self development

1. The metaphor of a coffee bean
Takeout a coffee bean, which is available in kilograms in neelgiri hills or where ever
coffee plantations are there, at the rate of kilo Rs.50. All human beings are like that with the
same value at first.
Experience one: If we grind the coffee beans and process them and make them ready to be
used by coffee lovers as instant coffee, then it is called instant coffee powder and it costs around
Rs.1500. Every person can increase his value by processing himself and making presentable.
Then his value increases enormously for which one has to under go huge transformation process
as there is lot of difference between a coffee bean and instant coffee powder.
Experience two: If the same instant coffee powder is used to make a good cup of coffee, by
using a mere 1 gram of coffee powder, in a normal hotel one can charge Rs.45 per cup including
tip. Here, the charges include the services along with the cup of coffee, seating arrangement,
atmosphere and service of the people. With all these added features, the entire cup of instant
coffee can earn 45000/-. Here, along with transformation process, the product or the person has
added many additional services and features to the core product to make himself or his service
more valuable.
Experience three: If the same instant coffee powder is used to prepare capachino in coffee
day coffee shop or barishta, the experience is still more enchanting. Entering into a place like
that is a status symbol. Drinking coffee there, and telling people that I have gone to drink coffee
in that is a pleasant experience. There, the product doesn’t matter much, but the experience
matters. This is popularly called as “aha experience”. This adds value tremendously to the core
product. In experience one, people go to hotel to drink coffee, and in experience three, people
drink coffee to go to coffee day etc.
This is how the core product gains value. The value increases by leaps and bounds by
better service, better environment, feel good factor, rich experiences etc.
This metaphor exactly applicable to the field force of our organization. At first, they are
like the raw coffee beans before the experience one, all the 12 lakhs agents of the organization
are like that.
After getting some product knowledge and some selling skills, they become presentable to
the public and they will transform themselves like the experience one product. They will be
useful to the public, but the public has to show some initiative to use them or they should know
how to use them. At this juncture, the agent will give what is available with him irrespective of
what customer wants.
After working some time in experience one stage, some people transforms themselves to
stage two. They do some research, what customers want and tries to transform what is available
with them in the form of what the customer wants. Here, an attempt has been done to know
what the customer wants and an effort was initiated to give the same. This the experience two
stage.
After working some time in experience stage two, the agent thinks what is that may be
given to the customer which he is also not expecting, but when such type of thing is offered, he
will get the aha experience that as we have discussed about drinking a capachino in coffee day
and when in reality agent is really able to give such type of aha experience to the customer, then
experience three is achieved which the win win situation for all the three, organization, sales
person and the customer.
Come, lets us all strive for giving an aha experience to the customer.