Startup Lessons: Selling is sacred, don't let your ego come in the way

By Alok Kejriwal

A sales person's Karma is to sell. Without ego or vanity. For 10 years, I sold unknown concepts such as contests2win & mobile2win to corporates.

Survival was based on these clients. In that process, I met over 5000 unique people (10 years = 2500 working days = 2 new people a day).

Typically a Salesperson meets these kinds of folks:

1. The interested, "show me something" new. Genuine, inquisitive, eager for innovation!
2. The type who respond when their competition start using your services
3. When there is a distress situation / urgent need of your offerings.
4. A very small % who are sadists. Yup! They meet just to torment you.

A marketing head in a Fortune 500 Paints Co in Delhi used to call me to his swanky office & make me wait on the sofa for hours.

Then he would call & say "We don't have a meeting room". Let's meet another time".

On the 3rd trip, when he said this, I said, "Sir, I have a place in your office! It's the Men's washroom! It's empty! Can I present there with my laptop?".

The person was so shocked & taken back, he opened up the Company Boardroom for the meet. And gave me chunky Business.

Lesson - Selling is SACRED. Let nothing come in your way. Least of all your silly Ego.

(The author is founder and CEO of Games2Win India Pvt Ltd. Views are personal. This piece was first published here.)