Interviews for a sales engineer were being held in a highly reputable organisation. Apparently, there was only one vacancy but at least forty candidates were lined up in a queue for selection. Boys were nervous with parched lips! All of a sudden one boy left the queue, scribbled something on a piece of paper, walked to the secretary and asked her to hand over the piece of paper to the chairman of the panel. He then rejoined where he had left.

He was selected. He had written “Sir, I am twenty first in the line, please don’t select anyone till you see me”. While everyone else was nervous, the parachute of this boy’s mind was open.

Life requires the parachute of the minds to be open all the time. The moments of success are few and far in between; those who are alert and ready to take the rare opportunity by the forelock succeed! It is a rare pass in the game of soccer which makes someone a Ronaldo or a Messi; it is one last ball six in the final between arch rivals Pakistan and India which makes Miandad immortal.

Profession of personal selling is strange; you don’t get any sales months after months; your desperation, disappointment, nervousness grows. But an alert salesman keeps his eyes and ears open. Just as a rare, sharp catch in the slips cordon breaks a stubborn partnership in cricket; a rare opportunity and capitalizing on it makes up for a period of many barren months without sales! All the targets are accomplished in one swipe!

We live in a buyer’s market and not a seller’s one. Gone are the days when an automotive manufacturer can use the slogan “you can have car in any colour, as long as the colour is black”. In this market, the success awaits and luck also only favours the agile, alert and awake. Otherwise, (against tortoise) even the hare loses the race.