Still there are a few realities that need to be told to the new breed of sales trainees. Knowing things in advance is always good so that Jor kaa jhatka dheere se lage. My friends, these are few of the things that you should be prepared for(Apart from traveling in a trolley with goats and life threats from competitors 🙂 –
1. “You learn swimming when thrown in the murky deep waters” is what people say with a big grin when they tell you that they are dumping you to some obscure place. Once there, you find zero social circle, no decent hotel or food, no fancy toys (like a cab.. so travel is through local buses/trains/autos), and within few days you’ll be amused at your own naivety and wonder “I was doing an MBA from a great insti a few months back, life was promising, now suddenly I find myself in this 8 by 8 room in Irinjalikudaa, the bed sheets are stinking and even this damn fan is not working.. Whaaaat went wrrrong?“
2. Most of the times, what you are doing is nobody’s concern. But the same could potentially become everybody’s biggest concern at times. So you need to have an updated tour program, just like that of a CEO, while what you are doing might just be a salesman stint.
3. Know everything under the sun: No of Sticks in XYZ Agarbatti pack to color of the Parle Marie packs, margin on Britannia Nutrichoice to price of the Sunsilk black. Number of salesmen at your Timbaktoo distributor to number shops in his area.. you are expected to know everything, otherwise be prepared for those disgusted “these MBA types trainees ..” looks.
4. No matter what you do, you’ll always fall short of expectations. Actually very soon you’ll realize that it is more of a routine. The best thing that you can ever imagine to hear is: “This was good guys, but … “.
5. Rote numbers that really don’t matter to you: You are just a trainee and will be on a different stint almost every other week. But there is a rather impractical expectation that at any point of time you will work as a living encyclopedia, and at your fingertips will be the data and information related to all of your previous stints that you have undergone till date. You might know the numbers that really matter to you at present, but that’s not enough. Branch numbers, Circle numbers, category wise numbers, sub-category wise numbers, MIS numbers, RCS numbers, historical numbers, other channel’s numbers.. blah blah, and you have to pretend that you really care about all of them.
6. Deal with those code words: if UOM1 is CFC and UOM2 is Packs, why not just call them UOM_CFC and UOM_PACKS instead?
7. Everyone feels that he can enlighten you about anything under the sun: You might have worked in the Google/SAPs of this world before your MBA, people will still give you their own version of what a SaaftWhere can do and cannot do, and the tough part is that you’ll have to agree.
8. After you are screwed, hazaar bonds will crop up. “Arre yaar pehle bataana thhaa naa”, you’ll hear this more often than the supposedly contextual product placements of MRF blimp in an IPL match
9. Your view of the world changes, mostly for worse. When your gf/wife is busy shopping, you’ll be found analyzing the shelf space of various companies. When travelling, you’ll look more at the outlets than the scenery. In newspapers, you’ll see more of the advertisements than the real news..same with TV. You start asking too many questions and doubting everything, phrases like Why, how, how come, where, let me check, gochi, show me, and ‘tell me’ become your new punctuations.
10. Overall, having a life is a crime. This world is yet to witness a happy sales trainee, and you better not try to be the first one
Just went through the posts from your admission interviews till here. Please try to find time and update your blog. It will be of immense help to college students like me to know what kind of life to expect – and more importantly, is this what we want?
Best of luck to you for this life :0
Thanks dear. I'll surely find some time and keep this going.