Kicking kids in a meeting hall.

I got to meet this millionaire for a business deal. My close friend is a relative of this big shot.In his family they treat me like one among them. So I seek his uncles help to reach that man. His uncle made a call straight to him and got me an appointment the next day itself. In normal occasions we have to meet the manager convince him and get an appointment with the boss, it will go around for a month before we get a 10min appointment with the boss. You will wait 2 hrs and when u met and present your solution successfully there will be always some friend or relative of the boss or his wife who will bag the order at the end of the day.Now he saved me a lot of time and most probably I will seal the deal. My colleagues who are trying to reach him for another proposal have to wait till he decides to meet them. Thank you dude.

My appointment was at 5.30 I am someone who never appear late for an appointment. I went there at 5.20 and as the MD didn't arrive they asked me to wait. It's a jewellery showroom one of the biggest in Chennai and it's summer, that means there will be mad rush of peoples!!

There was a waiting lounge and I shared the seat with some children at first. I love children just the way Vijay loves them in the screen. But in this case it's different. I am all dressed up to meet a big shot and I don't want anyone to spoil my attire. These kids started with a little dash and then in a while they are all over me. Kicking my lappie stepping on my light cream color trousers and trying to knock my brand new BlackBerry. I am not going to allow it to happen but what can I do at that place other than trying to secure my things? I just let them abuse without saying a word. At some point of time I thought of walking away from that kids and standing in some corner. The time passed by and that's well over one hour there is no sign of the man.

I sat there silently entertaining some other audience now. As I am forced to sit in a place nothing to do much I started watching peoples around me who share the place maybe sharing same fate. There was a family of three females and two males. Of the three super white females two of them are young. They were veiled expect their eyes. Urudhu muslims I assume and that young chap is above 6 might be 6.2 and all of them are milk white. They walked slow spoke slow and even blinked slow. I made some eye contacts with those girls and I don't know what they had in their minds. That's something I hate in girls their face expressions will be the same whether they like you or not. Anyway I don't care. Thank you very much for sparking the air around me and keeping me engaged for sometime, see you around, bye bye. Those rich peoples finished the purchase and gone. Now I turned my attention to other family with a grandma, ma, daughter of around 18, sons of 15 and 12. They are not so rich and that showed well. Their first son is a grumpy dirty tall lad for his age. He shifted his position thousand times within 10 min. I assume he had a fight with the rest and they are cajoling him, he was playing the game.

The store peoples were serving soft drinks to all their customers and no wonder they paid attention to me, as I am not there to buy anything but in the contrary to sell something. I was more concerned about the drinks in the hands of the kids than nothing in my hand as they started painting themselves with the drinks. I was hoping god to save me from this little creatures. After a while when they finished soiling their dresses I had strike a conversation with the kids and I came to know that they are from Nellai !!! But that doesn't change anything, still I am wary of them.

When I approached the store manager he advised me to come the next day as it may take some more time for the Boss to reach. I made some more calls to my friend's uncle and then the meeting is set up all again. I wanted to finish it off within that day as I got something else planned up for the next day. Finally he arrived.

I met him and started the conversation. The trick is to start with something that will catch the client's attention immediately, I started with how we are helping their prime competitors to secure their stores. Guess what, he started listening. I introduced my company shortly and then talked about them and their competitors all the time. He is very interested and started asking question about our systems, so that's a success. He is interested in what I am selling :)

At last I presented what I wanted for the day. And he said yes immediately. I sat with him, had coffee and discussed about all the things for almost 80 minutes totally and in that I spend only 15 mins about the main thing.

I personally think the call from my friend's uncle made the day for me. That's what we call as personal influence !!!

By Idiots but is that for idiots?

With the advent of all new technologies, everyone is going international. Peoples are adapting to new technologies, new products and new services quicker than ever before. In the old days it will take a decade for our people to start using things the peoples around the world are using. The best example is denim clothes. It took so long and so much of hard work by our actors to bring that fashion into our country. Even though super heroes like Ramarajan resisted the infiltration of that foreign fashion into the country the long term efforts to bring it into the country paid off at last. Now a days when a I Pad is released in US you will get them here in a couple of weeks. Every big company is eyeing India and China market as these are rapidly growing countries in the world. They are coming up with new plans, policies for India and they are having Indian version for all their products, If you say that it’s a good thing, I am not finished yet they are designing new products for Indian market and you gotta believe it.

Indian companies are adapting all that followed in the foreign countries to keep their customer and employee happy. With the IT field booming everything seems to have a international touch in it, right from the Audi’s and Volkswagens to the I Pods and Blackberrys. The customers are respected for all their value and everything is designed for them. You will be surprised if you are walking into a INOX or Sathyam cinemas and everyone in there will wish you a good day and good time. They will respect you and they make it like it comes from their heart and no wonder you are ready to purchase tickets at rates two times higher than other theatres.

Being lucky to get three days as holidays in the last week, we planned to go and watch the newly released movie Paiyaa. We booked tickets in a theatre named High Dreams in the neighborhood. The tickets are fifty rupees and we booked six tickets for the night show. We have been informed that they will not allow peoples in Lungi but when we checked the tickets nothing is printed on the ticket. One of our guy is so adamant that he will come only in Lungi so we said let’s go. I am damn sure that the manager will yield to our will as it’s a customer driven world. They have renovated a old theatre and imposed all these stupid rules to keep the theatre clean from the slum peoples who surrounded that area in a big numbers. So if they want to protect the theatre from culprits, we don't have to worry about that as we are not culprits so we have a higher probability to get in.

When we hit the theatre all prepared parking our vehicles in a paid parking space run by the theatre the security peoples didn’t allow the guy in Lungi as expected. So we just walked out with a cool head to the meet the manager and there was no manager so we went to the ticket counter, there were two goons one was a big black fella just like a wild boar out of mud water and other one was a young chap dressed decently but he seemed to be drugged. When we asked we want to meet the manager to sort this issue they said they won’t allow inside until he change his attire. When the others started to plead I relieved from my shock and asked them why the heck they didn’t mention in the ticket and asked to repay the amount for all the six to my surprise they agreed without another word !!! Wait a second, you are letting peoples walk out of your hands because of one stupid rule? What are you?, a lousy government official?

I am totally shocked and now I demanded I should meet their manager and the drugged guy said he is the manager all the time sitting behind the counter. I asked him either to come out or let us inside he opened the door and asked me to come in. I said this is our tradition and all our people from our part of country and religion will wear this and if they are going to decide us on attire, I said this Lungi is costlier than his trousers, and I also added we are not excited enough to dance on the floors rising our lungi. I also threaten him if he is not going to allow us in means they are against us. After listening to all these the punk said he will give refund the ticket amount but won’t allow us inside, what a nerve, only if we got the luxury of saying this to our customer, the world will be different. We said thank you very much and walked out collecting the refund for the parking tickets too.

We create rules to enhance the customer experience with us, but these peoples are real stupid knowing neither the purpose of rules nor the value of customers.

Birthday Surprise

Everyone of us (may be few of us don’t) love surprises on birthday. I used to surprise my friends and relatives on their birthdays with a gift or small party or something they really appreciate. My brother is very good in surprising others not only on their birthdays but all occasions. I am not going to write about the latest surprise gift I got from him. We started to celebrate our friends birthday from the college days. Usually we buy a birthday cake and shower him… not with the blessings but with the cream cake and celebrate the day boozing and playing around. We end up spending only on the cake and the birthday boy have to pay for all the drinks and dishes. I guess most of the guys around the country used to do things similar to this. But I know peoples who beat the birthday boy out of his breath and smash him with raw egg and tomato. This is may be guys think that “ you make your mom and others suffer on your first birthday and now it’s your turn to suffer”. We differ in the way of punishing but we never fail to put the birthday boy in misery.

At some times we miss to surprise the birthday boy instead we get surprised. Few months ago we planned to surprise a guy on his birthday and we ordered and got a cake for the birthday boy and we kept this secret all the night. When all the clock needles met together we shut the lights and opened the cake… surprise !!!!!!!. he was really surprised and asked “who is the birthday boy here?” we said “what? it’s you man”. He replied very causally “get a life fellas, the date is right but it’s the month, it is the coming month not this month” indeed we are really surprised.

This is not the first time and not going to be the last. Day before yesterday I stayed all the night to wish my friend who is living in gulf. I used to sleep at 10.30 but I stayed all the night fighting my tiredness, and when I called and wished him at 12 midnight he said “buddy what’s the date?” I said to myself “not again” So I said “ buddy technically speaking I am going to wish you before a day because of the time difference and I can’t be up till the early morning 3 AM for that, so I wished you exactly before a day !!!”. I don’t think he is a girl/fool to fall for that. Anyway I surprised him and that’s what I needed!!!!

Be really interested in others

I have read so many times about being really interested in others. I never experienced that in life, may be not knowingly. After meeting a Diamond shop owner in fashion streets of Khader Nawaz Khan road, I went to meet another client who is more like a street vendor. May be I fail to see his noble character or he doesn’t have any, I personally don’t like to do business with peoples like him. But in my profession we cannot choose our clients we have to strive hard so as to get selected. As my job urges I went ahead to meet him in his shop. He is the owner of one of the biggest home appliance stores in TN. He also owns a jewellery shop in the busy streets of T-Nagar.
I just dropped in expecting humiliation to inquire about my CCTV proposal and he was busy speaking to other persons. I waited patiently with a smile till my turn come. All of a sudden a guy appeared before him and the owner screamed in his ears and barked him to come back after a week as he appeared a day before the appointment. That didn’t scare me and still wore my smile. When he turned to me he said the prices are so high and the person who stand next to him just called the old vendor and told him to visit the shop tomorrow saying that they are getting quotes from other vendors. Even though his talk stirred a bad feeling in my stomach, knowing it by sign the owner assured me that that vendor is not going to come as he is busy in another work. I convinced myself not to lose confidence I started speaking about general things. Then I focused my attention on the other person who is actually disturbing my business.
I was truly interested in him and asked about him and his business. I introduced myself and what my company is offering. I learned his interest and started speaking about that. I was right I got his attention and then I explained about our product. As one can expect from any cultured man who returns the courtesy he was interested in me and my products. He suggested the shop owner who is friend of him for a long time to go with this product for their other store. So I am experiencing it now. You can get to notice these in day to day life. My sincere advice start practicing and be interested !!!!

Dress the part

Every one of us knows that our attire plays an important role in wherever we go or whatever we do. I have heard so many trainers speaking high about dressing the part. I myself always follow the rule for everything starting from getting a sales, getting selected in an interview or meeting someone special. We dress depending upon the place we go and peoples we are going to meet. The homework we did on the audience and knowing what we do are extremely important to get success.

The picture of a beggar begging in the road signal is very familiar in a chennaitie life. And I am used to that. I had seen an old man today who had dressed the part and who knows his audience and delivered well getting success in what he was doing. The amazing thing is the conversion rate for him is 100%. Every person he approached donated him money. I was wondering why he didn’t approach me. May be he can read minds.

Last week I met a jeweler who is not a MBA graduate nevertheless he has all the qualities of a high profile sales executive. He build a relationship with the client immediately and talks well about the his product and giving the customer some tips on jewels. He is very proud of his product and challenges all the product in its qualitative that comforts the customer and they surrender to him like a baby.

We can learn lesson from all around us from every one even from a beggar let’s not talk about a jeweler. My brother used to say that the world is a sales platform the one who knows how to sell himself will win. Everyone should learn the lesson.