Posts Tagged ‘Staples’
Open the box AND take the money!
It’s often the small things that make all the difference. On my Mini are three little boxes for business cards. They’ve been there for about four years and from time to time someone has helped themselves to a card and then contacted me. They’re great and you can get the boxes from www.bizcardbox.co.uk – have a look at it later when you’ve read the rest of the blog.
The boxes arrive by post with a sticker to go on the car just above them saying: “Business Cards – Take One” – but why would anyone want to do that?
So I’ve replaced my stickers with: “Win a Mini!”. I am able to do this, of course, because my company gives away a brand new BMW Mini or £10,000 in a prize draw every year.
The result? Well look at what happened the other day…
I was in Staples the stationery supermarket (I’m big into stationery) and when I came out I found a woman wedged between my car and the one next to it, desperately trying to extricate a card. I helped her out.
Then I said: “Do you want to win a Mini?”
(Daft question I know)
But we filled out the form, I told her what we do – and now I have an appointment for when she comes back from her holiday in two weeks.
Thinking not very much about it, I then drove into town to collect my new book of jazz clarinet scales from the music shop. This means parking in the pay-and-display car park.
I resented this because I was only going to be five minutes. Normally I would have skulked about waiting for someone to leave and then waylaid them and asked for their ticket.
However as I got out of the car to start skulking, the parking warden gave me a beaming smile as she passed and I dutifully went over to the machine and inserted £1.70 for my five minutes’ parking.
Honestly! The book was only going to cost £10!
So when I came back I determined to do the decent thing and give my almost entirely unexpired ticket to the next person. He was very grateful. But as I returned to the car to drive off, I thought to myself: “Don’t be a clot, give him a card.”
So, taking one out of the card box on the back window, I returned to my new friend to introduce myself. He was polite, of course, and he took the card but I could tell he wasn’t really interested.
However this two-minute delay in leaving meant that my car was still there when someone new walked past and noticed the box. In fact not only was the car there but I was in the driving seat and nearly reversed over him…
Now we have an appointment to get together this week.
P.S: I’m going to get the stickers changed to read: “Win a Mini OR £10,000!”