The samosa man
Man who makes fortune by selling samosas for INR 15
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Few lessons that I have learned from samosa man and would like to share
There is this one guy near Bandra(Mumbai, India) who sells samosa for a living and is quite famous, so thought to go and visit him this Sunday. And let me tell you, interaction with this person was an amazing and an out of the box experience. We had a long conversation and during the conversation this man taught me few important lessons when it comes to business.
Lesson 1 : Cater to customer’s emotions.
This guy basically sells samosa next to a church. I went there and greeted him and the reply which I got from him was “Son, Go inside and pray to god and come to me later. I’m here only but God comes first”. I felt like this guy isn't a greedy fellow.
So what next? Went inside and prayed…
Came back and ordered “ek plate samosa” (one plate samosa). He served me the samosa and offered me options of unlimited chillies, spicy chutney and sweet chutney. When he served me the samosa, I pulled out my wallet to pay him but then he replied politely “Keep it in inside, have the samosa first. Money can be given later”. The experience till now was just fantastic. He personalized my food and the difference is he did it for me.
Most of the restaurants(big or small) give you the ingredients and ask you to customize, how can you customize when you are unaware about the the taste of the additional options. This guy on other hand just gave me 3 options of “sweet, medium and spicy” and customized it as per my request because he knows the ingredients better.
Lesson 2: Have confidence in your product
Since the time I met him, he have catered me with his delicious product and created an environment wherein I could peacefully enjoy the food. He took my order(without asking me for the money) and promised to keep it aside for me by allowing me to go and pray. He is confident enough that his product is so up to the mark that even if he offers for free people will pay and have more. Either way he is making good business with the product.
Lesson 3: Does not matter small selling price, you can make it big
This man sells his samosa for INR 15 (around USD 0.2). With this business he bought a home in Bandra bandstand (one of Mumbai’s most luxurious locality) just behind Shahrukh khan’s residence. He managed to give topnotch education to his 2 kids. All this thing became possible for him because of his smart business expansion strategy. His strategy of how he became a permanent snacks supplier of a primary school is truly ground breaking.
Lesson 4: Passion and Patience
This man is 70 years old. He has been selling this same product for past 50 years or more. He innovated his business strategy. His passion towards his service made him the man of this business no matter what obstacles his business have faced. Everyday he gets up early in the morning, starts cooking and preparing the samosa all by himself. He never contacted any dealer or outsourced any of the steps in product preparation. He wanted to serve best quality home cooked food and he does it. For him the most important thing is that his customer’s should be happy.
Now that’s pretty interesting, isn’t it? There are many more such lessons which I have learned from him but I’ll be keeping it as a secret :P
Get in touch at minntcraft@gmail.com
