Broad minded

(circa 2002)
He waited impatiently for his potential customer to meet him. Exciting times, he thought. After only about 6 months of work experience, here he was, poised to become the top selling sales guy in the country, for the company. Quite an achievement, considering that he was not even in one of the metros, which were the best territories for any sales guy to be in, especially when the service you were selling happened to be a nascent thing called broadband internet. These were times when internet cafes and their customers were quite happy with the speed that a dial up connection gave them, and internet access itself wasnt exactly common.

The last few days had been a maddening rush, he was competing with someone he knew only by a name,a counterpart in Bangalore, who was a couple of years more experienced than him, and who had the luxury of working in a city that happened to be the nation’s IT capital, a city which had enough people who were educated about broadband technology.

In the past few days, he had used all his contacts and leads, and now had a score equal to the guy in Bangalore. Today was the last day of the month, and unlike his ‘opponent’ he had no ace, up the sleeve or anywhere. At least he had given the guy a run for his money, he thought.

That was when he got a call from the customer care department; he crossed his fingers. “There’s a guy who seems to be interested. actually very excited, insisted he wanted to meet you today itself”, said the customer care executive.

And so here he was, waiting for the man who could tip the scales in his favour. The wait was over and he shook hands with a middle aged man who was apparently into the shipping and cargo handling business.

” Timely information is essential for your business”, he started his sales pitch.
“I agree”, said the man, “so i thought i should have an internet connection, and a fast one at that, but i am a total ignoramus as far as technology goes, you’ll have to educate me”
“It doesn’t get faster than broadband”, he continued, and gave the man the entire spiel about the under sea cables, routers etc. The man appeared slightly confused, but convinced nevertheless.
“Sounds good”, the man finally said, “I’ll take it, but from what you say, I guess I’ll have to buy a computer first.. how much does a good computer cost these days?”

until next time, know your opponent…

P.S. please use comments.. we can finally be free of haloscan.. yippee!! 🙂