Ride to Results and Realisations - 1984 By Ravi(RSS)

The ride to Rajendra Nagar from office was long. From the office lane we used to turn left and take the Rastrapathi Road straight down to the Tank Bund. Leaving behind the Boat Club on the right the journey on the Bund was refreshing with the cool air from the water front caressing the face while other vehicles zoomed up and down beside our Auto. The steady hands of Narasimha maneuvered the vehicle through the mean streets of Hyderabad and we finally crossed the Musi River and that’s almost seemed like a major achievement. The first stop was the National Police Academy and since my Dad was an IPS it was always a pleasure to visit. There was a museum there and I did make it a point to spend some time there. On the way to Rajendra Nagar there was also this biscuit factory. The calls never yielded any results but a cup of tea with freshly baked biscuits was a good break for the weary traveler especially on the way back to office.

On the highway we needed to take a right turn to visit these Institutions like the National Institute of Rural Development and also the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management. Sunita had opened the doors for us in the former but then I reaped a harvest from there. Additionally all the references worked wonders in the various other agricultural research institutes that spawned the area. It was like theory that you have understood coming alive in your own personal experiences and that’s the best thing that could happen to you. The theory of managing customer relationships is what I am talking about. Selling was a breeze. Get a name, give a reference or two, drop in some names, give a perfect demo, make a value proposition, and that’s about it. The order was for Network in each case.

NAARM was a different ball game. This was a new institute, no relationships with NIRD or the other local institutions. My first call was a tentative one to the secretary. I could not elicit any excitement in him or that’s what I thought. On my second random call I noticed the vehicle of the local Xerox representative (Sanjay or Sanjiv I don’t remember) parked outside. Then I noticed that he was having an extremely illuminated conversation with the same secretary and he had brought his machine too. I sensed trouble. I kept waiting at the reception. The Director was not in office and he happened to just arrive. Given my training, I straightaway approached and introduced myself and also made a modified General Benefit Statement that included some big personality names of Hyderabad too!! He was responsive and asked me more questions and that was good for me.

I was engaging him and that’s a positive I thought. The net result was that he asked for a joint demonstration the next day. I had managed to accomplish two things. Firstly, I had spoken to the Director direct creating some sort of a rapport and secondly, I had stalled Xerox at least for a day. I also knew that I had to win the secretary. The demonstration next day was scheduled at 3 PM.

LBR ran me through on how to counter Xerox point by point that evening. I also practiced the normal tricks and sort of created a script for myself. We also discussed possible client questions and responses. Then I landed up at NAARM at 1.30 PM! I had this ‘’secretary agenda” in my mind. People are after all curious. So when I set up my machine in the designated place in the open lobby, I discovered people coming up and asking questions. Even Mr. Secretary was curious and though I could feel his proximity to Xerox I did not talk about my competitor even once. I also made another important discovery. I managed to find out that they were in the market for 3 machines (my Daily Call Report forecast was for one). I met those other users too and by the time it was 2.30 PM I had almost convinced those other guys!!

The Xerox guy came and he was the first. Our product was more expensive but it could do more and I could see that relationship was the only key. The Director was impressed with both and said he will await an evaluation. There was a crowd of 30 watching us. I knew that I had covered more people in that organization and it was only Mr. Secretary who was perhaps on the wrong side. After a point one could only hope for the best, since the actions were done. The whole scenario was a tough exercise on me. (Located an image of a Xerox Memorywriter that we were fighting against).

Rajiv Khanna had come down to Secunderabad to disburse back log incentives. I was not in the picture since these were pertaining to a period before I joined, but all the same money was/is money. In the morning with his as usual booming voice he announced that he wanted some orders that day itself ( I reckon it was month ending). I was in a bitter mood that day and had genuinely planned not going anywhere and I had declared my intent to GP earlier as soon as I had come in. In any case I was not anticipating anything specifically to happen that day. Pressure was still on, when Seshagiri once again came to my rescue. The Rice Institute had sent a registered mail with an order for a 332. I felt relieved in terms of salvaging my prestige. Then it was a double whammy in the afternoon. I received a call from NAARM. The administration officer asked me to collect an order for 3 pieces of 316s with a whole lot of consumables and daisy wheels. My chauffeur Narasimha was missing and I could not find an auto. I hired a car and was back in office with the order by 5.30 PM!! That was some event, getting four machines in one day!! I did not declare this and it was LB who broke the news to GP.

There were bad days too. Especially the day I lost my first order to PCL. It was Omni Computers, a small software company specializing in CAD/CAM. It was pure price that was under consideration and I lost in spite of our equipment being superior. I also realized that whether you like it or not being cheap also is an attribute that appeals to a class of consumer. It’s not their fault, it’s about how quickly you realize and move on with life and other prospects, of course after giving a solid fight! Time and Timing is of essence here.

Getting appointments were not easy. The bosses were never a problem. It was the secretary that was cold. So later it was all about first all about building relationships with the secretaries of the world and where Electronic Typewriters were not perhaps the main topic of discussion. Instead it was about the weather, the movies, and then inching towards his/her industry and type of work. References would immensely help and thank God for them. Rakjumar and his team in any case had made a lot of forays by selling Dictation Systems and therefore one needed to mine the data and go ahead. Then it was all about what we did best. Massaging Egos!!

Pinning down people with time was difficult. Years back my nephew, when small, used to ask me a simple question. Mama he would ask, “’Do you want to play carom (a board game) in this room or the drawing room?” I did answer back and we always played in the relevant room. Similarly the idea is to always provide an alternative to the responder. This takes away the focus from the actual commitment that you are running after to something more concrete. It also provides the responder some alternatives to work with instead of being restrictive in his mind (basically avoiding a YES/NO situation). For example, I would ask. “Would you be free for a demonstration at 3.00 PM on Tuesday or 11 AM on Thursday?” Or in a different situation: “Would you like the machine with a standard Madeleine PS Wheel or additionally two three more styles?” This sort of questioning would give you answers, lead customers to commit unknowingly and was the best way to prevent YES/NO environments. Selling after all is a lot of gray. These were typically close ended questions. There were open ended questions too. That I reserve for another day, the discussion on questioning that is.

The best part of selling for Network was that we were absolutely convinced about the capabilities it had, the benefits it provided and the back up support we had. This was a killer and no way was competition going to overtake us (in the majority of cases that is). We were tigers, with pride emanating out of our ears. I even remember disassociating with HCL (the parent group company) since they were rather renowned about their terrible after sales support and we did it convincingly and to our advantage.

Then one day one of the clients asked us whether we could hook up our typewriters to computers, we knew that PCL was behind this since their machine has a parallel port that could be used as plug and play straightaway. We also knew that Network R&D was working on this facility. I had heard about C3PO and R2D2 but those were robots in Star Wars!! So when RS23C was introduced we were called to Bangalore for a training program and it was again days of circumspect speculation as to what was in store.

There were a few enquiries and there were some places where we stalled completion too. Bangalore was therefore of major importance to us, but to me it was more exciting since I had never been to the place before!!

It was again First Class Compartments in a train that stopped at too many places that we had to board from Hyderabad station. We were a larger team and that meant more chaos in everything that we did. Baggage handling, ticket handling, food ordering; it was about all of us and how enjoyable it was!! Bangalore Station was nothing special. As usual we took cabs and reached our Hotel. The sessions were to be in the same hotel. That where we saw RS232C!!