Summer Internship Program (SIP)

As all of you are getting ready for your Summer Internship Program (SIP), a 60 – day window in your PGDM course to experience the working of a company firsthand, your feelings must be mix of excitement and fear.

Excitement, because of the novelty that comes from routine of college and fear because essentially you don’t know what’s in store for you?

However, all this will settle down soon and you will be meeting a bigger demon at work who is known by different names and the most popular one is “Sales”. For lack of a better word, all the “persuasion skills” are termed as “Sales”. This is where it goes wrong fundamentally, and students starts hating it and everyone at workplace who talks about it.

For better reverberation, I will stick with the word “persuasion”, because this is what you are going to learn during SIP. Conceptually you are well loaded with the knowledge of business world with almost half a dozen subjects and umpteen case studies behind you in last 3 terms.

Oxford languages describes “Persuasion” as “the act of persuading somebody to do something”.

I will try to bring out few articles in this series for you to understand the nuances of persuasion skills and eventually getting comfortable and excelling at persuasion/sales.

Here are few steps to start with:

1. Do you own a business? Your answer will be a “No”. That’s where we have to start our exercise. Take charge of situation and put yourself in ownership. If you are given a task, say, matching the records in audit section or calling up a list of potential clients or ensuring the right quantity getting loaded in dispatch section, you must completely own it, as if your life depends on the excellence of this task. This small task at SIP and series of such tasks executed with absolute ownership will define your Career and life in general. Anyone who takes ownership of their task executes a marvel. Ex: Your mother, every day.

2. The failure formula: It easier to find employees cribbing about their organization, product or life in general at a workplace than the water cooler. These are walking dead. Avoid them at all the cost. These are the walking recipe of disaster. More you mix or entertain with them, sooner you are going to be like them. Remember, we are average of 5 people we interact with regularly. Instead, seek advice of winners, observe their attitude towards product, company policies and customers. Your learnings will multiply. Admire successful people and your brain will start picking the clues what you want to be.

3. Keep your words: If you have been asked to arrive at a location, be there before time. If you have been given a deadline for preparing a report, give it before the alarm rings. It brings double impact. You start feeling confident for yourself and others will trust you with their work and responsibilities.

Remember, in this journey your sole aim is to learn ruthlessly. And it starts with you.