rocket - Reminisces II

Rocket Singh is a sweet story that starts with a young man, wet behind the ears, trying to make his mark in a cut throat sales environment. Cute movie, but what I really resonated with, is the way a new comer is treated in a hostile sales organisation. Hard core sales led structures are quite hostile to new comers, especially simple honest blokes who have no clue what to say to whom and when. Early steps can make or break your career within these structures. I know of this as I went through very similar circumstances.
Like the protagonist in the movie I too started my career in sales. On campus, the hot companies were the FMCGs. These are the one who make and sell soaps, shampoos, detergents, toothpastes etc. one such company that came in was Balsara Hygiene. Initially started by a generally affable chap, it grew to be at that time (11 years back) a 100 crore company selling Promise, Babool, Odomos, Miswak, Odopic etc. the company was sold to the Dabur some time back. The brands were decent but there was a rot in the system that was, to my assumption, endemic to the company.
Like Rocket Singh I joined as an enthusiastic boy, unsure about himself, with the glamour of sales in my eyes. I saw action happening everywhere and I learnt that lies are the most important thing needed to sell anything. I was agasht at the level of lies that were thrown about. People were playing politics with each other, getting the team to fight internally, selling crap to distributors, forgetting.. no denying.. promises and conversations and the lot.
I lasted (barely) for about 9 to 10 months there. Everyone from top to bottom in the branch was there to look at their self interest. Everyone wanted to play their game. It was so unsettling. The branch manager couldn’t care less as long as sales were done. The territory manager didn’t care what happened as long he kept put in his office dreaming of shitty sales strategies. The territory manager and the area sales managers were pathological liars and the sales managers were constantly scheming. They were eating money from the schemes and corruption and nepotism were rampant. Over reporting numbers was common. Of course the sales figures from depot to distributor are truth but the secondary sales figures (distributor to shop) and tertiary (shop to consumer) were sham and figment of imagination. People reported whatever suited them. Reach in terms of number of outlets was a random number that you wanted to show. When I had to fill in a form that reported reach, I went to the branch guys explaining that we don’t go to so many outlets. Should I show the actual much reduced number. The guys were aghast. You cant show degrowth you idiot. Huh? But we don’t go to so many. Arrey… just take last years number and grow that figure near about the sales growth and you have the number. Tera target dekh na… you will have a clue to the answer. WHAT?
Then the schemes. Instead of reaching the retailer, they ended up reaching the distributor. Why? The obstinate reason that these routes are unprofitable at current margins. Who supposed to do the billing and passing of these vouchers? Me?
The pressures to comply with the unethical stuff is just amazing. The stuff bandied about and browbeaten in my head was this is way it’s done. This is the only way. Much like the movie… the pressure to conform to the behaviour is immense. Very soon, much like the movie again, I was isolated. Some of it was because I did not mollycoddle them and a lot was because I did not get the game. Rather I refused to play it.
At the last I even tried pushing the authorities higher up but I got no where. Add to it the rubbish advice, designed to pull me further into the sand pit. Some how Rocket Singh was not so funny anymore.
I identify with his angst, I identify with his predicament and his purpose. Today I can say for sure that the guys at Balsara was wrong. That is not the way to do business. The movie does get preachy but what it tells is right. It’s a pity that business schools will never analyse this movie and the moral it seek to spread. We will overanalyse ever other thing, even far fetched stuff like Lagaan (nice movie, but that’s that). but real issues of ethics, group dynamics, irritating bosses etc are never taught and explained. Good honest blokes will get screwed.
My advice to many young kids has been this, the only way to learn from life is to get slapped by it. Hope you get slapped often enough when you are younger and the cost of your mistake is smaller. I am proud of my Balsara experience. Far away from home, all alone, a thirty day a month tour plan, hostile people, cunning scheming peer and an organisation rotten to the core. Thank you for teaching me what not to do, what not to be. Some of the guys from that branch in Ahmedabad, have gone onto many more things in their life. I felt like naming them here, but hell, I assume… or I hope they have changed. It might not be right to expose them such. Especially after they gave me the biggest learning in corporate life. I might have not understood as much if not for them. It was the most lonely phase in my life. I cried alone, I fought alone, I managed alone. Jasmine was far away in Mumbai. My dad just passed away and I felt like a baby in the midst of a wolf pack. It’s a wonder I got out of that sinking sand. Thank god the economy was offering many more alternatives. I don’t know how much I could have taken.
I also understood the importance and meaning of the word – resilience.
I always wanted to write about it but somehow I didn’t. Thanks to Rocket Singh I did. For anyone to know what it means to be alone, ethical and kicked around, see the movie. It happens exactly like that. Rocket went and set up something else. Most of the time we do what I did – find another job. And ya he is right, most firms are the same. You have to find the one that helps you live with yourself the best.