8 Management Students Meet the Sales Man of the Year!!

While learning in a B-School, interactive sessions and seminars by guest faculties were more or less a routine. At a college where the students could name the Guest they wanted to interact with, one fine evening 8 students raced on their bikes to the city at the state capital of Kerala for a special session with celebrity speakers. Following is the experience of that journey and the 156 minute long session.

Characters you will come across while reading this - Aasif, Arun, Basil, Dileep, Premanand, Rohit, Vivek, and myself!

Disclaimer: I might have missed a few facts for which I blame my memory and have altered certain details to make it suitable for reading for all.

11 December 2009, was a day of hectic activities at the campus for the 2008 - 2010 batch students. But the best part was - none of the activities were related to academics! :D On the day we had a "professional" photographer at the campus clicking individual and group shots for the placement brochure, with the students in formal attires, which was supposed to carry us ahead and take us to the destiny though there was a different plan in life for some of us!

Coming back to the day of 11 December 2009, the photo session had took all day which blessed us with no classroom sessions. By around 5:50 (don't remember who started it) the idea came up, "Aaj Rocket Singh release hey. Dekhne chale kya?" By the time the question reached me, for which I had an immediate yes, we were a team of 3 which had Premanand and Vivek with myself. The show was to start at 6:30 and being at a distance of 17 kilometers we dashed towards our bikes. A breath taking start and we reached the gates of the campus, and there we met up with Arun, Basil, Dileep & Rohit. The question was quick, "Are you guys coming for the movie Rocket Singh?" None of us till then knew that Ranbir Kapoor had such a good appeal among ourselves because we all decided to leave together. The only change in the plan was 2 guys, Basil and Arun, were assigned the task of reaching the hostel to keep the bags and blazers. The rest of us, 3 bikes and 5 people, took different routes to reach the movie house in time. On the way a call was made to another buddy, Aasif, asking whether he would be joining in with us, and as expected that was a YES! A random question by one person had made a team of 8 friends who were driving crazy through the evening traffic towards the city of Trivandrum. 

All 8 of us were right on time to get the tickets and made it into the movie house exactly 3 minutes before the show started. From here on we had one of the best film watching experiences - as we were seeing theories, topics and fundas we learn & discuss in classroom being tried and questioned. I am not getting into the review of the movie here but yes it was a brilliant watch. Even before the movie was near to half way, we all had realized we were in for a management session produced and handled by the Indian Film Industry. Sales, targets, cold calls, meetings, business development, negotiating, persuasion, profit margin, service, commission, discount and many other topics were discussed by the celebrity speakers, who just didn't speak but also enacted the roles.  

By the end of the show the 8 of us had met some of the finest characters and the Sales & Distribution session was the best we ever had. The reason was the session had changing locations, dialogues and most important - music! 

That day we realized there is more to learn and understand about the life of management in front of us!

4 months old in a 1 year old organization!

Disclaimer : This is not a testimonial about the organization for which I work but about my experience and exposure by being a part of the team!

7 months after graduating from DCSMAT School of Media & Business (out of which 3 months I was working as a Event Designer at the State Capital of Kerala) I took a call on a profile I was offered from Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd. Starting from November 2010, I was appointed as the Social Media Optimizer (SMO) for SnapDeal.com (a product from the house of Jasper) and I had an interesting array of job responsibilities in front of me. I was happy, maybe that is an understatement; I was excited for getting a job which demands me to do things which I love doing otherwise!!

A word about SnapDeal.com. SnapDeal is the leader in the hottest category of e-commerce models : Group Buying! (Source: http://dqindia.ciol.com:50080/content/search/showarticle.asp?arid=125741&pageNo=9 ). Putting the same in simple words, SnapDeal gets you the best deals in your city on different LifeStyle services. 

Initially, though briefed about the working process and other related topics, I was skeptical on what can a SMO contribute to the organization other than spreading the word about the deals. But then the very next day I was fully made to understand by seeing the work on how much potential the role has in-store for the person donning the title. The big and small players in the same industry is a threat to the business, not in terms of revenue, but in the way the name and the image is spoiled. Being a completely online based working model, the threat was numerous folds more because all it takes is someone posting a minimum of 4 word phrase just for fun. 

Understanding the challenge and the opportunities for networking, my journey had started. Gradually I had an even more better understanding about the industry and about different ways I could contribute to my work. And that is where I had the realization that I just don't play around with Social Media Tools & Techniques but there is lot more for me to plunge into. A customer connect event was a beginning of all this. Other major happenings of the organization which drew me closer to the inner circle was the association with the famous Indian reality show Roadies Season 8, Channel V show Date My Folks, celebration of a huge subscriber base, another customer connect programme, a photo shoot (which I had carried out) and the recent celebration of the brand completing 1 year! 

I had always wondered (and almost all times cursed) why should examinations be conducted. After all the years at school and college, I realized that it is important to see how much one has learned and that too from a outsider's perspective. For me it wasn't exactly an examination but an invitation (better read as opportunity) to talk at Outlook 2011, Media Matters : Trends and Opportunities in Media. Mr Joseph Fernandez (Corporate Communications, UST Global), who knew me from my post graduation days and also one of those rare people who encouraged me to take up the profile of SMO, had been invited to speak at the seminar organized by MOP Vaishnav College (Chennai) conducted at All Saint's College (Trivandrum). He had called me up one fine day and asked me whether it would be possible for me to make it to the seminar. For me, who has been a listener for different seminars, this was a dream - addressing a big and unknown audience! 

It was after the Media Seminar that I became more drawn into learning about the possibilities I can at my work place. Not because I wanted to be called for another seminar but in the last audience I saw a huge crowd of competitors getting ready. It is not the experience that counts in this job, its about the thought process you have. The more different you think, the more successful you are. With today's technology, everything is possible; all that matters is whether you have thought about it before others.

This realization has become my driving force today!       

Today I have programmed myself for a race against time, to make sure that I don't miss what is happening around me, to learn things from all, and to name my dreams. I owe a couple of people (from the Jasper team) and technology (job portals) which has helped me reach where I am today. 

This journey is still on.. and so there is no ending statement to this but just - MORE TO COME!! :D