Literally on the ROAD!

I’v tasted the fruits and salads of my first pay cheque but today I got the real taste of my hard work. As a part my orientation program at my B-school, we underwent a Business Exercise where in we had to earn a minimum of Rs. 200 without spending even one rupee from your pockets.

In groups of two we were told to go to Laxmi Chowk in Pune. After walking for some time we got a lift from Mr. Mahesh, who dropped us at our destination. At about 9.50 A.M “mission –getting a job” commenced. After a few initial setbacks finally we landed up a job with Kohinoor Enterprise with Mr. Uday Sane who owed a Sports Shop with badminton products and also operated his business of moulded V.I.P chairs. He promised to pay us Rs. 200 for our services.

During our working hours only a few customer walked in and we showed them the sporting products telling them the details about the same. This gave us a lot of time to interact with Mr. Sane, he had set up this shop soon after completing his masters in management from Pune University in 92 on a bank loan and it took him ten years after that to make a profit. We were surprised to know that he was a World Federation Refree of Badminton. As he himself was fully engrossed into the sport it was easy for him to tap customers for such a limited product, by the virtue of one to one contact with potential customers and word of mouth publicity. His goodwill in the field of badminton also helped him in getting customers. One of the observations made was that he provided small services like mending of broken strings of the racket for free this helped him in retaining his customers.

He supplied Victor and Yonex goods, which were imported from Taiwan, when asked about Indian manufacturers he said that due to lack of Branding their market share is less. We also offered him marketing solutions to keep up with the current times. As he had mentioned that he had an account of Facebook, we told him how he could reach his target audiences through Facebook. Making a page of his company, giving details about products and services being offered and new discounts and schemes . It all could reach out to many and all this would be free of cost. We also talked about google ads and how he could use them in his business.

At 1: 30, he was closing down for lunch and he handed us our money. It was a great experience interacting with him. As we headed for the market we realized that they all were closed for lunch or else the owner wasn’t around. Then we decided to make use of this time and did a few surveys of the footwear shops, we spoke to about 9 shops, the street told us that their average daily income ranges from 200-300 in the off season and about 500-600 in the peak seasons and there is no effects on his sales due to Recession. Whereas when we asked the same question to a Branded foot ware shop we were informed that they earned Rs. 12,000-10,000 daily and during the off season it was from 4,000-3,000 but the sales had decreased over the last couple of months as compared to last year same time.

Then we headed to our final destination and this time an Auto gave us a lift that too he went out of his way and dropped us at our destination. And the driver Mr. Manoj Goswami was the perfect ending to the one of the best days I’v ever had. Mr. Goswami have us a lift just because we spoke to him really well, in his own words “itne acche se bol rahe ho tou mai mana kaise kar sakta hu”, then we started to talk with him and he weren’t prepared for the things we told us, he owns a dotcom called www.sb.com and is holds a certificate in interior designing, he had marketing experience of 10 years in an FMCG company and the only reason he drives an auto is that currently he wants to stay with his family in Pune and for him no job is big or small. He said his needs are less and this job provides him enough.
This day will definitely proves that,
EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS , DO IT.