Last time I was at Cha Bar, Delhi I noticed a sticker stall inside. The guy was selling fridge stickers and he taught me some amazing lessons about marketing. Here are the lessons:
Continue reading “Marketing Lessons From A Vendor At Cha Bar”
Category: Sales Training
I never knew my visit to the beautiful Dal Lake could teach me powerful lessons in selling. When I received an opportunity to conduct a workshop for one of the world’s leading chemical companies I was thrilled because it was also my first time visiting Kashmir. Before I could plan for the program, I planned the places to visit near my hotel – one of them being the beautiful Dal Lake. The shikara (a type of wooden boat) ride was one of the attractions that I didn’t want to miss because of the experience of the boat ride amidst the scenic view of the valley.
If you have watched the movie ‘Pursuit of Happyness’, you would definitely recall the image of Chris Gardner, hauling a huge medical device – a portable bone density scanner – from one hospital to the other. He is often running between them and facing some very tough questions from potential clients.
Continue reading “7 Challenges Of Learning In The Pharmaceutical Industry”
Program
Abbott India | Very Large Group Engagement
Objective
The challenge was to engage the 2800 strong sales team of Abbott India in a two-part event. The team comprised multiple business units with varying team strengths. The first part of the event needed to involve the teams working in their business unit level groups and the second part on Day 2 needed to involve all 2800 people coming together for a common cause. Adding to the complexity, the first day needed to be facilitated in seven different locations across the city for groups varying from 200- 1200! The theme of the event was Shikhar – symbolizing growth. Any activity design had to fit with the context of the event as well and result in an unveiling of the Shikhar Logo as a finale event!
Solution
After iterating multiple design options, we arrived at the solution – The Shikhar Challenge. A team of more than 35 facilitators delivered the day 1 of the event in 7 different hotels in NCR. The Shikhar Challenge involved participants in each location working in smaller groups to create self-standing pyramids of around 4 ft height from cardboard kits specially designed for the event.
The challenge required teams to use their collaborative skills, execution and team work to assemble the pyramids. But this was only part of the challenge! Each of the smaller teams had to come together as one unit to assemble 19 of these smaller pyramids into one giant pyramid around 10 feet high. Seeing the big pyramids come up was a huge Aha Moment and lent itself beautifully to the metaphor of Shikhar (Growth).
The pyramids from each of the locations were transported to the main location where all 2800 participants assembled the next day for a Republic style parade along with their giant pyramid creations. However, in order to drive home the element of teamwork and alignment to one vision, there was a further catch. Elements from each of the sub-businesses had to come together for a finale where the business leaders assembled a giant 4 layer pyramid 12 feet tight using smaller pyramids from each of the 7 locations. It beautifully drove home the point of Shikar and working together to scale great peaks. The final logo of Shikhar was also unveiled by projecting it onto the giant pyramid structure built by the group.
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Program
Axis Bank | Team Engagement Workshop
Objective
To launch their new sales incentive plan for the financial year, in an innovative way that captures the hearts and minds of participants. The entire incentive plan was based on the theme of Formula 1. Our brief was to design a team experience that would serve as a launch pad for the new incentive plan. It also needed to highlight the critical success factors for an F1 team, including execution skills, collaboration and incorporate the different exciting elements of F1 racing.
Solution
The FocusU Team designed a custom Soapbox Challenge for the Axis Bank Sales team. The challenge to the team involved being divided into smaller teams to participate in an F1 Style Racing program. The teams worked in F1 style, two cars per manufacturer.
The equipment involved professional grade carts from the global leader Berg. Running a F1 style race also means setting up a customised track that recreates the look & feel and the passion of the race. All this was arranged end-to-end by the FocusU Team.
To make the whole experience more exciting though, it was broken up into two stages – the Build stage & the Racing stage. During Build Stage, teams had to build their F1 carts from scratch as a team – nuts, bolts and all. For the Racing stage, teams then needed to choose their best drivers who raced it lap by lap, one after the other in “passing-the-baton” style. This was done through an additional Pit Stop Challenge, where drivers and tyres had to be changed. The excitement generated, right upto the prize distribution finale fit in well with the client theme and served as the perfect backdrop for launching the incentive program.
The Soapbox Challenge has subsequently been discovered and experienced by a whole lot of other teams, who have wanted to experience something very physical and with a rush of adrenalin, but something that also brings out deep learning that comes out in the debrief. A few such companies being: XL Catlin, Harley Davidson, HUL, Clifford Chance, BCG amongst others. One thing common to all these experiences has been the customer delight.
Impact:
Here is what Kedar Lele, Vice President – HUL had to say about a similar experience:
“We have been depending on FocusU for more than 6 years to conduct team-building sessions and exciting outbounds for our managers & employees. The SoapBox challenge done with racing cars brought an innovative challenge to the team. It is not just about building a car and decorating it. Or for that matter racing it on a small track by choosing right drivers, pit crew and cheerleaders. It is a lot more about team work, creativity, communication, performance, collaboration and finally the excitement of winning, all rolled into one. I would strongly recommend everyone to go take the SoapBox challenge and spend a day learning with and about their colleagues.”
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Source: Referral Candy
The setting: A quintessential Mumbai local train. This particular coach was pretty much packed. As the train labored its way ahead, with its heavy burden – the crowd inside, rocked back and forth in their seats to its steady rhythm. Most faces wore a blank resigned look, perhaps contemplating their day ahead or perhaps catching up on a moment of quietness, amidst their bustling lives.
The below blog was posted by me a couple of years back in another blog. However, going through the same, I just realized that even through these years – the fundamental question to be answered in the sales profession remains the same, only perhaps even more acute: How does one show value to a customer in the process of doing a sale – in this era of Google?