Sales walla - a short story

My attempt at a short story:

Sales walla

The Day hadn’t started well but then Mondays rarely did. Not that he had got much of a weekend anyways. In fact the whole of 2011 seemed to have gone by in such a rush! Sitting there in that noisy room full of people he couldn’t help but feel how much more he could have done! And how less he got paid! In fact his basic salary seemed like a joke. But as the ‘accounting’ guy had explained- incentivized pay was the way ahead and the variable package had seemed attractive!  He should never have caved in during the final negotiations five years back. Should have never agreed to the ‘rainmaker’ expectations that had been put forth in front of him! After all he had been doing well in his earlier role so why get into this?

Had life really gotten better working for Wizdom Corp? It seemed that he just kept moving from one meeting to another! Always trying to justify things to everyone and trying to keep one step ahead.

And his clients weren’t any better- if only they could understand the value-add that his products brought to them. Sometimes he thought this was just the struggle phase of his life! Facing tough customers, convincing the higher-ups, fighting the politics and still trying to find some time for the family despite the endless travel and meetings. Was it as bad for the managers and the VPs? The administrative guys? The accountants?  They always seemed to be putting up photos of holidays with the family- maybe he should have just become an auditor like his mother had told him to. But he had been seduced by the glamour of sales! That’s why he had joined this new institute that had opened near his college and got a sales certification. His buddies had laughed at him. Most of them were going off to do their masters in the ‘States’.  He remembered seeing them all off at the airport when they left wondering whether he should have done the same.

He still remembered his first ‘battle’ almost immediately after he had joined here. The entire sales team had given up and they seemed to be quite happy to put this hot potato in his lap. A large and regular customer was refusing to pay up as he was alleging major delays and mix-ups in deliveries and although the contract did not mention any discounts the customer was not ready to pay anything over fifty percent! The consignments had initially been delayed and then delivered to his office- that too during their investors meeting- instead of his factories and no one was ready to take responsibility for the goof-up. The GM-Sales did not know what to do and he seemed to have come in at just the ‘right’ time. He met the client seven times over the next month and in the last meeting in the client’s vintage Bentley, they had shaken hands! Not only was he able to get almost 90% of the invoice value but he also got a new order from the client which would take care of a healthy percentage of their next year’s target! That’s when Mr. Agarwal had really taken notice! Agarwal, the COO had been his biggest aggravation by far. He seemed to take a personal interest in ensuring that he got sleepless nights and making him feel responsible for any account or customer that did not work out.

Agarwal was still called ‘boss’ throughout most of the company- he had been around for most of the company’s existence- right from the time when the founder Mr. Dutt had recruited him as a sales executive! But for a couple of bad decisions a few years ago he was slated to be the next CEO but instead the board had decided to go look for ‘fresh talent’.  The exponential growth of the company did necessitate a more professional management and after Mr. Dutt’s demise they did seem to have lost a little direction.

Around the office he had once overheard someone say that the board wanted to bring another power centre into the company as they felt the COO had become too dominant. He tried not to get too engrossed with these stories- he liked to think that the COO and the rest of the top management were there by dint of hard work & intelligence and that everyone in the company had a shot at the top chair- that was why he had joined. So he always worked extra hard to please the COO (couldn’t hurt right), and his sales & marketing head Bose kept trying to help him out. Bose & he went back a long way- the two of them. It was hard to believe that Bose used to be this shy gangly teenager when they had met up in the sales certification course. Their ways had parted after that till one day they happened to meet up in a hotel lobby where as usual he had been waiting to meet a long-overdue client. Bose had mentioned about Wizdom and things had got rolling from there. He sure owed B big time for recommending him and he told him so even after 5 years but Bose kept saying that he wasn’t the one had eventually made the selection.

After that initial success with the goofed-up order, his workload had just seemed to grow exponentially! Tasks that he didn’t know existed had piled up on his desk! When his parents had come to visit him, they were alarmed at the amount of work that he was putting in and his father had even called up their family physician and arranged a check-up. He could understand that they could not quite get what he was after! His mom kept telling him that it was not the right way to live when he had to suffer so much just for sake of work! But even after so many years, he used to always tell his wife, he could never think of himself as anything other than a ‘sales walla!’ She probably understood though sometimes the incessant phone calls & crazy demands from his company drove her to the edge too.

He remembered a course he had done at Rishikesh few years back. The guruji had asked, what they wanted to feel when they were on their death-bed? The room had gone completely silent- that question still bothered him. Maybe this was not the right road not even the right journey.

He almost missed it when they called out his name though he had been informed by the event management team. His wife was suddenly hugging him- when had she got back from the minister’s wife’s party? He got up, gave his trademark salute and hurried up to the podium amidst applause to collect the “Rising CEO” award while reminding himself to thank all of his team in his acceptance speech.

testing

Can I write blogs on my bb and post them? Testing- this is how we non IT ppl test stuff

Friendship funnel

Here is an idea, lets think of a funnel, somewhat like the one used for pouring liquids and a little like the one used by sales for qualifying leads but with a few differences.
What flows through this funnel is time and what time which is the medium carries with it is new contacts or relations. Time of course flows at a constant rate but the particles i.e. the contacts it carries dont. Another difference is that this funnel has a number of nooks and corners all along its walls where the particles get lodged. Depending on how well we connect with them each particle behaves differently because this funnel is actually a relation or contact funnel- a 'friendship funnel'- cause it sounds more phonetic.
The time starts flowing through it right from the time we are born and so do the particles. A particle might move in different ways though. One particle might get caught at the very top of the funnel- in one of its crannies and then remain there till time stops flowing through this funnel- i.e. till we die. A second particle might move from a cranny at the top of the funnel to another towards the bottom of the funnel and finally get lodged at the very bottom of the funnel- this is the area that we would call our closest friends. A third particle might initially get lodged in one of the interstices and then over time flow out through the bottom. Some very rare particles might flow in and directly get caught at the very bottom.
Are we getting the idea here? Every funnel is essentially a sum of relationships that we build with our friends and all of our individual funnels are filled up differently. Knowing a person you could probably draw what his funnel looks like. For some it might look top heavy with a very few particles down till the bottom of the funnel whereas some might not have much at the top but might be quite filled in the middle and at the bottom.
At the risk of stretching this concept, we might even think that the size of the particles for each person might change over time or the size might be different to begin with.
I could go on but instead I would like help from those of you who are philosophically inclined or love to ideate to help me out. How does this concept develop?

The path

All of us set off on a path, a road. And at every exit someone took the left or right lane to his destinaton. These were the 'lucky' guys- the people who had 'arrived' or 'established' themselves. And slowly everyone took these exits till only you remained. And you felt the road never ended but finally when you had given up more times than you could remember, you finally reached not an exit but the end of the road.
And then, as you stood there and gazed around, you realized what you thought was a winding road with a lot of lanes and turnoffs was actually a path up a gigantic mountain and what you thought were turnoffs were actually path to small plateaus on the side of this massive rock. But this fact was revealed only to you because standing at the summit, you could now see the whole pictures and now the dots seemed to connect. Everything that happened to you seemed to now make sense....What do YOU think?
I am back guys and I seem to be a new person! Well...

Hate and Courage-the two opposite twins born to Fear

"Courage is not the absence of fear", someone has said. Fear however is the root of all problems. Fear has two reactions- one a short term knee-jerk reaction and another a long term reaction. Like most short term things, the instant reaction is short and non-sustainable. The long term (re)action on the other hand takes a longer time to start and give results. Hate is the short-term reaction and difficult to sustain which is why most terrorists at some point surrender or become mercenaries- no longer driven by hate but by habit and lack of options.

The long term answer is true courage-a positive emotion and one that is not really a reaction but more a state of being. "A courageous person does not need a terrorist to be courageous however a terrorist essentially breeds only in a pool of fear and terror" This reminds me of that incident about Abraham Lincoln. When he went to meet wounded soldiers from the confederate army in the hospital, a lady chided him saying that they were enemies who should be destroyed. To this, Lincoln's reply- an illustration of courage was: "Lady, do I not destroy them when I make them my friends?"

Courage however is difficult. It requires all those virtues that our parents tried to instill in us. It requires patience, perseverance and even a lot of forgiving. To quote Kipling from his poem 'If':

"If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating...."

I think that is what courage is about. Its about thinking things through, analysing the siutation without bias and then deciding on a course of action. Its about not letting others manipulate you into action often hasty and counter productive but working out a course of action which not only solves the problem but makes you stronger as a result!

Thus courage is not terror attacks by Hindus but a strengthening of our faith, beliefs and our ability to grow.

And most importantly it is most definitely NOT business as usual. In fact it is a systematic change not just in business but in lifestyle and principles.

Enough of the Mumbai Spirit!

Yah, enough of it cause Mumbai's indomitable spirit has been used and abused too many times now. Our ability to get back up on our feet and carry on has carrried on enough. Now I would like the politicians of this country (who somehow never figure in terror casualties.. even in the Parliament attack they were ironically spared) to take responsibility. Make every corporator, MLA, MP and minister accountable for the terror attacks that happen in their areas. Let's have a law which says that all the ruling politicians who have even a single terror attack in their constituency, automatically cannot stand for elections next time from anywhere! Impractical? Overreactive? Unfair. I don't care. Life hasn't been fair to Mumbaikars has it? Nor has it been fair to the understaffed, underpaid, under-equipped and overworked policeforce. Let these netas feel the heat for a change. Let's all question, not just the intelligence networks but the leaders we elect. Each and every one of them should be taken to task- made responsible. Lets terrorise the netas so that they do their job to serve and protect us
And let's not, at least this time make it business as usual!

What was HE thinking?

"The greatest irony of nature and the greatest tragedy of earth is that the only being capable of appreciating its beauty to the fullest is the only one with an unbelievable propensity to destroy it!"
That is an original quote and one that is really straight from my heart. Think about it, can any other being apart from man appreciate the beauty of a mighty mountain range nestled in clouds or wonder at the depths of the blue ocean as he sits on its shore? Can any animal spend hours on the banks of a river doing nothing and then come back feeling rejuvenated?
And yet it is this same organism that seeks to destroy this beauty. What could be the cause of this aberration?
Is it God's aberration? I know that a lot of scriptures talk about how the world and its bounty is God's gift to us. But does that mean we finish off the gift by consuming it or treasure it the way we would a flower or a card from a loved one? So this makes me think, was the creation of Man God's endgame or is it our colossal mistake (to think that way)?
I think with the pollution and the global warming increasing by the day, we might just find the answer to this sooner than we want!

Brand and the buying decision

These days I have been quite interested in the branding aspect of marketing. I guess the fact that my job is related to brands and retail does also help.
The other day when I was making a sort of buy-list or rather a wish-list I realised that as I was putting a number in front of my objects of desire, I found out just how branding works, at least for me. Let me explain..
I have always been attracted to watches. I have found that there was a gap between the amount I wanted spend and the maximum cap that I wanted to put on it. This grey area is where brands came into play because as I started naming each brand the cap for each changed and for one particular brand I couldnt even put a number (if only that was possible in buying the watch too!). But then I realised what my professor had taught me about brand valuation in monetary terms. Thus if i was ready to pay x rs. more for brand B over brand A wasnt that what brand power is?
Thus brand power lies in that grey range and it is every individual brand that then turns this into a particular value (hopefully positive) for a particular individual.
I know I am probably not telling anything new however the reason I am writing this is because I actually experienced it in the most exact terms and after having read a lot about commoditisation of products this was a powerful reminder of how much the 'brand tag' still adds to each of our lives.
Thus as someone has said, "Brands announce something about ourselves to the world"

Diminishing utility of Intelligence

The complaint of most of my colleagues, friends and classmates who are at work today is that they seem to be not doing enough 'value-add'. Most of us (including me of course) think that we can contribute much more. The overriding emotion is that if we could probably earn much more if only we were able to really contribute with our intelligence and learning. But then why does it not happen?
Well the answer, boys and girls is Diminishing utility of intelligence. That is as every executive contributes with his intelligence, the utility of that intelligence to the organization is quite high initially and hence the employee is recognized and promoted however as he contributes more and more the utility to the organization of that is isnt quite so much.
Think about it, could there be an explanation for this? A low level employee is usually one among many since they form the majority of the strength of the company. However as he is promoted and he rises above, the number among which he is competing becomes progressively smaller. In fact as he reaches the middle or higher management, he is among the top 1 to 5 % in any company. Now even if he contributes through his knowledge or value-add, it wont have that much impact. Why?
One explanation is that an organization can pursue only so many new ideas or policies. As a result some executives will not really be doing intelligent work but in fact will merely be implementing those ideas decided by others in the top echelons.
Another explanation is that as part of the top brass, their value add though significant is hard to measure and compare against those of their peers just as someone with $200 mill is just marginally better off from someone with $100 mill.
Thus maybe the utility of intelligence and indeed the compensation ;-) associated with it diminishes as it progressively increases per employee. I wonder if that's why they say, 'the meek shall inherit the earth'?
P.S. Special mention of RM, AK, DC and ND-M for having had contributed to this blog through your insightful comments. {This is not simply a means to flatter you but I guess it wouldn't hurt ;-) }

Confident or just too sure?

Confidence and sureness (if that is a word) are two different things. Sureness or cockiness if you will-is being certain or opinionated about everything. It often shows not maturity but rather a certain narrowness of perspective or even just good ol’ bliss blooming out of ignorance.
Specimens that exhibit such characteristics do not acknowledge an alternate perspective for as long as possible and then when confronted by overwhelming evidence simply find themselves completely lost!
Confidence or true self-belief on the other hand is an approach which accepts the ambiguity and risk present in every situation and tries to continuously adjust and modify thoughts and actions.
This is probably quite closely related to cognitive dissonance and I think a truly confident individual is one who is completely cognizant of his cognitive dissonance ( too heavy maybe) and is constantly trying to get a better understanding of his self and his environment.
Thus the quote for today: Confidence is the cognizance of uncertainty and cockiness is the absence of cognizance. (quite good if i say so myself!)
Or to borrow from the quote of a well-known politician: “I wish I was as sure of something as he seems to be of everything”

Post ISB post

ISB is over and reality is setting in and fast! Having met my ISB classmates and potential ISB students in the last few days, I am missing ISB like nobody's business. It has been by far the most amazing, unique and memorable year of my life and it is very difficult to describe ISB without using superlatives (and lots of them).
However as I mentioned, the reality of the economy, of the job and of getting back to work has now kicked in (and hard).
I guess change is good but too much change does take some getting used to. -Not a bad random quote considering I am out of practice these days. I promise to write more and regularly (i.e. if someone is still reading this stuff)
-Abhishek, Co2008, Indian School of Business!!!!

Quoted with Truth!

"If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;.."
-Lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem If.
Its only under high pressure situations that you really know if you have got what it takes and the placement week was certainly a good test. A lot of unlikely candidates crumpled under the pressure and a lot of others showed just what they are made of.
Personally I think the week was a great leveller and the spirit shown by nearly the entire batch was phenomenal. It was also a unique experience for me since it was the first time I was in the job market.
To end this post a rather random quote from a Hindi movie: "Its so simple to be happy but it is so difficult to be simple." (Can you make a connection to the topic)

A new experience..a new phase

I am employed.
That is all I should say about my company since this is not meant to be a blog about my career. However, I want to share that experience of going through this whole placement process (which was a first for me.) It was a gruelling, hectic and for some people quite a tense time as they probably lost perspective. That made me realise that "its worthless to think you are worth less since often what you get is what you think you ought to get!"
If you think the role is good and you will love doing it, assume the best outcome and ask for an aggressive salary. It shows the employer that you are confident and capable of performing.
I guess the last week was a great experience and over the next few blogs I hope to share it with you but for now this quote (not an original), about life:
"Everyone dies but not everyone lives!"
Another very good one by the little master Sachin about his cricket (but I think very applicable to life):
"I know that no matter how I play (live) I won't be able to satify everyone so I just try to satisfy myself".

"ISB-T 20 champions"

I could write about how great it felt and what an amazing feat it is for a school which is only 6 years old but that would hardly be characteristic of 'random quotes'. So here are my random thoughts on this whole issue.
We are proud to be in a school which is highly regarded and this was a good vindication of what we have believed in but then came the numerous articles and comments about how IIM's didn't make it and how wrong the ranking was etc. and I thought that maybe its the price of fame.

Personally, 3 schools which had rejected my application for MBA are now ranked below ISB. Such is life ppl, the only thing permanent is change and that brings me to a quote my friend V's philosophy on life:
I am just an instrument who does what needs to be done without pride or guilt though once the task is done, there is a feeling of happiness.
Food for thought? For all of us students and ISB since all of us need to keep going- all the way to the top!

ISB- place to be

This is my first post about ISB and I am really trying to think about a quote which will epitomise this place. Should it be 'survival of the fittest' or the 'ultimate Business school'?
Its seems to be a great place with probably the finest professors and peer group that you could find.
But then sometimes you can overdo it. Sometimes you do get the feeling that ISB is really just a subset of the 'big bad corporate' world and maybe as an academic institution it should be more than that.
You see an academic institution even one that teaches Business needs to be more than just a glorified recruitment exchange. I feel that we as a batch are capable of much more if only we realise what we can do we probably can. So here's my quote for this post, from the poem by Robert Frost,
"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Life- my interpretation

"Life is a jest and all things show it, I believed it before but now I know it."
"Don't take life too seriously, no one gets out alive anyway!"
Two quotes which should be how we treat life. Strong statement but then we really make too much out of this accident called life. I am not trying to be frivolous about God's ultimate creation. All I am saying is that we shouldn't get too carried away by our achievements. My reasoning is as follows:
We accomplish anything because of three factors: 1. Intelligence 2. Luck 3. Hardwork & dedication.
Out of these three the first two are definitely God-given or for the more scientifically inclined- gene-inherited. Thus not attributable to our account. But then most people make the argument that hard-work and dedication is completely their doing. I politely disagree. It depends a lot on your disposition to life which is a function of your nature. And a person's nature is again as inherited or God-given as the other two.
Let me try another logic. Even if we assume that your achievements are your own, doesn't everyone have their own achievements? Their own highs and lows etc. So you are just as unique and different as everyone else.
Taking a step back maybe my thoughts have come out in a jumble. But i hope you are able to make some sense out of what i am trying to convey.
Let's not make too much out of what we do cause in Douglas Adams', Encyclopaedia Galactica the entry for Earth as a whole is "Mostly Harmless"

Too good!

"If it seems too good to be true it usually is". You people must have heard of this one but how about this: "If it seems too bad to be true it usually is." Get it?
Let me explain, I have often met people who can be classified as successful by any standards. They hold good posts, are quite rich, well respected etc.. But when someone starts a conversation with them about a topic and I mean any topic, the person feels like he is talking to an absolute idiot! These subjects (of our discussion) will exhibit total cluelessness and you get the feeling that this person isn't going to amount to much. Yet they are usually quite successful as previously mentioned.
Which brings us to this new quote. What I am trying to convey is that if a person acts the way these people do, it could mean only one of two things. 1. This person has had the most amazing run of luck since King Midas..statistically improbable or 2. This person is taking you and the rest of the world for a ride and that is his ticket to success.
These people have developed this as an art and are very good at using this to their advantage. Don't get me wrong, I am not spiteful of these people just envious that they are able to do consistently what is known in Mumbai slang as "Yeda banke Pedha khana. " Translated: Acting stupid and getting the cake (or maybe having your cake and eating it too!)

true wisdom

"True knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" -the original one-my addendum- "true jargonism is the ability to cover this ignorance with verbal diarrhea."

Ok, so the quote is not all that great but this is what I may have to do to get past interviews!
But its very interesting that jargon can be used both as a defensive and as an offensive weapon. Think about the times that you have done that at your job or even at home. You just throw some important sounding words and that gives you valuable respite. Masters of this art may even get promotions or social status and may never ever be found out.
So lets cut to the chase, is there a counter attack? I think there is. My friend D is quite good at it. You just stop the person in the middle of the sentence and politely tell him that you haven't understood a word! Takes courage ppl but try it and let me know ur feedback.

Note: I think there's more to be written about this so as of now this quote is to be continued....

Integrity

"Don't justify your honesty by the misfortunes of the dishonest."
A line that came to my mind when we were discussing ethics and law today. I don't know how I thought of this one but it does represent to me a pure if somewhat simplistic outlook to life. Maybe the dishonest do justify their 'way' by looking at the trials of the honest but then its because they need a justification! A person with ethics on the other hand needs to only look at his peace of mind.
Note that I am not stating my own bent because though I believe it to be honest, my mere declaration would not make it so for you. And then that also goes back to the original argument right? Why do you even care? My honesty is for my peace of mind and your honesty is for yours!

At ISB we sell..

The Famous Charles Revson (of Revlon fame) once said, "In the factory we manufacture cosmetics, in the store we sell hope." A better understanding of the customer is rare to find!
I thought of modifying this line for my school, the Indian School of Business. "In the classroom we are trained in business management but ISB sells us a culture."
We learn the value of questioning, structured thinking, beating or at least meeting deadlines, of being professional (do not relate to the earlier article) and of surviving and eventually thriving under continuous pressure. That is ISB's promise or to rephrase, that is ISB's 'hope'.
At the end of such a writeup, you are expected to make a normative statement but instead I would like to leave you with this food for thought:
"All of us have a moral obligation to dissent."- McKinsey credo.