Aaah!! Writing something when you feel the urge for it is one, but when someone is right on your back and says – “You better pen down something!” – is completely different. 
Asish, that was just for the fun part of it. I needed something to chill my thoughts before this and I guess the best way to do it is pulling someone’s legs. And when it’s your own boss’s it’s more fun! Am sure Nitin will agree with me, he always says that! 
Well, now for some serious business! This quarter’s theme is to pen down something which will be useful for the whole team, in terms of some learning or the other. After all, knowledge is something which is no one’s property and still everyone’s! Woah!! I should’ve taken up a profession in writing those INTERESTING (sarcasm intended) philosophical books! But then I think there are very few professions which gives us the wide experience as sales gives.
So, as my first humble offering to the team, I thought of writing something about the “LinkedIn Connection”! This name was not decided for the heck of it. It really means the benefit of this beautiful site called LinkedIn. I personally started using this site somewhere in the beginning of 2009. The initial months of my affair with this site was not that great as the site was trying hard to impress me and I felt it was stepping on the gas leading to a super-fast exhaustion of my patience.
That was till I started exploring the site completely and understand what I could do with the offerings. The initial days when the contacts are being built up and the exploration of options in the site were very boring. Especially for an “N” category of mindset like me who hates monotony. (To understand what I just said better, you may want to visit www.myersbriggs.org) This site really gave me a different perspective of the word “Patience”. I guess anything which is just starting up in this world demands patience, be it a startup company or a new born baby. Woah!! Should I seriously think about the philosopher profession?!?
So the affair continued for a couple of months and by then I had done a decent exploration on the site and learnt I could gain contacts. The whole site is based on the concept of “Three Degrees of Connection” (Google for more info). You never know who your friend might know and what you are missing currently. This site offers you what you might have missed otherwise.
I got the complete benefit of this site during the last couple of months when I could close three new cases, which gave me very good billing. It was the time when Bindu had left the organization and hence orphaned Sarjapur Road. Anant and Asish then decided that I would be the right stepfather for the area. My initial thought when I got the area was – “Great!! Now here comes an area which has been r!@%d by most of them from Team Pallavi and Team Arindam.” It is filled with clients from these teams and most of the clients are giants.
But then, being in Named Accounts, I had some time to spare as rightly deduced by Anant and Asish. I started doing some work on the internet – two reasons for that. One, I really didn’t feel like roaming about aimlessly in the area doing cold call. Two, I decided to do something in which I am best – cold calling on internet. So the online investigations started and I started narrowing down to few client – ofcourse all this after a lot of “NO” or “Already Using” from many clients I called up.
The three clients I am talking about are all biggies. One uncracked, two lapsed. Now came the hurdle of getting through to the right person. This is the crucial part of any deal – talking to the right person – and ofcourse at the right time. Guess my luck was grinning at me that I got through to the right person in all these cases and I was bang on time.
I believe luck doesn’t just decide to grin or smile at you. You put in some decent work and you can make any decent appreciator to smile at you. All these cases required three to four months of work for them to finally open the purse – the ultimate goal of every sales person. And the time was when every respected client were holding to their purse strings so tight that they could have strangled an elephant with their bare hands.
Now back to the part of getting across to the right person to get all the rest of the sweet part of getting the cheque perfect. LinkedIn was the light house which guided me to the right point of landing. Using the facility of mails and invites, I could see the inside people who might be able to help me out in these accounts. And having a closer look at their profiles, I was able to decide the right person. I then sent in a mail with a formal invite clearly mentioning my intention – which is offering my services for their recruitment worries. It went click-click-click – three clicks for the three clients. And the rest as they say is history!
Epilogue:
There are very few sales one feels very proud of and the above mentioned three cases are ones which I am really proud of and the ones that I felt I have put in my full effort. It feels great when the fruit of your hard work is sweet. But then that’s not always the case – well, I guess that’s the best part of our work – ups and downs. Having said this, I would like to thank Asish for his complete support and trust in my work and Anant for his wonderful conviction on the fairness of the “Belonging of the cases – ownership issues internally”.
And I really feel I should get atleast a stipend from LinkedIn for the endorsement of the brand I just did here. Well, I won’t be disappointed with some extra bucks!
