Today I am done with the first part of my summer internship. All the initial rounds of moving around in the market, meeting various types and kinds of dealers and trying to connect with them, even though, I sometimes couldn’t even speak their language! Past 2 weeks has been like a continuous war against the summer heat and the laid back attitudes of the small town dealers. I thought marketing is all about communication. But the thought needed a little specification. Communicating in a way, which your target customer understands, irrespective of whether I myself am any good at it. Earlier I was pretty much confident of my spoken English and thought it would be a cake walk talking to the cement dealers. Now I know it wasn’t. When you talk to a middle aged man who has been selling a particular brand of cement since last 2 decades you ought to have something in you. It was never like the usual classroom talking where every kind of bullshit is permissible.
If I were to sum it up in a few lines I can confidently claim I learnt more of marketing in last 2 weeks than what I did in 2 trimesters. And it wasn’t just because I got a chance to move out in fields but more so because my lucky stars got a chance to have a 1 to 1 interaction with the marketing officer of the region who happens to be the best in the entire eastern zone. Probably I might be unable to coin a word for every little aspect I understood but it has given me a kind of confidence which assures me of my capabilities.
The insights which I got about the cement industry and customer behaviour from people who haven’t even completed their graduation but have devoted their 30 years of life helping people to build home is just worth mentioning. I may not take marketing as my majors but there’s one thing I surely learnt. Marketing isn’t about thick fat heavy books by world renowned authors only. It’s more about on the field capability. I used to say this earlier too. But now I do realize its essence.
Now my project will all be about analysis and interpretations and suggestions. Probably here I might need to use all that I learnt in last 10 months.
I am now really happy to have taken up this project. I get to travel, I get to talk to intellectuals, I get to talk to not-so-intellectuals, and I get good food at home!!! After all this is all I need.
1 comment:
what do i say. . after reading it, i felt i should also have such an experience. . Now as soon as you get back to hostel. . You would have loads to share. .
Keep posting. . .
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