VisionSpring’s Maruti Ram on how Salesforce.com helps motivate entrepreneurs, improve sales, and penetrate rural markets.

One of the biggest challenges we face in India is that our Vision Entrepreneurs return from the field claiming that their markets have been saturated.

The truth is that all of our Vision Entrepreneurs are assigned territories of 20 villages – each which have populations of around 50,000 – where they can return once every three months to conduct vision campaigns. The notion that they have reached out to everyone who might be in need of glasses after just a few sales campaigns is false; it just feels that way to them because the first and second visits are often immediately successful, while the third starts to become less so.

To combat this, we’ve begun to use Salesforce.com to generate simple charts that we print out and share with our Vision Entrepreneurs. We input data on population, sales, estimated target market, and the number and kinds of campaigns that have been conducted in each village. These territory reports help combat the Entrepreneurs’ misperceptions as they prove that there are many people they have not yet reached and that their markets cannot possibly be saturated.

We also use these reports as a jumping off point to come up with sales strategies. For example, we can see from these statistics that we are missing a large number of “non-functional Presbyopes” — those who experience near vision loss but have not yet lost their jobs or experienced declining productivity. Eyeglasses can still help them improve their quality of life, and we are developing strategies for educating them on these benefits.

In order for this data to help us effectively reach every potential customer, we must also enhance our marketing techniques. Just conducting sales campaigns is not enough – we need to also focus on viral marketing, or word of mouth. For example, Vision Entrepreneurs could be addressing the town council and teachers meetings that occur every few months and using them as a platform to educate villages in their territories about vision care. Vision Entrepreneurs are not yet taking advantage of all these kinds of opportunities, but they are beginning to. Thanks to the tools we have created, our feedback loop is tighter and has immediate impact on our work.

VisionSpring’s Miriam Stone interviews Acumen Fellow John Tucker, stationed with VisionSpring in India since November ‘07.

MS: What was your background before coming to VisionSpring?

JT: Before becoming an Acumen Fellow I was doing consulting work for a technology services firm and then a design firm. I applied to the Acumen Fund program because I wanted to take a break from pure advising work to do something more entrepreneurial and with more of a social impact.

MS: What is your project with VisionSpring?

JT: Originally when I joined VisionSpring in November, Neil Blumenthal (VisionSpring’s Director) designed a project in which I would collect stories and develop sales/marketing techniques to help start up VisionSpring’s innovation program. But it’s ended up that I’ve gotten involved in everything: operations, marketing, and training.

MS: What is it like to start an innovation program for a Base-of-the-Pyramid sales and marketing organization?

JT: I think the principles of these programs are essentially the same, regardless of whether you’re selling luxury items in the US or affordable products at the Base of the Pyramid. You have to experiment, learn quickly, take iterative approaches, and make things replicable.

At VisionSpring, we’ve focused on determining when we’ve gathered enough information to proceed with launching a new product and when we have enough evidence to know that an innovation is going to be beneficial to the overall model.

MS: What are some of the things that make VisionSpring’s market unique?

JT: Cultural barriers certainly shape our sales and marketing strategies. For example, women Vision Entrepreneurs have more success selling to women because they are able to actually enter the homes of other women. But at the same time, they cannot travel freely because of strict family obligations and because of the large role that approval from fathers and husbands play in their professional decisions. Also, geographically, rural markets are by nature very spread out, so traveling times are high.

The result of these two factors is that we attract a lot of women Vision Entrepreneurs, but the duration of their time with us remains on average around 6 months. By understanding the roots of this pattern, we can take steps to work with the environment and be successful.

MS: Do you have any advice for someone coming in to do a project with an organization based in the developing world?

JT: You need to be a really good listener for the first few months, and recognize the deep experience of the people you’re working with. The learning curve at the beginning is incredibly high. Then, after some time, you get to better understand the market and the individuals you are working with and can actually begin to add value.

View John Tucker’s short film on Rama Devi, one of VisionSpring India’s most successful entreprenuers, on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkKoXJTC5I4

Read more from John Tucker at the Acumen Fund http://www.acumenfund.org/investment-story/walkabout.html website

I recently returned from a field visit to our Franchise Partner in Ghana, Freedom from Hunger http://www.freedomfromhunger.org/. One of the biggest problems their HealthKeepers (the local name used for Vision Entrepreneurs) face while selling VisionSpring eyeglasses is credibility.

Because of limited access to eyeglasses and information regarding eye health in the country, it is difficult for communities to believe that reading glasses can be purchased “over-the-counter”, i.e. without a prescription from a doctor. It is also particularly hard for people to accept that a woman who one day has no job is, after a few weeks of training, qualified to conduct vision screenings and distribute reading glasses and the other health-related products they carry in their basket.

Disbelief on the part of community members has emerged as a serious obstacle as people are sometimes reluctant to believe that the HealthKeepers have the knowledge to properly sell non-prescription reading glasses. This can hinder the confidence of HealthKeepers, who need to believe in their own abilities in order to be successful saleswomen.

One way that Microbusiness for Health (the name of this particular Freedom from Hunger program in Ghana) has addressed this issue of credibility is in the way in which they choose HealthKeepers. Each woman must fit a profile that Freedom from Hunger feels will instill confidence in their communities. This profile is based on a series of factors, including level of education and their image within the community.

Another vital component to gaining credibility is through marketing. All HealthKeepers are given uniform aprons and baskets (the colors are yellow and maroon) with official logos from Freedom from Hunger to use on their sales campaigns. VisionSpring assists in the marketing push by providing templates for banners that promote the use and benefits of eyeglasses, as well as official Vision Entrepreneur identification cards.

Perhaps most crucially, VisionSpring and Micro Business for Health provide close training and support to make sure that HealthKeepers feel confident in their role as eye-care salespeople. We’ve found that the little things count the most, such as making sure the HealthKeepers know how to the hold eye charts properly, so that they don’t fumble during a vision screening. We teach them basic eye care vocabulary so they feel comfortable discussing issues of near vision loss and non-prescription glasses. And we also try to drive home the importance of professionalism, so that their communities respect and value their work.

Finally, each HealthKeeper carries letters of support with them when making sales: one from Jordan Kassalow, founder of VisionSpring, one from Daniel Mensah, the director of Microbusiness for Health, and one from me. Although these documents are rarely requested, they are crucial in building the HealthKeepers’ confidence.

In our work around the world we have found that these small things are the key to building credibility and trust in communities, and to helping ensure the success of our Vision Entrepreneurs. But it’s an interactive process – we learn from our partners and the Vision Entrepreneurs themselves what works and what doesn’t. Then we just try to adapt as quickly as possible.