Interesting Learning Exercise - MANDI 2009 @ Europe Asia Business School.

Selling on streets was never easy for me. Being born and brought up in an environment which was always comfortable and supported by Parents, Family and Friends. When asked by my college to do an assignment which included selling toys on Street, I was initially not convinced. It took time for me to adopt to the fact that I will have to go on streets selling toys for kids to customers with whom no appointment is fixed.

I have done PGDBA in Marketing (distance learning) and also studied the concepts of Marketing @ Europe Asia Business School. But when it came to actual sales and that also on the streets, I was not convinced and thought that I will not be able to do good in this aassignment.

Brief Introduction on Mandi:
MANDI is a annual event conducted by Dr. T. Prasad. The purpose of event is to ingrain entrepreneurial spirit in the minds of young Management professionals. The event consists of selling the products by the students across the city of Pune. Students are divided into groups and earmarked to a certain area in the city. They are given a target to achieve within stipulated time. The product has to be sold at the pre-decided price to the customers. (We were selling the products for an NGO Navnirmiti http://www.navnirmiti.org/ you can get the product details (JODO, Number Balance, Tarangam) from this website).

Our day began (12th Dec 2009) with MANDI inaguration at college. We were on the field by 11 am. The first thing we did was that we decided a plan of covering the potential areas in Pune. My team consisted of myself, Amit Mandora, Alok Routray, Gargi Kumari, Shahab Syed and Tanushree Bhanawat. We were given an inventory of Rs 12,000 from college for selling on same day.

We first reached to the school St. Bishop at Kalyani Nagar in Pune. Luckily it was Saturday and it was closing time of school. We first approached a parent who was taking his child home from school. The good news for us was that the First client we approached was converted to Sale. The parents liked the products so much that they started surrounding us and asked the details about the products. We were able to sell inventory worth more than rs.1500 during the first hour of sales.

Suddenly I started realizing that the fear I had of selling on streets converted into confidence and I was able to do justice to my assignment. I started approaching parents and converted most of the calls into sales. I had few rejection from parents, but my Conversion ratio was high. This was now getting exciting and I was enjoying the job. We covered other areas like Fame Adlabs, Big Bazaar, M.G Road, etc.

By 4 pm, we were able to sell inventory worth more than Rs. 7000. We now had a few hours to go and still had an inventory worth Rs. 5000 more with us. Though we were tired, we pushed ourselves and had a belief that we will sell all the inventory and help the Children of Navnirmiti. In sales, if u think you can, you will do it. Its more important to think that you can do it. By 8:30 pm, we were able to complete all our inventory.

This was a great achievement for our team. We enjoyed our day on field and team work. It was the Team wok that helped us to achieve our targets. We were the first abnd only team to complete this assignment of selling all the inventory. For this achievement we  received a reward of Rs. 1000 from our college.

There were lots of learning that I had from this activity ranging from confidence buliding, team work, target achivement, direct sales to Capital Management. I am sure this activity and experience will help me in my venture and it has given me confidence in doing direct sales.

I will request everyone of you to contribute towards the society by helping the NGO's and also please entertain the students who are selling on the street. I was one of them on 12th Dec 2009 and if I didnt receive the support from people who were on streets, I would have never been able to remove this fear from me. Hence, please encourage these students and contribute to the society.

Thanks,
Nimesh.