I’m back with another installment of stories to success, and this one is quite close to me as an individual. It’s a story based in Kolkata, after I couldn’t fair well in my campus, and returned home. On flipping through the pages of a local newspaper, I had come across a walk-in interview for new graduates in an Advertisement agency.

I reached their office at 8:45 AM; it was pleasant to the eyes, located in the posh locality called Esplanade in Kolkata. I was nervous appearing for an interview in a new domain, away from my specialization, and anxious without a job in hand.

I was taken to a conference room, where other candidates were seated around a round table with a Gong on it, and a trainer was addressing them. I was asked one pertinent question: Can you sell?

“Yes, but what?” was my question. I was told that we had to sell tickets to amusement parks, offering discounts on bulk purchases.  My first task was concept selling, and I was fortunate to be assigned a mentor. 

He took me under a tree outside the office, and handed me the tickets. “Selling is an art of patience,” he told me. I was anxious to prove my worth. The module was door-to-door selling, and we were all allotted areas. 

Challenges were many:

• Most posh societies had a stringent norm against the entry of salesmen.
• On most occasions, I was an object of pity to the residents, they were sorry to see an Engineer struggle.

We met in the afternoon at the decided meeting spot, a South-Indian restaurant, I hadn’t sold any tickets, and was disappointed to be honest, and averted eyes from my mentor. He, however, approached this with a different perspective. He told me,”To sell is professional; to become an emotional wreck is amateur.” He seemed to know of my emotional state from my expressions. It touched me.

So, I decided to tackle the situation with all I had got; all my energy, my enthusiasm, and a smile, for I was meeting new people, and getting to know how they thought of amusement parks.

Surprisingly, I had sold four strips containing 20 tickets each by the time we met again in the office, around 6 PM. I was rewarded with an incentive of INR 250, and the Gong was rung for me, as a token of appreciation. 

It was the first time I experienced a sense of victory in my corporate career, and it is a memory I still cherish.

As would be new-hires, here are some things to learn from this experience of my life:

1. Situations are like a pot of boiling water, you choose what you are; a potato that becomes hard and sensitive, emotional, an egg that changes its nature, or coffee that makes the water change its properties, and what’s better, coffee gives it a wonderful aroma and rich taste.
   
   
2. Inspiration and knowledge come from people, great associations and a little toil and sweat. Shy from it, and you shy away from success that insight and innovation bring with them.
   
   
3. In life, the most memorable events are the ones that you struggled hard for, and achieved, no matter how trivial they were. So, enjoy these memories in the making. They make you a better recruit. After all, it is said by all corporate giants, we need Managers who can appreciate; appreciate the value of people, of businesses and of clients. Build the value to appreciate, so you get appreciated.

I will be back with another installment of an enthralling story. Till then, a new recruit is a potential leader.

(Inputs from Swarvanu Sengupta, Shri Ram College of Commerce-Global Business Operations)