It is often said that, only when you have your back against the wall do you come out with your best, or the creative best in this case. I’m Bhuvan Deep Dua and this is an account of the challenges I faced in my internship and how I went about them.
A fledgling Financial services firm that prides on its entrepreneurial culture, Edelweiss believes in giving their employee the space to find clarity in ambiguity. In hindsight therefore it comes as no surprise that after a brief introduction between me and my mentor, wherein he highlighted my objectives and deliverables, he asked me to get cracking. Eager to show my fit with the organization I did exactly that. I got cracking with the secondary research on Private banking and everything that would help me understand its scope in Eastern India.
With secondary research completed in merely half-a-day, I reported to my mentor only to get a vapid “good” and instructions to get started with primary research and cold calling.
So started the most challenging and the most fun part of my internship which has eventually inspired me to write this experience.
While my conversations with my mentor were sporadic and few, I was getting ample insights and pointers from other members of my Wealth Management Team. I soon realized that their very bread and butter was also the toughest part of their job and which was soon to become an integral part of my internship – “Cold calling”. Having penned down my primary survey based on available secondary reports and industry interviews, I decided to take this monster head on.
Three days into cold calling and having met with nothing but a terse “sorry, he/she is busy” or “Not interested” from the front office of many of my prospective firms, I had my “back against the wall”.
This is when it struck me and thank god it did.
Cold calling is nothing shy of getting that one girl - the one who’s witty, pretty, likes Star Wars, basically the perfect one, to go out on a date with you.
Since, she’s the perfect one it goes without saying that she’s out of your league. So what do you do?
You either find a mutual friend(read existing client) or you go retro on her. You decide to ask one of her friends(read front office) to get you in touch with her.
So while, all your preparation is focused around the girl of your dreams little do you expect her friend to play the villain. Alas, C’est La vie!!
So, like a warrior in love you decide to woo her friend first and sweet talk her into arranging a meeting (read call) between the two of you.
If you do it right you’re in. So this is the first time you meet her. You ask her about herself, you tell her something about yourself enough to keep her interested in you and you end the date(read call) by asking for her number so you can call her directly the next time instead of going through her friend.
Remember now, how she is witty and obviously a bit pricey she decides to play with you. Instead of giving you her number she gives you her brother’s (read secretary’s) number instead. Ignorant to her mischief you make the call expecting to hear her sweet, mellow voice only to be received by a heavy baritone. It is what you say in this moment my friend that decides whether or not you’ll have a happily ever after. If you ask for her saying that you’re her friend and that she gave you this number, well the brother knows why she gave you his number instead of her own. *Dead end*
If however, you’re wise enough to tell her brother that you’re an old friend of hers and have now lost her number and that she had given you his number as a backup, don’t you think he’ll feel compelled to forward the call to her. Just so you know, you just got her brother’s approval. With he himself forwarding your call she has little option but to meet you again. *Happily ever after*
My biggest learning from this experience has been to find humor and fun in even the most challenging and daunting of tasks.
Bhuvan Deep Dua
IIFT Kolkata