Tertiary Students....

Universiti Sains Malaysia

Convocation starts on the 15th of August and ends on the 20th of August. A few of my team members whom I don't really know, headed by the team leader of course, wanted us to enter USM campus ground to introduce Mobile Money to the students and lecturers there. I went over to BCB in USM first to see the activation of Mobile Money through ATM machine. I find that eventhough the manager is also helping out to promote Mobile Money, many are very sceptical about it.

I was suppose to move together with two more members but I know myself very well. I don't work well in a team. I'm more to Lone Ranger style... coz' if I moved together with a bunch of people, when they started introducing the system, in the end I'll be the one closing the deal, so they might have the impression that I'm stealing their prospects. So not good for me. I split away from them to look for my own people.

Talking to the first two proved to be successful. My mission is to introduce mobile wallet to them by teaching them how to register on the spot and also appoint Mobile Prepaid Centre (MPC). The role of MPC is to reload prepaid phones for themselves and other people. Then of course I earned something. Just that I'm not taking a single sen from them, instead I have to send RM0.01 over into their wallet as introduction.

All the team members are chinese educated and I have studied these members for quite some time. I find that they are quite bias towards Malay people. They don't tend to explain to them, appoint them as MPC and even talk much to them. This may be due to language restriction.... some cannot even converse in Bahasa Melayu. I see that as my oppurtunity. Wherever I go, I converse well with the Malays. They understand me and I know how to talk them into something... again I'm not scamming them. I just know how to make them trust me but not still not all.

The rest of the members didn't get many prospects but I think I did quite well. I talked to a few Chinese students but that proved to be a waste of my saliva. I find it very difficult to converse with Chinese people. I don't understand.

Okay, there are a few people who are very sceptical about making payments through the cell phones and even reloading handphones and earning the commission. Some said they are very interested but when I asked them to register to the system by setting their own 6 digit PIN and also keying in their personal particulars, they freaked out. I wanted to scream at them.... "Hey! If I'm going to scam you, do you think I will give you a cent and you can even see my real name in your SMS and I'm going to appoint you to earn some cash? And worse still, you've talked to me face to face and you're not the only person who talked to me. If I'm really scamming you then everybody should have reported me! How Idi****!"

But as a good sales agent, I did not say anything. Instead, I rest my case and left my calling card to them. Hopefully they will change their minds. See in the two days that I went into the campus zone to introduce wallet, I find that highly educated people are more difficult to relate to compared to the other adults. They know that I cannot scam them but these students, I really salute them... pretend to know all when they know nuts about anything.

I spoke to a few engineering students. As a win-win situation, I have to hear his explanation about biomass fuel which I cannot understand a single thing about what's he crapping about. Then I introduced wallet to him. He let me do so, as I have said it's a win-win situation. Both get the benefit. He doesn't even know how to use the cash deposit machine and have never heard of ITalk which is so widely advertised in the newspapers and also banners and streamers can be found in the middle of the road at the lamp posts.

Some have no idea what is online banking and some cannot believe that transaction can be done over the handphone. Are they too smart to know about technology or they are just totally ignorant about things that are happening around them?

Conclusion about uni grads: The more you think you know, you actually know next to nothing.

I still keep to my principle : Experience is the best teacher in life. To be involved in it is to experienced it first hand. Learning from books are just learning the theory which can be very deceiving.

Other than Mobile Money, I'm also doing something which is contradicting towards each other. I have Redtone Plus to reload prepaid phones too. So, this is what I did. After I introduced to them wallet, appoint them as MPCs, I introduced Redtone for them to reload to other people. Most people take both, some want to stick with MPC and some want to try out Redtone first. Itulah Janice, "Sambil menyelam, minum air".

I was in there to get contacts and also to find the prospects to be my runner for other things as well. People might think I'm one cunning person, but business is business. If one is not suitable for that particular type of business, introducing another business will be beneficial for both of us. Am I money-minded? I hope not.

There are also people who are not into business at all. Don't cut out to be one in the first place. I chose the people whom I want to talk to. Some of them have it printed on their face that they really can't handle business. I tried talking these people into it and they said it's a hassle to reload phone for themselves... hah! What sort of people is this? Reload own phone also find it a hassle... then don't use phones... well, actually, some of them find using handphones is really annoying.

Whatever is it, I find it a good experience to enter into the campus zone. Just two weeks ago I went over to Polytechnic in Seberang. The students there are more open and 90% are Malays... my cup of tea....