Ravi Speaks:
Today I am reproducing one article from my book- “38 years of selling.” Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it while scribbling down.
Demand with Command
In the line of selling, creating demand and then making yourself professional enough to convert that demand into your sale, and earning the revenue from that effort is the simplest way of expression for the sale to be made. There are various ways by which different people from different streams approach differently for the creation of their products’ demand and those “different strokes” are the proven ways for their specialty products to move on in the market. Just as in Pharma, we approach our main customers like doctors who have the potential of prescribing the various brands related to various companies, likewise the consumer products approach through audio-visual and lay press propagators’ ways. Nowadays reaching the larger number of probable customers through the net and that too with the finest and accurate approach of SEO application especially for their brands being promoted online with no bar of the area where those are to be sold or consumed-reflect in one simple way the real means of sales.
When I joined the Pharma line in 1982, my mentor-who was a great personality from Gujarat, used to emphasize more predominantly on the line- “Demand with Command”. He used to say that basically, every act of our day-to-day activities is nothing but the act of sale. If someone is trying to get a job and appearing in an interview, he is trying to impress upon the Interviewer about his pluses why he should be taken-which is his art of selling himself in front of the interviewer. Now if he has impressed the other party with utmost ease and authority, giving no low-profile tinge to his expressions-he has been commanding the situation then. It is this command created which demands his selection without being subdued or obligatory about the same. Finally, it was his commanding nature which induced the interviewer to pick him up because of his salient pluses, which were the need for the interviewer as well.
So, selling is involved in every act of giving and take. It may be right from selling a movie to large audiences to even a man selling his agricultural yield for his livelihood in the market.
In my tenure of selling, I came across only a few real masters of selling who proved what the selling actually meant. They proved that if they created the demand; it was only through their command and authority in a positive manner.
First, I saw that quality in my maternal Uncle-because of whom I came into this profession of selling. I used to be in my teens when I used to accompany him on his Taxi Tours to various interiors of Kashmir-which is mainly during the seventies. He was working as a senior rep in the Himalayas and had a couple of friends accompanying him in those taxi tours belonging to other multinational companies like E-Merck and Lupin labs mainly. I remember once I was with him on a taxi tour and he had to meet a doctor in a medical dispensary in one interior near Kangan. He took me along with him and the moment he entered the dispensary; the doctor received him with open arms and immediately asked for tea to be served to him. The happiness on the face of the doctor was visible, and his expression gave the real message of how much he respected him. My uncle told him clearly that till the time he was there with him, he should write one of his brands to almost all the patients and the doctor agreed. We were there hardly for around fifteen minutes and during that time he wrote his brand to almost all the patients checked by him during that period. The brand is a liver preparation that could be written to most of the patients, and that was exactly what the doctor did. My uncle finished the tea and had a very warm talk with him and finally, while parting away, he mentioned about two-three more brands and left. Now what you call such a meeting? Here the command and demand too were small things to be given the weight of age for. It was exactly the tremendous relationship that my uncle seemed to have developed with that doctor, and even the doctor’s reciprocation towards him was the level of respect and reverence expressed. I could make out one thing for sure that my uncle with such an-art of befriending the doctors and converting this relationship into a productive yield was a great salesperson and had he devoted this art of his into his own ventures he would have been a very successful businessperson too.
The second example which I saw of a great salesperson was during my working in Punjab with a seasoned man who was a very senior rep at Hoshiarpur-Punjab. His name was Mr. N.L Sud. It was in 1996 when I became his RM and worked extensively with him in that belt of Punjab. I remember it was during 96 itself when I went with him for the first time in one interior called Balachaur-near Hoshiarpur. He too had excellent relations with his doctors and had the art of getting the maximum support as prescriptions from such doctors. The moment we both entered the Dispensary of Primary Health Unit-Balachaur-the doctor was covered from all the corners by the patients and was not visible. Mr. Sud mentioned loudly the name of the doctor and the reply came from the center of the crowd in the main hall. The doctor meanwhile told all the patients to go out of the room and only a couple of them could remain there inside the room. Here Mr. Sud was received warmly, and the doctor asked for the tea. Mr. Sud introduced me to him and told him to get tea immediately and also start writing to all the patients one bottle of Geriforte Syp [A comprehensive Tonic]. At least till the time, we both were there with the doctor. The same thing happened. He started writing the brand left, right and center to all the prescriptions irrespective of the age or the disease condition in which the patients were. This brand is a comprehensive tonic that could be written that way to almost all the patients. Soon the tea came and started taking tea and the doctor also paused a bit and started talking to Mr. Sud. Within minutes, I had a very good scene in front of me. Almost around six patients were standing with the bigger bottle of Geriforte-Syp, which had yellow packing on it in their hands along with their prescription, waiting for the doctor to show the same and get his nod. Such was the control of Mr. Sud in that area that he was the “All India Bestseller” of the same brand continuously for many years and nobody in India even came closer to his sales for such a brand. Here again, the demand for the brand had been purely based on the command which he had. This command did not come within one meeting or two meetings with the doctor concerned. It must have resulted from his consistent efforts in converting the doctor, maybe for a very long time earlier.
After the relations are made, it becomes even more artful and tactical for the salesperson to maintain those created relations and extract the business what we call the proper ‘Business-Encashment. It is this art of a salesperson which puts him in the commanding position and because of the attainment of such a command-one can sweep the dividend as much as he would desire-because by that time he had already become the trendsetting productive asset for the organization. It is for the organization to find out what extent it has been genuine to such an asset.
In my tenure, I could see such people rarely, but yes, the lessons which they taught me were very strong and mind-boggling. Wish each person in the sales attains that phase which the above two examples had achieved during their tenure-which according to me for those two great Gentlemen- is no less than attaining the stage of “self-actualization” in the enormous field of SALES.
Kane has rightly said: –
Take a stand and command to demand what’s grand.
=======================