Prerequisites for being a sales ninja (aka an ASM)

To go from being a mere mortal MBA grad to a sales ninja (aka an ASM) requires certain special powers without which survival would be impossible.

To sum up, following are the weapons that one must possess in his arsenal to become the overlord of a territory:

1. Bodily elasticity + infinite capacity for expansion

Sales as a profession will make you grow, both literally and figuratively. I can't vouch for whether your career horizons will expand after your time in sales but your girth most certainly will, thanks to the sugar-laden tea and soft drinks that all your distributors and wholesalers will make you drink. If you deny, however politely, they would get offended. So after 1.5 years of growing beyond measure I have finally started refusing with the ruse "mujhe sugar ki problem hai!!" only then do they let you off the hook without making you feel guilty for refusing their 2 sip hospitality. Not to forget you will spend half your life in hotels eating oily spicy food which would further add to your bulk.

2. A large cooperative bladder

Not needed if you are a male ASM for the world is your urinal. If you are a girl ASM and that too an upcountry one then be prepared to grin and hold it in for non-shady toilets are a novelty to come by

3. A repertoire of corny Bollywood dialogues

There will be days when to coax the distributor to do your bidding you would actually end up saying things like " Aapki pareshani hamari pareshani hai" ,"hum saath saath hai", "hum hai to kya gam hai?" (I made up the last one but I swear I have actually used the other two!)

4.  The resilience of a cockroach

It is said that a cockroach can survive nuclear radiations 10 times more than what a human can withstand. Going by the resilience of the cockroaches in my kitchen I can certainly tell you that they can survive repeat attacks of very strong pest control sessions. You will need this resilience to go from one bad month to another when the dhandha is not happening. Also get ready for countless rejections as distributors, retailers and field officers will say no to you a thousand times "maedum target nahi hota, too heigh”,"maedum season nahi hai..." you would need a really thick hide to bounce back and ask them to do the same thing again and again and again. Soon you would start feeling like those Hindi film heroes of yore who relentlessly pursued the women they set their heart on and badgered the poor damsel till she gave in to his advances. If only your team would ever succumb in a similar manner!

5. A sympathetic ear

If you could never pull off being an agony aunt, then you are in the wrong boat. For an ASM is that special being with whom all field officers, retailers, distributors and wholesalers would share their sob story in a bid to make you pressurize them less for primaries, secondaries, process parameters and what not. So while you become a patient audience you need to also know how to separate the grain from the chaff and ask these guys to cut the crap and get on with their jobs.

6. A flair for covert undertakings

If you are the kind of person who grew up on a heady dose of The Five Found Outers, Secret Seven, Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys and Agatha Christies then you are in the right job. For when your team will complain of undercutting and maal coming from here and there you would need to don that detective hat and get into Sherlock mode to get to the bottom of the mystery. Hence would begin the process of tracing the vehicles unloading this stock, gathering photographic evidence, deep diving into all the data you have access to and decoding the trends. Not to forget blaming the ASM of the neighboring area, just for the kicks!

7. A chotu nokia phone

Going back eons on technology will come in handy as you would receive so many calls in one day that your smart phone would certainly crack under the pressure. Only a rudimentary Nokai, the one with FM and torchlight, has the mettle to be your constant companion as you climb mountains and wade through rivers to sell all the soap in your depot.

This is primarily what you would need to become a sales ninja. There might be things I am missing out on but with the month closing around the corner by brain is in freeze mode and cannot think of anything more than the number, which is certainly not happening this month. So dear readers why don't you show some kindness by buying soap from Telangana and help me close my number....