Kiss of the $treet

From AC room to dust and dirt of street: experience of an MBA student selling toys in Mumbai street during the annual college marketing event MANDI.

The first day of classes at NITIE, Mumbai: Three professors enter at classroom at the same time. One is an OR prof (Dr Mandi), another is from marketing (Prof Dhume) and the last one from communication studies (Dr. Mehta). The Profs gets a standing ovation. Everybody recognises him from the previous day’s introduction session. What a session! But this session unlike previous one was on a bit serious tone. The professors discussed about MANDI, an annual event in NITIE when students had to get down to Mumbai $treets to sell toys for an NGO. They kept addressing the class one after another, analysing the situation from different prospective, different dimensions and different angles. The observations from my classmates were none the less revealing. It was like being in august company! I thought “Wow. I have heard about case method of pedagogy in Harvard, role plays in Kellogs. But this is different!”

And surprises continued. For the next one month, we designed product literatures, made designs and demos from toys we were supposed to sell, analysed Mumbai market, talked to sponsors, took care of logistics and all sorts of things. We had sessions on how to identify potential customer types and how to sell toys to them. At 4 am one night, I was thinking how to prepare eight different sales pitch for eight different types of customers, for the same product! And the insights I got next day in class from my classmates and professors, opened some uncharted avenues to me! I was loving it!

Well, I was sure I would never be able to sell those toys in Mumbai $treet. I was apprehensive regarding my selling abilities from day one. The day before MANDI, I visited the nearby ATM and took out some money, just in case. I took a piece of paper and made a list of people whom I would gift the toys.

We decided to target Andheri West. My partner took some toys in his bag and I carried the rest along with the models which we had made the night before. The auto rickshaw carried only three persons, so my partner and I split up. As soon as I got out of auto rickshaw in Andheri, I saw a lady looking intently at the models I had made out of toys. Not to miss the first opportunity, I approached her with all my enthusiasm and vigour. “Now, She is going to be my first customer!”, I thought.  Alas all I got was a smile and thank you. I too thanked her for her time and moved ahead. But I could hardly move. Spider webs besieged my mind. The whole of Kotler came crashing down. Ego states changed. I checked my wallet again for the money I would have to give in the evening. Thank God, It was all safe there.

Never the less, I moved on to Andheri station. But the same thing continued there also. After three more failures, I found it difficult. Was there some fundamental wrong? I remembered Will Smith saying in The pursuit of Happiness “There are no free lunches in this world.” Well Well Well. Let me check with my friends! No one had yet sold anything yet. That brought a smug smile on my face. The feeling that whatever happened is natural and I am not the only one struggling gave me immense energy to start afresh.

Well this time the way I talked was different. I remembered Kishore Biyani (Future Group) saying that Indian customers want to touch and feel the product. Well. So be it. Soon I found my first client. That guy from Microsoft bought stuff worth Rs. 280. Those were the most precious currency notes I had ever earned. The $treet has finally kissed me! Selling after that was a cake walk. I soon ran out of inventory (because most of that was with my partner!) and had to turn down customers. So I approached my friends who were kind enough to make me in their group. As Sherlock Holmes fans would have said “Gregson and Lestrade (the official detectives) will get the credit, but we have the fun.”

A hawker approached us asking for the details of the NGO. He wanted to make a living selling these toys. An architect apprised us of the ways in which the JODO toy can be used to teach architecture. A school principle wanted to buy us out so that he can use these toys in his school. We advised him to contact the NGO directly. A lady called us and bought two sets of tanagram (another of our toys) for each of her kids, without any sales pitch, without any demonstration. These however do not discount the “other” kinds of experiences we had. We were driven from the front of a mall by the mall manager. Hawkers did not like our face. Police came asking what we were doing there.

In spite of all this we were sold out in 2.5 hours, without any advertisement, without any promotion what so ever. Then we went on to help our friends with their stuff. And when everything was over, it was time to celebrate our new found confidence. We had a small party (or was it a well deserved lunch which we had skipped). We headed on to Juhu beach to commemorate our first kiss with the $treet! I checked my purse, it was intact, all the notes stacked inside nicely. With a sigh of relief, I headed into the sea with my friends. I had a piece of paper which I needed to throw away in the sea.