The sum total of my day's work was to say "yes" two times.

In order to do so, I had travelled across England - from Harpenden in the home counties (where I lived at the time) to St Austell in Cornwall the previous day, and I had stayed overnight in a hotel. After attending a meeting at which my two "yes" answers were my only contribution, I travelled home again.

So was this a worthwhile trip? Was the cost of my train ticket (I had no car in those days) and hotel justified? It turns out that, yes, it was. My role at the time was to provide UK based, English speaking technical support on a niche product, and I was joining my company's sales rep for a presales meeting with a customer just about to place a major order. My visit not only assured the customer that we had support staff in place, but also that their order was important to us and we were willing to provide that support, on site if necessary, even though they were remote from our office.

A year or two later, I took over as the sales rep for Cornwall, and got to know many of the clients nurtured by Brock (who had arranged the visit above) much better. A lovely group - and I did have an excellent product to sell - and I learnt a lot too. Even though I was just one of twelve people on the sales team, my territory was geographically huge - lots of "green fields" which, for Computer Graphics products, wasn't going to be needed on every corner. It was still a four hour drive to Cornwall. But what a pleasure to do so, and more than amply rewarded and justified too.

Why does this come to mind today? Because I'm writing this from Belgium on my way back from Munchen (Munich). I drove down all through Sunday to give a 2 day course, and I'm driving back up all through Wednesday. Those are LONG drives. For each hour of teaching, I have another 2 hours on the road. Yet it IS worthwhile. I've only to see the lights come on on "Object Orientation" with the trainees to realise that half an hour of my time clarifies what half a day or reading books for them couldn't make clear, and that's happening 8 times over with the group. Oh - and there are some 32 half hours during the 2 day course. That's a lot of justification.

Extra links ... training in Germany - details and pricing

(written 2005-02-16 11:00:31)

 G502 - Well House Consultants - Business Practice
  [2598] An excuse for making a sales call - (2010-01-26)
  [2465] Melksham Town - asleep or awake? - (2009-10-21)
  [2331] Certification Revisted - Lua - (2009-08-09)
  [2283] Everyone is in the customer relations business - (2009-07-12)
  [2190] How you are (re)presented at an exhibition - (2009-05-19)
  [2187] Are we IITT (Institute of IT Training) members? - (2009-05-17)
  [2161] Get it right ... if it goes wrong, it takes so much effort to sort out! - (2009-05-08)
  [2126] Weeding out old phone numbers - (2009-04-11)
  [2122] Commission Creep - (2009-04-08)
  [2044] Please Trouble me - (2009-02-16)
  [1913] Alastair Darling helps make paperwork and confusion - (2008-11-30)
  [1855] Volunteer v Employee - a skewed balance? (FSB) - (2008-10-25)
  [1713] Ways to accept credit cards - or not! - (2008-07-19)
  [1626] Early May - a short chance to regroup and improve - (2008-05-01)
  [1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
  [1453] What makes our courses special? - (2007-12-02)
  [1394] Business to Business Networking - North and West Wilts / Melksham - (2007-10-17)
  [1373] New Month, New Quarter, New Laws - (2007-10-01)
  [1342] Google, wwmdirectory, Freshwater, ATP - new scam? - (2007-09-09)
  [1319] Customer feedback - lifeblood of a business - (2007-08-25)
  [1263] 0800 043 8225 - a new phone number for Well House - (2007-07-10)
  [1260] An inspirational business talk from one of our prospective MPs - (2007-07-06)
  [1243] Heavy duty hole punch - (2007-06-24)
  [1165] Extended Credit request - train in June and be paid in September - (2007-04-27)
  [1157] Speed Networking - a great evening and how we arranged it - (2007-04-21)
  [1133] B-2-B Networking, 20th April. Useful for YOUR business? - (2007-04-03)
  [1084] Writing terms and conditions for conferences and other events - (2007-02-17)
  [1057] Selling by phone and Skype - our policy - (2007-01-30)
  [906] A commitment we won't be making - (2006-10-27)
  [883] Age discrimination law - (2006-10-01)
  [869] UNABLE TO ATTEND - (2006-09-16)
  [849] Staff Meeting - (2006-08-30)
  [766] Discounts and approved supplier lists - (2006-06-17)
  [664] Ruby course - oops - it's not happening - (2006-04-01)
  [652] Morning Post - (2006-03-20)
  [626] Not just a pretty face to answer the phone. - (2006-02-26)
  [536] Cancellations and penalties - (2005-12-21)
  [491] Being atypical is typical - (2005-11-10)
  [487] On line course booking - credit card protection - (2005-11-06)
  [467] Tell them three times - (2005-10-17)
  [457] Do the work and take the risk - a PHP contract to avoid - (2005-10-06)
  [438] Fair system for travel and accommodation expenses - (2005-09-07)
  [399] simplicity hides real size - (2005-07-31)
  [321] Sales - the alternative close - (2005-05-23)
  [297] A reminder that the customer is King - (2005-05-01)
  [226] Growing our systems - (2005-02-24)
  [211] Look after your staff and they'll look after you. AOL. - (2005-02-12)
  [200] Tips for the top - (2005-02-03)
  [188] Pink elephant and appreciation - (2005-01-24)
  [180] Skunk works - (2005-01-17)
  [157] Automatic service upgrades - (2004-12-19)
  [137] Certification schemes - (2004-12-02)
  [129] Trawling our site to prevent student copying - (2004-11-24)
  [125] Staff theft - (2004-11-21)
  [121] Fair and Simple - (2004-11-17)
  [108] A typical morning - (2004-11-03)
  [95] Five red flags - (2004-10-21)
  [88] Getting the right level of trainer - (2004-10-14)
  [77] Telephone systems - (2004-10-07)
  [68] Get the strategy worked out and the tactics just fall into place. - (2004-09-30)
  [27] Sales technique - (2004-08-25)
  [15] 90 to 10 or 80 to 20 rule - (2004-08-15)

Back to Cheap purchase - votes paid for with selfish promises

Previous and next or Horse's mouth home

Forward to Golden Nugget

Lunchtime Drink
When to use Frames
Some unusual features
Golden Nugget
Use of time
Cheap purchase - votes paid for with selfish promises
Open Source becomes mainstream
Futility of war?
Off to Munich
Tcl/Tk (wish) Grid layout example