Interviewer :- How would you sell a refrigerator in Antarctica?

Me :- I can’t sell it in Antarctica. But I can save your money. Millions of it.

Interviewer :- How?

Me :- Change your target audience. Selling refrigerator in Antarctica is like selling skin whitening cream in a country with majority of people having white skin.

Interviewer :- Ohhh..

Me :- Set your target in equatorial countries. You will not have to spend millions of dollars for advertising. Invest that money for research and development of our products to make them better so that no company can stand against it.

Interviewer :- Why did you say our products?

Me :- I am hired, most probably.

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Well technically speaking,refrigerator works on Stokes engine principle with max efficacy of 20–30%,that means it will produce more heat than it produces cooling,so u can sell a refrigerator there also. And the cool box will also act as a store safe place for food too.Whenever you are asked such questions, start promoting your product by giving the facts and figures like:

• Average temperature of antartica is : (-57 degree celcius) and most of the time, the temperature in Antartica is sub-zero. Which is not at all healthy and good for your food.

Your food may get frozen, at the same time the nutrition degradation may occur.

• According to Australian standards an average refrigerator temperature which is good for healthy food is 3 degree celsius.

Source (Wikipedia and australian standards).

• Mention the sources and references properly as it proves that your data is genuine.

Then focus on Points of advantages that you would get with product and difficulties you will face without product as shown below:

1. Some foods deteriorate suddenly when they get below certain temperatures. This often occurs when the food freezes. Other foods undergo subtle changes when they get too cold, such as some tropical fruits and vegetables.
2. Foods like lettuce are mostly water, so they easily freeze in temperatures below 0 degree celsius. You can see the cell structure has destroyed – turned into jelly like mess.
3. As you are going to use a refrigerator, the food will not be that frozen so you can heat it faster too, more over less energy will be consumed.
4. Your home or Igloo will not be full of smell of food if you have refrigerator.
5. Refrigerator in antarctica is basically to keep food warm and not cold.
6. It will help to keep your food safe from the snow flakes, storms and snow falls.

Yes, you require a refrigerator in Antarctica.

One tip : A good salesman doesn’t focus on product features, rather focuses on the benefit that the feature gives.

For example:

In camera, Better megapixel means the better you can capture moments. You can save that memory.

In the similar way, focus on what a refrigerator does for man instead of focusing on its features. We know health is wealth and it keeps your food better and you remain healthy.

So next time you are asked such questions, just follow these points and you will surely be able to crack a sales interview.

A very nice point raised by Joseph vas… Whether it will keep the temperature inside it lower or higher is a technical aspect. Here the question is based on the Sales and marketing aspect so we neglect that point for now.

As a lot of people suggested different viewpoints in the comments section, I should add it here.

Dhiraj Jane :

• “The answer is by installing heating coils with a thermostat. Conventional fridgerator refrigerator is useless in Antarctica. “
• So I guess that this answer is obsolete if we name it as a fridge. Fridge is supposed to keep itself cooler than the surroundings as the basics of thermodynamics suggests. As suggested by all these data from standards we should use heating coils with a thermostat.

One more good point suggested by Aban Chang :

• “The refrigerator will be useful for hiding stuff amongst food items or it can be used as a secret entrance to a hidden room or can provide you a place to save yourself from any radiation incase of nuclear attack”

A B Quadri said :

• “You buy the refrigerator and keep it in your igloo and when you start the refrigerator your igloo will become warmer !!!”
• I agree with this point, but only by keeping the door of refrigerator open. It can actually make your igloo warmer. Efficiency of a device can never by 100% so the energy spent in work is not totally converted into cooling effect, and as a result the internal energy of the system increases and entropy also increases. Thereby increasing temperature of the surroundings.

As many people asked for it, lets go into the technicalities and find out what refrigerator behaves like in Antartica.

• Refrigerator works in Reverse carnot cycle, Vapour compression cycle or Vapour absorption cycle.
• So the basic characteristic of a refrigerator is to cool the space. Always achieves temperature less than its surroundings.

So a refrigerator in Antartica be cooler or warmer?

You will be shocked to know : Our conventional refrigerator won’t work in Antartica.

• It is because it uses a refrigerant named HFC-134a (1,1,1,2-Tetraflouroethane) for cooling spaces.
• These refrigerant cools the space by absorbing heat and getting evaporated. Thereby absorbing latent heat.
• But its boiling point is -26.3 degree celcius. So it gets converted into vapour if the temperature is higher than that.
• But, as we discussed earlier the average temperature of Antartica is much less than that. So it cannot be converted into vapour and thus cannot decrease the temperature.
• So conventional refrigerator cannot work in Antartica. You need another refrigerant to make it useful there.

To all those who want to make their igloo warmer! Try using heat pump, it has a higher coeficient of performance compared to Refrigerator.