Sailing through the pandemic with an internship at Times of India -By Vivek Sharma from IBS Hyderabad

Reading newspapers has been a part of my daily schedule ever since I was in high school. Newspaper is a window to the world, it lets you analyze, research and know more about the surroundings. A daily reader that I was, I was excited to know that Times of India (TOI) was hiring students at the campus for their Summer Internship Program.

The summer internship program plays a vital role during the MBA program. Most questions asked during final placements are based on your internship and so I knew I had to make the most of the opportunity given to me at the Times of India.

The selection process and onboarding

The selection process was quite smooth. It started with a general aptitude test followed by a telephonic interview. Soon after getting selected for the internship, I was handed the role of business development and market research at the Times of India. The onboarding processes began in the month of February which too was conducted hassle-free. It began with a weeklong induction process conducted by the Sales Head and the Area Head at TOI’s Vadodara office. The induction program briefed us about BCCL, TOI and several products and key business areas of the Times Group.

For most of us, it was our first sales experience. And so, we were quite excited to be a part of this big brand. During the induction itself, we were told about company expectations, targets and KRAs.

In the shoes of Rocket Singh – the salesman

Moreover, like Rocket Singh – the salesman, I was introduced with my targets. I have always believed that life without targets is quite monotonous and boring, so the targets looked exciting. My project at Times of India was based on assessing the Vadodara market by developing the business and researching the market through various campaigns. I also had to build brand awareness and the business apart from door-to-door marketing. The title of my project was to study the impact of Consumer Behavior towards TOI newspaper in Vadodara.

Somewhat alike Chris Gardner, in pursuit of sales, I used to carry door-to-door campaigns, meet leads and follow up with clients. Initially, we started door to door campaigns for TOI and sold their annual subscription schemes in Vadodara market, focusing on B2C model. B2C sales helped us practice theoretical knowledge which was earlier only confined to classroom discussions. As an intern, I learned various negotiation and persuasion skills, relationship-building, pre researching the customer, approaching, selling and objection handling along with customer retention skills.

Stepping into the virtual mode

Although the pandemic took a toll on us during the internship, our work shifted to the virtual mode where we had to virtually pitch customers and B2B clients, follow up with customers, vendor management and find supply chain bottlenecks. This helped us learn various aspects of digital marketing, which indeed is unlike traditional marketing. Although people in the Vadodara market were quite sceptical about tele-calling, it helped me learn consumer behaviour more effectively. The pandemic led to the closure of markets where readers were gripped with the fear of newspapers being corona carriers. Sales almost dipped. TOI came up with various celebrity endorsers and online campaigns that projected newspapers as corona warriors and not corona carriers. These campaigns were run as TV commercials as well as on social media. This helped TOI gain the trust of people and reach their households.

Times of India ensured that it connected with the interns both on and off the field. We were rewarded every week as per the sales numbers. Though the summer internship program gave numerous intangible learnings, at the completion of three months internship, I was the best intern at the Times of India with maximum sales.