I have written this story for the competition "My internship Story". This is a blog kind of document.

1. My internship story
A philosopher says and I quote, “Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to
work a day in your life.”
The story of my internship is more or less same. I am a PGDM student with marketing as
my major. While other friends of my college were getting selected for sales profile in
different companies which came to our college for SIP (summer internship program), from
the bottom of my heart I was praying, “Please god don’t give me sales I want to do core
marketing”. Sales is necessary but doesn’t catch my eyes. Thanks to almighty god I got
the marketing profile in an IT travel company (since the company was of medium size
and in IT travel marketing was not the key differentiator with the competitors, the CEO
was himself handling the work and this year for the first time they recruited someone for
marketing profile).
On April 6th 2015, my internship started. We were 5 friends from the same college in the
company, 4 were in sales and I was in marketing. For the initial one week we were told
about the industry, how our company works, what were the products offered and other
technical stuffs. From the second week onwards the sales guys were asked to go to field
and I was the only student among the other employees.
My first task was to do a competitor analysis. I am sure most of my friends will agree to
this, for performing a competitor analysis we go for secondary resources. We use ‘Google
baba’ and find out other companies working in the same domain, dig into their sites and
collect information from various other sites as well. I did the same and within 2 days
presented a report to the CEO (I forgot to mention I was the marketing intern and I had to
report directly to the CEO, there were two CEOs one was handling technical stuff and
another, my mentor, from IIM lucknow, was handling marketing). I still can’t forget that
day. He said and I quote, “You have wasted my time, your work is only 5% of what I
expected from you. I want all the information, their product line, features, cost and other
things. Next time when you have something real then only take appointment.”
In IT travel industry (my company develops travel portals like yatra, makemytrip etc. so
the cost of developing portal with all payment gateway and APIs, varied a lot in the

2. industry) variation is quite huge in the services and cost. So I did an Indian JUGAD. I
bought a new SIM card, created a new Gmail account under the name “Happy tours and
travels”, listed myself on the ‘JustDial’. Then I started calling each one of 25-28
competitors as a potential customer. I asked them for their services and if they could give
me an appointed (for companies in Delhi, I met them personally in their office, for outside
Delhi I booked skype appointments). I collected all the details and I was very happy as
more than 70% of them responded nicely (they gave me all the information, what
technology they are using, some of them also gave a demo of their products which I
recorded with a software in my laptop). Again I went to my mentor with the excel sheet
filled with information. But he again surprised me. He told me to take the deal to the next
level, negotiate with them and check how low you can go with the price. I learned that in
negotiation patience and time plays very important role. If the seller knows that you need
his service then he is on the high ground but if you show them with your actions that you
have other better options also then my friend you have the advantage.
I negotiated with each one of them. It took my more than 4 weeks and seriously I was
enjoying that a lot. Everyone will enjoy when a lot of people calling you sir and requesting
you to take their product, the sales guys calling you in the evening before weekend that
this deal would make their weekend if you agree (the cost of the deal was between 4-15
lacs). One company I won’t name they dropped their price to 4 lacs from initial proposal
of 13.8 lacs.
Finally I compiled all the data in one sheet presented before the whole sales team along
with my CEOs, explained the way I took to collect the data and that presentation ended
with a standing ovation. After the meeting the sales team came to me and congratulated
me for my work and told me that the sheet was amazing as that would help them while
pitching their product, they could highlight the difference as they knew then everything
about the competitor’s product.
After that presentation I was on the cloud nine. My CEO then transferred all the marketing
activities to me. I was working on things I wanted. My office timing was Monday to
Saturday 9:30 am to 6 pm and I enjoyed the whole time of my internship. During two
months of internship I took only one leave compared to my friends who took more than

3. 7-8 leaves. I was then asked to hire to PR service for the company. I shortlisted the PR
agencies took their initial round of presentation, conveyed what my company wants to
achieve and what their role should be. In short I was the acting marketing head of the
company. I signed contracts (my CEOs said the deals with the magazines that I close will
be signed by me). I remember in one of the contract the opposite party wrote “contact
person: Ravi (marketing head)”. That was the 2nd happiest moment of my life.
The happiest moment happened in the last. I had a great time in the company. My mentor
was very happy, I had a great impact on the other employees too. They all became my
friends. On the last day my CEOs collected all the interns in the conference room and
gave them their completion certificates. When my number came, he asked the HR head
to read the paper in my envelope. The first was obviously the completion letter. The next
paper was the ‘Best performer certificate’ (which my friends and the entire sales team
was expecting). I was like on the clouds. Then breaking all the expectations of my friends
and mine the last letter was the PPO. They offered me to work with them. The HR, CEOs
were also happy to give me the letter. They all clapped for me and my mentor
congratulated me with a firm handshake and said ‘nice work’. I wanted to say to him that
during my time there what I was doing, I never felt that I was working, it was fun talking
to new people, convincing them for your idea, negotiating with them on your terms.
I really enjoyed those 2 months of my internship, and I suggest all my fellows should only
take the opportunities if that interest them not because of the money or the name.