The Daft Question
Deep and crisp and even, the snow covered the public tennis courts. It must have been the only untouched bit of snow left in town after the children had had their week off school – and Jon stood at the net with huge piece of plywood nailed to a broom handle ready to start clearing it.
Jon is an entrepreneurial young man – a tennis coach who has built himself a brilliant little business by block-booking the courts and giving tennis lessons to dozens of children at a time. He has taught all of mine at one time or another and at the moment Hugo, aged seven, is his keenest pupil.
But there had been no tennis for a week and clearly Jon was set on changing all that.
I passed him as I walked the dog: “You’ve got your work cut out!” I said.
He grinned ruefully and we chatted for a few moments about the prospect of the courts re-freezing every night – and as always tends to happen, I assessed him as a p0ssible customer or distributor. In fact he had been one of the first people I offered the business when I started. The way I saw it, he had an endless source of prospects – think of all those parents…
But it hadn’t been for him.
And that got me thinking. Back in those days they taught us to drop an absurd question into the conversation – at least, I always thought it absurd. We were supposed to say – quite suddenly and a propos of nothing: “How much is your phone bill?”
The first time I did it I felt an idiot. Of course I stopped feeling and idiot when the person I asked became a customer and has paid me ever time anyone in his house has lifted the phone ever since…
But this time, no sooner, had I thought of it than I blurted it out: “By the way, do you ever shop at Sainsburys?”
“Sometimes,” he said – as if it was the most natural thing that anyone might ask.
“Well I reckon I could get you free electricity.”
“Really,” he said. “How’s that?”
“Well, do you remember my discount club? We can do that now. If you like, I could pop round and show you – takes about ten minutes.”
And so that’s what we agreed I would do.
I walked on, musing about how strange life can be – had we come full circle? Was I back to asking daft questions? But I had to admit there was something captivating about free electricity: Only on Friday I’d been in the doctor’s surgery having a check-up and the new business manual was on my knee (better reading, I reasoned than his old copies of the National Geographic). His eye fell on the piggy logo and I said: “You take our electricity don’t you? Tell me, would you like to get it for free?”
“Free?”
“Yes, not have to pay for it at all. With your lifestyle, I reckon I could get that for you.”
So now we have an appointment for the 27th.
So when, later in the afternoon the computer went “bong” and an email came in from the lady in the noodle bar, the phrase “quick as a flash” came to mind.
You’ll remember the lady in the noodle bar from last week. We have an appointment. But now she emailed saying she had looked at the website and, as she put it: ” I am sure that if one can introduce enough people to the cause, then it could be quite lucrative, but this is not for me.”
Quick as a flash, as I say, I rang her back and explained that she didn’t have to do that. But I could probably offer her free electricity … or at the very least, maybe a free phone bill?
How did that work, she wanted to know – nobody gets something for nothing…
“Well I can’t explain it over the phone but I promise you 200 members paid nothing at all for any of their services last month. I’m certain we can do something for you. All I ask is that you let me show you. It will take ten minutes – or maybe 15 if you make me a cup of tea…”
And our appointment is back on – and do you know what? The daft question doesn’t seem so daft any more…