The Perils of a Summer Job - The First Week of Actual Project

As promised here is my narration about the first week of my project.

As a young man looking to make my mark in the corporate world I was all keen to start ASAP and show to the world how good I can be. We all were given a list of IFA's to be pursued for the sale of our software products for the Mutual Funds industry.

As a courtesy (I say courtesy as I knew the skill and knowledge level of my mentor after the training) I asked my mentor Mr. A how exactly to go about marketing of the software. I was pleasantly surprised by his response as I never thought after the foolish things that my mentor had done during the training period it would be possible for him to out do himslef. But leave it upto my mentor when it comes to making a fool of himslef. He said very confidently that we should cold call on our clients to fix up meetings! Well I think that my mnetor said that because he firmly beleives that there is no diffirence between selling software and vegetables. Accroding to him no matter what if you are able to land up outside someones office with a product you will be able to sell it whether it is vegetables or software :-)

The fourth lesson is: Always ask your superiors for advice and then do not follow it under any circumstance!

So I followed the fourth lesson and did not follow my mentors advice. I decided to pursue the clients in a more professional manner with my colleague. We systematically called the clients to brief them about our products and then setup a meeting with them. In the meeting we gave them a small presentation about the firm and the various software solutions that we can offer to them. Next step was to arrange for a technical person to actually give the client a demonstraion of the software. Following this systematic approach we were able to get 2 clients in the first week itself. It was a great acheivement given the fact that the company expected us to convert 2 cleints in the span of the entire internship :-) This basically proves that the fourth lesson holds and that you should never follow the advice of your senoirs!

The best part about the end of training is that I can now directly go to the clients office without having to go to Belapur. Though it has robbed me of the pleasure of the scenic beauty of Belapur I am more than willing to live in the concrete jungles of Nariman Point.

I also had the pleasure of going to the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) during the week when the stock market was swinging up and down like a ride in some amusement park. The scene near and inside BSE was amazing. Never have I seen so many people so close to getting a heart attack! Everyone had only one question on their mind: In which direction will the next swing be?

It was as if the ECG of the peoples hearts was linked to the BSE Sensex! As when when the sensex fluctuated so did the heart beat of millions of people!

The office that I went to was also full of activity. It was as if I was in a game of musical chair! All people were running from one chair to another with the screams of the employees providing the music for the game. The irony of the whole situtation was that I am sure no one was doing anything as they were helpless with the market in a free fall but still everyone was shouting and pretending that they were doing something. With the kind of atmosphere I saw in the office I was pretty sure that the meeting was not going to go as planned, but I had no idea of what was instore for me. As soon as I met the concerned person he took me into the conference room and then started telling me about his emotional journey during the past few days due to the swings in the stock market. Instead of me giving a presentation to him about our software products he was the one who started giving me a presentation about his emotional imbalance. He went on and on until he saw the immense boredom on my face after which he finally asked me "Why have you come here?". And then it happened. The moment I mentioned that I was there to SELL him our software solutions for Mutual Funds, he made a face that I will never be able to forget in my life. It was the face of a man who had been constipated for atleast a 1000 years! For a moment he was in such great pain that words did not come out of his mouth. And then he gave me a lecture on how I should be more considerate of his situtation and told me that how I could even think of selling him something when he was in that state. Infact I think he had started to hate the word SELL and he went on to explain to me how the free fall in the market was due to people SELLING indiscriminately and that how no one should SELL anything, people should only BUY and BUY and BUY and then I knew it was time for me to say BYE BYE and leave ASAP before I went crazy!

So that was the end of the first week on job. Very intresting, very eventful and very educational.

There is a lot more to come so stay tuned........

OM MBAYAH NAMAH