The hustle of a salesperson!

Every 'no' brings you closer to the next 'yes'—the hustle of a salesperson!

A few days back I had the opportunity to orient fresh MBA graduates on Lead generation and Prospecting. The next challenge of sales is to pitch the value to prospects along with the customer journey. I am sharing this fictional story with the same context for feedback and learning.

Arjun had always been a diligent student, graduating with an MBA and securing a spot on the sales team of a major multinational corporation. Eager to prove his worth, he was excited to learn and make an impact. One afternoon, his boss approached him with a peculiar task—a test of his sales skills.

"Arjun," his boss said with a mischievous grin, handing him an 80-rupee note, "Go into the market and get change for this."

Arjun stared at the note, confused. "But sir, 80-rupee notes don’t exist."

His boss chuckled. "I know. It’s fake. But your task is to get change for it anyway. Consider it a test of your ability to sell."

Despite his hesitation, Arjun took the fake note and headed to the bustling market. The task felt impossible. How could he get someone to exchange a note that wasn’t real? The busy shopkeepers and restaurant owners would surely reject him, and he feared making a fool of himself.

As he wandered through the crowd, his eyes landed on a middle-aged man sitting alone on a bench just outside the market. The man appeared lost in thought, staring at the road ahead. With nothing to lose, Arjun decided to take a chance.

"Excuse me, sir," Arjun said cautiously, standing in front of the man. Without turning his head, the man gave a slight nod.

"I have an 80-rupee note," Arjun said, pulling out the fake currency. "Could you give me change for it?"

The man finally turned to look at him, his eyes flashing with surprise. He took the note, raised it to the light, inspected the corners, and smiled. To Arjun’s astonishment, the man slipped the fake note into his pocket, reached into his trousers, and pulled out two 40-rupee notes—also fake—and handed them to Arjun.

“There you go,” the man said with a grin. “Change for 80 rupees.”

Arjun stared at the notes in disbelief. He had successfully completed the task, but everything about it felt surreal and empty. The man had played along, but the transaction was hollow—fake notes exchanged for fake notes, with no real value behind it.

Arjun thanked the man and returned to his office, feeling a strange mix of triumph and unease. When he handed the two fake 40-rupee notes to his boss, the boss smiled.

“Well done, Arjun! You managed to get change for a fake note. But tell me, what did you learn?”

Arjun hesitated before replying, the truth of the situation settling in. "I succeeded in completing the task, sir, but there’s no real value in what I did. I made a transaction, but it was meaningless. The notes were fake, the interaction was fake, and ultimately, the outcome is fake."

His boss’s smile faded, and he nodded thoughtfully. “Exactly. And there’s an important lesson in that. If you give your sales team a fake product—something without real value—they might make transactions, but those transactions won’t mean anything. They’ll build a history of fake deals with no real customers, and in the end, you’ll have a billing book full of false outcomes. No true revenue. And worse, your team will lose confidence in what they’re selling. When it comes time to face real clients with a genuine product, they’ll hesitate, doubting whether they can sell it at all.”

Arjun realized that the entire exercise wasn’t just about sales tactics. It was a warning. A team that’s trained to push a fake product or chase superficial wins will struggle when it’s time to deliver real value. Their confidence will erode, and their ability to engage genuine customers will weaken.

The moral of the story was clear: If you give your sales team fake products, they’ll only build a record of empty transactions. Those fake outcomes may inflate your numbers, but they’ll undermine real business growth, and the team won’t have the confidence or skill to succeed when it matters. True success comes from selling real value to real customers.

Arjun left that day with a deeper understanding of the responsibility that came with being in sales. It wasn’t just about making deals—it was about building trust, delivering value, and creating lasting success.