From Zero to Hero...

“I'm not telling you it's going to be easy - I'm telling you it's going to be worth it.”― Art Williams

Starting from Zero, building the business a liter by liter to reach a respectable quantity in six months time was demanding.

The day started at quarter to 4 in the morning everyday, and went on till 1 am after midnight. Day after day, I went to the office at 4 in the morning and ensured that deliveries were happening on time in a regular fashion, for that was the key to building a successful business - Customer satisfaction.

Ensuring that that there were no mistakes in the delivery sheets, that the orders were delivered as per the customers requirement, the mornings went in operations, and the day passed in streamlining the issues. The evenings were well spent in taking customer order changes and complaints.

Challenge was not in managing the freshly made setup, but in the fast turnover of the contractors and the money siphoned by them by way of being in charge of payment collection from the customers. The Exciting part was catching hold of them and getting the money back from them... Amazing right?

Hard work and consistency pays off. Slowly and steadily... building volumes day by day, we reached a magic figure digit in sales volumes... giving a total sense of satisfaction, but with even bigger challenges to look forward to in future. But we had decided, we will achieve...

Milk is a 24x7 business but, It was was possible because of the support of then designate SVP - Strategic Marketing. And the team had way to go !

"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."
-- Mark Twain

A Stirring Launch !

Launching is no big Deal... Is it ?

I mean, we all have played Angry Birds and Launched birds one by one !!

So, there is pre launch work associated with a Launch.

Two days before the launch date, whole day, we went roaming the entire city identifying the delivery addresses to which deliveries needed to be made on the day of the launch so that we are right on schedule. 

All Set.... Get Set Go =>

The distribution had to start at 4 am in order for the milk to reach the customers latest by 6 am, so the team was briefed to reach office by 3.30 am. I reached the office at the stipulated time, only to find my reporting manager, and the milk van waiting for me with 100 liters of milk. There was no sight of my delivery team. My heart sank. I started calling up the team and waking them up. It took them an hour, but they did reach office to start deliveries. 

Did I mention that it was raining heavily all night and my team had no clue how to start deliveries?

It isn't  so easy to Launch after all !

I gave my Jacket to one in the delivering team, set them off - giving them addresses and milk bottles to deliver. I started in my car and Distributing all the milk bottles among all the resources present, all departed for the deliveries. On the Dark roads, amidst heavy rains, the delivery boys set out, accompanied by hostess girls (thats what we called them then) to deliver sample bottles of milk to the prospective customers. What followed was even more difficult. The roads that we had explored the day before during the day time, were unidentifiable during the wee hours of the morning.... but the team persisted and returned only after all the deliveries were made.

Well, you may ask, why we couldnt postpone the launch, when the climatic conditions were so adverse ? My answer would be, its all in the mind !

Once we thought and planned, that the launch would happen on an auspiscious day... So be it !

Selling Milk…. Sounds Exciting ???

Mark Twain in his famous book "Tom Sawyer" has illustrated :

"Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. "

Thats precisely what happened here. I was not obliged to do anything, I had not been given targets (as I had been used to earlier) and no guidelines were laid out. Amazing way to get work done from responsible citizens !

Yet, I was restless. A Humongous task lay in from of me & I didn’t know where to start !

I spent the first few days on the farm to see how cows are treated at the farm, understanding how the distribution system should be, bringing the best value to the company and the consumer.

Milk business happens at odd hours of the day. So, Next step was to build a team that I could trust and bank on at any irrational time of the day. Building an all girl team of fresh MBA grads, who would be responsible for building a customer base, Conduct events for promotions and ensure deliveries to the customers, was only the initial preparation & was no simple task. Choosing from the pool to make the best self motivated team was no easy mission.

It took me two months to prepare for launch. The Launch Strategy, Customer acquisition strategy, ATL promotions, Press meet, Press release, Initial customer acquisition, BTL promotions, Collaterals, Visiting cards, Setting up customer support team, Accounts & Finance team and the Delivery team for logistics was all put in place. 

The launch date was decided to be 10^th August and we were all set, beaming with enthusiasm to embrace the occasion with open arms.

I realized, I was in a Startup mode, setting up the business from an idea, executing it on the way and bringing it to a conclusion!

How I Bagged one of the most exciting jobs of my career

Have you ever had plain white milk? If not, please try it. 

It had been years that I drank plain white milk. Reason ? The smell, the taste and texture of milk have not remained the same as they used to be in our childhood.

Milk is an important part of our diet, yet the adulteration that the producers and distribution channel brings along is unavoidable. To fight this cause, a direct farm to home milk was introduced first in Mumbai then in Pune. The team responsible for production, packaging and marketing of this milk, take pride in their product and hence their name.

My first encounter with this milk happened in 2012 when I was visiting the promoters of this company for a marketing related discussion. The chairman offered me a glass of this beverage to drink. Obviously, one cant refuse ! I reluctantly drank it, not sure of whether I will be able to swallow it neat! 

It was tasty! Even without mixing honey or Horlics to it, I relished the taste of it, which definitely proved the merit of it!

The chairman at the same instant decided to entrust the responsibility of setting up the distribution business of this milk in Pune to me. According to him, it was essential that a person who is working on the product should love the product.

There had been others contesting for this position but because they refused to drink the plain milk, they couldn't make it to this position! 

So, here I was, Sitting in my new office, (the office wasn’t new, but I was the one who was), thinking what to do to start this endeavour.

Lessons Learnt in Life

Life teaches you many lessons, but the best are those learnt in childhood. As we grow up, we tend to loose the essence of those learnings. However, Nature has got a magical way of bringing back Life’s crucial lessons to you by way of your kids.

“It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” — W. Somerset Maugham

Did we not learn this? Or we forgot it on our journey of growing up and encountering soul battering experiences in life.

It was on a bright sunny morning when, Nandika, her mausi and I, went shopping. Well, having nothing particular in mind to shop, we just went around window shopping. You get everything from clothes to footwear to accessories and all there is. We explored the far corners of the market and realized that Nandika is cooperating with us and playing along in our endeavour of aimless shopping and their negotiations. So we decided we should get her something as well. We approached a small establishment carrying watches of all kinds. We were trying out a very pretty watch for her, when she said, “I want purple watch”. My My… the shopkeeper did not have a purple watch but all other colours were there. There were various watches, simple, sober, cartoon watches, bright coloured ones but none Purple. So, we started moving further in search for a purple watch. One, two, three and four shops down the line, we encountered another shop having watches. We zeroed down on an interesting watch, which could project Barbie doll images. Yes, She liked it too! But, to our utter dismay, it was available only in pink!

Mumma – “Nandika, shall we take this one?”

Nandika – “Yes mumma, I Like this one, but I want a Purple Watch”

Mumma – “But beta, it is available only in Pink!”

Nandika – “But I want Purple.”

Masi – “Beta, Purple is not available anywhere”

Nandika – “But I want Purple.”

And Tears rolled down her cheeks. Mausi’s heart melted. We started looking for more. We were tired, but we went ahead forcing ourselves in the scorching heat in the midst of the masses, for a purple watch! We kept on exploring shop after shop for the purple watch, but without any success. We were nearing the last few shops of the market and we decided to head back to the car, since, the purple watch was nowhere to be found. As soon as we were at the last shop of the market, we saw it! There it was, hanging and dangling from a thread at the entrance of the shop. The projector watch, in Purple.

At Last, Mission Accomplished, but the learning was too big to be ignored.

And in the words by John Greenleaf Whittier,

Success is failure turned inside out, 
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far, 
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.