The Sales Room by RT Manu Ramesh: a review

To begin with, how many of you have an idea of The Sales Room? Or maybe how many of you have been into the sales room? Especially of a startup? This book by RT Manu Ramesh surely speaks about the Sales room and everything in detail through the example of his time at a startup firm. The cover does its best in describing what the book is all about and so does the blurb…

On the back cover- Rajesh Iyer, a young, ambitious salesperson, returns to “The Sales Room” of Oregon Software technologies after an aborted attempt at getting into a business school in the US, only to notice the metamorphosis of the software start-up which he had earlier been an integral part of. What used to be a rat-infested hole in the midst of a vegetable market is now a swanky, state of art facility owned by an upcoming Bollywood star. The enthusiastic and compact team firing on all cylinders is replaces by a sclerotic and bureaucratic setup. Sales review meetings, once rife with passionate discussions, are now replete with profanities. The ill tempered angel investor’s scream can be heard all the way from his villa in New York. Rajesh, now shunted into an innocuous role finds every effort made to alleviate the condition of the demoralized sales team, met with resistance. As revenues dwindle and tempers rise, Rajesh realized he is running out of time and options. He either toes the CEO, Venky’s line and becomes party to a sham or quits citing a host of plausible reasons. This hilarious narrative takes the reader from plush corporate boardrooms of Bangalore to the seedy hotels of Delhi as Oregon meanders in search of illusory customer wins. Rajesh meets several interesting characters ranging from the busty Polish graphics designer to the loquacious pimp masquerading as a taxi driver.

Told through the eyes of Rajesh Iyer, the book is a testimony of what an ideal Sales Room is like. Likeminded people sharing topics ranging from anything to everything. It’s totally a visual of what a typical sales room is or rather what it should be.

Written in a quirky yet fun narrative, the author does his best in describing the scenes and giving it an interesting feel. The way the author, throughout the book, has interacted with the readers makes the reader’s feel that even they are a part of the book.

Typical guys discussing about stuff not related to the work is also well thought of, which gives the readers a feeling of reality. The usages of very easy English along with colloquially used Hindi words also make the book reader friendly. I would call this book a very interesting comedy which gives every reader an idea about life at the sales room of a software startup.

To say about the facts I didn’t like about the book is that it had too many characters which, at a point of time, can confuse the readers to an extent. Apart from that, the fact that the writer could’ve written it in a more strong way, with a more important storyline, stayed with me till the end of the book.

Yes, there were spelling and grammar mistakes too but the other facts topped over it. The end of the book was quite nice. All in all, enjoying the book till the very last line and waiting to read more of the writer, I would like to rate the book 3.75 out of 5.