The best jokes are the ones that provide an insight into some real-life problem. It may not be immediately obvious how the one below does that, but bear with me – it makes a really good point about one of the more attractive aspects of business life.
A man approaches a woman at a party.
‘Would you spend the night with me for £10,000?’ he asks.
‘£10,000?’ she says, reflectively, ‘yes, I think I would.’
‘Good,’ he says, ‘and would you spend the night with me for £10?’
‘£10?’ she cries, shocked, ‘what sort of woman do you think I am?’
‘We’ve established that,’ he replies, ‘now we’re just negotiating the price.’
Yes, bells can start ringing when the only thing left is to negotiate the price. This week at work, we took a new order. That is a matter of celebration in itself – I know from depressing personal experience what it’s like to work in a company where it’s a rare event. But I was pleased rather than delighted, because the real celebration came two weeks ago when the customer told us ‘we can’t pay that much.’
That was it. They were negotiating the price. We didn’t have to sell them the product any more, we didn’t have to persuade them of the advantage of taking ours rather than a competitor’s, we didn’t even have to persuade them that they had nothing to gain by putting off the decision for another few months (believe me, in the NHS, that’s not at all unusual). All that was left was to agree a figure. And when you’ve got that far, why, you’re practically home.
And as a postscript, more on humour and insight, the Pratchett way
At his best
Have you read Terry Pratchett’s I shall wear midnight? A real jewel for Pratchett fans. In my opinion one of his best.
(Which reminds me: why do people say ‘in my humble opinion’? Is anyone ever likely to say ‘in my arrogant opinion’? Or is it just that by passing it off as humble, they reckon they can get an arrogant one past their listeners?)
When we get going on an important job but haven't completed it yet, we all sometimes say that we’ve taken a good first step. In this novel, Pratchett asks what comes next – and answers, not a second step but another first step.
That’s so right. If you want to do a job well, make each step on the way a first step. Second steps are about as much use as second chances – and if you need a second chance, you’re in bad shape already.
A week is much too short a time to judge a change of job.
Still, I’ve sometimes known in hours – minutes, even – that a new post wasn’t right for me. So it’s great to have ended the first week in my new company at least as enthusiastic as I started it.
I’ve believed for years that the only point of a business is to provide the best possible service to its clients. What’s possible may not always be as good as one might like, but to strive to be anything less than the best feels to me like setting one's ambition unbearably low.
That’s not always a position that’s popular with shareholders. In two companies I’ve been told by Chief Executives ‘we don’t always have to be the best though, do we?’ One of those companies went on to achieve great success despite its mediocrity, the other achieved only mediocrity. I suspect that if the Chief Executives read these words and realised they applied to them, each would be convinced that their company was the one I regarded as successful.
In fact, in my view both have failed. Both are known in the market place to deliver poor value for money. If the successful one has prospered it is only because it has been able, by clever positioning, to persuade customers that it’s the safe choice. There was a time when it was said that ‘no-one ever got fired for buying IBM’; the successful mediocrity managed to create itself a position of similar dominance, in its own much smaller market.
So the shareholders did well. But it saddens me to think how much more they could have achieved had they been prepared to go the extra mile and deliver quality.
That’s why the most impressive moment of the first week in my new company was a sales presentation at which we were accompanied by representatives of an existing client. They faced the audience and told them ‘you have to buy this system’ and set out to prove their point by describing what they’d done with it themselves and what they’d achieved as a result.
Now that’s something I’ve never seen before and it’s exactly what I think business should be about: clients so pleased with the product that they will go out and urge others to buy it. I’ve had clients before who’ll receive a visit from new prospects, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them go to them to try to win them over.
So it was a good week.
I ended it in Torbay, in Devon, a place closely linked to where I spent my adolescence. Turning up there early for my meeting, I went for a walk along the promenade. In February, in England, you don’t expect sun beating down from a blue sky. But being in a place with pleasant associations for me, after a week which had given me some encouraging surprises, I didn’t feel the fine rain, just the freshness; I wasn't bothered by the wind, just enjoyed the sea air; and I didn’t feel oppressed by the dark skies, just revelled in the concert of slate grey sea under light grey clouds, with the white crests of the waves whipped by the wind.
