I would forever be indebted to Dr. T. Prasad, who the students affectionately call Dr. Mandi, for how he helped us immerse into the experience of entrepreneurship through a unique introductory project of the entrepreneurship development course, called the immersion project. I don’t think imbibing the spirit of entrepreneurship in student entrepreneurs in such an innovative manner can be done in any other way. For me, this project was a life changing experience. Earlier, I could not have believed that one single-day project could get me to cherish the endless possibilities of entrepreneurship. But the immersion project helped me to break all the mental barriers which serve as a roadblock and hold all of us back from taking risks.
In this project, we go out of our campus for a day and sell special rhomboid pieces. The speciality of these rhomboid pieces is that we can join them through their slits and can form countless mathematical models out of them.
The preparation process of the project started many days earlier. We contacted the supplier of the rhomboids and entered into a mutual agreement. Then, we procured the rhomboids and learnt the art of making mathematical models out of them. To make the demonstration and sales process easier, we punched holes in the rhomboid pieces and prepared our final products. The D-day soon arrived. We planned ahead and decided the location for our project as the famous ongoing Kala Ghoda Festival where a lot of art lovers visited daily. Initially I was very uneasy with the concept of selling on the streets. I was skeptic whether I would be able to break the shackles and sell. The first thing that came to my mind was how to break free and just sell to earn. So, we decided to build the models on the spot. We found a place and started making the models. This attracted a small crowd. To this crowd, we displayed our models and explained them the concepts involved. With this, we made our first sales. After the sale of first 2-3 sets, we started gaining confidence. Then gradually we learned to identify our target customers explaining them how these models can enhance their mathematical and analytical thinking thereby making them more creative and innovative. Every sale that we completed made us stay at the festival longer. Every sale that we did not make made us learn from it and made us more determined to make the next sale.
The project was an amazing confidence booster for all of us. Each one of us enjoyed it thoroughly. In Immersion, your objective is not sales but you do selling. You are not a salesman but you do sell. Actually, once one undergoes immersion, one understands the true value of immersing. Immersion is not just selling: it’s complete MBA packed in a single experience. Each and every concept of a management degree was truly learnt and imbibed in immersion. We learnt how to manage our finances, how to price the products, who can be our target customers, how can we attract customers, how to manage the inventory and how to manage human behaviour in a real time environment. Being involved with getting the inventory, making it ready to sell: punching holes and combining different colors, and actual selling gave a complete organizational experience. Getting valuable feedback from people, creating goodwill in others’ minds and networking were some other takeaways from this project. We tried our marketing skills trying to segment our target market and applyied multiple strategies to make sales. No book can help us in understanding management and entrepreneurship as what we have learned from immersion. This was the day we realized the power of doing. Till date we used to form strategies and made plans for all our problems. But when we reached the project venue we realized that all the plans are useless unless you actually ‘do’. In the end, we returned with ours heads held high and lives changed forever.
Watch my understanding of the meaning of Immersion project in the above video.
Thank you.
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