"Putting kerchief" - why it's never a bad thing to ask for something professionally

You may wonder why an article would have such a bizarre title. In all honesty, what does the term "putting kerchief" even mean? For the uninitiated, it was an unorganized impromptu system of reserving a seat in a bus, train, government office, hotels etc. by means of throwing our handkerchiefs in the desired seat and thereby indicating that the seat is taken. Putting Kerchief is an anglicized translation of this phenomenon which I had the opportunity to observe and at times use in conversation in Bangalore.

We completely realised that this act would not be taken seriously by others who will just throw the handkerchief out and plonk themselves on that seat. But we continued to do so nevertheless because "What do we have to lose by trying?"

I hope to draw an analogy of this phenomenon to something I grew comfortable with only on LinkedIn 3-4 years ago - asking or writing to people professionally without hesitation.

People who know me now will probably describe me as someone who can strike up a conversation instantly and able to leverage upon a network of people for various scenarios. But this was not the case about 4-5 years ago when I was neck deep in placement season during the final year of my MBA. To preface this, I was part of the founding batch of an MBA college which was nowhere close to the elite MBA colleges in India. I was never cut out to rack up near 100 percentiles in CAT, XAT or any other MBA admission test and I have no qualms to admitting that fact

I needed to use LinkedIn as a medium to connect with HR executives and hiring managers and then write to them in the hope of convincing them to consider profiles from my college. What started off with 3 emails ended up with rejections from all 3 of them, one of them giving us the standard response that we were not a Tier-1 MBA college, something that I had also written about previously Long story short, this was the case with easily 50 other companies I had written to. Each time, I was hesitant on picking up the phone and calling those LinkedIn connections who were generous enough to provide their phone numbers on their profile. This was largely due to the fear of being rejected on a call rather than the relatively safer option of an e-mail.

It was the case of one particular company where I decided to overcome this fear and dialed the number of the CEO on the possibility of having a conversation about our college. The odds were very high that this CEO would not answer my call or reply to my text or read my email, but it was my version of a Hail-Mary and let's face it, I did not have anything to lose by trying. Two things surprised me from the response I got. The CEO chose to take time and explain politely that there were no openings at the time. More importantly, my fear of being turned down vanished in an instant.

This would set a precedent as the years flew by when I was in a highly challenging client services role where we would often try to reach out to C-Suite level folks in the hope of pitching our business to them. That call with the CEO during my MBA gave me a sense of confidence that it is completely all right to be turned down or denied, but it was essential that you tried and not assume that they will not give you that chance.

Most recently, the host of a very famous Indian travel podcast moved to the same company that I had reached out all those years ago. He and I shared a fascination for behavioural sciences and I had no hesitation in writing to him on LinkedIn in the hope that I could have a chat with him. It took time, but this kind soul wrote back and even spared a good hour of his time to give me suggestions over a call on the material he read over the years along with some suggestions on how to stay updated in the field. To add to this, he even suggested that we should talk frequently and exchange notes on whatever we read on behavioural sciences.

I never realised how important this confidence to write or talk to people to enhance your professional prospects would be. My former manager, someone who I consider a mentor and guide, mentioned that this in itself is a skill. I did not realise the value of those words then. I do now.

As a way to close this piece, I wanted to share with you all a quote from Naveen Tiwari, the CEO of InMobi on what his team went through in their quest for that elusive initial investment into the company. Yes the context is different, but the essence is still the same.

“Every naa or no hits you more brutally than the one before it. You lose your confidence. Your willpower dwindles. Every step becomes so difficult that you want to quit. However, you don’t give up. You continue on the arduous journey of executing and innovating, despite all the naysayers around you. And then, when you hear a haan / yes, it gives you a high like never before. This is what an entrepreneur's journey is all about. You fail, you struggle, you change course. But, eventually your persistence pays off, and you proceed full throttle towards your next goal. Little wins along the way are all that an entrepreneur needs.” (source: https://yourstory.com/2016/09/naa-se-haan-tak-inmobi-naveen-tewari)

So go ahead you all, put that Kerchief! For all you know, you may just get that seat you wanted!!