So aaj baat karte hai Sales ki , Sales kya hai and jo bhi hai that is according to me. We can agree to disagree. (This is not AI generated :D )

So I was fired from my job in 2007 for being the worst salesman, as my sales for 6 months was ZERO. That was my first sales job as well.

Fir koi job nahi de raha tha to I started on my own, apporached 200+ customers for my services and finally I got it. It's not the subject of classroom learning but the subject of Action. Do 100 cold calls and you will know and you can see the difference between your first cold and call and 100th.

Then to sharpen my skills, I started learning Sales Techniques and Psychological techniques but at the end Click wahi hua jo hona chahiye tha, today I consider myself a good salesman. My learnings in this journey are

- You don't need techniques but you need authenticity

- Sales is not about processes, openings and closures but It's about People , Understanding people is the key.

- Instead of selling, focus on value creation (waise ye sab pahele bhi 100 baar sun ya padh chuke honge )

- If you have empathy , connection , authenticity, Integrity then you understand your customer , team members , partners far better way and that's the key to sales.

- Last is face your fear. Cold calls are most difficult for many people but once you pick up the call and talk like a human , you will realize that person on other side is same and you can have a good talk at least.

Photo story : I am doing what I love doing most, Sales.

First customer : (this is not AI generated story :D )

Today I am going to share how we got our first customer for 58 Miles and how our first stock was sold out in a day.

So once we were ready with our stock and we were planning many things in all directions, that online fod daalenge , Insta pe dhamaal macha lenge and give few samples to influencers and once 10-15 reviews are set , we will sell our stock in next 2-3 months with lots of learning.

As our first product is "Camera wale baba ka Jhola, to Sahil Shah ne bola , to take part in Offline photo expo in Gandhinagar, and I was convinced to give it a try. We booked last moment so got the last stall :D

At the expo, we unveiled our product, but for the entire morning, it was like a ghost town at our stall. Ten other camera bag bigwigs had set up shop before us. But then, around 1:00 PM, a lone ranger strolled in. I narrated the whole saga of Moment Camera bag by 58miles, and guess what? He agreed to pay! A whole year of hard work, and finally, someone was ready to pay for it. I was so overwhelmed that when he swiped for payment, I stopped him and said, "It's a gift from us, Sir." He couldn't believe it! With joy and excitement, he ran out, sharing the tale of our unique camera bag and how he got it for free.

and then it was like everybody was coming to our stall, we were talk of town (thought it was expo and not the town) We were sold out , all 125 bags for first stock, on the first day of expo. I could not believe it.

Photo story : The guy in black tshirt is not our first customer , Its our beloved supporter , my pakka dost Jatin Chaudhary (eChai Ventures wale bhaiya). His support to us and thousands of other startups across the globe is unmatchable. He bought the Camera bag just to support our launch.
www.58miles.com

The product hunt :

When I decided to start a consumer product company, the first thing was to think about product. Today I am trying to explain how we decided our first product to go with.

I make sure about one thing that anything we shall do or create shall be different then what everybody else is doing. I studied all d2c brands and decided not to go with fashion, lifestyle and wellness. Also one of my business is B2B corporate apparels so thought to have a product which I can sell in same channel in future and that's how decided to go with bags and backpacks.

Now, there are many brands in that segment also, and all of them focused on fashion, so we decided to focus on function.

One more thing, I like to make sure about any product or service is to find one niche to market so we decided to go with business backpack would be our first product, design process started (There will be a separate post about designing our products) and somehow we end up making first product which is backpack for modern age creators. A backpack to carry your cameras, digital kits and some clothes.

"The reason of selecting a niche is targeting is very easy". When you know your target customer, the marketing becomes laser focused. And here we go with our First backpack designed for Photographers/Cinematographers and Digital creators , named it "Moment". Moment by 58Miles.
https://www.58miles.com

stay tuned, on how we designed this product and why this product became the first to go to market...