First...

I started my life in advertising! I was taught a lot of lessons in my formative years, significant among them being the one on "First Response", otherwise called "Unaided Recall". It's an old technique in consumer research used to test whether a customer has top of the mind recall for a brand when asked a question like, "What's your favorite brand of toothpaste?" See, Toothpaste was the first thing that occurred to me when I thought of this question, so that's first response...

I moved on from advertising and the lessons I learnt soon got buried in the depths of my mind. Only to be awakened by a senior sales person I worked with very briefly at a software company. He had just joined the company and someone had told him about the sales support operation I ran. So true to his caliber, he left his offices on the top floor and walked down 4 floors to come talk to me about how my operation could help him...

"We will develop a list of target companies for your territory, identify the key decision makers in those companies, contact them, explain our services and set up appointments for you to go in and sell", I said in one breath, trying to impress him. "Oh that's good", he said, "you'll save me the effort of cold calling", he added, reducing my life's work to 2 insignificant words. My first response was the urge to hit him, but instead, I buried my face in a pillow that night and cried...

"It's great that you make these appointments, but do you classify them as Hot, Warm etc?", he asked. I requested him to explain that better (obviously we weren't doing that but admitting that was not going to be my first response)...

"So", he went on, "you call all these people and pitch our services and let's say, it takes you 5 calls before you can get an appointment with someone, then that person probably gave you the appointment just to get you out of his hair. Say you got the appointment in 3 calls, there's still a chance that he is just being nice to you, but there is an equal chance that he wants to hear you out. That contact is Warm. And then, there is that person, who gets your call from the cold, his ears perk up when you pitch him and he gives you an appointment, right there, after just a few questions, now that is Hot! That is the guy I want to go meet more than anyone"...

Enough said, this senior person didn't even stay in the company for long. Before we knew it, he didn't see eye to eye with the top brass and left. But he left such a great first impression on me that I have never forgotten him or that first meeting in many many years...

History repeats itself and this lesson was reinforced to me as recent as yesterday, in a sad way. An Uncle of mine had recently gone down with Parkinson's. I wasn't aware of this until I recently decided to pay him and my aunt a surprise visit. I was obviously disheartened to see him bed-ridden, unable to talk or even comprehend who I was. I have a particular fondness for him. When a few years ago, I went to seek his blessings as I was relocating to the US, he gave me a picture of Shankaracharya, the revered Hindu saint, which I framed and hung on a wall in my home...

I didn't have much time on hand that day but I promised my aunt I would come back and spend at least a couple of hours with him one day, soon. I never did and yesterday, he passed away. I was filled with regret for not having spent the time I promised to spend with him, but consoled myself that at least, his suffering was over and that the picture of the saint on the wall would serve me his memory for long...

I called my aunt right away. It was the least I could do. I don't know why but my heart began racing even as her phone rang. Her son picked up the phone. I told him how sorry I was and he told me that this was best for all as my uncle had suffered enough. I felt a little better. Then he asked me if I wanted to speak to my aunt and I said yes. My heart went still for the few seconds as he called out to her and told her who was calling even as he passed the phone to her...

"Hello", she said. "You said you would come back to see him, but you never came"...

In the next 5 minutes, she said a lot of things. She asked me how my wife and son were, she repeated that he had suffered a lot and that this was best for all. She even consoled me (funnily) that it was good that I had paid them that surprise visit, lest I hadn't seen him at all and signed off in her motherly way asking me to take care...

But only her "First Response" will keep ringing in my ears every time I see the picture on the wall...