The Dimdima tale

As a part of the marketing course at SPJIMR, the participants are supposed to go through a ‘personal selling’ experience. We’ve to visit a pre-designated area in Mumbai for a few hours and sell subscriptions to Dimdima, a children’s magazine published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (which runs SPJIMR). Not a bad idea, considering the fact that Prof. Renuka Kamath chose it over other ideas like making us sell plants from Bhavan’s Nursery on a thela (handcart).

So, on a fine Sunday morning, me and my academic group partner Anuradha landed in Jogeshwari (West), the area alloted to us. Schools is what we would have ideally liked to target, but it was a Sunday. So, We decided to target the residents of the middle-class housing societies in the area. We started with the Evershine Green Tower. The watchman simply refused to let us in. We then proceeded to the New Link CHS and the Diamond House CHS. The secretaries of both the societies denied us the permission to visit the houses.

Vijay Vishal Air India CHS

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We had been walking for half an hour. The secretary of the Vijay Vishal Air India Cooperative Housing Society (CHS) finally let us in, after we convinced him that we won’t be pesky like other salespersons. There were a few kids playing in the society’s compound, so we were hopeful. We asked the watchman about the flats with kids, but his answer wasn’t specific — he simply told us “Yeah, there are kids here…” There were three buildings in the society, and we decided to cover all the flats in all three of them.

Our first success came early. In the second flat of the first building we visited, an upper middle class gentleman expressed his willingness to buy a subscription as soon we finished introducing ourselves and our magazine. He even gave us a Rs. 500 note, and asked us to come back to him after we had finished visiting other flats in the building. Much to our dismay, this was the only flat with a kid belonging to our target group, in the entire building.

The second building had two flats with the children in the age group we were targeting. One of them already had a Dimdima subscription — he said he liked the magazine. The other kid refused to have a look at the magazine, although we tried to convince her that it was an interesting and a fun read.

We had decided that we’ll also target flats without kids — we’ll ask people to gift a Dimdima subscription to someone they knew. However, there were no takers.

The visit to the third building also ended in disappointment. The building had two flats with children in our target age group. One proud mother arrogantly declared: “My child already has everything he needs.” The father in the other flat encouraged his girl to have a look at the magazine, but the 7-year old child said: “I’m not going to read this.” As we left, an old lady sitting at the entrance expressed her interest in the magazine, and told us that her house has a kid. However, after we told her that we had already visited the flat (where the kid wasn’t too keen on reading Dimdima), her interest disappeared.

Patliputra 1C

After a disappointing first adventure, we started looking at socities where we could see kids playing. At the Patliputra housing complex, we saw a number of kids playing cricket and other games. So, we barged in. There are several buildings in this complex, and each one of them forms a different society.

We first visited the building 1C. Fortunately, for us, an old lady near the entrance introduced us to the society secretary (her son). The secretary gave us the permission to visit the flats in the society, when he heard we were from a Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan institution — his brother was a lecturer in the Bhavan’s college. We had decided to zero in on the flats with kids. However, the secretary was in a hurry (the entire family was off to some place), so we couldn’t ask him which flats had kids.

The society had 28 flats. We visited each and every flat in the society (barring the six that were locked). The society had five flats with kids in our target age group.

• One man drove us away, but then called us from another floor, and brought a subscription for his daughters.
• One kid didn’t express any interest in Dimdima, although we tried our best to convince him to have a look at the colorful magazine.
• A middle-aged man with a young daughter had a look at the magazine, and then told me: “I’ll ask my mummy. Can you give me your visiting card?” I gladly handed over my card to him, never to hear back from him.
• One kid seemed enthusiastic about the magazine, but he was leaving for his tution classes when we visited his house. His grandma, the only person at the house, refused to have a look at the magazine.
• One kid loved the magazine, and took it inside his house to show it to his parents. A few minutes later, he returned with the magazine and said his parents had refused to buy a subscription.

The best experience of our entire campaign was with a young college lecturer. He brought the magazine because he thought reading it encouraged creative thinking. He said he would like to become a child again. Initially, he was interested in buying a six-months subscription, but after we told him that he would get a CD free with the 1-year subscription, he wrote us a cheque for the year-long subscription. He also invited us in; he and his mom chatted with us on various topics, including Rahul Mahajan’s new swayamwar show (Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega). Before we left, he gave us some tips on how to be an effective salesperson.

Patliputra 1D

The secretary of this building let us in, after we told him that the secretary of 1C had also given us the permission. Now that we had seen an adult buy a subscription, we no longer wanted to target only the households with kids. We were hopeful that a few other grown-ups would also be interested in buying the subscription. However, only one adult in the society expressed interested in Dimdima. She wanted it to gift it to her niece, but she was busy that time. So, she simply asked us to leave our contact number with her. We never heard from her again.

There were six households in the building with kids.

• In one flat, the mother flatly refused to even look at the magazine.
• One kid liked the magazine, but his mother refused to buy a subscription.
• Another kid loved the magazine, took the magazine to show it to his parents, but came back after a few minutes and said: “My mother is not interested.”
• Another kid’s parents banged the door on us.
• One flat had many kids (apparently, they had some family gathering), but the parents drove us away saying that they were busy.
• One child opened the door, but refused to even look at the magazine, in spite of our best marketing efforts.

One lady said that she didn’t have any kids, but gave us addresses of some flats with kids that would be interested in the magazine. We visited all these flats, but couldn’t sell a single subscription.

Patliputra 1E

We then proceeded to another building in the society, but the secretary here told us that he will have to first put forward a proposal in the next meeting in the society to grant us the permission. If the proposal gets approved, we could visit the flats in the building next Sunday. Dejected, we decided to try another building.

Patliputra 1A

It was already 2:30 PM, and we were hungry. But, we wanted to sell a few more subscriptions before the lunch. So, we entered the building 1A. We had to wait 15 minutes to meet the secretary, who was busy in a meeting.

The secretary and the man sitting with him threw a volley of questions at us, asking about our educational background and work experience. He also asked us to produce our college ID cards, which we did. The secretary asked us who is the placement in-charge at SP Jain these days. He told us that a few years back, he used to work for an NGO. At that time, he went to SPJIMR to hire a few management grads for his organization. He said that he offered salaries that were higher than the corporations were offering, but the ‘Gujarati placement officer’ at SP Jain didn’t understand what he wanted. After about 20 minutes of chatting, he finally granted us permission to visit the flats in the building.

We asked the watchman for the list of flats that had children. The watchman promptly gave us the flat numbers, and also told us which flats had irritable owners that should be left alone. We were still hopeful that someone might buy a subscription for a faraway relative or to enhance his/her “creative thinking” (like the lecturer did). So, we visited almost all the flats in the society (except the ones which the watchman had warned us about), although we spent more time in the flats with kids.

• One child told us that there were guests at home, and shut the door.
• Another kid had a look at the magazine, but said he wasn’t interested in a subscription.
• Another child, who was watching TV, seemed annoyed at the interruption caused by us, and said he wasn’t interested.
• Another child seemed to like the magazine, but his father didn’t seem interested. The dad simply asked for a visiting card, and said that he would get back to us (a polite way of saying “Get lost”). Anuradha made an interesting observation here about the degree to which people open their doors for us.

The only sale that we made was at the house of an Assistant Police Commissioner. We introduced the magazine to the ACP’s little boy with the perfect sales pitch. The boy loved the magazine, but his mom said that the boy read too many comics, and would flunk his exams if another was made available to him. I told her that the magazine was published by a trust that ran several educational institutions, and it wasn’t just a comic book — it was an educational children’s magazine. However, the lady told us that there were guests at home and indicated that we weren’t welcome. As promised to the society’s secretary, we didn’t pester her much and left immediately with a polite “Thank you for your time, ma’am”. However, the little boy followed us, and Anuradha cajoled him into talking to his parents for a subscription. A few minutes later, the boy came back and took us to his home. His father, the ACP, asked us a few questions about the magazine and bought a subscription.

Mega Mall

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It was 3:15 PM, and we decided to end our sales campaign. We visited Mega Mall for the lunch, and saw two of our colleagues making a sale there. By this time, a few others had informed us that the malls were the most ‘fertile grounds’ for selling Dimdima subscriptions: people who paid a hundred rupees for a burger didn’t mind paying Rs. 240/- for a one-year subscription to a children’s magazine. If you could dodge the supervisors at the mall, you could make a killing here. We tried selling a few subscriptions, but the people we approached had already been approached by our colleagues.

At 4:00 PM, we officially ended our campaign, having failed to achieve our target of selling 10 subscriptions.

I always knew I wasn’t a good marketer (which explains why I have opted for the Information Management specialization at SPJIMR), but selling Dimdima was a good lesson in marketing and sales. The “lessons” I’d save for an assignment which I’m supposed to submit tomorrow, but one thing I’m sure about is that I’ll be more considerate the next time I encounter a door-to-door salesperson.