A lesson on surviving in the business world
August 2010 |
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After school I went down to my local off-licence and started filling a bag with these sugary delights. Being a sensitive and considerate soul I decided I would put 10 sweets in each bag to make it easier for the cashier. I walked up to the counter with 10 paper bags filled with 10 sweets and duly handed over my one pound coin.
On my way home I suddenly had this epiphany. I could sell these to my school friends and make a bit of cash out of it. So the next day I walked into school with 9 of the 10 bags still intact and proceeded to sell all of them for £1 each. Including the pound I saved the previous day, I had made a solid £10 profit out of nothing. In one day.
By the end of the week I was really rather rich. I quickly began expanding my stock from just cola bottles and started selling other items of light confectionary. I then started taking orders for sweets and this ultimately led me onto my most successful, if a little risky, market of selling cigarettes at extortionate prices.
Now I would like to point out that I don't smoke. I think it is one of the most pointless exercises on the planet. Fortunately for me most of the idiots I went to school with did smoke because they thought it made them cool. A packet of 20 fags in the mid nineties cost about £2.50. I would sell each packet for double the price or individual cigarettes for a quid. You would not believe the profit I used to make!
Of course over time I had to put up with copycat sellers trying to muscle in on my territory. Then the headmaster decided he didn’t want his pupils demonstrating initiative or possessing any kind of useful business skills and started clamping down. Nevertheless, I was one of the only ones to survive the purge because I was smart enough to go underground. This gave me my first experience of the kind of nonsense that goes on in the cut and thrust world of business.
I took Business Studies for my GCSE’s and I think the only lesson I learned was that, if you are to be successful in business, you have to know how to talk bollocks.
I’ll tell you what I mean. I don’t think I ever did a bit of homework when I was at school. I vividly remember once being informed by one of my class mates that our coursework was due in the next day. Apparently we had been given it a month earlier and it involved doing a presentation on a chosen business, complete with notes and visual aids. This all went towards our final exam result.
I remember going home and hurriedly grabbing a handful of Formula 1 magazines, gluing some photos into a book, drawing a couple of random pie charts and handing it over to my teacher. For my presentation I stood in front of the class and proceeded to ramble on about Formula 1 teams, using all the anorak knowledge I had at my disposal but not really understanding a word I was saying. I could tell my teacher was confused as well by the huge crease in his forehead and the fact his eyes had rolled to the back of his head and he’d started dribbling.
Nevertheless, he gave me top marks for my coursework. In truth he had no clue what I was talking about or what I had scribbled down on the bits of paper I’d handed to him but, because I sounded like I knew what I was banging on about, he assumed I had done my research. Basically I had baffled him with bollocks.
This brings me waffling onto the nub of this month’s gist. You see business is just full of bollocks. Nowhere in the business world is this more evident than in marketing. What is marketing anyway? I’ll tell you what marketing is. Marketing is bollocks!
It’s quite incredible to think that some people make a living by sitting around a table and making up nonsense. The concept is really quite simple as well. Rather than describing something in its simplest form and using the fewest number of words, you embellish everything. For instance, this is not an article; this is a topical piece of writing or a written critique or even a documented themed exposé.
Fundamentally, marketing is good. People need to get themselves out there and if embellishment is how you achieve success then great. Still, if there is one thing I can't stand it is the growing use of the term "solutions" in business. It's everywhere now. I no longer design and build websites; I now build integrated web-based solutions.
Now, a solution is defined as a homogeneous mixture of two or more substances; frequently (but not necessarily) a liquid solution. It can also be defined as a statement that solves a problem or explains how to solve the problem.
It also sounds jolly good doesn't it? The word "solution" sounds very poncey and makes things sound better than they actually are. I recently had a phone call from one of those Indian call centres where this unintelligible woman offered me business solutions. Well that was very kind of her but I wasn't aware I had business problems.
This annoying tendency to elongate simple job titles is spreading like wild fire now. For instance, the monkeys who service and MOT my car are no longer mechanics; they are “vehicle service and repair technicians”. Secretaries don’t exist any more; they are all administrative assistants. Cleaners are now Hygiene Control Specialists, Dustmen are Public Sanitation Technicians. Even prostitutes are Practical Sexual Relations Demonstrators now.
I walk past a van every day and it never fails to make me shake my head in giggle at the pretentiousness. Written on the side of this van in huge letters are the words “Vegetation and Asset Management”. Seriously, is the word “Gardener” not sufficient?
So here is my advice for anyone hoping to make a successful career in the world of business: Ignore the lessons your parents and school teachers gave you as a youngster about always telling the truth. Learn to lie convincingly, embellish a lot and start talking utter bollocks on a daily basis and you will have a very bright future.
