Occasionally as I gadded through the foyer of INMANTEC, the wall hanging put against the wall often stole my sight. It reads: Learn Unlearn and Relearn. Throughout a formative year spent in here, I often wondered for the meaning whenever these lines appeared in my thoughts.
6 weeks summer training from BERGER PAINTS (India) Pvt. Ltd. has taught me the intricacies of the job of a salesperson and the exertions as well. On the first day, the project guide confirmed “to do something valuable out of which the company can reap benefits which somehow could be even better for me in future”, and that too, in an uncompromising tone.
At the beginning, I thought that to present myself as a ‘would be’ industry fit honcho will be profoundly august and I can diplomatically manage my job. On my first day in market, draped in one of my favorite Oxemberg collections and with basking confidence, I stormed into the stores guilelessly asking the concerned persons to fill up the questionnaire. The result was disastrous. Some got baffled and some rebuffed the offer. The questionnaire came back half filled along with a dozen of negative feedback! A few smarter people asked in mockery, “So, why this kind of a job being an MBA?”
Some shops were like duck in cricket. I saved myself from verbal abuses as it is tough to reply, especially in the couture that I am a proud MBA student. After a week, I found hardly 6 to 7 questionnaire that showed little or no interest of business relationship from the company. Many others are keen on the competitor’s products. I realized I am going terribly wrong somewhere.
With an apprehensive heart, I gathered some courage to seek an appointment with the territory manager. He was a cheerful person with a candid attitude. I told him about the problems which will hinder to create a niche for the company especially when contenders are such a rage. “Good marketers are the guys who sell bad products too”, he stopped me, “go and taste the world before you choose your supper.”
That’s so raven? Not exactly I would say. I missed the learning that a business with no proper sale is a business with nothing much in it. It is not that my work finishes with filling up a few mundane questionnaires but it actually kicks off when a problem starts arising.
The next few days were spent in ransacking the stores asking about how satisfied the guys with their businesses are, in order to identify the major problems leading to negative feedback. Formals gave place to T-shirts and MBA boosts were sent in exile. Like ‘aam admi’ and acceptable as a part of industries especially targeted by Berger like Cement, Marbles, Hardware, Sanitary where I have to work, I went on taking informal interviews asking about whether they are interested in paints, how are their current businesses running, shared tea with them and with a heart’s content, found exactly what the company was looking for in my project. For large businesses, I had to use informal network like taking information from nearby tea shop or by asking workers in the shop. A good coalescing with them helped me to frame out dealership network including identification of vulnerable areas for the company, potential customers with their competitive advantages, problem areas and possible solutions. Not the least, I managed to split the hairs apart to fetch 11 prospective shops readily interested to take the dealership with 9 others keen to know about the offer in details.
After I submitted my project to the company, to my surprise, they called me up once again to mail them all the data that I have collected along with my own suggestions where should the company proceed for further improvement!
Learn, Unlearn and Relearn again appeared the night I left for INMANTEC to complete final year. I winked to my inner self, not for I did something that received laurels from my project evaluators, but for something I read, forgot and recapitulated live and with high spirits. The exact meaning for the pithy statement - Learn, Unlearn and Relearn is still out of my vision. Only a blurred image is seen which speaks of a fitting attitude for setting a consistently jubilant outlook indispensable for work.
Classrooms aid in enhancing conceptual clarity and when it comes to industry, the learning ripens with an altogether discernible façade. For the readers who have come so far: using PR skills tactfully was probably the subject matter of what has been taught to us in Organizational Behavior in the initial days!
