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AN INDEPENDENT REMEMBERS


“I KNEW I WAS IN FOR THE HARD SELL”


With the boss on his annual holiday, there are some decisions to be made and our independent sets his sights on a shiny new range of power tools, as he takes a step back in time with part 27 of his stories from the shop floor.


F


or years in the old shop we’d


been


pestered for Colron wood dyes, when all we could get hold of was the Joy brand


and Furniglas (which I remember was water-based). But even these didn’t satisfy people who wanted the obvious brand-leader. Somehow I managed to get Bird & Son to take on Colron – after all, they were already stocking Ronseal varnishes from the same stable. They didn’t often listen to my suggestions, so I can only assume that, when they eventually bit the bullet, it was because of pressure from elsewhere. By the time we opened the new shop, I’d filled a whole of one side of a gondola with it, with a full view of it through the window, and the rate at which the stuff flowed out was like a never-ending river.


Shattering sales Speaking


of Ronseal, prior to


releasing their wood repair system they’d obviously been granted access to a working crystal ball. Remember the TV advert where a wood-framed window exploded into thousands of fragments? Using this system, which consisted of a resin wood hardener to bind the scraggy wood fibres, and a two-part epoxy filler to make up for the extirpated rotten wood, timber frames could be allowed to survive a little longer. My guesstimate for tarting up, say, seven windows may have cost up to £70 and a few weekends’ work, as opposed to a couple of grand for intrusive uPVC replacements, thus allowing a viable alternative and valuable breathing space until such time as the plastic age could fully take hold. We sold loads of it, and continued to do so over many years. This doubtless saved many tens of thousands of wooden window frames from spontaneous explosion. A frightening thought indeed.


Power sales It was August 1982.


www.diyweek.net In the old


shop, either the boss or I could go on holiday knowing that the


other could just about manage to run single-handed. But when he wanted his traditional week’s holiday – slap bang in the middle of the month – I wasn’t pleased; not now with footfall that, on some days, was like a herd of stampeding January sales fanatics. Salvation came in the form of the motor engineer’s daughter, who spent a week of her own annual holiday working with me. One day, I was forced to field – yet


again – an enquiry regarding Black & Decker power tools. Years before – and I’ve written about this – the boss told me it was impossible to make money selling B&D and he refused to entertain any further discussion. But the daily requests for drills were becoming boring (did you see what I did there?). I’d already sent a spy to check on the cowboys on the edge of town, and I was certain that we could conceivably become the town’s only supplier of such delectable merchandise. So, with the boss out of the country (well, caravanning in Scotland), I rang the nearest Black & Decker service centre and was put through to the sales office. Apparently, catching


someone in there was bloody rare, and an appointment was made. Hell, we were talking major brand-leading


worldwide,


manufacturer here, so I got dressed up for


the occasion. The ME’s daughter said this was more to do with the fact it was a lady rep. Anyhow, she could fit me in on Friday – before the boss returned and had me stuffed and mounted for going against company policy. Linda breezed in: beige business suit, blonde hair in the latest bird’s nest style, and large case stuffed with lots of full-colour catalogues of pristine blue bodies, stylish lines, gleaming steel, razor-sharp teeth. Each picture transported me, like a child, in the proverbial sweet shop. Okay, so I may seem a bit sad, but believe me when I say that power tools can get mouths watering every bit as much as fast motorbikes and F1 racing cars, and my mind was blown by the wares on offer. Yet my stomach sank because, whilst my sales


assistant was valiantly


processing customers out in the new shop, being a bit of a realist, I was aware that we didn’t have the cash to buy a sizeable B&D stock package.


The rep’s sizeable figures had won her a video recorder, so I knew I was in for the hard-sell and would need to summon every morsel of self- restraint to fend off her tantalising advances. To get the best discounts, the idea was to purchase tools in “deals”, of which there were several levels, and here she surprised me by suggesting that I go for a low-value one, just to see how the tools sold for us. This didn’t seem at all


like the


high-pitched sales tactic I’d been led to believe was the norm from such a massive company. So, I went for it. And, if the boss wanted to take my head off for going against him, then I would finance the stock from my savings and sell it all for myself; this was my safety net. The photo shows the very autumn promotions brochure Linda gave me that day. Those drill kits still look bloody good.


Footnote


In part 24, I mentioned the trailer and camping gear


I’d bought from


Maccess back in 1979. Thanks to Mike Bell from Sutton Coldfield for sending me photos of his trailer, whose blue cover is the exact same make as ours.


24 AUGUST 2018 DIY WEEK 17


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