The Bookshop Blogger #22

Monday, 2 August 2010

FCB has seen the future, or so he thinks. He went off on a course and has come back full of vim and vigour. Or pith and moment. Maybe it’s custard and treacle, I don’t know, but he’s come back full of something. The course lasted three days; the briefing to his deputies before he left took a week. Bless him, I think FCB actually believes that the shop will fall down without him. It really won’t.

Anyway, the course was about new selling techniques and follows hot on the heels of another selling course all the managers went on about three years ago. I don’t know what that says about the efficacy of the course, or about our managers. The former is either very, very good or else the latter are very, very slow.
 
FCB returned and announced that he would be conducting three hour one-on-one sessions with each of us in turn.

“By the time you’ve done that,” pointed out MWB, “Half of us will have reached retirement age and the rest of us will just be dead.”

“Or wish we were,” added SNM.

FCB checked his notes and announced that he would be conducting three hour group training sessions with us, “And by the time that’s finished,” he added, “I’ll wish I was dead.”

The other great idea that FCB came back with was To Do lists. Every morning we are supposed to pick one up and fill it out. Well, that’s the first hour of our shift dealt with.

That was last week and since then I have had my FOUR hour session with FCB and it was…pretty good actually. Yes, I was surprised too.

We weren’t taught to suck eggs. We were shown ways to overcome various problems. We learnt a little about body language and different ways to frame opening questions and ways to close.

When you write it down it sounds awful but at no point were we encouraged to pester customers; I would hate for people to feel as if coming in to a book shop was like getting one of those phone calls during dinner offering cheaper fuel bills, and it seems that Dominic and the Powers-That-Be agree. Thank Heavens.

Of course, there is one problem: with the new ‘Section Ownership’ initiative which requires endless report making, To Do lists that need filling in and four-hour training sessions that need attending, when are we going to get a chance to actually talk to any customers? 

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in today’s blog, you can go to a book shop and read up on the subjects. And just in case you can’t find anyone to help you because they’re too busy compiling their To Do lists, allow me to make some suggestions:

There are numerous books on selling, but I wouldn’t recommend any of them. Instead, have a look at The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. After all, selling is about confidence and common sense and both of those topics are covered in this book, for which I still have a soft spot. As for body language, try one of the many books by Allan and Barbara Pease - they’re easy to read and very informative.

If FCB had read any of these, he could have saved himself three days, and the company could have saved themselves a fortune instead of shelling out on a training course.

And I have just discovered a book called Dealing With Difficult People by Dr Rick Kirschner which could have saved me from four hours with FCB and numerous grey hairs.

Next time: what have a Renaissance painter and a Post-War financier got in common?