A colloquium on the topic ‘Job of a Salesperson’ was conducted on June 22, 2018 in Sri Krishna Hall of Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore. The resource person was Mr. Meenakshi Kalyana Sundaram.

Meenakshi Kalyana Sundaram spoke to the audience about the prospects of picking up a sales career. He shared his experiences about being a salesman for several years. He says that to pursue a successful career in sales job, one needs to be very pro-active, witty and patient. He spoke about the challenges that a salesperson would face in his day to day job, particularly about cold calling, hostile treatment, alienated environment, judge mentality and bias in the business world. He spoke about how he was able to sneak his way out in tough situations by understanding various cross – cultural and rational norms. He spoke about how his job needed him to work at odd hours, how he had to do cold calling, a part of his job for which he developed a strategy later. He used to do cold calling during the ending business hours, times when the client used to be less critical of his presentation. He had traveled across various countries as a part of his job and hence, he understood how corruption worked, how people take advantage of the criticality of the desperate.

Mr. Sundaram advised the aspirants of a sales career to take care of their health and hygiene and maintain themselves in good shape. He didn’t sugarcoat the facts, had spoken the harsh truth and had voiced out that the career of a salesperson is not a piece of cake but rather a fight for survival. He says that the salesperson should be ever ready to learn new things, be up to date on the latest trends of working process, so that he doesn’t get ousted by the newcomers. In the end, he advised the students to follow their goals with vigor and zeal and wished them good luck.