Jules Wake - From Paris With Love This Christmas

Shifting again, she perched on the edge of her seat. He seemed completely oblivious. She turned her head away slightly to get away from the pungent smell of stale tobacco. A couple more people shuffled in, helping themselves to the tea and coffee and sat down. No one said a word to each other. It felt a bit like detention at school except without the nuns.

After a painful fifteen minutes of silent fidgeting, Alan Johnson finally strode in.

‘Morning everyone. Just waiting for a few stragglers. There are always a few and quite a few no shows. It’s difficult to get the staff, you know.’ He grinned to show he’d made a joke, which elicited some weak laughter.

He stood at the table, looking down at a folder he’d brought in for another five blank minutes. Finally he looked up.

‘I think we’ll make a start. My name is Alan Johnson, Staff Training Director and I’ll be introducing you to Johnson’s Home Improvements today. I’ll be telling you about our fantastic product range. Some USPs. Promotional tools you can use. Discounts and the like.’

‘It’s bloody door-to-door sales, mate. Just tell us what the fucking commission rate is,’ muttered the guy next to Siena.

‘Sorry sir, did you want to contribute?’

‘Nah, carry on mate.’

Alan nodded. ‘I want to emphasise we’re a family run company, not one of these big conglom corpalates. Family run. We care.’ He slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘We want to give our customers the opportunity to make significant improvements to their homes. Improve energy efficiency. Saleability of their property. I can’t begin to list the pros, they’re endless. And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes these products really easy to sell. Seriously they walk off the shelf. Walk off the shelf, I say. No hard sell needed. Although today I’m going to run through some handy tips for clinching that sale. We don’t want to hear those death of a salesman words, ‘I’ll think about it’. No, we want signatures on dotted lines. What do we want? Signatures on dotted lines. Deposits upfront. Commitment. So we’ll be doing some role-playing exercises. And developing some handy tips for clinching that sale. Overcoming objections. And in exchange we can offer you a fantastic commission on every sale.’

A hand shot up further along the row. ‘Excuse me. Is there a salary? I was led to believe this wasn’t commission only.’

Alan gave a non-jocular laugh. ‘It’s not commission only. We’re giving you training, free of charge, your own patch. Committed individuals, who stay with the company for six months, can achieve a monthly salary. Before lunch I’m going to teach you some of our trigger phrases. Keep you on-message.’

He stepped towards a flip chart and turned over the blank page to reveal a list of words.

Siena began to scribble in her notebook.

‘First is ‘Quality’. Customers love quality. And a good deal.’

Lunch came and went, and when he strode into the afternoon session, Alan seemed to think it was a virtue that half his audience had departed.

‘See, this job is for the bold, the fearless. You guys are up for the challenge. You want to do well. So, you will do well. And if you do well, you can earn a lot of money.’

‘Now, we’re going to do some role-play. Team up into pairs.’

Siena’s partner was an older black guy with the drooping jowls of a bloodhound and pudgy hands which gave her an enthusiastic, clammy handshake.

‘Don’t you worry darlin’,’ He patted her thigh and she flinched. He withdrew it smartly. ‘Sorry my love. Didn’t mean to be over familiar. I do apologise.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said, realising it had been an unconscious friendly gesture. She relaxed, letting the sudden tension dissipate. She realised it felt completely different to that stomach clenching sensation when someone kept deliberately touching when they knew you didn’t want to be touched.

‘I was trying to say, I’m an old hand at this. You look a bit green. Done much in the way of sales before?’

Siena shook her head. ‘Nothing. In fact,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘I’ve never even had a job.’

‘Good for you darlin’. No preconceptions then. That could be in your favour. The punters like a bit of honesty now and then. You need to be good cop and bad cop. Come on let’s get started and Uncle Gareth will show you how it’s done. I’m not sure Alan here could sell his own grandmother a box of biscuits.’

Siena turned the page and cleared her throat. This could be fun. She’d always rather liked drama at school.

‘Good morning sir, can I interest you in—’

Gareth held up a hand, palm towards her.

‘No, no, no, girly. Do you know the first thing I’m gonna do, if you turn up on my doorstep saying that?’

Siena shook her head.

‘Slam the door in your face, missy. No matter how good-looking you are, and excuse me for saying, but you are one attractive young lady. Now you can use those looks to your advantage. Me, I don’t have that advantage.’

Siena tried to pull a non-committal kind of face.

‘Don’t worry, I use my looks.’ He pulled a hangdog expression, his mouth turning down and his eyes sad. ‘Everyone loves an underdog. My patter is very much apology. “Hey I’m really, really sorry to bother you. It’s my job, it’s a lousy job but …”’

Siena stared at him, uncomprehending.

He patted her leg again, this time on the knee. ‘You gotta start by pulling them in, building empathy with them. Build rapport before you even go near the sales patter. Who wrote this crap?’ He shook his head. ‘Get your pen out. You need your own hook. You need to bat those baby blues. Flirt a little. Be supremely confident. A good-looking girl doing this job because she believes in the product. She don’t have no other job, not because she can’t get one, but because this is a good one. A good product. I tell you young lady, you have got a serious advantage here.’

Over the next hour, gorgeous Gareth as she renamed him in her head, shared every last scrap of wile and guile that he had with her and by the end of it, she felt she knew what she was doing.

Alan came to check up on their progress.

‘So Siena, with one ‘n’. Pretend you’re knocking on my front door.’

Gareth winked at her. ‘You go girl.’

‘Hi, sorry to disturb you, can I say this is a lovely house. I love what you’ve done with the garden. Have you ever thought of selling?’

‘No,’ said Alan with a smug smile on his face.

‘See, there’s that close down the question, the one I told you about,’ piped up Gareth. ‘Now remember what you do.’

‘And I don’t blame you,’ Siena was enjoying herself, blossoming under Gareth’s paternal gaze, ‘this is a lovely house. Although, if you don’t mind me saying so, you could make it even more appealing. I see next door is looking a bit tired. Their front door could do with a lick of paint, don’t you think?’

‘No, Siena remember. Open questions. Don’t ever give them the chance to say no.’

‘Sorry.’

‘And don’t apologise. You’re in charge here, if they don’t choose to buy your product, it’s their loss.’

Siena nodded, thinking fast.

‘Their front door could do with a lick of paint. If you were going to paint yours, what colour would you go for?’

‘Much better,’ said Gareth nodding at Alan, encouraging him to join in.

‘A door says such a lot about you. Creates first impressions. Says the people who live here care. Now if you paint your door, you’ve got to maintain it. Johnson’s Doors are virtually maintenance free. Guaranteed for twenty-five years. Now I think you could probably do a lot more with this lovely house. Show people in the neighbourhood that you care, unlike the neighbours who don’t or maybe they can’t afford to invest in what’s important. Now with a bit of TLC, you could really show your neighbours, friends, that you’ve got pride, dignity and money. People respect that.’