Sales Stint in TN Upcountry - A Page from my Diary
Timeline: May to October 2004
Line of Work: Management Trainee in an FMCG company
It was an eventful 5 months in TN Upcountry as my sales area was referred and one which has been more fun than I might be willing to admit! The high points were of course the nights spent at Prince Lodge in Pudukottai, dinner at Subalakshmi Mahal Palace in Karaikudi and my new found love for Tamil music. Gilli was the hottest music in town not to any small measure due to the presence of Trisha in the video!
As business school taught me, it was time to put to pen and paper my key learnings in this stint of mine:
1. India is a beautiful country and there are so many experiences, sights and sounds to feel and enjoy in an upcountry area that it is a shame that I did not have a camera. This will hoepfully be be rectified shortly.
2. It is such a contrast to see how I attempt to sell a 36 Rs. Jar of Instant Coffee when half the consumers of the town probably cannot afford 2 square meals a day. And shockingly, the products sell well even in these markets. It’s crazy what some good imagery for your brand can drive people to do.
Brasstacks!
Now that I am done with the global bullshit, it’s time to tell you my real learnings - which I hope will come in handy if any of you ever decide to travel through the likes of Ariyalur, Jayankondam, Thirpattur, Kullithalai, Arantangi, Devekottai and Mannaparai (I hope you never do!)
1. When you travel by bus and you intend to sleep then the best location is the last seat - not only does it offer the most leg room but also the maximum head room. Every TN bus has these overhead shelves all along the side of the bus to keep luggage. Unfortunately the designer did not take into consideration the abysmal condition of roads in TN and that certain people such as me are above average height. Consequently when rubber and pothole meet, so do my head and the shelf. It is quite a sight to see me bodily rise 6 inches into the air all set for lift off before being rudely and painfully bought back into my seat by the shelf.
2. The second set of rules to remember is when you sit by the window. It gets a little complicated here but I’ll try and simplify as much as possible:
a. If the seat in front of your is occupied by women then it is best to stay away from atleast 2 set of seats behind them. The primary reason for this word of caution is that on a long distance journey the odds that the woman in front of you will throw up is 3:4. And if you are seated behind her the muck is going to take the shortest route to your freshly ironed and washed shirt! Needless to say personal experience accounts for these words of wisdom.
b. The second situation is when you travel and there is a chance of rain. It is best advised to stay away from all windows and place yourself comfortably dead center of the last seat. TN believes that it’s buses have a life of their own and ought to have ample gaps between all joints (even if that joint is on the roof of the bus) to allow for that. So if you have not had a bath that morning and the heavens decide to open up then TN State Transport Corporation treats you to a shower that you will not forget in a hurry!
c. The third rarer but still very likely situation is when the glass pane of your window is more or less hanging on for dear life to the window frame by an inch of rubber. You decide to take the seat, and invariably it decides to give in and fall in your lap after shattering into 2 large murderous looking pieces. I spent 45 out of the 60 km journey holding 2 of these pieces in hand looking totally lost in my reflection in them.
3. All TNSTC buses come factory fitted with original Bose speakers that are strategically placed at all locations in the bus so that no matter how hard you try you cannot miss “Appadiya Podu Podu.......” being blasted out for your entertainment - talk about customer delight! FMCGs could take a leaf out of their book - nobody is spared - I wish that was true with our advertisements too!
4. You have a choice of buses in TN to suit every pocket:
a. Your simple plain vanilla kind of bus that drifts from town to town at 30 km per hour and thinks nothing about stopping and having tea after every 30 minutes of driving (I ought not to be complaining as long as he is drinking my brand of tea!)
b. The Point to Point (PP) bus which is the bus equivalent of the Shatabdi Express minus the air conditioned comfort! Alloy wheel covers, shining steel bodies, black tinted glasses, Rajanikanth poster on the back panel, yellow coloured body, a horn that would make any unwary pedestrian jump out of his skin, a suitably hip name such as “Rockfort Express” and to top it all an in-flight movie - these are the Rolls Royce of all buses in TN. These were my lifelines in my sales stint and I have seen umpteen number of Tamil movies on my various journeys without knowing the name of even one of them.
I do hope that my objective of making you all aware of the pitfalls of a harmless looking journey on TNSTC has been met and all of you can make the more informed choice of avoiding the area all together. My sales stint is over, thankfully for my stockists - they were more than happy to see my back. Surprisingly I have picked up a decent amount of Tamil here, definitely enough to be able to see my products in the market!
Well if I have dramatized and made the sales stint more glamorous than it is - so be it - it was a blast :)
Line of Work: Management Trainee in an FMCG company
It was an eventful 5 months in TN Upcountry as my sales area was referred and one which has been more fun than I might be willing to admit! The high points were of course the nights spent at Prince Lodge in Pudukottai, dinner at Subalakshmi Mahal Palace in Karaikudi and my new found love for Tamil music. Gilli was the hottest music in town not to any small measure due to the presence of Trisha in the video!
As business school taught me, it was time to put to pen and paper my key learnings in this stint of mine:
1. India is a beautiful country and there are so many experiences, sights and sounds to feel and enjoy in an upcountry area that it is a shame that I did not have a camera. This will hoepfully be be rectified shortly.
2. It is such a contrast to see how I attempt to sell a 36 Rs. Jar of Instant Coffee when half the consumers of the town probably cannot afford 2 square meals a day. And shockingly, the products sell well even in these markets. It’s crazy what some good imagery for your brand can drive people to do.
Brasstacks!
Now that I am done with the global bullshit, it’s time to tell you my real learnings - which I hope will come in handy if any of you ever decide to travel through the likes of Ariyalur, Jayankondam, Thirpattur, Kullithalai, Arantangi, Devekottai and Mannaparai (I hope you never do!)
1. When you travel by bus and you intend to sleep then the best location is the last seat - not only does it offer the most leg room but also the maximum head room. Every TN bus has these overhead shelves all along the side of the bus to keep luggage. Unfortunately the designer did not take into consideration the abysmal condition of roads in TN and that certain people such as me are above average height. Consequently when rubber and pothole meet, so do my head and the shelf. It is quite a sight to see me bodily rise 6 inches into the air all set for lift off before being rudely and painfully bought back into my seat by the shelf.
2. The second set of rules to remember is when you sit by the window. It gets a little complicated here but I’ll try and simplify as much as possible:
a. If the seat in front of your is occupied by women then it is best to stay away from atleast 2 set of seats behind them. The primary reason for this word of caution is that on a long distance journey the odds that the woman in front of you will throw up is 3:4. And if you are seated behind her the muck is going to take the shortest route to your freshly ironed and washed shirt! Needless to say personal experience accounts for these words of wisdom.
b. The second situation is when you travel and there is a chance of rain. It is best advised to stay away from all windows and place yourself comfortably dead center of the last seat. TN believes that it’s buses have a life of their own and ought to have ample gaps between all joints (even if that joint is on the roof of the bus) to allow for that. So if you have not had a bath that morning and the heavens decide to open up then TN State Transport Corporation treats you to a shower that you will not forget in a hurry!
c. The third rarer but still very likely situation is when the glass pane of your window is more or less hanging on for dear life to the window frame by an inch of rubber. You decide to take the seat, and invariably it decides to give in and fall in your lap after shattering into 2 large murderous looking pieces. I spent 45 out of the 60 km journey holding 2 of these pieces in hand looking totally lost in my reflection in them.
3. All TNSTC buses come factory fitted with original Bose speakers that are strategically placed at all locations in the bus so that no matter how hard you try you cannot miss “Appadiya Podu Podu.......” being blasted out for your entertainment - talk about customer delight! FMCGs could take a leaf out of their book - nobody is spared - I wish that was true with our advertisements too!
4. You have a choice of buses in TN to suit every pocket:
a. Your simple plain vanilla kind of bus that drifts from town to town at 30 km per hour and thinks nothing about stopping and having tea after every 30 minutes of driving (I ought not to be complaining as long as he is drinking my brand of tea!)
b. The Point to Point (PP) bus which is the bus equivalent of the Shatabdi Express minus the air conditioned comfort! Alloy wheel covers, shining steel bodies, black tinted glasses, Rajanikanth poster on the back panel, yellow coloured body, a horn that would make any unwary pedestrian jump out of his skin, a suitably hip name such as “Rockfort Express” and to top it all an in-flight movie - these are the Rolls Royce of all buses in TN. These were my lifelines in my sales stint and I have seen umpteen number of Tamil movies on my various journeys without knowing the name of even one of them.
I do hope that my objective of making you all aware of the pitfalls of a harmless looking journey on TNSTC has been met and all of you can make the more informed choice of avoiding the area all together. My sales stint is over, thankfully for my stockists - they were more than happy to see my back. Surprisingly I have picked up a decent amount of Tamil here, definitely enough to be able to see my products in the market!
Well if I have dramatized and made the sales stint more glamorous than it is - so be it - it was a blast :)
posted by Mohit Sud at 2:05 AM
1 Comments:
Nice account of TN and ur experiences there.I am glad u enjoyed tamil music and movies and learnt some tamil as well..!!"Mr.Moral Cop" will fall in love with u all over again!;)
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