What is Sales?

“The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.” — Dale Carnegie. 

Ok Sir; noted. So what is sales? 

Seller’s perspective - 

• Sales is about understanding people, their behaviors, what they want, what they mean, their tone, body language and similar. 

• It is about being hungry, disciplined, adaptable, likeable, making the best first impression, relationships, navigation, hustle and so on. 

• Moreover, it has to be about effective communication, price, generating volume, getting in front of more people, low friction and doing more more … 👍 

• And yes, scaling sales is not possible without segmentation, customer profiles, AI tools, training, collateral, incentives, quota and other factors. 

Buyer’s perspective - 

1 - Buyer is thinking, I am not sure about this. What and how we do things are unique. Most of the time I feel overwhelmed by what I see and hear from the market. Everyone says everything in a flashy way. Some are saying yes to all my requests. Who and how should I trust? 

Similar to that of buying petrol car, diesel car, ev, CNG, LPG, hydrogen? Now add family, sedan, SUV, sports, convertible cars and so on. So many options and too much confusion. First point noted. 

2 - What is the price and how much will it cost me? We are looking for the next 4-5 years. The price should be in our budget range. Can not spend more. As a b2b buyer, I have to answer to many; and unfortunately I can not explain this to anyone. Is there a hidden pricing element which I will come to know after a year? Because at that time, I may not be able to do much about it other than being a civilised hostage. 

Hmm … 🫤

3 - Will this product help me achieve my goals? How will the value and numbers stack up? Is this investment worth it? Day to day tasks, transactions, the way teams work? It will be challenging if my teams have reduced work load or their work load is increased. The tool should not compete with someone’s current job, otherwise navigation and cultural adherence within the company will be hard … 🙋 

Here is an example - why should I buy an additional mobile phone with a data pack? If I give a mobile phone to my teenager when he is outside, he can reach me if needed. Am I thinking in the right direction? How to quantify the value of this investment though? 

4 - Let me see who else is already getting benefitted from this product. I need someone who is similar to me; not forward and not behind in terms of business maturity. If I know the traits of someone who benefited from the product I can do similar. I understand that there will be nuances and contextual differences but it will act as a frame of reference. Hopefully I will grow in my career with this product. 

Speaking of benefits, as a student I used to wash dishes in a restaurant. That was the first time I saw automated dishwashing conveyors. I saw other students getting benefitted that way. I was correct. That work paid my monthly bills (not tuition) as a student. Seeing and then doing is believing … 🎖️ 

5 - What challenges may I face if I make this purchase? I need to know when this will be fully operational. Is there a magic wand for this to happen? If Yes, what is it? We are expecting the product to perform really really well. However, I may not be able to define what ‘well’ means. 

It should stay with me in changing environments, all seasons; because seasons do change every alternate quarter if not annually for sure. Will it … ❓

6 - Who needs me as a customer? Who will be proud of having me as a customer vs one in the pack vs being scared? Will it become a black hole once the signature is done?

So what’s next? 

• Brothers from my hometown called repeatedly. Get up, find a guy who can make Ganesh idols from paper cups in Hyderabad. How do you find someone in a metro city in 2013? However, you know you cannot explain these things to brothers from your hometown. 

• For 3 weeks, I called many; online, Just Dial, etc. Even randomly asked a couple of traffic police officers. In the end, a retired police officer gave me a contact from a press guy. Went and met that guy, he gave 2-3 more contacts. After 3 weeks, I found a clue that someone near Nacharam, Hyderabad can make these kinds of idols. 

• Finally, I found the guy. Called brothers from my hometown to Hyderabad overnight and decided that we will make a paper cup Ganesh idol in Hyderabad. 

• Idol is ready. Now? How do you carry an idol which barely fits into the lorry? That too 526 Km (326 miles). Who has a lorry? Called Honorable Corporator. Sir, Sir, Sir - he is not giving lorry. Called Honorable MLA. Sir, Sir, Sir - he is asking money for the lorry. 

• Commuting with the idol from Hyderabad to home town was satisfying. During the commute, people stopped to pray for the idol, and offered us tea, coffee, vada, bhajji, poori bhaji, you name it. We didn’t feel like eating; the enthusiasm itself filled the stomach. 

• When we reached our hometown, it was electrifying. We took over the entire parking lot of a Hero Honda Showroom. Thank you Hero Honda SM Ghatge and Sons, Kolhapur. 

So, what is sales?

Sales = Seller perspective + Buyer perspective (marry both, arranged marriage ONLY) + So what's next (hustle with a reason) + Pygmalion effect. 

Hence the hustle picture. This time I used Ai to add the HDR effect to the pics. It worked well. 

Morya, Morya … 🙏

Morya, Morya … 🙏

Morya, Morya … 🙏

Triple Morya … 

Looking for books recommendations? Maybe next month. 

PS - The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area.

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Swagat Irsale is a Growth and Scale Advocate. He works with start ups and scale ups and helps them grow revenue and build enterprise products which users use.

You can connect with him on Linked in.

https://www.groadv.com/post/grow-revenue-the-journey-zero-to-one-billion-swagat-irsale