Why choose sales as a career

The full talk

What he wants students to take home

How to write a goal that works

The 85 minutes, in order

1. 00:00SAFI faculty welcome: 4th 'Expert Talk' session, topic Why choose sales as a career; Anwar introduced as 47–50 years in the Gulf, 3 decades in MNCs, now in his own business.
2. 06:24He refuses the lecture format: 'I hate classroom'. Roll-call of about 30 MBA and PGDM students.
3. 09:45Stops the session until everyone has paper and pen: 'if you came without it you are not interested'.
4. 11:46Ground rules: phones face-down, take notes, questions at the end, 2-hour duration, feedback form after.
5. 14:0750 years of learning came from FMCG majors (P&G, Mars, Gillette, Etisalat), not from a classroom. Quizzes the room on what FMCG is.
6. 16:02Origin: Keralite Muslim from Mahe; both parents orphans, 7 children, 4th child; days when there was no rice, only kanji. Did not finish graduation.
7. 18:04Went to Dubai 12 June 1977 — 2026 is his 50th year abroad. 27 years employee, 20 years businessman.
8. 20:21Career lesson #1: left a 7–2 Etisalat government job (~8,000 Dh with overtime) for a van salesman job at 4,500 Dh selling chocolates in 50°C heat because he saw no future. 99.9% said he was mad.
9. 22:59Lesson #2: took the Gillette area-sales-manager job in Riyadh at 25% less pay and sent his family to Chennai for a year — for the future, not the present.
10. 25:10Core message: 'Many times in life you will have to take tough decisions. Don't look at short-term losses; look at long-term opportunities. Don't listen to people.'
11. 26:50Two objectives: (1) show a career that is highly rewarding but least prioritised; (2) a 'gift' — one module from his sales training that anyone can use.
12. 27:47Asks students their life objective. Almost everyone says 'entrepreneur' — none can say in what, or what the first step is.
13. 31:47'If you want to be a businessman and you are not a salesman yourself, you can't be in business.' Nobody ever says 'I want to be a successful salesperson'.
14. 35:02Look around the room: fan, clock, desk — every object was sold by someone. Sales is the process in between.
15. 37:21Why he does this free: ISR (individual social responsibility), sharpening his own training skill, and building a CV of sessions for future paid assignments. He was a founding contributor to SAFI.
16. 44:26From thousands of interviews: 90% fail because they don't talk, don't think, aren't vibrant — 'that's what I am seeing in this room'.
17. 41:22You can sell a product, a service, an idea, an event, a concept (digital payments to the Indian government).
18. 46:30Benefits: every business needs it; skills travel (communication, persuasion, resilience); results are measurable — your numbers speak louder than your manager; sales → management → leadership → entrepreneurship is the fastest route.
19. 51:33The Bounty story: 12 visits over 6 months to one airport grocery that kept refusing. 'My salary is paid for the effort, not only the sale.' Resilience.
20. 56:00Integrity (trust is built by selling the right product truthfully) and curiosity (a crawling child grabs, bites, smells — keep that curiosity about the customer's needs).
21. 58:19Self-discipline: plan the route before leaving home; nobody is watching a salesman in the field.
22. 59:23Listening before communication. OVT: Obtain, Verify, Transmit — illustrated by the 'main building' mix-up on the way to this venue.
23. 1:02:32Persuasion demo with his own bag: '200 rupees, will you buy?' → No. Re-pitched to a student as the sample bag she'll need in her first sales job → the odds change. Sell benefits to a need.
24. 1:04:17Product knowledge incl. competitors (Activa vs Bajaj vs Suzuki). Features = characteristics; benefits = what it does for the buyer. First correct answer of the day.
25. 1:05:43Objection handling: real vs false objections. Prioritising: lead with the best seller (Bounty) to get into the store, then widen the range.
26. 1:07:29Closing: alternative close ('don't take 15, take the 5 fast movers') and small-commitment close ('two boxes, 60 dirhams').
27. 1:09:02Pay (via ChatGPT): India fresher 3–5 LPA, mid-level 8–10 LPA, senior ~2 lakh/month.
28. 1:09:42Gulf: 3,000–7,000 Dh entry, ~22,000 Dh sales-manager average; he knows people on 100,000 Dh/month commission. Break.
29. 1:12:15Framed on Stephen Covey's habits — begin with the end in mind. He had 2 hours of material and 15 minutes left because the students' bus leaves at 3:30.
30. 1:13:37Football analogy: remove the goal posts and 22 players just run around exhausting themselves with no sense of achievement. That's a life without goals.
31. 1:14:29Three levels: lifetime goal, long-term goals, short-term goals. Students' lifetime goals: 'be happy', 'travel and make parents proud', 'be a good person'.
32. 1:16:37A lifetime goal is a compass: if yours is heaven, you won't lie or cheat; if yours is happiness, rewrite it as 'I and everyone who deals with me is happy'.
33. 1:17:47SMART goals — 'the most important lesson of the entire course': Specific ('mobile shop on SM Street, Calicut, 10 lakhs by 2030' not 'entrepreneur'), Measurable (10 lakhs in 4 years = 2.5 lakh/yr = 22,000/month saved), Achievable-yet-challenging, Realistic.
34. 1:21:11Homework: write 1 lifetime goal, 3 long-term goals (3/5/10 yrs), 5 short-term goals; check each against SMART; align short → long → lifetime.
35. 1:22:20Write them down, post them on your desk or fridge, review often, change only if truly needed, reward yourself when you hit one, and share them with someone who will follow up.
36. 1:23:13Asks students to WhatsApp/email him their goals and, at month-end, what they achieved — 'that will be the best gift to me'.
37. 1:23:54Feedback form handed out: 24 students responded and rated the overall event 8.5 out of 10.
38. 1:24:42Next step for would-be entrepreneurs: look at sales roles in structured companies, ask about pay mix, quota and growth plan, find a mentor who sells for a living.

Take it with you

About this talk