21 Oct 2016

The Most Unforgettable Character I Met



“Sales is a numbers game!” Initially it was just a statement for me but as I progressed into my career I came to know the meaning of it. It is said that never underestimate the market, and never ever underestimate the marketer. This lesson I learned hard way. It’s been more than two years in this company, and lot of things happened since I joined the company, I joined this company, when West region was doing better, at number one position at PAN India level. In west region Pune was the territory which was pulling west to its peak. It was the time when Mumbai’s contribution was very less, as compare to Pune. So in short I was a part of winning team. We won All India team excellence trophy, which included India, Nepal and ShriLanka. I witnessed of all the glory and gilts. Our team bagged almost all the awards, and in that also, one person was there who bagged six awards, and he was Saurabh Deshpande. I have never seen a person like him. He was ingenious, smart, and was having all the good qualities which an ideal salesman should have.
When I first joined the company I was introduced to market by him. He knew how press buttons and how to generate sales. I was looking up to him as my role model in this field and want to be more like him. The way he interacts with customer, the way he carry himself, the way he notice small things about the customers and most importantly the way he generate the sales was absolutely mind-blowing. Was I making a mistake by following him? or it’s just the desire of being number was luring me in?  Whatever it is, but I was fortunate enough to be his colleague.   
Every good thing has its ending; otherwise it no longer remains good. And so does our good days. In corporate everyone is in search of good opportunity and Saurabh was not an exception to it three months ago he left the company, and joined other company with better salary and better post. After Saurabh left the company some shocking facts came to our notice, our company gives 10% free stock to purchaser on purchase of bulk quantity. Saurabh took advantage of this policy. This is how it happened, suppose if a client purchase 100 products then as per policy he will get 10% extra means 10 more products. If these products get expired dealer will replace the expire goods with the new ones. This is the policy. Now if say, client used 50 products out of 110, and 60 are of near expiry, these 60 products were returned to stockiest and issued new 60 products to client as a replacement. Instead of just replacing the 60 products, Saurabh showed sale of 60 products and on that 10% extra means 6 more products. Whatever expiry goods are returned to dealer is going get minus from entire team’s sale. Which means expiry of 60 products will get equally distributed to six of us. So on paper Saurabh is having sale of 176 products minus 10 return products but in reality he sold only 116 units.
I knew him since last one year we were very close to each other, but I had never thought of him doing such bad thing just for the sake of achieving the numbers and to get the highest incentives. I have never seen such strange and money obsessed side of him. He was the only person from our region who was earning highest incentives. But still he wanted more. As rightly said by M. Gandhi there is enough for everyone’s need but not for enough for everyone’s greed. But this was just one dark side of him. The darker side was yet to come.
He resigned on 2nd March. Every year we get our increment in the month of March. Company gives funds to our regional head to distribute among the employees Saurabh being a top performer of the west region he supposed to get highest raise, so as per the valuation and increment criteria the given funds were distributed in every team. All this happens on last day of February. Saurabh knew this process, and left company on 2nd March. So whatever the distribution has happened on 29th February was locked and Saurabh’s amount was returned to company. If he would have left the company on 29th February then the increment amount would have divided into total minus one employee of entire Pune region and we would have got higher raise but he didn’t want that either.
After showing all the inflated figures and getting all the incentives, we as a team left with huge stock with dealer but on paper there is very little amount of stock available with the dealer. That day I realized why people say sales is all numbers game. Today we are again on top of everyone all across India. I don’t want to go in details of what happened and how we got situation under control that’s not the topic of discussion here, what I came to know from this incidence is the most unforgettable character I met.
I still wonder when I see this side of Saurabh. How money change one’s thinking, how thinking turns into action and action into behavior. Today also if you asked me who is the best sales person in your company I would say there is none, the best has already left the company and qualities what made him best also no longer there in him, because he used them for short term monetary gains. Market enjoyed his good service qualities and other sales qualitybut in return spit him back on the floor making him all helpless.
He might have did this just to prove his supremacy and wanted to show us down but nobody is superior than time. Ultimately we also got onto top, without his help. That proved our efficiency, we worked more as compare to our salary/incentives which we were getting to meet the numbers, but we finally achieved our target. And that’s what I love about this field its number’s game; you just need to know the application of numbers. And I am loving this game!
Is money everything in life?If yes then what about your values, your faith and last but not the least a good night sleep at the end of the day? And an inner satisfaction of doing some honest thing? Today’s youth is all becoming money oriented, they are ready to compromise on their values, faith, and integrity just for the sake of money. And we are forgetting the most unforgettable character traits which our elders, teachers and education system taught us. Respect you profession and profession will take care of you.