“MAHA MANDI” a classroom on the streets of Mumbai !!

Saturday morning greeted Mumbai with incessant rain, overcast sky with no sign of the sun. The rain lashed down on rooftops of big complexes, buildings with relentless force showing no signs of abating and thereby showing no mercy to those who would have loved to enjoy the day outside with their family and friends.

But this day witnessed one of the biggest events organized by Nitie students-Maha Mandi.

The day began with the inauguration ceremony witnessing the presence of Ms. Sonam Bajwa (Charismatic leadership) which saw participation from NITIE, SPJIMR, KJ Somaiya and other renowned colleges.  The “mandi experience” was still a mystery to all of us.

On the day I along with my team members set out for Andheri in bus arranged by college. Bus was full to its capacity with enthusiastic students.

On getting down at Andheri,we began to look for a customer whom we could sell.Questions like What are these people up to? Are they busy? Is this person looking grumpy? Is this one too arrogant?  were all racing through our mind.

There we met our first customer-A grumpy looking person in mid 50s.We decided to give a try and to our utter surprise we managed to sell a toy costing rupees 200 for rupees 250.

Then we made our way to Andheri station where a person approached us on his own and began inquiring from where we came from and seem very interested by Maha Mandi.We sold him the Jodo block.So far it was cake walk for us.

Then came the difficult time when we got people who listened intently to what we had to say but in the end the price was either too much or the product was too risky for their kids as they might swallow up the toys.We made our way to Bandra where we sold maximum items on Link road.

 

Finally at Juhu we sold off a few items.
Total sales in 4 hours=2800 rupees.

Learnings from Mandi experience

• Before Mandi,we were a bit overconfident-specially after the success we had after the first two sales.But then we realized that patience is the key.
•  The toys like Tangrum and Jodo are perfecgt examples of how the education system in India needs to be.
• We also learnt that targeting the right customer is a very important thing.
• From one's facial expression,a seller has to guess whether he is a potential buyer or not.
• During conversation never bring the price of the product first.Rather generate interest in the buyer's mind
• Patience is a virtue and must be present in a seller.
• Never give up.Always try.

Another interesting observation:

If we can sell 2800 in 4 hours, then we can sell 6300 in a day of 9 hours,189000 in a month,22.68 in 1 year.Who said that you only have to do MBA to earn this sort of a package.

In Nitie, through the unique teachings of Dr. Mandi we get to know what quality education is all about,what is real teaching and most importantly how to implement what we learn in our day to day lives.

JAI HO MANDI