Watched a rather interesting movie over the weekend...Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year. While the movie wasn’t as riveting as expected from a director of Shimit Amin’s ability, it definitely had its heart in the right place. It’s refreshing to see contemporary movies revolving around real people with a ‘slice of life’ treatment as opposed to the larger than life song and dance extravaganzas. However if you happen to attend a Punjabi wedding in Delhi, you will realize that even the Karan Johar - Sooraj Barjatya type movies are very real!
It was rather bold to make a popular flick where the protagonist is a Sardar salesman. In most movies the protagonist’s goofy friend is usually a sardar or the odd salesman. You put the two together and David Dhawan can have a field day. Yet here the protagonist was real and you will find shades of your best friend, B School batchmate or maybe even yourself in him.
Enough of the movie...Consider this...Everyone comes across a million salesmen...Yet this tribe is one of the most hated. Maybe it’s because they are too pushy, they talk more - listen less and more often than not trying to palm of a real lemon to an unsuspecting soul. My early encounter with the sales folks happened when hyper irritated women would go from door to door selling “ladies products”. I was often curious as to what these products were...Today the door to door breed has been replaced with the phone to phone kind. I can bet my bottom dollar that when you were about to start something important...your phone would buzz and you will hear - “Saaar, this is Rajeeeev from Kotaaak Life Insurance...Do you want insurance!”
It’s probably the sheer magnitude of such non-descript losers that give the sales guys a bad name. Yet when you look at Corporate India through close quarters you realize that the new age sales guy has taken a quick course in evolution. The loser types have been replaced by the schmoozer types! They are smart, witty, well dressed...Yet the Racket Singhs and their ilk have one insurmountable problem – Trust! It is next to impossible for a salesman to gain consumer confidence inspite of his smooth talking abilities. We all look at them with so much suspicion. Not sure if this is because profit (‘dhanda’ in his parlance) is the only motive for the sales guy or is it that the consumers have become far smarter and realize it’s a buyers market and no longer a sellers one!
However beyond one’s job description – The fact of the matter is that we all are a salesman in some form or the other. A subordinate is trying to sell his capability to his boss, the boss is trying to sell an impossible deadline to his team, parents are trying to sell their lofty ambitions to their kid, a man trying to sell his dreams to the girl he loves, a lawyer trying to sell his argument to the judge, the doctor is trying to sell a more expensive treatment, the ad agency is trying to sell their campaign idea to their client and each on of us is probably ready to sell our soul to climb the corporate ladder – one rung at a time. The list of transactions is endless...
Whether we like it or not...There does exist a Racket Singh...oops, Rocket Singh in each one of us...Trying to con someone and sell something (and I hope the two are mutually exclusive)...Happy Selling!
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