Why Dale's Common Sense is " Not Common" in India

                        I had read the Carnegie classic ( and it is a classic) a decade and a half back but the best illustration of my point is a story narrated in the book. ( Due to many years, the story may not be 100% accurate and my apologies).
A Motor salesman visits a customer who is dissatisfied because the supplied motors are running hot. After some Q-A sessions, it comes out that the operator cannot place his hand on the motor comfortably. At this point, our salesman says bingo! but that's the point cos the motors are supposed to run at 60 deg F and at this temperature, human skin of the operator will have a natural aversion to the motor's body heat. So everyone is happy and our salesman comes out with applause and the confidence that the next motor order is in his pocket.
Now let's imagine the same thing in India. The salesman will be told ( first after some bullying by the guard) that the Purchase Manager is in a meeting. He goes away and next time comes with an appointment. The Purchase Manager meets him and expresses his disappointment with the salesman's motors. They run hot and are expensive!! The salesman wants to go to the shop but the operator is not in. Next day, he meets the operator who just says that his motors are hot. The salesman gives the 60 deg F logic but the operator says no. He has other motors where he can place his hands and he has been running motors for 30 yrs, so...! The salesman slinks out of the factory with his tail between his legs and goes back to his office to lick his wounds.

Does that sound familiar! so, what should the salesman do to receive the applause that Dale's salesman gets??

I'll explain in my next post but why don't you try to think about it yourself and post it here as a comment?
Bye for now... Bilbo

Reader Comments:

Just What Is Culture Shock?

I'm bad at definitions but I'll try anyway.Culture Shock is applying well proven rules to situations in life, without making allowances for differences in thinking where the rules have been tested and where they are or will be applied. That's it lol simple isn't it? I'll tell you a real life story where directors and VP's made this very silly mistake and this is first HAND.....
I used to sell eqpt for a company, a multinational giant where I came across an my overseas colleague-an American.A product which was in high demand was marketed aggressively by yours truly and we had a no of enquiries. Customers were asking me why we were not quoting. This product was made in the US, Texas and the man in charge was very cooperative for the first 3 or 4 months.Then he stopped co-operating all together. Now, in the US-people close deals fast but in India the land of the ubiquitous Jains, Agarwals, Baids etc take forever to make a decision. As one unit was priced around Rs 1 crore, they took even more time. But my US colleague naturally thought that we are making HIS LIFE MISERABLE BY ASKING FOR BIG QUOTES AND THEN JUST SLEEPING. You can't blame him either....

The end result was that the management stopped the marketing in India of what could have been our most successful project. This is what is CULTURE SHOCK . If only our country head had told the American the true picture then this would not have occurred. But the Indian sales head did not as he thought it was pretty obvious. Well..it was obvious for me and him, but not the American...

CULTURE SHOCK

The Man Who Started It All -----DALE CARNEGIE

The seeds of Culture Shock were first sown a few years after DC published his famous book" How To Win Friends & Influence People". (Just for a laugh friends, you should read Lennie Bruce's autobiography " How to make enemies..").

More about Dale and his book, later-on, folks
Its bye from
Bilbo

THE " SUPERsalesMAN " SELF HELP BOOK

All those of you (if any) who are following this blog may now think "hey!..
wait-a-minute-if sellin' is so simple and can bring me so much money, then
what's the big deal?" Yes! ABSOLUTELY true. What's the big deal coz self
help books are there! And they must have some value otherwise why would people buy them! Some of these books DO help, maybe not in 60 or 90 minutes and specially if they are written in an entertaining style. (By entertaining style, I do not mean the Zok & Wok caveman language that some modern management gurus have now started writing in. I saw a book the other day featuring Zok & Wok on MS Powerpoint. Now if that's not an example of a book written far ahead of its time, i'll eat this blog).

But to really utilize a self-help sales book, you have to make certain corrections otherwise in place of earning a six figure salary towards the end of the book, you may be desperate enough to write blog content. So-what is this correction? is it viscosity, temperature? No? then what about Quantum radioactive rays? No-well then you tell me!!...
For a sales guide book to really help you to learn the basics, you've got to compensate for CULTURE SHOCK!!... Got it..?
Anyway-bye for now!
More on that nasty gollum "CULTURE SHOCK" in my next post.