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No Tradesman, Vagabonds, Tinkers Bankers or Thieves
Times must be hard here too (though not so hard as bankrupt Blighty of course!).
Nonetheless I was working from home last Friday afternoon and astonished to have to
answer my front door bell to what I at first thought were a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Upon sight of pinstripe suits, moustaches (though to be fair you could hardly notice
the woman’s) and briefcases I immediately assumed I was in for the customary slap on
the face with ‘Watchtower’, except in French. My equally customary and now well honed
response where I deliver a speech in defence of the Saprophytes who, in some future sterile
existence where death and disease had presumably long since been excluded ("Some of my
best friends are Saprophytes, it isn’t fair!” I would protest) doesn’t come across so
well in French. So naturally I was a little nervous.
My fears were even more stirred up though when the female of the freshly manicured
pair announced herself with “Hello, you’re English aren’t you, we’re from (I won’t
mention the name of the bank here for fear of embarrassing Credit Agricole), ######
######## bank.”
“Do I owe you money?” was the first thought to enter my head. Guilt complex I suppose but then I had time to ponder that whilst my wife and I have both business and personal accounts with a motley assembly of various thieving banks, none of them though include ###### ######## bank. So I invited them inside. Well what else could I do? It was embarrassing enough standing at my doorstep with what for all the world looked like a couple of debt collectors in front of me. In full view of the ever curious local public, at 3.00pm on a working day, in tatty old bedroom slippers where my toes had worn holes in the ends and sporting a T Shirt emblazoned in 3” high letters ‘SEX INSTRUCTOR’ with in brackets underneath (hard rider). A present from my overly optimistic wife (her birthday, not mine!).
“What do you do?” enquired the woman. Purposefully studying my T Shirt.
It’s difficult trying to explain to strangers in ‘suits’, that you work for a world class
software company that produces cutting edge computer programs, revolving ostensibly around
the highly complex science of thermo-dynamics, whilst dressed as a yob. Particularly
when something about the English text ‘hard rider’ had clearly caught the woman’s
attention. It seemed she couldn’t take her eyes off it. Or at least that’s what I think
her eyes were scanning my front for.
So I responded instead with a question. “Do you have an appointment?” The seriousness of which wasn’t enhanced as I took a step backwards into Tiggy-Wiggy’s dinner bowl. It immediately flipped over in what I must admit I thought was an unnecessarily exaggerated response for an otherwise inanimate object and emptied its entire contents of ‘Yummy, beef with carrot and banana in mouse flavoured gravy.” across the entire kitchen floor.
Memsahib had popped down to our local supermarket for more ‘Yummy this and that in mouse flavoured gravy’ and thus I was exceedingly relieved to see her car pull into our driveway. Memsahib has a much better command of excruciating French than me. She also has an even shorter fuse when it comes to rudeness and doesn’t mind declaring it to offenders. She thus introduced herself swiftly and without drawing breath, let alone waiting for a response, she repeated my same question “Do you have an appointment?”
Despite being bestowed with various job titles over my forty year career in engineering, from Tea Boy to Managing Director, at the end of the day I have always considered myself first and foremost a Salesman. Without sales businesses have nothing. Product, enterprise, trade, wealth and therefore civilisation as we know it could not exist without sales. Salesmanship, contrary to an ever scornful but generally naive public is or at least should be, a highly qualified and highly responsible profession. A professional sales person's ONLY function, properly trained to benefit from a greater knowledge of their employer's product portfolio than their prospect’s knowledge, is ‘to help a prospect make up their mind’. Anyone that thinks otherwise or that something should be added to that statement or description is not only wrong but is also either erroneously prejudiced or worse, is a fool. To preserve the integrity of my company I have unfortunately been obliged to sack many such fools over the years.
The first rule of professional selling is this ‘Never, but never, ever, COLD CALL'!
###### ######## bank will receive the benefit of receiving a share of my hard earned, hard won, hard fought for enterprise, the day hell freezes over. Not before!
I’ve finished ‘riding’ now.
For the day anyway.
