A sales job is definitely not a cushy one, though there is an aura of glamour attached to it —at least in the eyes of those outside this profession! In this piece, through the eyes of a fictional veteran in this line, the authors have tried to take a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at the trials and tribulations of this profession.

It happened one April evening. We were celebrating the good performance of that sales year—all targets had been exceeded (the cynical part of me suggested this was due to the boom in the economy—but why should I crib when I myself had gained substantially in my bank balance with this achievement!) and the management of the company had been gracious enough to allow the VP—Marketing to have a suite booked in a five star hotel and let him and his team of 20 sales people let their hair down. It helped that the diet—up to this stage anyway—was largely liquid and tongues and inhibitions were getting loosened in direct proportion to the drop in the levels of the bottles.

One of the kids had even brought a guitar! I was the All India Sales Manager of this team, all 55 years of me and by a very long margin, the oldest member. I watched all the kids around me have fun and waited for the moment when I was sure the Vice President was going to slip in thoughts about next year's targets. Little did the poor guys know that Bacchus was going to make them agree to a substantial hike in targets next year—and they wouldn't even be aware of this. I have lost count of the number of such parties I have attended—and the number of such commitments made!

I suddenly felt the eyes of everybody on me—and vaguely worried whether I had slept off. One of the smart youngsters asked me "Sir, how many years have you been in sales? Why don't you share some of your experiences with us?"

I replied "Son, I joined this profession in 1975—were you born then?" He replied: "No chance, sir, I was born only in 1982 and I am sure hardly anyone else in this room was born when you started working!" We checked and found that apart from the VP there were only three of us more than 30 years old—and I had been working for more than three decades. I contrasted this with my first sales conference when after a similar question, I found I was the only person less than 25 and everyone else in the room had almost a quarter century of experience. How times had changed!

Marketing Mastermind Magazine, The Reminiscences of a Sales Veteran, Marketing Management, Management Skills, Advertising Budgets, Event Management, Collection Targets, Accounts Department, fictional veteran, Smuggled Goods Market, Burma Bazaar.