Some of you might remember EK Ramakrishna and BS Giridhar the two guys working with Rajkumar selling Network Phones and Dictation Systems. Ram the short, thinand mean one and Giri his opposite. Well, Ram just gave me a call from Oman the other day. He comes to Dubai often and has promised to meet up(if I stay herethat is, given the circumstances!!). His voice has become heavy and I could not visualize him for a moment and then suddenly the past scenes were all crystal clear.
Giri , I remember once asked me rather humbly and with a lot of surprise as to how as a Bengali we eat fish "every" day. I replied that I do not but as a general idea the concept was correct. But to answer his query I retorted that it's exactly the way he had his curd rice to end the meal day after day, month after month without fail!! End of conversation.
Vandana used to take me along for her demos because perhaps she thought that Iwas a lucky charm. So while I was posted at Vizag, she used to position some of her demos for the days I was on reporting tours to Hyderabad!! Municipal Corp was one of the good clients of her that I remember we got some orders from.I think this was the best part of Hyderabad Network where we used to help each other out not only with demos but actual negotiation calls, analysis of calls(learnt from GP), making proposals, mutual training and almost every other thing. It was true that as the world was experiencing that repeat orders comefrom good relationships with clients, we at Network were actually living those concepts with our Service Engineers getting more leads than us and being finallyinstrumental in selling.
Getting an order was a big thing for us then. The Yezdi of LB used to roar twiceover, the day he got an order. He would walk straight into GP's room ignoring all the other folks filling up our daily reports and looking at him in awe and raw jealousy!! Sunita used to laugh a lot and be generally pleased with her own self and GP always never forgot to call us novices to talk about her influences in the secretariat. Rajkumar of course created a riot. For me, the rookie it was all learning and a lot of hope. Hope for my first order!!
I was a duck for a month even after the 300 Series launch and was quite convinced that the territory provided to me was the pits. Let me tell you the area….Rajendranagar and others as Rajkumar said "the other side of Musi River"!! The ECIL, HCL, NFC belt. RP/SP Road, Tarnaka, SD Road. Well GP surely must havethought that I was a joker to say this was a bad territory!!! Little did I realize that in the months to come this same territory was a serious cause ofenvy…which implied a lot of good for Network and of course yours truly.
Speakingof orders….my first one arrived by post. An order for the first 100 typewriter in Network nationwide from a casually bid tender floated by Andhra DairyDevelopment Board. It did nothing for my ego and nobody even asked me for atreat!! The only respect was perhaps from Seshagiri with a cup of tea. The treat was however reserved for Bhadrachalam Paper Boards.
As mentioned earlier this was the office was just round the corner in SD Road,and they were looking for 3 machines. The MD, ED (F) and ED (M) respectivelywere to be the ones to get them. My first call was with ED (F) Mr. KL Chugh(later ITC Chairman) and the demo was perfect. Given my build, carrying around a300 Series machine was not a big deal for me and so I climbed two floors with the combo (m/c and keyboard) and placed the equipment in the Board Room about 15 minutes before scheduled time and was ready to go.
The Correcting Tape gimmick was to be the first one in the agenda. Anyway, they were visibly impressed and as I entered his cabin, Chugh blatantly asked for a discount. I remember replying him unabashedly that I thought we were in the business of enhancing our client's quality, status and brand and not dishing out discounts. Those words had no effect and he said come back with a discount proposal the next day orelse……. So therefore the negotiations with GP started and then finally we agreed at 2.5%. I was dreading the next day. GP said that he wanted to come for the call since the disc had to be given andthis was an important order for 1.2 lacs in 1984. I was in two minds but convinced GP that he will come for the call but the discount will be offered byme. He agreed.
So off we went and while waiting at the reception Mr. Chugh happened to pass by and smile at me. The call came and we were ushered into hisoffice and I introduced GP as my manager. That whole call….he never spoke to GP. The disc was offered, accepted and the order placed. Once out of the room GP patted my back and that was the best feeling I could ever have.
The tremendous learning that I have always tried to repeat in future was never to take away from the `actual relationship manager' of a client. It's his client and his relationship. GP by agreeing to my concept actually turned my egoistic behavior to a lesson. Every sales person whoever worked with me, I have always tried to instill this thought and the confidence that was built was immense. The second learning was the importance of knowing the decision makers and reaching very near to them. If you have the decision maker in your pocket there is only God between you and competition and as GP taught us to be honest sales people, God was always on our side!!
That day I was on top of the world. I am not sure what came in but I am sure the evening aroma in the office was of Samosas and Hyd special Chilly Fries!! Second and Fourth Saturday's were off but sometimes LB had to come in for this"sideshow" accounts work. So I used to pile on too…spending some time with theET - trying to carry out some tricks and then when it became too boring, put on the AC and have a nice afternoon sleep session to be followed with an evening movie.
Every evening we used to dread this chore. The daily report! It was pure virus that generated fever. You had this pad (your own), the top sheet in white and the duplicate in blue (movie tickets used to be of the same color). The bluepencil carbon used to be inserted in between that made smudge marks on the duplicate sheet, your hands and white shirts. Disgusting!!
So you had to write one after another the visits that would include the name,orgn & details, no of machines, some sort of prospect classification in terms of Good Bad and Ugly, reason for the visit and future plan. The favorite remarkwritten by most people in that "Reason" column was F.U. In the beginning as a novice I used to wonder why a corporate would teach its sales personnel to be indecent even in record keeping and analysis if at all. Later I deciphered much to my amusement that it was Follow Up. Surely my mind had overworked! A couple of years later I had banned the FU usage in sales reports when in Mumbai. You"had' to write some good meaningful English sentence/s.
Later, our under-over-worked Marketing Department came up with this huge Daily Sales Report with prospect stages and order status and all sorts of funny number combinations. Analysis/paralysis!! To be honest, we used to have this simple Hot Warm Cold classification and that format used to work wonders for us. To top it all there were also these weekly reports that `nobody used to read"but were filled up purely to ensure that you get your claimed allowances settled by Accounts.
The Correction Tape gimmick was an important part of the demo process. You typeout something, possibly the company's name or the MDs name or whatever and then at the end you type some wrong characters. I had this white fluid empty bottle that I used to take out and tell them that this is not to be used anymore. Take off the wrong characters and then take the sheet out of the machine with AutoEject and hand over the paper to the client and let him feel(his/her fingers caressing the sheet) it while you carry on blowing your trumpet.The demo was an important selling tool and I remember sometimes carrying a brand new machine. If they liked it ask them to keep it. No machine was ever returned by the client. This was especially when we went "out of station".
Typically these enquiries came by post and we used to get them in sequence of arrival. So when the L&T Cement Plant in Chandrapur requested for a demo, it was my turn. The Nizammudin Express dropped me early morning at Ballarshah station and L&T had sent a vehicle for me. The plant was about 20 kms away and when we reached the factory gates and once we were in I was whisked away to the GuestHouse in the Executive Family area and asked to relax and freshen up. After sometime I was informed that the Union had gheraoed(a process of making the chief sit in his office chair, while other blokes surround and bombard him/her with their demands) the GM. Nobody was allowed to exit, entry or make telephone calls outside. Thankfully, the TV Tx was a direct INSAT relay system and therefore Iput it to best use.
In the evening I was invited to play badminton and waspampered thoroughly by a couple of families. It was 3 day vacation and nobodycould reach me.On the 3rd afternoon the strike was called off and I was called in!! The demo was for precisely 2 mins. The Correction Gimmick and the format fill up gimmick were the two things I showed (based on my pre-sales research with the secy). The GM was in two minds and I told him (though I felt insecure) that it was a brand new machine and he could use it for 2-3 weeks and it was not a problem. Once I reached office back in HYD I had to answer some major uncomfortable questions but you see you could not banish me to Chandrapur immediately. The next day a call came in from L&T that the order was being posted along with the cheque!!
All my outstation trips were interesting sojourns and I will come up with them.There are people to talk about and incidents. Mr. Markos Williams and his antics come as a flash and I think he earned some fame ( of the wrong kind). I did not care about him; it was the Mrs. that made me fumble. More next time….
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