Day 4: Monday, so there are not so many people around, but
it is still pretty busy. Adam called me just literally the moment that I
arrived at the stand; before I had even time to take the front cover off.
Amazing timing! He ran through the orders he was able to process and send out.
Then I opened up the stand and set the lights going again. I wish we had a
product that was cheap and we could sell from the stall so that we could
measure how well we are doing financially. As it is we can only look at the
number of leaflets we have handed out, which is considerable. The Canny Cap
chaps have changed personnel but they are rather bored and wishing for more
sales. Likewise the Bottle Top Blaster lad, who said he might as well be asleep
today as no-one was buying. I spend a lot of time on the computer to keep the
emails manageable for later on. It’s difficult when you can’t synchronise the
laptop and the desktop – and the desktop is where all the information is kept.
I find that people don’t often identify what the product is
when it is housed in a stand of this size, so to say loudly to no-one in
particular that we make covers for rotary washing lines often causes people to
think about it and realize that it is relevant to their situation. Then we can
talk in general terms and I can impart the information they require. Eye
contact is really important too; if they look at the stand then it gives me
permission to engage them by explaining what the product is. There’s a psychology
to this kind of public sales pitch; I just wish I had the knack of it. There
are a lot of professional presenters who have a script that often goes for ten
or fifteen minutes until the crowd (there’s always a crowd; that’s part of the
psychology) can’t wait to buy not one, not two, but three for a bargain price.
Ron Popeil perfected the art of this kind of pitch in the US
before moving into the “Infomercial” field on TV where he established Ronco,
which you may remember selling Veg-O-Matics and such like. The trouble is that
you have to stick rigidly to the script, which doesn’t suit my character type.
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