Yes, it was the day of Mahamandi. 6th Aug 2011 will be etched in my memory forever. We had been waiting for this very day from the time we joined NITIE.
Mahamandi is the ultimate selling experiece orgainsed by National institute of Industrial Engineering. In this, more than 1000 students from B-Schools across Mumbai participate and have the task of selling Products made by an NGO on the streets of Mumbai.
I was wearing the Gandhi topi and the Mandi Tshirt like all others. With a bag in hand and dressed like a salesman I started this special day. I along with my team member, Dinesh, decided to go to Marine drive, Colaba and Gateway of India. The reason we chose these places was to find customers who had leisure time and we could approach them easily. We also wanted to challenge ourselves and sell in the region where middle class customers would be reluctant to pay and we will have to work hard for every penny. We reached there at 2 pm after finishing all Preparations of the infra team and were already excited to dive in the selling game. Our first destination was Marine Drive.
Here goes the selling experience….
Because of our apprehensions, we were reluctant to start off. Many people walked besides us but both of us just thought we would approach them and by the time we could they already passed us. We both looked at us in dismay.
The event of Mahamandi was a moment of excitement for us but at the same time it was the fear of talking to strangers and convincing them about a product. Till now, I as a customer had never treated the salesman coming to my house or on the streets well. Salesmen to me were thieves trying to cheat us.
Finally, we decided to approach a customer. And here was my first customer, an old man and his wife sitting together and enjoying the breeze. Both looked serious and as we went closer to them my heart started thumping. I started first, “Kaka tumcha kade 2 minta ahet ka”, got a sign of approval and stated telling in Marathi about where I came from and the purpose of Mahamandi, after sometime he said, “beta hindi mein batao na” and here was my first lesson:
1. ‘Never assume the language of the customer, Start with Hindi or English and then start with Marathi’
I told him about Jodo (one of the products) and told him about its utility, price and the cause of helping poor children. He got convinced. He paid me 200 Rs for 140 Rs Jodo and here came my second lesson. I did not think about the change that I will need to pay and was not prepared for it.
2. ‘Have enough money as change even when you are going for selling’
I finally paid him and here he was my first customer. My confidence had gone sky high and happiness at its peak. I started thinking that it’s not a difficult job.
Our products were mostly for the children and we had decided that we will target the families with children in the age group of 6-10 and you will soon realize how big a blunder this was. Our next customer was a family with the specifications of our target group. We approached them and this time it was Dinesh who started and said, ‘Can we have two minutes of yours?’ and we heard our first NO followed by ‘you are those triangle guys na’ and we almost laughed laudly. And this was followed a two more rejections and we reached one more conclusion:
3. Entering into a saturated market is very tough as the market is either captured or as this was a perfectly competitive market with no difference in the products, spreads a negative publicity of the product among those who have already rejected it.
Then we caught hold of another elderly person told him the whole story about NITIE, the NGO and the products and finally we had another customer. This time it was a Tangram. This further boosted our confidence after some failures. We then approached a few customers and got some different ways of saying NO.
In the meantime we also observed that both the customers we targeted successfully were the ones who were interested in us and were looking eagerly at us. I felt as if they were calling me. And here comes the next learning:
4. The reaction the customer gives when you are nearing him tells you about the probability that the customer will buy from you.
But soon we discovered that statistics and probability can be misleading. Here was our customer who gave us that same inviting look and we just ended up wasting the next 20 mins entertaining him. We soon discovered that for the last 1 hr we had sold nothing and some of those who did sell more than us started giving us insights into selling as if their last few generations were into selling toys.
A little frustrated, disgusted we moved to towards the end of the marine drive. Now we were into mood of experimenting and some fun. We approached a flock of college kids (Pun intended) and started with the customary ‘Can we have two minutes of ours’. Girls stared at us, guys glanced and one guy asked in dismay, ‘Why? Why? What happened?’ and Dinesh and I started laughing, we soon moved away looking at their interest levels.
It was 6pm and we had only sold goods worth Rs 200 and looked like an utter failure. We were given some consolation by a family who finally took a Navrang from us but dint look very convinced. We then went to another family. Same lines repeated again, ‘I am from NITIE, Mahamandi, NGO, and the products’. Surprising I found the first person who knew about NITIE. He like Jodo and was eager to buy and his kid was next to him. He asked, ‘should I buy this for u?’ and the bloody …… replied with a NO and our hopes of selling the bigger jodo went for a toss. At that moment I really felt like saying, “Sir, can I pay you 500 Rs, just want to give a tight slap to this brat”. Here comes the next lesson:
5. The utility of a product is different for individual of every age group and the real skill lies in convincing all age-groups.
We moved on and decided to move to new place as marine drive looked completed saturated with Mahamandi products. We moved to CST station and waited outside the station but soon to our dismay we found that everyone was in super-rush to catch the next local. We soon moved to Gateway of India. And the focus we had at our target of selling made us to even ignore the great monument. To our disappointment we found some 100 mandi T-shirts around, selling the toys and we soon knew that this market is also saturated. That was how well Mahamandi 2011 penetrated into the Mumbai city.
At Gateway of India, our first customer was a family again and I again started with ‘can I have two minutes of yours’ and here came the rudest customer who started and looked at me from top to bottom, the same way guys scan girls but with a different intention. He bluntly said NO. The words vibrated in my ears for a while, my ego was cracked into bits and pieces. I again started with, ‘Sir I am from …..’ this time he did listen to me carefully. I gave the best presentation of products for the whole day, I was eager to sell him and then he said give me a jodo. I was happy and that is when his wife said no and again all the hopes were lost. But here was an important lesson:
6. Never get dejected after the first sign by the customer as the time and efforts needed to convince the customer can be different. What is important is the final sale!!!
The next was dad with two kids, and again I wanted to pay the father to bang the brat!!!
Frankly speaking, though we all did for a noble cause but to sell these products I needed to bluff about the utility of the product. I actually finished the quota of lies for the next 2 years.
We returned from Gateway of India without any sale and we went back to Marine drive with very little hopes to make a sale. But what we did not think of was one of the biggest lessons of the day:
7. Markets and customers keep changing.
We were delighted to see new customers and this time the market was fresh for us with very less mandi T-shirts floating around. But there were some other impediments in the way. It had started turning dark and the trust level keeps going down for the salesman. We started again and sold a Tangram quickly but again a patch of no sale and it was almost 9pm. Then came a brilliant idea of selling in team of four and we teamed up with another group. I was the salesman who approached about the customers and told about the products and then everyone pitched in. We learnt a lot of lesson from this:
8. To gain the confidence of customers it is important that a larger group approaches the customers especially when it’s a matter of trust.
In the next 2 hours we sold goods close to 1500 Rs and I got so much confidence that I could have even sold 2000 Rs worth more. The confidence was boosting and I had become a salesman. It was a day of ultimate learning with lots of fun. The number of times my ego got hurt the more I learnt about this selling game.
You need to be on the streets to learn the customer behavior and getting the selling experience.
The day ended with the Mandi Slogan: Socho becho, becho sikho, sikho socho…..
