top of page

By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 3:28:38 am

When Growth Confuses Markets

In business, growth is often associated with expansion. As companies evolve, founders naturally begin exploring additional services, new verticals, and complementary offerings that can strengthen revenue and create larger opportunities. From a business standpoint, this progression appears logical. The entrepreneur sees the connection clearly because the new service often emerges directly from existing expertise. However, markets do not always interpret expansion the way founders expect them...

When Growth Confuses Markets

In business, growth is often associated with expansion. As companies evolve, founders naturally begin exploring additional services, new verticals, and complementary offerings that can strengthen revenue and create larger opportunities. From a business standpoint, this progression appears logical. The entrepreneur sees the connection clearly because the new service often emerges directly from existing expertise. However, markets do not always interpret expansion the way founders expect them to. Recently, during a conversation with an entrepreneur, this reality became particularly evident. She explained that despite putting significant effort into growing her business and introducing additional services connected to her current work, she was struggling to attract clients for these newer offerings. What surprised her most was not the lack of effort being made, but the lack of understanding from the market itself. People were becoming uncertain. Existing clients no longer clearly understood what exactly she should now be known for. And in business, the moment perception becomes unclear, trust begins weakening faster than most founders realise. The services were related, the value proposition made sense internally, and from her perspective the transition felt natural. Yet externally, the audience struggled to clearly understand what exactly she now represented. Existing clients knew her for one thing, while her newer positioning was attempting to communicate something broader. This is becoming increasingly common among founders and business owners operating at substantial levels of turnover. At earlier stages of business, growth is often driven by activity. More services, more offerings, and more visibility appear to create momentum. But as businesses scale, particularly beyond the ₹5 crore mark, perception begins playing a far more significant role in determining growth. The challenge is not always capability. Very often, the challenge is clarity. Many entrepreneurs underestimate how quickly confusion weakens trust. Audiences today process information rapidly and make judgments even faster. They do not spend long periods trying to decode a founder’s positioning. The moment the messaging feels inconsistent or overly broad, attention begins to drift elsewhere. This creates a hidden business problem that many founders fail to recognise immediately. The entrepreneur continues investing more effort. More meetings are scheduled, more marketing is executed, more content is created, and more explanations are repeatedly given to the market. Yet despite all this activity, conversions remain inconsistent because the underlying issue has not been addressed. The market does not clearly understand where to place the individual. This is where personal branding becomes a business necessity rather than a visibility exercise. A strong personal brand creates strategic clarity. It allows people to immediately understand not only what an entrepreneur does, but why the additional services make sense within the larger identity of the founder and the business itself. Without this alignment, even valuable offerings begin to feel disconnected. Over time, this confusion creates broader consequences. Opportunities become slower to materialise. Referrals reduce because people struggle to explain the business clearly to others. Premium positioning weakens because clarity is directly connected to authority. In many cases, founders begin questioning their marketing strategies when the actual issue lies in how their positioning is being perceived. This becomes particularly dangerous in today’s environment where visibility is abundant but attention is limited. The founders who continue to grow are rarely the ones trying to communicate everything simultaneously. They are the ones who build a clear identity first and then strategically expand around it. Their audience understands not only what they currently offer, but also why future offerings naturally belong within their ecosystem. This distinction changes everything. Because in business, people rarely buy what confuses them. They buy what they can quickly understand and confidently trust. For founders and business owners who feel they are putting in increasing effort yet still struggling to position newer services effectively, this may be an important moment for reflection. Sometimes the issue is not the quality of the offering, but the clarity of the perception surrounding it. I work with a select group of founders and entrepreneurs to help them identify these positioning gaps, refine how they are perceived in the market, and build personal brands that create stronger authority, trust, and business growth. Those who wish to explore this further may book a complimentary 30-minute Founder Brand Audit here: https://calendly.com/divyaaadvaani/founder-brand-audit In the end, businesses rarely lose only because of weak services. Increasingly, they lose because the market understands someone else faster. In a world overwhelmed by options, clarity is no longer just a branding advantage. It is becoming one of the strongest competitive advantages a founder can build. (The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

Lingua Pragmatica

Updated: Mar 20, 2025

As Southern leaders like M.K. Stalin rage against Hindi, Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu offers a model of pragmatism over parochialism.

Chandrababu Naidu
Andhra Pradesh

Amid the cacophony of opposition in southern states to Hindi, Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu has taken a markedly pragmatic stance by remarking recently in the state Assembly that there was no harm in learning other languages. Hindi, Naidu noted, was useful for communication across India, particularly in political and commercial hubs like Delhi. His remarks, though avoiding explicit mention of the NEP, were widely seen as an endorsement of multilingualism and a rebuke to the linguistic chauvinism that has gripped parts of the South.


Few issues in India stir political passions quite like language. It is not merely a means of communication but a marker of identity, a relic of colonial resistance, and a source of political mobilization. In the southern states, where anti-Hindi sentiment has long been entrenched, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and its three-language formula have reignited old tensions. No state embodies this defiance more than Tamil Nadu, where the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by M.K. Stalin has framed the policy as an assault on its linguistic autonomy.


Naidu’s words, welcomed by his ally and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, mark a sharp contrast with the DMK’s position. Tamil Nadu’s hostility towards Hindi dates back to the 1930s, when C. Rajagopalachari’s attempt to introduce it in schools met with fierce resistance. The anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s cemented the DMK’s ideological stance, with its first Chief Minister, C.N. Annadurai, famously warning that Hindi imposition could push Tamil Nadu towards secession.


The question, however, is whether this rigid opposition serves Tamil Nadu’s interests. While Stalin, with an eye to the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, has been relentlessly portraying Hindi as a threat to his state’s regional identity, Naidu, a partner of the BJP-led Centre, is framing it as a tool for economic mobility. His argument is not that Hindi should replace Telugu or English but that it offers a competitive advantage.


The economic case for multilingualism is compelling. Indians who speak multiple languages tend to have better job prospects, higher earnings and greater geographic mobility. Andhra Pradesh’s Telugu-speaking diaspora is a case in point. Telugus make up a significant proportion of Indian-origin professionals in the United States, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia as Naidu pointed out, hinting that this success story was built not on linguistic rigidity but on adaptability.


In a country where inter-state migration is rising and where Hindi remains the most widely spoken language, refusing to learn it amounts to self-imposed isolation. Tamil Nadu’s approach, by contrast, risks limiting its youth. The DMK government has refused to implement the three-language policy, keeping schools strictly bilingual with Tamil and English. Its justification that Hindi is not necessary for global success could be true in a narrow sense but ignores the domestic context. If Tamil filmmakers can dub their movies into Hindi to expand their audience, why should Tamil students be denied access to the language that could open more doors for them within India?


The DMK has accused successive central governments, particularly under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of pushing Hindi at the expense of regional languages. Yet, rejecting Hindi outright is an overcorrection. The reality is that Hindi is an important language in India’s economic and political landscape. Naidu’s position, one of accommodation rather than confrontation, offers a middle ground that other Southern leaders would do well to consider.


Some states already recognize this. Karnataka, despite its own history of linguistic pride, has allowed Hindi to be taught as an optional language. Kerala, whose migrants work in Hindi-speaking regions and the Gulf, has been less hostile to Hindi education. Naidu’s model, balancing regional identity with practical necessity, offers a way forward. Languages should be embraced, not politicized. Southern leaders would do well to listen to him.

Comments

bottom of page