Mohan S - I Started Exploring Things since My Younger Days, Worked as a Milkman, Newsagent, Caterer, and What Not (AGM at Frozen Bottle)

If we do the same thing we get the same result, if you want a favorable result then do things differently.

Take challenges; don’t stay in your comfort zone only that will help you go far.

1. Please tell us something about your early days and your career story.

My name is Mohan and I was born and brought up in Bangalore. I belong to a family of 6. My father is a central government employee and my mom was a homemaker and you know how education system is. It is less affordable with 4 siblings.

We were at times not privileged to meet the basic need, to cut short, life was not easy, to me and my siblings and I being the eldest in the family, always wanted to be a role model, if not for others, for my family. So, I started exploring things since my younger days, worked as a milkman, newsagent, caterer, and what not, Thanks to TATA’s I remember the first mobile phone called phantom-Kyocera with 4500-/- color display a CDMA, am sure you gauged by now, I was very effective sales boy way then in school days, that transformed my life, It motivated me to sell insurance, moved to contact center worked for spice both prepaid and postpaid services, part time parallel I was studying my intermediate.

That ignited the spark in me to do things on my own and support my family for I will have complete freedom, freedom and responsibility is a deadly combination which transformed me from a paper in the thrash can to a priceless Cheque, I grew leaps and bound, was invited by the same college which denied me admission, for a motivational workshop, sales skills and interviewing skills, so from a salesman to the national head of frozen bottle, worked as a cluster head for Franchise India, associated with many fortune 500 co-s like cognizant, HDFC, Edusys, and today I am known and approached as a business consultant,

It’s great feeling a feeling of self-respect, self-efficacy when people take your opinion in making the decision for that has an impact on their and their loved ones is a great feeling.

I couldn’t believe my story myself. I would like to iterate a small story right now, because like, everyone even I have faced failures. In my life, I believe failure make you learn and grow, you won’t lose.

So this has been very prominent in my life.

You fail, if you try different things, which means you are learning and implementing, don’t shy of doing that, Failure has been the turning point in my life, It’s the same failure that helped me reach the success. Don’t hesitate to try out things, put your best destiny will do the rest.

I have worked with a lot of companies. Part-time, full time, been a freelancer, established an event co- which closed due to pandemic.

I am 36 but I have more than 15 years of work experience. I used to constantly keep working, constantly challenged myself throughout exploring different industries from education, banking, Franchise, Business consulting and many more…

I always associated myself with older people, I believe when you communicate, with them have a healthy conversation you learn and get informative to reading books for they share knowledge and wisdom that books wont.

That is how my story has been in a nutshell, if you ask me, my journey in a nutshell, from tissue paper to a priceless Cheque not a newspaper for it has a shorter shelf life. And I’m very grateful to my parents for this because every time they have motivated me till date, they have not asked me what I earn their trust and belief are the fuel that gets me going.

2. Why did you decide to be in the food industry?

I would answer this with a question? When you’re unwell, even before having a medicine, what do you take? We usually eat food, right? Food is necessary. To keep you going and to keep you healthy.

Even for me to speak to you like this. I just went down and grabbed a tender coconut. So, it’s the most basic need of the human body that keeps us growing economically for it has great CAGR in the market and also keeps you going at the same time. For it have various models, from FSR, to QSR and many unorganized players in the market. They sustain on food and food business. From Jubilant, rebels, Cure food, Divyani group all sustain on food industry why not me? This is why I’m in the industry I would say the quick service restaurant these days are trending, for it’s a viable and economical model, it is the only business with quick liquidity and cash flow; hence I am part of the growing market.

It is only the food industry and the pharma industry that is less affected during pandemic or during recession or any uncontrollable macro factors effect.

3. What are some of the day-to-day business challenges that you face and how do you overcome them?

The day-to-day business challenges, if you ask me, it is all about coordination between various functional departments and across the vertical. A business must function like a human body. Then we will not have any challenges. We could see what happens in today’s business is we are all interdependent on various functional departments and across verticals from top management, mid-management to the operational management.

Lack of communication, lack of coordination, arises uncalled issues and problems, there is a gap between, top-level management, functional level management, which leads to disconnect.

Am sure many staff in your Co- will be unaware of your Vision, mission, and values, what are your goals and objectives, only when there is a link between all of these, and I guess business will be much more successful. And an individual will perform beyond ones capacity.

Then the organization will be much more successful be it food or any industry for that matter make your inner customer happy and they will in turn transform your company and business manifolds.

Sales and marketing is also one of the major challenges, for these are the only function that generates revenue to the organization other functions are supporting functions, Selling based on customers plays a very pivotal role, I to a certain extend have gained mastery still learning on it,

I have sold products, services, to concept’s like self-belief and attitude, always wanted to do things differently, when in sales people adapt transactional selling technique, I adapted relationship selling, by studying my Target Group, When relationship selling became obsolete, I adapted consultative selling technique, We all are different individual, at times we must be accommodating, controlled aggression, optimistic and take route of pessimism too, It is indeed like a game, you must play and predict the opponents move and be prepared with the encounter that pleases him to surrender.

So, these are the main challenges apart from these, I don’t see any challenges thanks to technology. We are known and valued as IT hub for the same, because of technology and its intervention, our business grows and it helps in bringing in transparency which results in business scalability. The moment we can duplicate a business and its models and form right association. There is no stoppage for growth and success.

4. There is a lot of wastage in the food industry. So what, according to you is the best solution to that?

The food industry is slowly evolving from full-fledged restaurants to Quick service restaurants, Themed restaurants, to kiosk models, SIS models, Multibrand in one kind a model and many more… if you see most of these are in the form of, frozen foods, syrups, sauces or ready to make foods.

We must have a socio responsibility associated with the food industry not just subsidies but good practices are to be imbibed and implemented, the best advice is to have a regular food inspection, and also quality and quantity control, quantity control on wastages, the more wastage the more they pay for their FSSAI license in the form of penalty, And a checklist to be maintained designed with an objective of reducing food wastage, The other way to reduce wastage is to say for example if we take more than what we want we can have a separate segment on a platter where food is offered, To segregate unused food.

Unused food can be served to pet animals; can work as a social responsibility in collaboration with PETA So I guess that way we are minimizing the wastage also imbibing a change in the society.

5. How do you leverage software and technologies for business efficiency?

Today it is all about software & automation. With the support of software and automation we can do same things faster and error free, resulting in scalability. It also helps in bringing trust and transparency can be integrated across all functions.

Technology not just ease and track your activities it also helps in reporting mechanism, It helps you understand the SWOT analysis of your business, effected by controllable or uncontrollable factors and it also guides you in overcoming the same, Hence Its role cannot go unnoticed in all businesses.

6. How do you manage your supply chain, the discovery of suppliers, and inventory management?

The supply chain plays a very prominent role. Constitutes heavily on recurring cost, What we do to make it economical we come up with our warehouse where ever its feasible to us and the business, associate with partners with good expertise into SCM, Or create a hub and spoke model that ease out on costing. Also we must try finding the substitute to our suppliers, or identify the brand close to our offerings to explore local procurement and create a win-win situation in making SCM and Inventory management more feasible.

7. Which is your favorite book and why?

Favorite book of mine is the human mind. For example, if I tend to speak to you, I’m sure you will give me a lot of information on your domain. So my favorite book if you ask me is the human mind, because we tend to interact with a lot of people and we get a lot of information from them. There is no substitute for experience and wisdom, knowledge is available on search engine and books. To be more specific and to answer your question, yes, I’m not a bookworm.

However, I like this author called Neil Rackham. He’s written a very good book called Spin selling which is something that I love reading, He has given a lot of examples on sales and its effectiveness, I can relate to this book for unconsciously I have implemented all these steps in day to day interaction with the prospects, end-users, and with my Inner and outer customers. Like relationship selling, consultative selling,

Transactional business is big no to me, we must understand our customer his situation, his need, be a problem solver. Above all. We all must learn to be a LAER listener that I once learnt from one of my Bosses, Listen, Acknowledge, Empathize and Respond. Being a good listener wins you half the battle in sales. Be focused and presence of mind matters a lot understand and ask yourself at every encounter, what is the objective? Your objective and your client’s objective, switch seats, and do a role play before getting on to a call, or a sale deal.

When a person takes your business, products or services? We takes the promises, you show them, the features and benefits you show them and not just the product, ensure you and the product addresses all that was promised and offered, Otherwise make under promise let your offerings deliver, Never make over promise that your offerings cannot stand. Whether you are in sales or not, I strongly recommend this book, for in a way or the other we all sell each other our thoughts ideas, concepts, this interview am selling you my time, knowledge, wisdom, good practices and my decades of expertise, And you sold me a space in your editorial, In a way or the other we all sell something or the other to ourselves. Spin selling by Neil Rackham. So this is the book that I usually go to. This motivated me.