The Indian Cricket Captain - Punching Bag For A Billion Indians

When do a billion people trun critics, bowling experts, batting order analysers, field placement supervisors, pitch report scrutinizers .....all in one go? No one can answer this question better than the past and present captains of the Indian cricket team.

One can say that this is just a game and you can't win everyday and i believe every one in the crowd will admit to this but we are a nation which hasn't excelled in any other sport consistently other than cricket...at least in the recent past.

Every child born in India especially if he is a boy is gifted a bat and ball the day the he is able to grasp any object around him. He is constantly told tales of Sachin Tendulkar more than Birbal, Lord Ram or Tenali Raman. He is shown the nearby playing ground on a bright sunday morning with more people playing on the field than the cumulative grass visible there. It is definitely a good exercise ...which may take hours mind you.....to figure out who is bowling to whom and fielding for whom.

It is a factor of loads of hard work with an even higher degree of luck to make it to the cricket camp. The odds are such that it may seem easier or rather cake walk to win a lottery ticket with odds of 1:1.5 lac than to get a place in the team.

If you are one among the coveted team members....well...you better perform. You can't be popping out of news papers, television sets, internet and every bill board in sight constantly tell us to buy a certain brand of carbonated drink, shirt, fan, phone, bike, car and the works and come back to tell us that they forgot to polish themselves against short balls before the game.....this unfortunately is the most common perception among all of us.

It is also true that the Indian team has found one of the best strike combination that we have seen in a long time. There are days when the combination comes short of striking it well but it can happen any where and in any game. My faith in the team is immense and the day is not far when the same combination will be paraded in open top busses through the city after a spectacular win.

Strange Situations In Sales

I often question myself if sales is just a profession? I believe it is like a shadow that follows every human being till he or she relinquishes the world....well it is true. If any activity in life has an element of convincing required, peppered with reasoning and logic it is an act of selling. Yet very often i have noticed when a sales person calls in, the person who is hearing him / her out cringes almost like a natural instinct. Why, i wonder?

There is no definite answer to the instinctive behavior. There may be a need for the product, you may have internally decided to buy the product and the brand; yet you listen to the pitch and try to put forth all your questions and you may end up buying irrespective of a not so great pitch. Does this mean that sales person just connects or delivers what the person has already decided to buy?

Everybody negotiates; you may feel the price you are being asked to pay is right then why a discount? You may end up jumping with joy if you manage to reduce the price. It is a feeling of ecstasy that no pill can satisfy.

To err is human but a sales person cannot err. He can be crucified even if a mistake is not his direct contribution. I do admit that there are many who fondly remember good sales folks as well but why such extremities in reaction?

There have been many books written on the above observations - many theories and remedies to make that perfect call, to assess customers, go with the perfect pitch, learn the perfect art of negotiation and offer great service after sale. I know of many sales people who might have followed all of this rigorously but they will still admit that they continue to see and experience the above instances every day to this day.

I am sure there are more views, observations to second my thought or to contradict some of them.....would be glad to hear....