Memoir...Musings of a Sales guy at heart!! (2)

This post is all about the typical 'never say die attitude' of a born salesman!

My Diageo days-based at Bombay looking after the entire South Asia. One of the key market for Diageo is Sri Lanka especially for Duty Free. The contribution from the Colombo airport DF shops both arrival and departure were huge for Diageo brands. And the operator at that time was Alpha International, an UK based company. Diageo in terms of value and volume numero uno at the DF. Another operator is Sri Lankan airways where we JW Red, Black, Smirnoff were listed for inflight serving. And for inflight Duty Free, JW Black was listed but sadly JW Red was never ever listed. This I came to know when I took charge of this market and when I approached the officials of SL Airways procurement team, we were told to wait till they call for applications which came out in the next couple of months. It was very clear in our mind that we have to get JW Red listed as a competing brand was ruling this segment in inflight DF sales and the passengers never had an option but to buy that brand. We submitted our application and one day in Bombay, Arun Kumar who was looking after this account, came running to me, with tension written all over his face, and informed that JW Red didn't go thru the process. And when I asked him for the reason, there was none...just rejected. This is unacceptable and I told Arun we have to fight it out. Arun was helpless as he felt that we cant fight with the airlines. My point was that we have to escalate and meet the top guy in the airlines and represent our case.

Arun, through our stalwart, Rahul who was based at Colombo, fixed up an appointment and we flew down to Colombo immediately to meet up with this person. And we prepared well with the sales numbers of all our brands in departure and arrival at the DF shops in Colombo airport and also our market shares. Also we carried with us the competition numbers and their market share including the domestic numbers.

Guys I need to tell you the Sri Lankans are great guys to do business and lovely people. You should only to know how to talk to them as they dont like to be bossed over.

So we go to their office at Colombo and meet up with this senior guy. After all the pleasantries we put forward our agenda and pat came the reply that nothing can be done. I asked him how that competition brand got approved and Red was rejected...whats the logic. He didn't want to divulge but finally after lots of persuasion he said it was consumers preference. Thats what I was waiting for. Now the conversation went somewhat like this.

Diageo...Sir, you said the consumers choice is this particular brand, right?

SL Airlines...Yes, they prefer  and hence we are selling only this brand.

Diageo...Sir, who are your consumers?

SL...What exactly your question?

Diageo...Sir, nationality...

Sl air......Majority Sri Lankans.

Diageo.... Fine sir, if thats the case, they also shop at the duty free at the airport?

SL...could be....

Diageo...sir in that case, this is the numbers at the DF of Colombo airport both for arrival and departure where in you would find JW Red is X number and the brand you are promoting in your airlines is a very poor No2...that is not even 25% of JW Red....

The officer was slightly taken aback as he didn't expect this...

SL...I can see the numbers but how authentic are these? 

As we expected this, we got our friend in Alpha connected and made him to speak to this person.

He found the numbers are genuine.

SL...but in arrival shop it could be different.....

We showed him the arrival figures of DF also where JW was almost 90% market share....

He took lots of time and asked us what about domestic.

Diageo...Sir, you know domestic is too small but we are enjoying similar market share and showed the numbers to him.

We also showed him the performance of all our other brands in the DF, domestic, ports shops, ship chandlers, in other airports in Mumbai, Chennai et al.

He started realising that we have a strong case. He told me that he needs time and asked me to come back after a couple of months.

We said, sir 2 months is a long period and hence we want to start this asap. We were very determined not to leave till they accept that some one in their team has not done their home work.

But as he has to protect his team, he started talking about space availability. He said since aircraft cant carry multiple brands due to space constraints and the competition is already listed it would be difficult to accommodate us. Fair point though but we were so clear in our goal we realised that we need to give him some solutions instead of just harping on our point. So we suggested that on a trial basis, he should make available both the brands in equal quantities and give the choice to the consumer/passenger. And mind it we were $2 higher than the brand they were selling, per bottle of lit.

He told us that he cant take that call himself as he needs his bosses permission too....So he took some time off from us and came back and led us to his boss....

To cut the long story short, we got our listing and we ensured by working with the logistics team handling the movement of stocks-Rahul was great in that-that we never run out of stocks and JW Red is made available in all the flights for sale. We also took a two page advertisement in their inflight magazine (the front back and page 1) announcing the availability of JW Red. In 3 months time we captured 75% of the share of this segment and as they say, rest is history.

And its not small business guys....We then developed huge promos for the inflight staff and consumer packs and made JW Red 'numero uno' with the Sri Lankan Airways....

I should really thank my team for believing in me and also the SL Airways bog bosses on the fact sheet and logic we provided.

The lesson:  Perseverance Pays. 

Never ever give up...Diageo HO never ever bothered about this as they must have thought it was too small a business to bother. 

If you say, you are Johnnie Walker, the most popular brand and hence easier! Yes, true, but my predecessors didn't think like that...they never realised inflight duty free in SL Airways would provide so much of value and volumes...thats where we succeeded. If you are a leader you should do everything under your command and even outside, to remain in that position. Never ever give up. And as a boss, you set very high standards for the team.

This episode of SL Airways is something which I always cherish. Arun and Rahul, if you guys are reading this, it would invoke lots of excellent memories and a big smile....yes, we truly made the lips smile!!