The Unnamed Building ( My Seventh Sales Story)

It was the Summer of 1986. I was finally back home, in Delhi. I quickly settled down into my new routine. Figuring out the optimal bus route that would get me to my workplace, which was pretty far off from where we lived, took a few days. In Kolkata I could afford to take a “shared taxi.”  Yes, the “shared economy” has been in existence in our Country from years of the yore. The only difference now is that we have an App and do not have to walk. Back then, we just walked to the taxi stand!

My colleagues were warm and cordial. Many of them had worked together in the Delhi Regional Office for years. There was a strong sense of bonhomie. Since I was new (transferred from another Region), in a way, I was an outsider. I knew that I had to go the extra mile to find my place and gain acceptance. My Boss handed over a large part of the Government territory to me. A big competitor, who was headquartered in the Delhi area, was well entrenched in this sector. We had nothing to write home about, in the Government. It was tough selling, with a lethal competitor, in the lead. Most sales guys avoided handling the Government. As one would have expected, my other colleagues had already “usurped” the meaty territories, which included the Private Sector and the PSU “Maharatnas”. I knew that Selling into the Government would be like painful tooth extraction.

Our competitor followed no rules whilst we ran our business on the basis of a strong value system, steeped in integrity. One of the sales guys from our key competitor remarked one day, while we were hanging around the Bhawans, “ we know how to kill you guys easily, your value system is your biggest weakness! I have done the SWOT on you guys,” he smirked.

I started cold calling aggressively in my new territory. Walking from one building to the other, trying to find out where the Computer Department was, if they had any that is, inquiring about officers who I could meet to gain insights. I followed the book. I knew it was an arduous task. I requested a colleague in office to help me look up tenders in the dailies. “ Any tender for computers that you come across from any Government Department, just take the cutting and keep it for me please.” I urged.  My colleague obliged. I knew that if I was patient, I would eventually succeed. My experience from the East had taught me to never ever give up! I would often motivate myself by reminiscing my past wins- the Astrology Centre in Patna, the deals in the tea, jute and banking Industries. I would remind myself of the many wins I had had in tough terrains- the North East, the steel belt, the coal belt and North Bihar. During our team meetings in Delhi, my colleagues spoke about the legendary relationships they had built with their customers and their multiple repeat wins, whilst I only spoke of a “qualified prospect base.”

One evening, when I came back to office after a hard day of running, from one Government Building to another, my colleague handed me an obscure tender notice. It was from a Government Agency which was looking for a Single Computer. This tender was due the next day. I was dog tired and was in two minds on whether to put in efforts to respond or not. I was extremely hungry for business and something in me told me to go for it. Maybe this win would set the pace for many more in the future, I thought to myself. I spent the next few hours enthusiastically responding to the tender. I would rarely reach home before midnight, in those days. Putting in the extra hours was second nature. We had typists and stenos then, who would help type out our proposals. We wrote in long hand or gave a dictation. Our team’s steno had left for the day. So, I sat down and wrote out the proposal. It took me a few hours to get things in order. As I furiously jotted down our value proposition and responded to the tender, I wondered whether all the effort of responding to a single PC tender would eventually bear fruit. The next afternoon, I submitted the proposal, before the deadline. My colleague Bhasu had done a tremendous job of turning around the proposal and putting it in a sealed envelope in triplicate in double quick time. He could type at the speed of sound.

A few days later, I received a letter from the customer, inviting me for a meeting. I was asked to come to a building in Lutyens Delhi and was given a Room Number. It was not too far from my office. On the appointed day, I made my way to the customer’s office. I searched hard, once I reached the area, but could not locate the building. After pacing up and down, I walked up to a security guard outside a building which had no number or a name on it, only to be told, to my good luck that I had reached the right place. I heaved a sigh of relief. I was a little surprised though that that there was no name, or logo or number on the building. Strange, I though to myself, Government buildings are generally pretty well marked, but this was different. The building was well kept. I walked in, it was airconditioned. Wow, I thought to myself. I had never ever visited an airconditioned Government office. In those days, most of them had air coolers and only the Senior most officers had a window AC in their private office.  After waiting for two hours, I was called in. The officer thanked me for my interest in their tender. He then informed me that I had to make a detailed presentation to their committee sometimes over the next week. He then shared more details of what they were looking for. “ I like your proposal,” he remarked, but there is one thing that I could not find. You have not talked about your Multi-User support.” Please make sure that in your presentation you share how your system will support multiple users. I was taken aback by this comment. The specs seemed akin to a PC, but this customer was asking for a Multi-User PC. That was strange. I thought to myself that some competitor must be offering this feature and had convinced the customer to bake it into the tender specifications. I tried rationalising with the customer, but to no avail. “ I know our application and that is what we need,” he said with a sense of finality. I walked out, feeling a bit low. We did not have such a product and neither was our R&D working on it. But, I did not want to give up and knew that I had to find an answer.

That week, one of our senior R&D engineers was visiting Delhi to support another colleague of mine. In the evening, we had organized an internal training session, to learn about what was new. IT has always been a fast paced Industry. It was one of the most fascinating learning sessions. My colleague spoke about the IEEE 802.3 protocol and how that would change computing. The Ethernet Standard had just got published. We spent the evening talking about the CSMA/CD protocol, how it operated and how it would enable computers to talk to each other and share files and printers. “You will just need to put a Network Card in each computer and the software utilities would do the rest of the magic,” I was told. My colleague had brought a “demo” card with him to show us as to what the new add-on pluggable module would look like. My mind was in an overdrive mode. Could I change the rules of the game for the PC tender I was pursuing? I thought hard. I requested my colleague to loan the card to me for a week. I pleaded. I promised that I would get this back to him in Bangalore within seven days. My boss was traveling there the next week and I promised to hand it over to him. Our R&D had just built a few cards and wanted every card they had to do the integration and testing. Finally, my colleague relented and agreed to let me keep the card for a week, but then just for a week only.       

On the appointed day, I arrived at the unnamed building for the presentation. I thought there would only be a few firms that would have put in the bid, given that it was just for a single PC. There may not be too many hungry folks, I told myself. As I entered the building, to my utter disbelief and shock, I found a dozen other vendors waiting for their turn to Present. I was told that I would be the last Firm that would be called in. They were going alphabetically. Gosh, I thought to myself, I am going to be here for a long long time. We were informed that the committee had many members who had come from other cities and they all had a flight back the same evening. That is strange, I thought to myself. For a Single PC tender, there was a large committee with several members[CM1]  from outside Delhi. Never seen that before, but maybe that is how the Government made decisions, I thought. The day moved rather slowly. Finally, my turn came. It was already Five in the evening. As soon as I walked in, I was told that I had 15 minutes, since many members had a flight to catch. I knew that they had heard 11 other presentations before mine and were pretty exhausted, perhaps having heard several pitches before my turn . In their mind, they would demonstrate that they had been fair, given us all an equal chance. For me those 15 minutes, I knew were the most important 15 minutes. Some of the members had already started packing their bags, as I walked in. I looked around and started talking about how Mutli- User Computing was about to change forever. “When you share limited resources particularly of hardware that is modelled around a PC Architecture, you will have a severe deterioration of performance. You are using time slicing or other methods to share valuable limited compute and memory resources, you will never get the throughput you are looking for.” I remarked.  I then spoke of Ethernet, how the Standards had just been defined, how it would change computing forever. I pulled out the card that I had borrowed from the R&D engineer and held it high in my hand, “ this is what you need, a network of computers, each with it’s own computing and memory, but which allows seamless sharing. Not multiple dumb terminals connected to one single CPU system. Multiple Intelligent Computers giving you the immense power that you need and the collaboration you are looking for.”  I suddenly felt a sense of quiet. The shuffling of papers, the hurried packing of the bags, the shifting of the chairs, all seemed to have suddenly stopped. I saw the Committee Members pause. The Chairman of the Committee then whispered something to the person sitting next to him. There was some sort of a commotion that ensued. I ignored the distraction and continued with my pitch. With a Blue Marker pen in my hand, I walked to the White Board, explaining what the new Networking Standards were all about, how they would change the narrative of Computing and through inter-operability, allow sharing of resources whilst delivering peak performance, unlike multi user computers. I was already 45 minutes into the discussion and the questions started flying. Another round of tea was ordered. “ What was happening to their flights, I wondered, had they got delayed?” Almost reading my mind, the Chairman remarked, we have rescheduled our flights, please take your time. I was relieved and doubled down. One more hour passed and by now the discussions had got very animated, I knew that I had caught their attention and just needed to stay the path. I stood there, calm and collected, answering every question confidently. My sixth sense told me that history was in the making. What I was sharing with the Committee very different from what every competitor of mine had pitched. I had changed the rules and moved the goal post. My competitors had all sung from the same hymn book- A PC Architecture which supported multiple users. My storyline was differentiated and unique.

It was late in the evening by the time my presentation got over. As I thanked the Committee and stepped out, one of the members asked me, “ Manoj, how many systems do you think we want to procure?” “ The tender enquiry was for one system, Sir,” I remarked. “ We need 30 systems, he responded.” “ We want to see your factory and assess your capability.” “ Sure sir,” I replied, “our factory is in Mysore, when would you like me to arrange for the visit?” “ Tomorrow” he said. I was caught off guard. I gulped and bravely said “ we will be happy to host you, sir”. “And another thing, we would like you to bring your system to our office in Delhi tomorrow morning, we want to test it out ,” he remarked. I was least expecting this. We had no demo system in Delhi at that time.

I came back to the office and in right earnestness started making some desperate phone calls. I was fortunate to be able to reach out to one of my senior colleagues. I explained the situation to him. We have a 30 System sale potentially deal on our hands and the factory visit has to go off well. My colleague was a soft mannered person. He understood my predicament and promised he would personally drive with the customer from Bangalore to Mysore to take care of the visit. That was a big relief for me.  I pumped my fists in the air. One problem solved! Then my mind turned to the demo. I started wondering what I would do next day. As I sat at my desk, it suddenly occurred to me that our Finance Department had a system. It was reasonably new. I rushed to the mezzanine floor to our Finance Manager’s office and earnestly requested him for his support. He initially refused, but my constant pleading moved him.“ I need the deal, I told him. We will create history and you will be a part of it,” I promised. I convinced him that I would get the system back by lunch time. He reluctantly agreed.

The next morning, I picked up the Computer, requested one of our engineers to join me and we hired an auto and made our way to the “unnamed” building. Once inside, we were asked to install the system in a conference room. After some time, a slightly built Officer appeared. He had an uncanny resemblance to Gandhiji. Frail, wearing spectacles and a slight smile, he said “ kyon bhai, are we ready?” “ Yes Sir”, I muttered. Before I could reach out to the keyboard to start the demo, he was already at it. He sat on the chair in front of the system and started typing away. I had never ever met a customer who was so adept. He seemed to have tremendous experience with computers. For the next one hour, we just stood there, whilst he tested the system. He asked a few questions in between, but for the most part he just worked on it stand alone. My engineer and I shared nervous glances at each other, as his fingers flew over the key board. My heart was in my mouth. At the end of the hour, he got up and smiled. You can now take your system back. We did not know if that was a good sign or not. “ What is your advise on the next steps,” I asked bravely. “ We will wait for your factory visit to get over and then let you know,” he said and then disappeared. We tried asking around on who the officer was. No one was volunteered to share any information.

I started introspecting about the happenings over the last few days and retraced my steps. I was in an unnamed building, in response to a tender for one system, which I had responded to in a tearing hurry. I just got told last evening that it was actually for 30 systems! I had shown a demo to a person whose identity was unknown. My colleague was helping with a factory visit where we were hosting an officer, who seemed like a nice person, but whom we barely knew. I was fighting a significant deal where I barely knew the organization or the customer. Strange, I thought . I had never faced such a situation in my entire sales career

That evening, we got the good news that the Factory Visit had gone well. I was elated. A couple of days later, I was informed that I would have to show up for a negotiation, but had to come for a pre negotiation discussion first. In the discussion, for the very first time, the identity of the actual customer was disclosed. I finally knew why I was in an “unnamed building”.  “ And by the way Manoj, we are looking for not 30, but 90 Systems, ” the customer blurted.  I was stumped and words failed me. This was unbelievable. I pinched myself. Yes, this was not a dream, this was absolutely true. 90 Systems! This would be the single largest deal ever for me and my Region. No wonder, the customer wanted to visit the factory, I thought”. 

The Final Negotiation was to be held in the powerful corridors of Delhi. I arrived well on time. As I entered the building, I was told that the office I had to go to was on the first floor. I would be escorted. As I walked up, the Officer told me not turn my head to the right or the left. Just walk straight, behave normal, do not look around. It all seemed mysterious to me. Suddenly I was in front of one of the offices. They all looked the same from outside. They had the familiar wooden door. I was ushered in. I had never seen a bigger Government Office in my life. It was very well appointed. Behind the desk, in one corner, sat the same officer who had tested our system. I was taken aback. One of the senior most officers of the Government had himself thoroughly tested our product. He was smiling. I sat down. He knew that I was overawed. By then I had got to know his name, but nothing more than that. The negotiation started. We haggled, and these discussions are always a game of nerves. I was 26 and sitting in front of one of the senior most Government Functionaries and negotiating. There were just the two of us. The price ask kept getting treacherous, but finally after an hour of much histrionics, we converged on a mutually acceptable price. We then moved to the Payment Terms. Those who sell to the Government know well, that this is the tricky part.  I knew this was a truly large Order. We needed strong cash flow to be able to deliver in the timelines that we were being asked to. The systems would be despatched to multiple locations, they would need to be installed in the quickest possible duration and it would be our first multi- location network based system.

I unhesitatingly asked for a 100% Advance. The customer was surprised, he asked me to repeat what I had said. I stuck to my guns. “ We need the money sir, in order to import the key components which will come from overseas, pay customs duty and then manufacture, deliver and install sir.” He thought for a moment, reflected and then said, the best I can do is 90% Advance. I readily agreed. In Government Deals, we rarely got any Advance. This would be largest deal for us in the Government and we would get most of the money upfront. “And, Sir, I said, I need the Advance by a Demand Draft, otherwise we will lose a few days in the cheque clearing.” “ I will give you a DD, the customer said, but you will have to bear the DD making Charges.” We both laughed.” I readily agreed. We fixed time the next day to formalize the deal.

I came back to office late in the evening and met our Regional Manager. A mild mannered, impeccably mannered soul, he showed no dramatic emotion. “90 Systems,” his eyebrows went up. “Yes Sir,” I said and continued, “I would like you to come with me for the final meeting with the customer.” I told him everything about the deal and what had happened over the last several days. I divulged the name of the customer. He seemed suitably impressed.  

The next day was a memorable one for me. We took an auto to go and meet the customer. The meeting was pleasant and very professionally conducted. The customer had liked the engineer who had come with me at the time of the demo. He asked that we have the same engineer look after the project. He gave us the PO and the Demand Draft. I had never seen such a large value financial instrument in my entire life. We thanked the customer, took an auto to came back to the office. There was euphoria by the time we reached back. There was an atmosphere of joyous celebration. This one deal was valued more than the entire business we had done for the year. Everyone wanted to see the DD. The misplaced belief that we could not be successful and sell ethically to the Government had been broken. We had sold the first network centric deal ( when the technology was still getting defined) to the Government. We knew that this would augur well for us and open many more doors. My steno Bhasu asked for his reward- a “full set” tea, from the neighbouring restaurant called Krips, the moment he laid his eyes on me. My colleagues looked admiringly and we had a small celebration. I had finally “arrived” in Delhi.

A few months later, I got to know that a competitor of ours, many times our size, had been working on the project for two years. They were so confident of winning the deal and had already procured the material. They had helped write the specs of the tender and it was game set, match for them. No one ever in the wildest dream imagined that a technology breakthrough, introduced by a much smaller player like us would be their nemesis. But then, that is what Sales is about and so is Life.