He sells - your footwear and his sarees :)

Temples …. for that matter any place of worship is always crowded … jammed with human crowd … each one carrying a load on his/her shoulder, is there to see the Lord and tell him/her that its now getting too much to take, help me with some. I have also heard many say, “I don’t deserve this, why are you giving me so much trouble.” I have wondered how one can decide for him/her self that something is deserved and something is not deserved? “Deserve” to me is a very deep word. Very very deep. Anyway, just coz this is my blog, my space, does not mean that every time I have to force you through a journey of my thoughts.
Moreover, God and devotion are very sensitive topics and my view of the whole affair can get offensive. I will have to use the very correct words to make it sound neutral .. and on my vacation, I will prefer milder writing.

Yesterday, we visited a temple. A very famous temple in South India. A female dominated temple, the only place probably where you see the Goddess before you see the God! Big difference! Anyway, that is the rule of the place … a human rule … to me, God would never have laid any rules .. he/she in whatever form! It is such a tempting topic; I want to write more … but give me some years … I am in the process of testing my belief and concepts … let us wait for the test results :)

Again, back to the temple … beautiful place .. I am going there for the second time … my husband for the 3rd or 4th time .. but for both of us … it is the first time with each other. I think this is well-timed too … after 5 years my husband is now ready to take me to a female dominated land without feeling insecured!

Have you read my previous blog entry about how I got lost on my way to work? I am sure now you are not expecting me to remember anything about this temple though I have visited it once earlier. I relied on my husband .. he is a walky-talky map!

Straight, we could see the entrance to the temple! A huge sanctum … base blue and multi-colored forms of Gods and Goddesses .. impressive .. huge … This temple is supposed to have many sanctums and I was wondering if this is the main or if I am yet to see something bigger!

“Leave your slippers here for free” . I turned … FREE? Why would he want to do that … I turned to see the face of the voice … Nice .. must be 30-ish .. South Indian smart, I could say.
Temples are good business areas, for reasons known to all. Then why would this man want to do this for free? I stood … my husband urged me to walk … I stood … something impressed me … I was still not sure what … my husband also stopped now.
The guy looked at Jayaram and said, “You could leave your footwear here for free”. My guy knows the place well, he said, “the temple authorized place is on the first right from here and we could leave it there too. Thanks!”
“It has rained heavily Sir, your branded footwear may get bad. Leave it here”
We looked at eachother and I waited for that nod of the head … he removed his and I followed. We put it where he indicated and were almost leaving the shop, when he said, “When you come to pick them, browse though our saree collection, if you like, pick them too”

So this was it! I couldn’t resist. I turned back, looked at him and smiled! I liked it!
This is marketing, I don’t know what the MBA books teach about marketing .. but to me, the concept is ..
Any action that attracts one to your product and puts him/her into the “potential customer” category, is marketing. The first step though.

Now all that this guy had to do was “convert” these chappal-customers into “saree customers”. I was keen to come back after the temple visit to see how this guy convinces us! :)

I already said that this temple has many sanctums and we didn’t come out through the same gate through which we went in about 2 hours back.Now we had a long way to walk to reach our bare necessity .. our branded chappals :)

I saw this shop to our left .. small place but they had a good collection of sarees … we went in .. I got 3 of them in 5 minutes ... deal done and we continued walking.

We reached our footwear-left-shop .. we had that saree cover in our hand … we went in to take our slippers and I was waiting to be asked about seing the sarees.

A guy spoke, “Would you like to see some sarees?” My husband was clear, he didn’t want me to see more, “No, we are done.” The guy, “how can you leave your slippers here and buy saree elsewhere?”
Now this was funny. I had started smiling already. Jayaram didn’t find it funny though. He smiles only 1/10th quantity of how much I do, average per day!
The argument began and Jayaram spoke the last line, “Is this conditional Free Service?” We walked out. I turned to see the face of this guy who spoke so much. Much older, 50-ish, little upset with life in general and now angry with us.

Episode over. Chapter close. We walked to our room.

I am thinking: It all started off well … I liked the way this guy started off … he said we could leave slippers there, he used the key word and attracted a customer … he was anyway not doing service, he was only collecting data-base for saree sales; I understood that when he said that: on our return we could look into his collection. Alls well.

What went wrong? The attitude of the 50-ish old member of the shop. His words.

Now let me guess this scenario: He was one of the oldest employees of the shop … this guy who initially spoke to us is a new-comer or may be the owner’s son who is now trying new sales strategies to improve revenue. First, the old-horse surely doesn’t like this new-entry and his ideas; worse if the idea has eventually increased revenue too. Second, has the marketing idea been conveyed effectively to the 50-ish old man? The older man seemed to understand that anyone and everyone who leaves slippers with them have signed an agreement to make purchases there!

Ha!

What would have been the conversation if the same 30-ish guy had attended to us if he was there when we returned:
“Sir, Madam, would you look at the collection?”
“No, thanks. We already shopped”
“Oh, that’s great. Padma stores?” he says looking at the cover in my hand. I nod with a shy smile and slight guilt deep down.
“Nice shop. Very old shop ma’am. Good buy. Would you still want to look at something that I have? I have this cotton collection that both young and old could wear, you usually don’t get such cotton everywhere. Also, I offer 5% discount since you allowed me to safe-guard your footwear.”
“Hmm … what range?”
“Any range that you are ready to spend. Did you have a good darshan? Allow me to help you with the bags”

I am now 50% potential customer. Now he needs to be really smart, considering that I have already spent some money on sarees. He should not show me anything too costly and nothing too normal. He has to be picky!

The rest I am not sure how it would have gone. If Jayaram had a calm face, I may have picked up one. If not, no. Also, how I liked what he showed in the first 2 minutes would decide it all.

I really liked this guy’s idea and I am sure the above follow-up would have happened if he were there. My intuitions say so.
Good Marketing, for what I see.

The only one thing that they need to do is … make sure we or anyone who leaves footwear with him dont buy elsewhere, considering the many entrances and the shops in between. In addition to the key word “FREE” he could have also used “DISCOUNT” or given me his card … he could have a sales member near each entrance … he could run an auto to his store from all entrances … I am being wild with my thoughts, I am little upset that he lost a potential customer despite all efforts; because 1. Members making the strategy and members executing the strategy do not belong to the same school of thought 2. Follow-up was weak