Tripping for Sales ... June 1st Week

Crash Boom Bang!!! Well that's what we expected when we arrived in Pune late last night from our very interesting and fruitful trip to Kolhapur. Ketan had called in late in the evening to inform us that there had been no electricity in the office for over 2 hours. There were rumours that there would be none of it for probably all of Saturday. Pune had finally been blessed with rain, unfortunately it had been really heavy and a number of trees had fallen all around town. However by the time we reached there, we found Pune to be pleasant and quiet, no rain, no thundering, no lightening... The almighty probably had decided to sleep for a bit... There was no electricity in most of the city though and our rickshaw ride was majorly through darkness. and it was a pleasant surprise when we saw lights on all around Dhole Patil , for we knew this wouldn't be a dark night for us.

As I look back at the past 2 days, very interesting 2 days, a smile comes upon me. I am happy to say that we now have an authorized distributor for Kolhapur, a city where the doctor density shocked me. On an average I am assuming 4 doctors per building... Now where have I seen this before. Actually lets go back 2 days to that bus journey in a Konduskar. As I woke up, to the sounds of Aaloo Chaat blaring on the screen, I looked outside and saw an advertisement of a Mercedes Benz. I was shocked. Was I in Ludhiana.... No...The posters outside informed me ...This was Kolhapur. Our destination had arrived. I was still shocked by that advert as I got down from the bus and looked around. I saw atleast 20 boards announcing different types of doctors. Where was I. This place was like the apt place for Plus91 to set up a marketing office. Paradise... We were to say.... As we went towards our hotel in a rick... All Aditya and me did was count the number of banners for doctors we saw ... 42 ... WOW!!! After a quick check-in ...into Hotel Ranjit ... A nice budget hotel... Nothing fancy...And nothing sub-standard either... We freshened up and went to meet the concerned party. An organization by the name of Orion Computers owned by a gentleman by the name of Prasad. After a good 4 hours of discussions and negotiations, we finally came to a set of mutually beneficial terms and conditions. We agreed on meeting the next morning and signing the documents which would take an hour in the night to prepare, and took off to enjoy the city. Which meant visit some doctors to get the feel of them...

Meeting doctors was easy. Aditya's contacts were available and after a phone call, we had a meeting waiting for us. We met a young gentleman who owned a small hospital, which was housed in a building alongwith 3 other hospitals. Add to that an Ultrasound Center and a Path-Lab, and this was a typical Kolhapur building. We were impressed at the the state of the hospital, and further by the interest the young doctor showed in our products. He found clinION and Ultrasite very interesting and quickly referred us to 5 other doctors also. Post this meeting, we went to another Maternity Hospital and an IVF center before retiring for the day. Back at Hotel Ranjit, I fell in love with the French Fries. The next day was smooth. We met Prasad, we had a quick meeting, a quick signing, some discussions about commitments and Bye Bye - Ta ta - See You ... We visited the ambadevi (Mahalaxmi) temple, a few stores in search of Kolhapuri chappals, and a restaurant which is pretty popular there called Hotel Gokul... and after pigging for 2 hours we were on our way back. Bombay and Aurangabad beckon us next week, and we hope to ring on board more distributorships and more doctors ...

Updates - May comes to a close

Its been a hectic past few months. Unfortunately, I have found very little time to focus on my personal projects. And my promise to write regularly did not end up translating into actuality. Well then one night, instead of opening up mono, I opened up google and searched out some blogging tools. Atleast I have a tool to keep writing whenever I have time, in between journeys. And here I'm writing my first blog from w.bloggar.

The recessions ugly face is now being seen everyday and well everywhere. Plus91 has unfortunately been affected to. Its been 5 months since Plus91 commenced its operations in Pune. We are everyday wondering if expanding in the middle of a troublesome economy was a good idea after all. Its been tough and thankfully the burden is being shared by the entire team wholly. Almost every one of our clients has delayed their payments, and well we have passed on some of these delays to some of our vendors.

On the positive side, the marketing efforts are in full swing. Over a 100 doctors in Kolhapur, Solapur, Nasik and Miraj have been sent brochures. Aditya and me are following that up with visits to Kolhapur and Solapur next week. After this we have to make a short trip to Aurangabad where we shall meet Prabal too. The last month has seen new sales for Ultrasite and clinKare. clinKare now is offered for 12 more specializations and now we are testing out the ability of both to directly feed in data into infiniteHealth. Further to that, the Tele-radiology platform is progressing towards a release. The Preview launch for infiniteHealth is just a few days away. Sign up there for invites. As of now we already have over 50 sign-ups. The team is working overtime towards that.

On the non -Plus91 side, I have been helping my cousin Rahul, with Manovega, a venture that he along with one of his friends Raj has launched recently. Read up about them here.
Their concept is interesting, and their success will be a blessing for many verticals in developing nations like India and China. Especially Healthcare :). We will be keen on seeing how our telemedicine platform can benefit from manovega's technology.

More from me in a couple of days.