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.