Having started as a sales executive in an exports department of a SME, I do realise that I have come a long way. The career had its share of vicissitudes and highs. But it was full of dynamic changes. There was learning in every step of the way. I was sent to pick-up a visiting Taiwanese customer from the airport and to take him to a hotel. This was in 1995 when I was part of export department of a small company. I was persevering to form the English sentences carefully in my mind before uttering them to my Taiwanese Guest. My effort to enter into a coherent and interesting conversation did end interestingly. He gifted a beautiful pen and wished me well. On another occasion, I was asked to draft a letter to an American client who had lodged a big quality claim on our company. My boss had scribbled a few points very sketchily from which I prepared a three-paged decent letter under less than an hour. One step led to the other. I got a chance to work as exports executive in a food processing company in 1996. There were fax messages and regular long distance calls in English. Life indeed had changed. The baby now knows how to stand. My very first export order was secured on the basis of a fax drafted with a mistake in the price. My employer gracefully accepted to execute the order with a clear loss. That taught me to remain on alert even if one walks through the most familiar path. I was chosen the Best Employee in the very next year and was rewarded with a decent sum. The career slowly took shape; the shape becomes better and beautiful when the potter’s hands are skilled. The Skill comes forth when the hands continuously practise.
The most fulfilling career moments are when knowing that our learning and its implementation has resulted in the betterment of the organisation that we work for. The experience of having managed a warehousing operation in Europe helped in another job when European Warehousing Costs almost caused the closure of Stock and Sale operations. Tight stock management and time- managing the export shipments resulted in halving the costs and doubling the turnover. The bitter episode of losing a valuable customer due to inadequate technical support made me realise that the sale of speciality ingredients is not similar to selling a commodity. The Business person cannot be a catalogue salesman. He has to have the feel of the product he is trying to sell. A flavour salesman has to know the difference between top note and back note. A nutritional premix salesman has to be able to explain how RDA values are converted into a recipe. A fruit syrup salesman has to know the fruit content in his product. The adeptness of dealing with a number crunching Buyer of commodities will not help when it comes to dealing with R&D person who is working on a new project. The potter’s perseverance paid off eventually. When I am frequently posed the question “Are you a Food Technologist?”; I always resist the temptation to say yes.
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Someone had shared a quote somewhere recently; “If you do not know where you will be in the next 5 years, you are already there”. The words have been collated so beautifully into making an undisputable, powerful statement that also prompts the reader to ponder on where he stands right now in his career path.
As a person in mid-forties, with a decade and a half remaining in active career, what kind of move could push me to the next level, both as a professional and as a person who seeks self-actualisation? Would I retire as a tired Business Development Professional? Is the career alley leading to its dead end?
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How are profits made? Fetching higher prices is the most obvious answer for a Salesperson. The answer will keep changing depending on whom this question is posed to. Buying at better prices; acquiring the right technologies; reducing the labor; managing the finances well, etc. One question; but the answers are in multitude. Despite religions being in multiples, the God is always One. In the temple of commerce, every participant is a priest. Like any other temple, the reverence is the mood; Sincerity is always in the air.
So far I had always made profits for my employers by selling well. Can I continue to do that in different ways? Perhaps, looking at the ground from an elevation is one such possibility. Like that silent bird which flies at a height could inspire its chicks to unfold the wings. Like that roving bird in the sky could save the chicks from being snatched away by that cunning small animal. Do I have what it takes to be the Bird? The most beautiful birds that are alluring to the senses normally do not fly high. To remain in sight is their number one priority. When they think of the ability to fly long and far, they fear losing the looks and the frame; the transformation is the word they dread about the most. For me, the bird means flying. Losing the current pace for attaining higher momentum is a price that a bird should always be willing to pay at each stroke of its wings.
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Henry David Thoreau said “If you have built castles in the air, your works need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them” I would like to do the reverse. Foundations are solid and steady. I would now like to learn the castle building.
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Epilogue :
The writer of this document lost it forever. But fate, with its impeccable sense of irony, had other plans.
Eight years after the job was filled (by none other than the nephew of the company’s Independent Director, of course), the document resurfaced in the most unexpected of places—buried deep within an old company file, sandwiched between a cafeteria menu and an outdated fire drill procedure. Who found it? The very nephew who had landed the job.
In a gesture that was either noble or just plain mischievous, he passed it on to his son, a budding MBA student, hoping it might come in handy for his HR case study. After all, why let a good piece of writing go to waste when it could fetch a few academic brownie points?
The professor, intrigued by the document’s eloquence and detailed career trajectory, skimmed through it and raised the obvious question:
“Did this applicant at least get screened?”
The student, without missing a beat, replied with a grin,
“That wouldn’t have happened, Professor. My father prefers living a fiction in real life rather than writing it!”
And thus, the unread document finally got read—just in the wrong place, at the wrong time, by the wrong audience.
Courtesy – Kitaab.org
இலைகள், மலர்கள், மரங்கள் 