Lessons From A Slumdog Sales boy

An MBA or any similar management degree teaches you basics of economics,accounting,finance,marketing,human resource management,research methodology,business strategy.

Often B-school graduates,get a shocker when they enter into the corporate world and find there is a huge disconnect between the theory they studied and the tasks they perform on the field.Does that mean theory is irrelevant? definitely not.Its your ability to link the concepts and their relevant applications ,to see beyond the documents to get the big picture and the idea behind it.

Here,look how the uneducated “slumdog sales boy” (does is it sound offensive ??) sells small handiworks to the foreign tourists.

As a marketing graduate I am able to  identify the some of the concepts which are relevant to this boy’s strategy.

• He understands the customer segments namely domestic and foreign tourists
• He has targeted a niche segment i.e. foreign tourists who would be more profitable even though the sales volume might be low
• He understands that many others will be selling the same item and his only way is to pitch it differently i.e. in international marketing terms “communication adaptation”
• His multilingual ability gives him a competitive advantage over others selling the same item because business strategy tells us that distinctive capabilities are difficult to imitate than distinctive resources which are the main sources of competitive advantage.      So what’s the big deal ?….

If you are doing field sales and feel that all those concepts you learned are going to waste …think again…may be you can use those concepts and models to design your own selling procedure according to your industry. who knows ? if it clicks it may become a SOP in the  company itself….

Remember Knowledge is Power only when Applied correctly…..