Wednesday, November 19, 2008
*is exhausted*
This just
might be a boring entry.
So, do you remember that Marketing problem I had? THIS WAS THE DAY, LADIES
AND GENTLEMEN. We had to make a pitch to our marketing professor, sell him an item, as part of our midterms. You have to take note that he has TO BUY the product in order to give you a perfect score, otherwise, he'd give you a second chance again during the so-called "follow-up".
Here's what happened to my group.
We didn't want to be the last group, honestly, because last meant best, right? I mean, since there had been many groups ahead of us, we had already observed how they pitched to our professor and what went wrong in case they didn't sell anything to him. I even remember my professor saying, "Group 1, I'll have to go easy on you since you're the first group. ... Oh and group 6, you have to close me in five minutes." At first that seemed intimidating right? But as groups one until four have already done their sales pitch, we had some confidence ourselves that we could sell him our item in five minutes.
You see, this subject is called MARKET2, and for MARKET1, we also had the same professor. It gave us an advantage firsthand because when we had him as professor last term, he told us various things about himself that's related to marketing. For instance, my friends from another class sold him a Limited Edition of Absolut vodka because he told us before that he collected Absolut Limited Edition vodkas, and that he wouldn't pass up a limited edition for anything. But we realized we couldn't sell him alcoholic beverages because: (1) he knows waaaay too much about alcoholic beverages; and (2) three other groups did that and only one succeeded.
We scratched the Japanese sake and sushi deal, even before he told us "to be cautious of selling him food and alcohol," and my blockmate discovered he was a fan of the Watchmen graphic novel. So to speak, we started researching about that, especially that it's not really popular in our country. But we knew our professor wouldn't say "no" to something he really really
really likes (case in point: the Absolut vodka).
We searched high and low for Watchmen merchandise, and we bought (technically, I did) a book entitled "
Watching The Watchmen", which was like a behind-the-scenes for the original novel. We were sure he would buy it.
Come this Monday and Tuesday. We thought of selling him additional printed shirts and mugs (about Watchmen of course), so we had that done. All that's left was the sales pitch itself and the objections (which we were confident we wouldn't have). Basically those are the essence of this midterms; we must be able to give him a good sales pitch and answer appropriately to objections. And since he told us that "you must know your product" in order to convince your customers, we researched thoroughly on the story and the characters of the Watchmen.
I remember my friend telling me, "We became too interested to something we've never heard before just because of our professor." XD That's true, but I admit, my professor's love for that comics was justified when we learned the story.
Oh and Watchmen will have a movie adaptation, on March 2009. Just saying. XD;;
So anyway, come Wednesday, TODAY, and we were getting nervous like we'd never been. Another friend wanted to back out earlier, in a totally joking way, saying, "I'll go home now. I swear I'll skip this class." With our professor only bought the product of the group before us (which composed of my lovely blockmates ♥), we
knew we had to persuade him enough to buy. And really, with that extensive research, we were confident that he would.
It turned out he had the book ALREADY (I think I'mma keep it XD;;), so all he was interested in were the shirts and the mugs. Talk about irony. He was very impressed with our research, especially when we could answer all his questions about the novel. I'm glad he didn't make us sing (that's called Showmanship, where you have to show off to your customer to make him/her buy from you ;p), nor he didn't say anything bad about our group. HE WAS NICE AND IT WAS A MIRACLE. Not kidding. I was afraid he'd embarrass one of us (or all, idk) and say "I told you, I'm not going to buy from you!" (Yes friends, he has done that too many times.)
In the end? We have no grade. FOR NOW. He says that we have to wait until Monday to make up his mind. Good news is, no grade can mean we can still have that perfect 100% by Monday. He also said that we have 80% (EIGHTY asdklaj) percent chance of buying. From what I've learned, when you get a 50% chance from the customer, there is already that probability that the customer will INDEED buy from you. We have our hope he will.
The problem that only occurred was there was another group who wanted to sell him shirts with his intended design. We had to defend we could already give him the shirts NOW, since the group didn't have samples, but he kept saying he'd think about it. I don't know what it is, but he sure was in hell of a good mood today.
It's such a shame that we didn't close him now, but I'm glad so many of our classmates wanted us to make the sale too. They were all, "Awwww, I hope Sir could've just bought from you guys!" Apparently, they were impressed with our information too. :DDD
The best thing that happened today? My professor going, "You have to give these guys a hand. They've done a research and done it well." And in this, you only clap when a group makes the sale. I'm happy that all our efforts paid off.
S-So. I ranted. Because this has been the most stressful week I've had (h-hence the random commenting and lateness here in LJ, sorry ^^;;), and although we didn't expect this to happen, I'm satified with all of this. At least he wasn't bitching too much. XD;;
You've probably skipped that part so I'm going to insert something that might interest you. Hopefully. LOL.
1) Some of the lovely people on my
flist in LJ have been offering to send cards for Christmas, and I'm actually a bit shy to ask for it since I know I might not give one back. So instead, I'll offer virtual cards! :DD
Rules (for the meantime): [Most of you are Arashi fans anyway, but if you want something else to be put in there just tell me.]
- If you want an Arashi card though, tell me your ichiban (I probably know it anyway but tell me XD) or your OTP. ^^
- I can do with other fandoms too. ;p
- I can put up samples. :D But after Ohno's birthday okay? XD
- Basically ANYTHING you want on it, just tell me. I'll make the time to incorporate anything you want on your Christmas card.
That's it for now, I'll let this week pass first before I can make a better post about this. Hehe.
2) Wishlist! Honestly, I can have anything, because knowing it's from wonderful people like you will already make me happy enough. :D Even if it's a poem, a graphic,
material stuff, it'll do. ♥
3) RnK. Well. I can't wait for episode 6. ;p
4) Tamaki Hiroshi will have a new drama! With Matsuda Shota! Eee! ♥ I only read about this two days ago, and I don't have anything else than it'll be next year. LOL, I fail.
A long day, this has been. *sighs* I'll drift off to sleep now!
Even if it's just 4 in the afternoon XD
"I'm glad I met you" @ 2:11 PM |
