My train was more than two hours late but I reached the station in time. For a change I was ahead of time! I had nothing better to do at New Delhi Railway Station so I started looking through the books and magazines at a bookshop. I had just picked up a couple of books to check, that the salesman at the shop starting throwing books at me from across the counter, literally!
No, he was not attacking me or shooing me away. He was helping me decide which book to buy. And he was good at it. All the books he 'threw' at me, were books of the authors I had read at some point in time. He threw all Malcolm Gladwell books at me. I decided to buy 'blink'. Then as I checked the cover of his last book 'Outlier' I was not impressed and left the book on counter. It was in a plastic cover packing so I could not glance through the pages of book.
The smart salesman immediately brought copy without the plastic cover for me to feel the book.
I was thoroughly impressed. This guy was no more than 18-20 year old. I guess he would not have studied beyond school. Still just by looking at the first couple of books I picked up, he could guess what kinds of book I may like. I agree that I do not have an out of the world exotic taste of books. It was easy to figure out that I was not interested in fiction, or self help kind of books, the ones which sell most. Still I was impressed. He did not talk to me, he did not ask me a question. He just observed couple of books I picked up and he was right on money in his guess.
Then came the Aha moment.
He handed me the book called Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to me. And I could not help smiling. I had read about Taleb's Black Swan theory, but had not seen the book till a day before. I had bought the book just yesterday, it was still in my bag. I was actually reading the book he suggested me!
No, he was not attacking me or shooing me away. He was helping me decide which book to buy. And he was good at it. All the books he 'threw' at me, were books of the authors I had read at some point in time. He threw all Malcolm Gladwell books at me. I decided to buy 'blink'. Then as I checked the cover of his last book 'Outlier' I was not impressed and left the book on counter. It was in a plastic cover packing so I could not glance through the pages of book.
The smart salesman immediately brought copy without the plastic cover for me to feel the book.
I was thoroughly impressed. This guy was no more than 18-20 year old. I guess he would not have studied beyond school. Still just by looking at the first couple of books I picked up, he could guess what kinds of book I may like. I agree that I do not have an out of the world exotic taste of books. It was easy to figure out that I was not interested in fiction, or self help kind of books, the ones which sell most. Still I was impressed. He did not talk to me, he did not ask me a question. He just observed couple of books I picked up and he was right on money in his guess.
Then came the Aha moment.
He handed me the book called Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to me. And I could not help smiling. I had read about Taleb's Black Swan theory, but had not seen the book till a day before. I had bought the book just yesterday, it was still in my bag. I was actually reading the book he suggested me!
I felt bad that I did not buy Black Swan from him. But I left the shop with a lot of satisfaction.
It was for no reason a lot of early success of Amazon is attributed to its feature of suggesting books to its users.
It was for no reason a lot of early success of Amazon is attributed to its feature of suggesting books to its users.
Did he show you blue ocean strategy as well? :) its commendable how amazon could imitate (maybe the wrong word) the forces at play in a physical sales interaction.
ReplyDeleteNope..am glad that he did not show blue ocean strategy to me...though I liked the book when I read it sometime back I do not subscribe to its prescription any more! :)
ReplyDeletevery well written simple yet so realistic and enriching.
ReplyDeleteGood Observations I must say.
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