The doctor had predicted that she could not give birth medically. She is not alone, some villagers, who were suffering from chronic and incurable diseases, got cured after offering prayer to Saibaba in the temple.
Stunned villagers stood up and took a resolution that they would protect the temple at any cost.
In 2003, advised by the local villagers, Amit formed a trustee committee to rebuild the temple. Nadia-Shibpur-Sai-Sadguru Samity was formed thereafter.
The resolution the committee took was that a new structure of the temple would be made and the trustee board would work for the amelioration of the poor people in the area. They also took oath that organization would work for all social causes like campaigning against dowry, drug addiction of students.
The committee then began working according to their resolution and campaigned extensively against dowry, child marriage, drug addiction etc etc. Worthy to mention, the villagers also started getting success. Their achievements began spreading like wild fire in the villages of Nakashipara and out of it.
A national award winner and a famous sculptor Subir Paul could not sit idle after hearing the activities of the Sai Sadguru Samity.
Inspired, the sculptor constructed a human seize fiber-glass idol of the Baba.
Paul himself admitted that while making the idol for six months some miraculous spirit grappled him.
“I never made such perfect structure like Sai Baba before,” he said.
Getting the idol quite unexpectedly, the committee thus could not sit idle too. Although not financially equipped, but the villagers began constructing the temple.
They put together bamboos and erected a structure in the temple areas keeping the old structure intact. The idol seated on a golden chariot has been kept under the thatched temple now in place.
Currently, the devotees offer their daily pujas, arti and bhajan, two times daily. Trustee committee has recently begun collecting subscription from the people of all walks of lives to build up the permanent concrete structure.
The committee has also begun celebrating Sai festival for five days in the third week of April every year. Once the permanent structure will be in place, crores of people would visit the temple and their woes would get healed.
The hands thus are stretched for help from anybody who wants to cure the woes of the people.
About Us
Nadia Shibpur Sai Sadguru samity has been working for last five years for the social causees in the Shibpur village of Nadia district. The trustee board, which was set up in 2003 to construct the permanent temple, has taken up issues of the society one by one and addressed it in whatever way possible. The committee has for last five years been organizing intense awareness programs against HIV infection and AIDS disease, dowry, leprosy and many such health issues including polio virus and snake bite. The committee has also been working on to aware people to take care of the health of pregnant mothers. It has also been working to send girl children to schools in the villages.
The committee has also been campaigning against the drug addiction among the jobless youths of the village and its surrounding areas.
The Nadia Shibpur Sai Sadguru Samity has organized about 20 health camps in the last five years in which aged people were given free clinical supports. The senior citizens were given spectacles and free eye treatment. The pregnant mothers and new born babies were given vitamin and other required tablets free after proper medical checkups. The samity continuously for last several years gave pregnant mothers nutritious food so that the children born to them don’t see the first light of the day with diseases or permanent disabilities.
The children from the poor families are also given nutritious foods on regular basis so that they grow up with good physique. Fully aware that children won’t grow up if they don’t find themselves happy; the samity has been regularly spending some amount for the recreation of the children to make them happy. They are given toys and other things so that they find this world entertaining and interesting even after being born in poor families. The committee also contains a considerable number who are physically handicapped, SC, ST and farmers. So, special emphasis is being givenin this areas to uplift them.
Dream for the coming years.
Apart from its continuous rigorous campaigning against various social evils, curses and superstition, the Nadia Shibpur Sai Sadguru Samity has decided that in the coming years it will set up a animal hospital in the panchyat area. This is because the areas are inhabited by around 30,000 families and about 1 lakh cattle population in the areas. The villages, centering Shibpur, are inhabited by the people who earn their daily livelihood through cattle. Every years many domestic animal die because of diseases and they are untreated as the villagers don’t find it easy to bring the sick cattle to nearest sub-center of the animal hospital around 25 km away. How could poor people pay Rs 300 per trip and for other medical costs just earning Rs 60 per day?The Samity has taken a decision that it would definitely try to save the villagers by saving their animals.
Although government has taken oath that no student of the rural areas would kept away from the computer literacy, but it is easier to say than done.
The only high school of the village does not have a single computer while even a lowest graded high school in an urban area has many. We would try to open a computer school to educate students in our areas. Special attention will be given to girls students from the poor families.
The samity has been running a free teaching school for sometimes in which two senior educated men teach children free of cost . Its endevour will be to construct a free coaching center for the poor and underprivileged children of the society, specially scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
The socity will also work for the improvement of agricultural land and try to improve the quality of lives of the farmers.
Religious activities performed daily.
Every day pujas are being organized twice daily in the bamboo made temple. Bhajans and arati along with chanting done in Bengali. The mantras are however rented in the air which is based on Sasnskrit slokas. Bengali food is given to baba during morning and evening prayers. This food later used as Prasada. Two persons belonging to muchi and Bagdi, two most backward castes of Bengal, distribute prasada to villagers. We give these two persons the task to distribute prasada as part of our war against caste-ism in our area. To be honest our such decision paid dividend. Many villagers who earlier had reservation to take prasada from a muchi or bagdi are now taking prasada from them quite freely.
The committee believes in the mantra: “One god governs all”. Sai Baba taught us that faith and patience are two more important things in human life. One cannot stay without the other.
Contract Us
Chairman / Secretary
NADIA SHIBPUR SAI SADGURU SAMITY
Regd. No S/1L/45375,West Bengal Act XXVI 1961
City offi:K.C.Lahiri Lane,Chasapara,P.O.Krishnanagar,Dist.-Nadia, West Bengal(India) 741101
Mandir: Vill. & P.O. Shibpur, P.S. Nakashipara, Dist. -Nadia, West Bengal (India) Pin-741191
REGD. EXEMPTION U/S 80G(5)(VI) OF THE I.T. ACT 1961,NO-CIT-XXI/KOL./80G/ITO(T)/2008-09/1591
REGD. U/S 12AA OF THE I.T. ACT 1961, NO-CIT-XXI/KOL./12AA/ITO(T)/2008-09/1588
Email address: shibpursaibaba@gmail.com/shibpursai@yahoo.co.in
SAVING BANK A/C NO: 422310110000280 (BANK OF INDIA) KRISHNANAGAR BRANCH
Mob. No.-9434110881 / 9333120111
http://templesofshirdisaibaba.blogspot.com/
You are a very smart person!