There were once 3 cans of coke.
Identical cans. And they were buddies at the factory line since they were produced one after another.

As they waited for the day for them to be packed, Coke A, Coke B and Coke C stayed silent and looked visibly worried about their future.

True enough, the next day, Coke A, B and C were all packed into different cartons and sent off from the factory.

Coke A ended up in a supermarket, like NTUC Supermart.
Coke B ended up in a HDB coffeeshop in Toa Payoh.
Coke C ended up in a 6 Star Hotel.

Everyday, Coke A stayed on top of the shelf, watching his other new found Coke friends being taken away one by one. The turnover was pretty fast as throngs of shoppers visited NTUC everyday.  Apparently, NTUC didn’t depend on the Coke sales for business survivial, but it did help draw crowds with the Coke promotion at $0.60 per can. Coke A was eventually sold one day.

Coffeeshop Coke B soon realised that his value seemed higher than other Coke friends in the supermarket.  The coffeeshop owner listed his price as $1.20 per can.  Everyday, this old “aunty” with a pouch wrapped around her waist would go around the lunch crowd with a familiar three-word sales pitch – “Ai Lim Mai?” (meaning Want a drink? in Hokkien).  Her voice would unmistakably pierce through the deafening din of the lunch crowd with a high pitch “Coke Jit Gong” whenever an oder was placed.  Coke B was sold eventually, with a plastic cup – full of ice – served.

Coke C was luckier as he seemed to be staying in an impeccably tidy bar counter at the six star hotel.  However, he was bored.  He sensed a lack of interest from the few folks who gathered sparsely on few occassions – especially so when his price tag was listed at $7 per can.  He soon realised why.  It wasn’t a coffeeshop aunty who served the customers drink with the three-word sales pitch “Ai Lim Mai”.  Over here, there were tall slim attractive young ladies dressed in high slit cheong-sum placing the Cokes by the side of the customers, kneeling down and gently opening the cans for them and pouring into sparkling wine-glass.  Then they would finish off the service routine with a “Enjoy your drink , sir” and sashayed away.  The customers seemed very pleased enjoying the ambience and paying $7 for a can and watching the ladies in cheong-sum.

I wonder which can of Coke are we selling?

Aparently, there is a market for all three.  In some market, the sales go by volume.  In others, the sale trickles but the sale quantum is big enough to make business sense.  We align ourselves with the type of Coke market that we are most comfortable with.  Apparently, we can’t sell a 6 Star Hotel Coke using a coffeshop method or vice-versa.  Our packaging has to be right from all angles.  Unfortunately, some of us just don’t realise it.

I also wonder which can of Coke are we?

We probably are manufactured from the same factory.  The 6 Star Coke is no different from the NTUC Coke.  They taste the same.  Then why is the 6 Star Coke commanding 10 times the value?

Unlike Coke, we have a choice of destination.

Everyone of us has the potential of commanding the price of a 6 Star Hotel Coke.

That’s the end of my Coke story that I shared with my new agents.