Thursday 2 July 2009

Sales farce

As I’ve mentioned before, an ironic by-product of all those years of getting up at political meetings and doing ‘lead-offs’ and making ‘contributions’ is an ability to do new business presentations and pitches.

In fact, against all expectations, mostly my own, I seem to have made something of a niche for myself in this role – much to the amusement of anyone who knows me outside of work.

More hilariously - I am in demand. To the extent that next week I am double-booked. And even more hilariously; potential client ‘A’ is a clothing retailer based in the North with budget warehouse outlets aimed at the ‘value’ end of the market. Whilst potential client ‘B’ is a well-known luxury fashion Italian brand.

It puts me in mind of the classic old British comedy film where a boy’s boarding school and a girl’s boarding school are sharing a building between them - unbeknown to either group of parents and governors. Farcical hilarity ensues with Alistair Sim as the headmaster and Margaret Rutherford as the headmistress combining in frantic efforts to keep the two sets of visitors apart when they arrive together for an open day.

Actually I am tempted to just give my visitors a joint presentation – they’re sure to both use the sweat shop factory somewhere in Indonesia anyway ...

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