Cold Calling
I had an hour to spend before giving my post-breakfast blood sample at the diagnostic centre. I went to the Barid Shahi tomb for a walk. There was a handful of people doing their morning yoga and exercise routines. I saw an elderly man making loud noises, which scared me a bit. A guy was walking as if he owned the entire place. There was a security guard who was busy staring into his phone.
Interestingly two men had set up their mini office at the footsteps of the tomb. They had lists of names and numbers against them, and it looked like they would spend a few hours doing cold calling.
I heard what they were trying to sell. They were selling the below GPS tracker for 555 tractors to farmers.
Their target customers were the farmers who had bought the 555 tractors in the last quarter. For most of the conversations, they had to explain what GPS does and how it can help with their farming. The selling price was ₹5000.
Most of the calls were not leading to the expected results for them. However, I found it interesting that after most of the calls, they used foul language to describe the customers. I am sure it's common for sales folks to do this; however, it was also a clear indicator that they did not honestly care whether the customers used the GPS kit. They just wanted to make the sale and achieve the quota.
The incentives are not aligned with the customer’s long-term value. Maybe the organisation doesn’t care at all, and they only want the kit to be installed. There seem to be subscription fees for using the app for tracking, which is ₹150 per month.
Twitter would say they were purely hustling. But to what gain?