People generally have an idea of who they want to become or what profession they want to join as they grow older but I hold an opposite idea. What work I would never do as a job. As a part of growing up, I was very clear that I would never take up a job of a teacher and I would never do a job of a calling agent to bring sales, or to be a customer care executive, none of those positions require me to cold call for fetching information or selling products or services.
I have a little clue, why and how such ideas have been concretized, it’s not like there is any problem in such jobs, being a teacher is the greatest thing through which you can contribute your part in society. In a similar way, a cold calling agent, bringing sales or a customer support executive is another way through which you can support people and the businesses, making you a nano entrepreneur. It’s not even like, I’m an introvert and I fear speaking to people, or I do not possess skills of communication. I have been commended by people, round and round about my speech delivery, communication and reciprocation, clarity in expression of thought and power of conversion. Many times, I have asked myself this question of what made me say a clear no to this kind of job. I can assume, that it is my fear of not performing well enough, or bringing expected outcomes or just because of my underconfidence of not possessing skills to make a difference in these positions.
Ironically, throughout my graduation and years after that, I have got the many job offerings for a roles of a sales agent. People around me are more confident in my communication skills than I could ever be. One of my cousins, founder of Social Sculpt, a digital marketing agency in the hospitality sector, has asked me twice to work with him. And he’s carefully crafted a role for me that requires me to contact the managers and the executives of various resorts and hotels, cafes and restaurants, coldly calling them and offering our services, taking followups and a simple task of doing 10 calls per day for a decent sum of Rs 100 per call. My shouting underconfidence and fear made me deny the role twice. As I have mentioned before, I mostly act when needed and this fellowship requires me to crush my fear and act as demanded.
As a part of entrepreneurial activity, market research is one of such activities that help entrepreneurs create products, find their target audience, establish business partnerships and provide direction and growth to an enterprise. I remember the day, I got into tussle with the team to clarify my role and on that note, forward linkages of the value chain including market linkages, SOP designing, documentation and outreach came over my part. On that day, the founder of my organisation asked me to conduct a market research. He gave me a little idea about how to go about it, I faintly remember, he mentioned to call some people, understand their pulp production, pricing and establish partnerships for selling but didn’t clarify the outcomes. That day I was down on myself, I took it as a challenge and committed to deliver better than he expected. I came from a science background and I had no clue about how to go about it. I slept with confusion and woke up the next morning with a quiet confidence in myself.
On day 1 of my market research, while figuring out the approach for conducting the market, I read a unit on market research from a 1000+ page book, whose name I couldn’t recall now. Getting some fair basic ideas, about the significance of market research, the type of research, approaches and outcomes of the research, I began analysing the applicability of theory in my project. After careful thought and understanding of my project, I created product profiles and curated various kinds of potential buyers of custard apples and custard apple pulp. The product category I came up with were ripened fruits and processed pulp and the buyers I came up with the three categories of B2B buyers of fruits and pulp. One was pulp manufacturers, who would buy fruits for processing, or would require pulp for selling, second icecreams manufactures who would require pulp and third were small businesses requiring pulp for beverages like shakes, caterers, restaurants etc. After working on these basic things, I wrote my introduction and product specifications, I planned about the information that I need to collect, looked for the platforms and data of manufactures and dealers, signed up at India Mart to fetch information, strategised my approach, and created a speech for me to speak. On the very day, I have prepared a list of pulp manufactures to be contacted the next day. After documenting everything, my shouting fear consumed me. Silently, I was panicking about how I would do, how people would react, what if I made a mistake! I knew, I couldn’t do this in office in front of all the people, so I urged authorities, to allow me do this work from my home as this task does not require being present in office. I was happy that they granted me work from home. I came home back, gathering courage to act a planned.
Day 2, the day to crush my fear and act, to call people and collect the information. It began on a positive note, I woke up early, as I was granted work from home, I was in no hurry for office, on a very positive note I did my regular stuff, studied for some hours and around 11 began with the work. I was turning pages of all the notes that I made yesterday, reviewing my plan and collecting courage to make a call. Before that I was having conversation with myself, about what would I say, how would someone respond, how would I answer, I was rehersing scripts time and again to get a confidence. This worked, but more than that, I was silently consoling and explaining myself, that there won’t be much difference in any of the lives even if things didn’t go as expected. As I have curated a list of pulp manufacturers yesterday only, I made a table in my register of the data I need to collect and added a review section marking my own performance. Slowly, with a rushing heart, I was about to a make my first call around 12’30 in the noon, and in a hit of the hour, call got connected. For some seconds, I couldn’t speak, but then I hesitatingly introduced myself and explained the purpose of calling. Communication went further, I explained the work I’m doing and asked some questions regarding custard apple pulp production. It went up for 7 minutes and the person on other side has been cordial, he responded in a positive note. Post this call, I realised this was not as difficult as I was perceiving it. I got a little confident, reviewed myself positively, dialed up another number, followed the method of introduction, purpose of calling, further questions. First 4-5 calls went smooth and I was filled with joy by then, I was glad that I’d done something that I never liked. The information I went on collecting were like, amount of pulp they produce, what variety of custard apple they use, where they sell, approximate price range and whether they use preservative, information about processing etc. Many were hesitant to speak about price and their market, whom they sell and that’s about business, not everything has to be disclosed.
One call stayed with me, that was a 10 minute long call, where we have discussed about the specification of GI tagged fruit, and through this conversation I got to know about the difference between being natural and organic. I was saying that it’s both in my case, but actually it came out that the variety of fruit we use is naturally produced in the balaghat ranges. Through another call, I came to know about the petal count in custard apple pulp, on the basis of which it’s price is decided. I have no clue of petal count in my pulp and the person asked me the same, I said that as of now I didn’t know much about and with little irritation, he lost interest in conversation. Post this I called my POC to know petal count thing. In a span of 3 hours, I contacted nearly around 25 pulp manufactures, among which 20 recieved the call and around 17 responded positively. And I was filled with utmost joy and pride in myself that I have done something that I always escaped. I was so happy that by 4’30 I left for office to tell my POC and the founder of the work I did and the responses I got. The day closed on a positive note.
On Day 3 with another category of pulp buyers like icecream manufacturers of Pune and mumbai needs to be called. I’d began early today as I have not curated any list for them. Getting their contact information was difficult, I was trying to get it from India Mart or trades india, but these platforms did not work. I thought more, and an idea kicked in my head, why not to contact the agencies through zomato which has contact information of the vendors. But many of these vendors runs a franchise of main company head, who have no control over the production. The challenging part was to get the contact of the main manufacturer. I took the reverse path of contacting main manufacturer through franchise vendors. I listed around 30 vendors selling custard apple value added products like shakes, kulfi, icecream and some of the budding brands like “grameen kulfi”, “parsi dairy farm”, “sujata mastani” etc. gets into the list. But contacting such brands who own more than 10 franchise is a tough nut to crack. One by one, I began contacting them, but I got little response. Many didn’t receive the call, some called out to be a franchise and did not have any look after production, some discussed the pulp, the quality and the price. Some of the vendors also provided me the contact of the main manufactures but they came out to have a pulp processing facility of their own. Among those who received the call, only 5 people shown interest in sourcing pulp from us. As many didn’t receive the call, I mailed them by finding their mail address on their websites and I’m still waiting for their reply to the mail. This bring my 3rd of research to close as a calling agent.
By the end of three days, I have got confidence that I could even do this job if ever needed. I got some good connections in the industry through this market research that would facilitate my learning. One of the pulp manufacturers in Beed district, Balaghat Agro invited me to visit his processing unit and through my visit, I actually learned about pulp extraction and management of processing unit which have helped me supervise pulp production and running a processing unit. One of the person contacted also bought some 50 kgs of pulp. I’m glad that this had given me experience of running an enterprise of your own, and specially this market research, made me a nano entrepreneur in myself, boosted my confidence in the work as “calling agent”.
After 11 months of the fellowship, the founder of my organisation came up with another income generating opportunity for me to work as a call executive for a school, spreading their services. They are paying me decently. Can you guess my response? Do write in comments.
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