Open letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Credits: This was a wonderful post authored by Mr. Anant Rangaswamy. Simply loved it. Will share it with you guys. I simply had to have this post. So here goes....

Arvind Kejriwal has written an article in The Times of India asking people to suggest the way forward for Team Anna. “The anti-corruption movement is at the crossroads today. Where do we go from here? We are conscious that a wrong decision at this stage could prove disastrous for the movement,” he writes.

Here we go, Mr. Kejriwal, if you care to listen.

Remember that you’re the salesman. You have a product and you want to sell it to the political class, particularly to members of Parliament. This is not your usual sale; the ‘buyer’ has no need and no want for the product — which immediately means that in negotiations, the salesman is significantly weaker than the buyer.

If at all you want to sell your Jan Lokpal Bill, what you cannot afford to do is to walk away from the deal; the politician would be delighted. What you cannot do is heap abuse, belittle and besmirch the buyer.

The only way forward is to deal with the situation as a good salesman would.

• Tell your client why he needs it at all: Imagine, 25 years ago, you were a salesman of vacuum cleaners, a product neither wanted nor needed. Think of the Lokpal bill as a product facing similar challenges, and remember that the sale is going to be long and hard. Time needs to be spent on evangelism and education.

• Describe your product in detail to the client: Spend time with parliamentarians and party chiefs and explain why your version of the Jan Lokpal Bill is better than all others, in the same spirit that a salesman of, say, photocopiers educates his prospective customer. Get more and more parliamentarians to buy in. Think of all these parliamentarians as members of the household who could influence a sale – perhaps the party chiefs are equivalent to the head of the household, the final decision maker.

• Build a relationship with the prospect: This is not a quick, uninvolved sale, like a razor blade. The product you are trying to sell is such that the sale process will be long and tiring. Establishing a rapport with the client is an essential ingredient in your chances for a sale. Clients are more likely to spend time with salesmen they like, rather than salesmen they do not like. Get your clients, the politicians, to like you and admire you for your effort and persistence. No salesman worth his salt will rave and rant at a prospect; none can abuse a client and hope to close a deal. Good salesmen will build relationships with prospects they do not like and prospects who treat them badly – because the only thing that matters to them is the sale.

• Do not set unachievable deadlines: The moment you do, desperation will show as the deadline approaches. The moment this happens, the salesman gets more aggressive – and the customer more wary. Remember, in this case, the customer never wanted the product in the first place. The moment the desperation increases, politicians will be relieved – that the endless pressure of being sold a product that they didn’t want will end soon.

• Make the client feel like a winner: Let the client feel that he is a part of making a significant decision that will change his life for the better. Good sales make the client look good, not the salesman. Do not broadcast details of the negotiations when they are in progress, especially when you think you’re winning or you think poorly of your client. The more you do this, the less the client will want to meet you, let alone buy from you.

Fundamentally, in all sales, good salesmen need to establish how much or how little a prospect needs and wants the product on offer. Establish negotiating positions from there.

Team Anna is selling a product which is unwanted – and the negotiating position needs to reflect this truth.

What we have seen since April is negotiations based on a premise that
a) The salesman will convince the buyer
b) That the sales process would be short; and;
c) That the buyers would just keel over and fall when they come to the negotiating table.

That’s our advice. Unlike you, we don’t say this way or the highway. There will be others with other views that reach you as well.

The minimum you have to do is to listen – that’s something Team Anna has proven to be very poor at.

So long...