as I see it

So, its a Thursday, officially a holiday for me but still I gave up on my sleep and went on a hunt. Hunt for prospective customers. Went out stood in front of a school and waited for parents to come up to pick their children.

They DID !

Starting with one, two, three, four, five, six....quite a many rejections we saw one INTERESTED candidate and that seemed enough !

Within minutes many more mothers came and started hovering around to see what was going on and we handed over the old issues to each one of them and started with a seemingly recorded message - Mam we are so and so from so and so with so and so magazine, Mam this magazine has Comics, Stories, Puzzles, Activities, Science and Maths related stuff, General Knowledge and Mam its only for this much and Mam if you buy this offer you get this free and if this then you get this, Mam reading abilities of children...Mam personal experience se I am telling you that....Mam it is very important that....Mam it is from the editor of Tinkle...Mam Mam Mam Mam Mam Mam Mam Mam...

And people thought only Shankar Mahadevan could sing Breathless B-)

Phew ! After this Mam Mam Mam convincing attempts we managed to sell ONE subscription and seeing that ANOTHER and few more wanting us to come tomorrow because they were not carrying enough cash and that there would me more parents tomorrow and that they could discuss it in groups and that we might be able to sell more. Sounds Good? Ya, tomorrow is OK and so is more sales but what about now? Thats what was going on in our heads.

"Mam, if you could give us your address then we would drop in there and you can subscribe there itself".

Sounded like WOW to them. Convenience you see :)

So we noted down some 5-7 addresses and continued talking to people and doing the Mam Mam thing again and again and it was just 15 minutes since we started with the process that it was only us left there. Everyone had left so we set on to reaching the addresses we had.

On our way, whosover appeared to be a potential customer, we stopped them and did Mam Mam Sir Sir thing again and again. No success.

We were walking when someone called us from the back saying that some kid from some building is calling us. We went there and it was same kid's house who gave us her address at the school. We sold one more :)

Next address - We sold one more and not only this got clues to 6-7 more prospective customers. Sadly, we could convert only one out of those 7 but then we take it as a bonus ;)

Next, we went to yet another outside-school-address-customer. Annoying. Very annoying.

At first, they give their address, call us at their place, that too in a specified time slot and when we reach there, some 'representative' attends us with a pre-thought dialogue. First few words we hear our 'No, she is not at home and she left a message that she is NOT interested in subscribing'.

One thing that surprised us was 'attitude' of one 4-year old girl whose mother on talking to us gave her a copy to see if she was interested. Her mother said this magazine has this this this and this, see if you will read. GOD! you should have seen the way she was flipping the pages and she then said, 'I don't care, your wish mom'.

Yet, another kid was very interested but his mother said no. One another kid even started crying and howling but his mother said NO.

What we saw was that more than convincing the customer to buy it, whats more difficult is to FIND them and then REACH them.

At times, it feels so weird, all these years the way I react on seeing some salesman approach me, I am seeing it, facing it (but still I never claled anyone at my place and then made someone say that I am not there and that a messages has been left for the salesman that I am not interested)

Anyways, we have identified one more target area and plan to go there sometime soon.

And so from the moment it was announced I was pretty excited.

What was announced?

Well, it was one of the Marketing Field Visits where we had to go out and sell Magazine - Dimdima. Dimdima is a kids magazine that contains Comics, Puzzles, Activities, Stories, Science, Jokes, etc. Personally, when I was first given an issue of the magazine, I found it pretty decent. It is from the author of TINKLE ! Priced at Rs. 20 its printing is also of a very decent quality. We were supposed to sell Yearly and Half-Yearly subscriptions of the magazines.

Day 1 : From the time the field visit was announced (I was prett excited and had a lot of plans in my head) to the actual schduled slot for the field visit (second half of the day when I was already tired and due to lack of time couldn't do a single thing I had in my head the previous day), things were different.

Ah, all this while I forgot to introduce you to my team member Charanya. We both as a team were supposed to sell the magazines.

What I had in mind was and was all the time thinking was how to convince people to buy it? Whom should we target? Kids or parents? What should we say them to convince them?

And ya, another fundamental question, Where do we get hold of people? We thought we would go to a school and talk to parents.

So, we left for our first hands-on sales experience. We had no idea where the schools are and what all schools are in the area alloted to us. Still we managed to find two schools and we visited the first one where we found NO PARENTS. Secondary level had already left at 1PM (it was 2:45 PM when we reached there) and Primary level would leave at 6. We came to a consensus that our Target was the Secondary Level which has already left, so we go to the 'other' school. Moreover, the 'first school had School Buses standing outside, so we doubted if parents would come to pick their child up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA....It was HOT...So much traffic....Nevertheless, we went to the 'other' school. No one at the gate, we just gate crashed, spoke to someone in the OFFICE and got to know that school timings were same as the 'first' school. I insisted that we talk to HEADMISTRESS of Primary Section.

No interest...they were busy...

What now? Nothing..

Knowing that the next idea is bad wouldn't reap any results, we still went to a mall. After wasting sometime there we came back.

I tried one last time....went to a school...FOUND PARENTS...spoke to few of them...they liked the magazine...were interested inbuying but wanted to consult the SECOND PARENT...few of them took my phone number.

This gave me hope that the reason for our failure today was primarily that we couldn't meet our customer. Convincing comes next. If we meet them, we might sell some.

We will try our luck again tomorrow :)

Some of my friend's managed to sell 'a lot'. I want to at least MEET the customer.

God Damn! Sales is difficult than I thought. If convincing the customer appears to be a difficult task, finding ONE to TALK to is Herculean !

Nevertheless, wish us luck for tomorrow :)

--------------------In a Nutshell---------------------------

Attempt(s) : 1

Places Visited : 4