[2003] LOSS & PORPHYRY the novels  

0086 – Part 16 - Cold Calls & Bone Marrow

Over the next hour or so I was constantly on the telephone. The initial incoming call had been quickly disposed of, it was just a member of the finance department who wanted to query my budget submission. I had already found that one great advantage of setting up a new operation was that nobody else understood what it was. So the query was easily disposed of!

The clutch of messages I had been given earlier were, however, more complex to deal with. In each case I had to phone the person to find out what the problem was, before making two or three other calls to search out the solution which I finally conveyed back to the originator of the message. At times I felt that the essence of my role was to act as a glorified post-box. But, I well knew, it was such a service that my customers wanted; and which won me the business. As a result, I undertook the menial role willingly, no matter how tedious it was. My competitors, if they deigned to do anything, did it unenthusiastically. Indeed, one of the saving graces of such work was that I knew that such poor handling of this part of selling was responsible for a significant loss of image by my competitors. With every tedious enquiry promptly answered I imagined a knife buried in my competitor's sale. I was very competitive at times; so much so that I occasionally felt guilty about it, but then I consoled myself with the thought that it was not my fault if my competitors were incompetent!

At least it wasn't 'cold calling' or 'telephone selling'. The bane of my, and every other salesman's, life was having to phone around, 'cold', to prospects; to try, usually unsuccessfully, to get my metaphorical foot in their door. I hated it, but every so often I had to force myself to do it; otherwise the stream of new leads would dry up. Such sales activity demanded, though, a mammoth act of willpower. At such times the phone seemed to dominate the whole desk. As a medium I found it cold and unsympathetic. Despite psyching myself up to face the challenge, I knew I sounded weak and indecisive; almost begging to be turned down. Yet I still succeeded, painfully, in booking a few appointments, and my ordeal was over until the next time. Anyway, today at least I was to be spared that agony.

Released from the telephone, I looked around; to continue my conversation with Jim, my engineer. But he had wandered off to pursue his researches in another department. So I reopened my half-finished report on the market. I found writing soothing, or at least I found writing reports to be so. Writing letters, on the other hand, bored me and even now my pending tray was full of letters that I knew should be answered, but I was putting off the evil day, until the chore could no longer be avoided.

Long reports, however, offered a real intellectual challenge. I positively enjoyed bringing all the facts together, and then manipulating them to produce the most aesthetically pleasing patterns. I enjoyed, almost as much, juggling the words and playing games with the nuances of the English language. It was arguable, indeed, that my reports were even more powerful salesmen than myself!

Now I conjured my recent anecdotal experiences into a semblance of rationality, which would justify my management providing more resource to support the operation. Creative writing, just as much as creative accounting, had an important place in influencing such decisions. I had completed another two sections, another four pages, before Jim returned.

'I've been thinking about that bone-marrow separation. Why do they have to use the cell separator? What's wrong with the cell processor? It's designed to handle exactly those sort of quantities.' Jim was bright, being a member of Mensa as some compensation for never having studied for a degree. He was, in addition, a creative thinker; lateral thinking, in the jargon, was his strength. This contribution showed the value of that.

I immediately recognised the power of the idea. The cell processor was another member of our small range of products, which had been designed to wash blood. Despite being a big seller in the US, there had seemed to be no market for it in the better regulated UK blood banks. But, as Jim had realised, it was a centrifuge which would very efficiently separate around a litre of blood, or bone marrow which behaved just like blood, at a time. There was, indeed, no reason why it shouldn't meet the Royal’s needs.

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