30 Secs Sales Cycle! No ivy league MBA can teach this skill but the Power of Hunger! Admire these Unsung Heroes! Read this perspective
Dear Friends and Students
I stay in Visakhapatnam. Every day I cross at least 3 Signals to reach my workplace. Couple of weeks back I stopped at a traffic signal. I was closely watching a traffic signal vendor. He was selling a glass wiper. He was able to complete the entire sales cycle in 30 seconds! Amazing right? Maybe he doesn’t understand the sales cycle process- Finding the leads, Connecting, Qualifying the Leads, Present the product, feedback, close the deal and nurture again!! This is a typical sales cycle process.
If I map all these 7 steps with this traffic signal vendor, he did it in 30 sec! The brutal truth is he only gets 30 seconds for every deal! Red light means business, amber means finish the deal if it is still pending, green means pack up and get ready for the next cycle!! Definitely it is an interesting case study, right!!
I was going through Quora on this topic. I found an interesting math and law of probability theory. Author assumed the vendor works for 4 hours per day. Periodicity of red light is 3 minutes every 10 minutes. No chances to sell are 6 chances per hour, 24 chances in 4 hours. Average no of vehicles contacted per red light in 3 minutes =15. Hit Ratio to sell every time the street seller meets 15 vehicle owners in 3 minutes= 3 clients. Total earnings per client made =Rs 5. Total earning per chance taken = 3X, Total no of chances taken in a day = 24, Total earning in a day working (4hours) = 24 * 3X. Assume x=5 rupees. Hence total earning per day is 24*15=Rs 360. Assuming he works for 25 days, total earnings per month would be 9000. When they are selling, generally their whole family works in the same region, assuming 3 of them are potential sales people in their family, their family income is around 27000 per month! Mind there is no input cost, no rentals, no tax and zero infrastructural/warehouse costs. Profit margin is highest among any known commerce. If the working hours increased to 8, earnings per family goes to 54,000 and family yearly package goes to 6.24L! Mind, there is no educational cost, hence return on investment is 100%.
Can any MBA teach this negotiation skill? They didn’t write any entrance exam nor trained for deal negotiation. Look at their expressions! True, most of them close the deal with expressions! Usually, they come from different states. Hence there is a language barrier! However, sometimes they smile, sometimes they plead, sometimes they attract with half baked vernacular language, sometimes hard to negotiate and demand and these expressions are uncountable. They change the track based on the buyer’s reaction. Who taught them? The true answer is “Hunger”.
Hungry stomach, Empty Pocket, Broken Heart are the three best teachers in anybody’s life. Everyone should experience it. Even if you are blessed materially, try meeting these 3 teachers. Hope you know this story of Hari Krishna Exports’ Scion, Hitarth Dholakia, lived the 'Aam Aadmi Life' in Hyderabad. Hitarth Dholakia, son of Ghanshyam Dholakia, one of the Founders of Hari Krishna Exports Pvt. Ltd., a Rs. 6,000 crore-diamond firm that has its presence in 71 countries, was in the Hyderabad as a part of an age-old family tradition that required him to live in a city unknown to him, without the family tag or even a mobile phone, to find a job on his own and moreover, and to keep finding new jobs every week (prnewswire.com).
Why is their family following this tradition? This is the best way to teach 100 qualities in a 3 months crash course! Sales, Humility, Living in Odds, you name any quality, everything is experienced!
While I am preaching this, if you ask me whether you will allow your son to live this way? The bold answer is Yes! However, I will not force him as times have changed. They can be exploited as well. If he wants to do it at his mature age, I encourage. If you ask me whether I did something similar in my past? Partly Yes! It was not for a job, but for a post graduation seat. I was on my own journey for more than 15 days with minimal amount, without any communication with the family & friends, in unknown states, without much proficiency in language, negotiating with multiple professors to recommend or refer a seat for me (in some universities there is no entrance but referral works in those days). I experienced life without railway reservations, food on the streets, staying in waiting rooms, luggage in cloak rooms and many great experiences! Today I can go back to that life easily if God dictates.
Life without family support, job without friend’s reference, sanction without God's blessings, journey is not on bed of roses rather on thrones of roses. It was true in the past and it remains true today!!
Dear Students,
Happy for what you have today! Be grateful to the support you received till date and don’t exploit it to the core! Try to live on your own feet when you are deserved and matured!
If I hurt anyone’s sentiments, my sincere apologies.
Ravi Saripalle
Note: Opinions expressed by authors are their own.
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