Success in the Heartlands

 Last week, I had an unexpected windfall. I was awarded a bag filled with frozen foodstuff and I got $18 richer. The source of my good fortune came from a weekend gig I had taken on just before the Chinese New Year season selling frozen goods at the NTUC FairPrice in Bedok. Apparently, my team and I managed to sell so much frozen food that NTUC FairPrice decided to award us with a hamper with $20 worth of frozen goods and an $18 cash donation.

 

Me with the Prize

While the “prize “wasn’t something that would make a major difference to daily life, it was exceedingly gratifying. I’ve never been much of a salesman (I can move products – but I need a while to build a rapport, which is I why I move stuff at the Bistrot but its not in my nature to go for the kill with strangers – hence I would die if I went door-to-door) and for the most part I had to operate in a language that is my poor and distant fourth (Mandarin). So, being awarded for something I don’t do well in an environment that I struggle in felt that much more satisfying.

It was also an educational experience in getting to know the heartlands or Singapore as it is rather than what the government would like you to think that it is. I, for example, spend most of my time in an accounting firm in the financial district. It’s tempting to think that what I do in the land of spreadsheets is the be all and end all of what makes the economy tick. The truth is, the fate of the real economy is not based on what the faceless suites like me do. It’s based on what the “Uncles” and “Aunties” in the Heartlands do. Any entrepreneur who hopes to build a sustainable business in Singapore should focus on winning the loyalty of this group.

So, how did my team of supermarket promoters find success? Well, in all honesty, the real hero was not me. It was the promotion. The lead promotion was a hefty discount on pork (an important part of any self-respecting Chinese New Year meal). This in turn made it easy to sell the second promotion, which was to get them to buy a few more items to win a small prize of a cooler bag.

 

The Promotion Behind me is the Real Hero.

The Uncles and Aunties in the HDB estates have a nose for a bargain and as long as you can show them that there is one to be had, you can plant the idea of getting them to buy a little bit extra just to win something. The hero was the promotion itself. We merely had to find ways of making sure that they were aware that there was a bargain to be had.

Their keen nose for a bargain did mean that one had to do a little bit of crowd control. From time to time, one had to remind the crowds that Covid-19 is very much around and crowding together is dangerous to one’s well-being, and poking the plastic cover of the pork was also unacceptable.  Another part of this involved positioning the product around the freezer in order to get people to spread out.

So, whenever one deals with the crowd in the heartlands, one has to understand that they are fierce value hunters and what they want is the sense that they have gained value for what they’ve bought.  

 

Between the Bargain and Social Distancing?

The second point that I noticed was that the other heroes of this success story was the guys who I was partnered with. The guys I was “partnered” with were significantly older. This was the first work environment where I was actually referred to as “Xiao Di” or “Younger Brother.”  

If you watch these old guys work, you’ll notice that whatever they may lack in physical speed, they more than make up for it in enthusiasm. One of the old uncles that I was partnered with, managed the inventory of bags and tirelessly engaged customers.

 

This Old Boy Has the Energy of Get Things Explained Clearly

Anyone who thinks that “Old” people don’t have value to the work place is clearly trapped in a cubicle in some strange office. Sure, I could do more of the physical stuff like going into the cold room to replenish supplies, these guys were able to push customers in ways that I could not.

Much is being said about how we’ve become an aging society and the government is trying its best to get people to make babies. However, as well as looking at making more young people, the powers-that-be need to get creative about our “human” resources. The old people that I worked with want to be useful and finding ways to let them have that opportunity can only be beneficial to the rest of us.