Once I had to come by bus from Bangalore to Chennai. I boarded a bus and was waiting inside along with other passengers. A person with bag full of some plastic items and oranges boarded the bus and started giving a demo of his product. He took a piece of lemon and a small plastic item. He squeezed the lemon with the plastic item and collected the juice in a tumbler. He then took an orange, pierced it with the plastic item and showed us how he was able to collect the juice effortlessly with that ‘gadget’. There were 40 passengers in the bus and four people bought it because it was just Rs.20/-.
I already had bought that plastic juicer for Rs.20/- and it never worked for me at home because I had to use very high pressure (with my hands) to extract the juice from the lemon or orange. But I started thinking about his business model.
The plastic gadget may cost him only Rs.3 or Rs.5 (let’s say Rs.5), orange and lemon may be Rs.2 or Rs.5 (let’s say Rs.5). So, for an investment of Rs. 10/- he was able to get a profit of Rs.10/- From a crowd of 40 passengers, he was able to sell 4 which means he made Rs.40/- as profit. It took him just 15 minutes per bus. If he boards 30 buses per day (7.5 hours of work), he would have made at least 30 x Rs.40 = 1200 profit per day. If he works for 25 days/month, then his monthly income is Rs.30,000/- (without any tax). It’s the salary of a software engineer working in an MNC company.
What is the secret behind this guy’s success?
I guess the answer would be, “He works very hard, is able to manage the perception of customers very well and his business model to share his by-product (i.e. juice) with the bus driver.”
Yes, he has to apply very high pressure every time he squeezes the lemon/orange without people realizing it so that it would appear as if the juice is flowing easily from the gadget. He didn’t lie or cheat. He showed a live demo where he managed the perception of the customers very well. He was allowed to give a demo in all the buses by the drivers because he finally gave the ‘orange juice’ to the driver (win-win formula).
Shall we say that ‘Marketing your product is in your hands’?
