by Gordon Gray
IF YOU CAN’T TAKE A JOKE…
The travels of a naval salesman
Gordon Gray
Copyright © 2014 Gordon Gray
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
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Matador®
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ISBN 978 1784628 505
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
This book is dedicated to all the ‘good guys’ in Sales and Marketing at
the former Decca Radar Co; especially Frank Headington, Ernie Cast
and Louis Foy who all taught me so much in my early days in sales.
Contents
1 Learning the Ropes in the UK
2 Hong Kong
3 China. (People’s Republic of China)
4 Korea
5 Thailand
6 Malaysia
7 Singapore
8 Saudi Arabia
9 Egypt
10 Oman and the UAE
11 India
12 USA
13 Some Final Thoughts
Brief CV of Gordon Gray
– ORIGIN –
In the Royal Navy when everything is going wrong and can only get worse, a sympathetic shipmate will say “If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined.
CHAPTER 1
Learning the Ropes in the UK
“Gordon, will you come through to my office? I think I may have a trip for you.” My heart leapt. A trip at last? But to where? I had been working in the Harbour Radar Sales and Marketing Department of Decca Radar in their Head Office in London for about 6 months and was eager for my first overseas sales trip. Our department, with our technical colleagues at the research department adapted Decca’s commercial marine radars for specialised use in ports, harbours and coastal areas all over the world. It seemed to me that Simon had visited most of them. At my interview he had assured me that if I joined then we would share the international projects and travel equally, no matter where the projects were. Now, at last, I was to go on a trip.
Simon was in his early thirties, a boisterous, noisy, larger than life chap who was full of bonhomie. He had a “full set” black beard, smoked like a chimney and had a loud laugh that could be heard streets away. I went through and sat down in Simon’s office, which overlooked the River Thames. The sun shone brightly and sparkled as it reflected off the brown muddy waters. I tried to remember if I had any sun cream at home or would need to buy it at the airport. No more old, muddy Thames for me – I am going travelling. But where was he about to send me? Simon got into his flow.
“We have been approached by a firm of international port and harbour consultant engineers who would like to know about how our radars can help their port and harbour plans and what we can offer for their various projects. I would like you to go and talk to them. Their office is in Bradford, so you can get there and back in a day,” Simon proudly told me.
“Bradford! A day trip to Bradford! My long-awaited trip is to Bradford?” Nothing wrong with Bradford, of course; but not quite what I had hoped to hear him say and not exactly a leading port of the world! Even though we had lived in Yorkshire for four years, I had never even been to Bradford. All I knew about Bradford was that a 1970s pop group called “Smokie” came from there. Oh well, I guess you have to start somewhere and deep in my head, a voice was saying: “Today Bradford, tomorrow the world.” But it was not a very loud, or convincing, voice. A Royal Naval saying came to mind: “If you can’t take a joke – you shouldn’t have joined.” It was a saying that events allowed to be repeated throughout my career and helped to keep me sane.
Simon continued to do all the international travelling and I was kept back in the office. “Well, Gordon, I need you here to run things when I am away,” Simon used to say, often. Eventually he did send me overseas but it was only after we had been asked to discuss a project in Saudi Arabia, which just happened to be Simon’s least favourite place in all the world. I got the message. If this is what it is all about, then I may as well still be an office boy across the Thames in the Marylebone Lane office of the architects where I had started out my working life ten years before as a nineteen-year-old. How did I end up here?
My first job in Marylebone Lane had led me to seek excitement and go to sea, so I joined the Royal Navy for a Short Service Commission. That was followed by marriage to Doreen – a lovely, blue-eyed Scots girl who I met when I was on a ship based in Scotland and Doreen was a Wren who worked in the Base Pay Office. We set up home in Yorkshire where I had taken a management job in the deep sea trawling industry in Hull. Unfortunately, a few years later, the trawling industry collapsed and a new career had to be found. My work in the trawling industry had led to an interest in international sales and marketing and that led me to try and find a job with a marine or naval company.
So, I wrote to Decca Radar and was asked to come to London for interviews. I was interviewed by four people, including Simon, and one with John, the general manager. John was a serious faced, correct and academic sort of guy who actually seemed a bit shy. Knowing that I was then working in the fishing industry, he produced from his pocket a couple of small rolls of paper which he unrolled on the desk. They were clearly from a fish-finding echo sounder.
“Now then, can you tell me what those are?” he said, pointing at marks on the paper.
“Fish” I told him.
“You can tell that can you from these marks?”
“Yes. On this sheet these are bottom feeding fish, probably cod or haddock feeding close to the seabed here and those on that paper trace are midwater fish, maybe herring or mackerel. They are much lighter in tone and in the midwater area.” “Oh, I see” he said. He didn’t ask me anything else and just got up and left. I was introduced to the sales director, Charles Taylor, whose message was: “You will have to start at the bottom you know and learn how to sell.” A few days later, I was offered a job in their harbour radar department.
I was brought back from my musings by Simon droning on about train times to Bradford. I realised that if the extent of my travel in Simon’s department was going to be Bradford, then I could not see the job providing me with any real selling experience and certainly no overseas work. I had heard a whisper on the office grapevine that there might be a salesman’s position on offer in the London area office of the UK Marine Radar Sales Department and although it would not involve any overseas work, it was one that would certainly get me out and about. I would be learning real selling and I would be dealing directly with shipowners and ships again. So, I applied for the job to the UK Sales Manager, Frank Headington. Frank was a smart, dapper gentleman; kind and friendly and we had met a few times when I worked in Hull. He had run the UK sales operation for many years and was well known and respect
ed in the marine industry.
After a few weeks of worry, rumour and counter rumour about who was going to get the job, I was delighted when Frank called me in to say that I had got the job.
Ernie
I would be now the Deputy London Area Sales Manager and moved into the London Area Sales Department which dealt with all the shipowners, yacht chandlers and agents in London and the South East. I was now working for a very fine gentleman called Ernie Cast, who was the London Area Sales Manager and reported to Frank. Ernie had been doing the job since he left the RAF after the war, where he had been a navigator in Lancaster bombers. In spite of the horrific losses the RAF bomber crews incurred, Ernie always said that looking back it was the best time of his life. He was a big, genial man with real presence. If Ernie said no, then it was NO. He always wore a three-piece suit and he was always pleasant, friendly and his advice was always helpful and wise. Although I was very much the baby salesman, I never felt it with him as he always encouraged me and backed me up when needed. In private he may offer a word or two of advice, but never in public. We seemed to get on well together from day one.
Ernie had learnt his trade well and taught me a lot about the dark arts of selling and the integrity of a handshake on a deal. We operated in the London shipping market which is centred on the Baltic Exchange and where deals are done on a handshake, and the phrase “My word is my bond” is as good as any written contract. “That is the way we operate too,” said Ernie. “Most of the people we meet day to day are either the shipowners themselves or senior masters who have been promoted to superintendent jobs ashore and are bright and wily people.” He would repeat to me: “Sell yourself first, then the company, and then the radar and never the other way round and always be totally honest. If you don’t know the answer, say so. Never knock the competition and never bull the customer. He will always find you out.” How right he was.
He had a number of useful tips which he always followed and which stood me in good stead, too. No one ever heard Ernie say: “I sold three radars today.” The word “I” did not exist in Ernie’s salesman’s dictionary. It was always “We”. He took the correct view that the customer ordered the radars because they were well designed by good design engineers, worked well thanks to the production teams, maintained well at sea by the service department and competitively priced thanks to the commercial department. Ernie was merely the man who made the customer aware of all these things, explained the benefits and shared his enthusiasm for the radar with the customer. The sale was the result of the customer appreciating all these factors and responding to Ernie’s enthusiasm. I still cringe whenever I hear anyone saying “I sold X, Y or Z”.
He also never carried a briefcase. “Never go into their offices with a briefcase,” he would say as I polished my new burgundy, red leather briefcase with brass corners.
“Why on earth not?” I asked.
“Because the customer will assume that it is full of brochures and you are going to bore him to death with technical jargon. Without a briefcase, you look as though you have just popped in and he will relax and offer you a coffee. Over the coffee is when you get the information you want or make the deals; when the customer is relaxed and not being bored rigid by some brochure fanatic.”
“But what if he does want a brochure though?” I naively asked.
“Firstly, you should know what the brochure says and tell him what he wants to know and, secondly, that is then the opportunity to say ‘I will bring one in for you tomorrow, I have a meeting across the road so it is no problem, is 10 o’clock convenient?’; which, of course, is the opportunity for you to chat more and get to know him even better, hopefully over another coffee and a custard cream.”
“Always remember that in the customer’s office you represent the company, but in the company’s office you represent the customer, and do both as well as you can” was another of his pearls of wisdom.
In fact, when I joined him, he said to me that all he expected me to do for the first year was to get to know my customers personally and not to think about “trying to sell” them anything. “If they want to buy one they will let you know, but if you try too hard, too early, it will put them off. That will all come naturally later.” I like to think it did.
In addition to the “Big Boys” of the London shipowners, companies like BP Tankers and P&O as well as Sealink Ferries – the biggest shipowners in the UK at that time – Ernie had on his client list the major London-based Greek shipowners of whom there were still many in the 1970s. He had been working with them for years. The London Greek shipping community was big and they either owned or managed a huge amount of tonnage. In addition to the big names such as Onassis and Niarchos, there were many relatively large fleets run from London by the Greek families. It was a close-knit community and they all knew each other well – often they had family ties with other Greek owners. If one of them died, then they all knew about it. Ernie had picked up on this and would always try to attend their funerals and come in with his black tie. “I am off to so and so’s funeral later on.” Nothing elaborate; he did not tell the Greeks that he was going nor did he attend the social side afterwards. He would just attend the service at the back of the church and quietly leave after paying his respects to the family. Word always spread that Ernie had been at the funeral and he was respected as an honourable man by the Greek community and many doors opened for him because of it.
When I told Ernie that one of the masters of a Sealink ferry Horsa, who we both knew well, had died suddenly, Ernie and I both went down to Folkestone for the funeral. We sat at the back and afterwards paid our respects to his widow after all the family and friends, then we left. I was amazed when some weeks later I was chatting to one of the chief officers on one of the ships, when he said, “Oh, I hear you were at Peter’s funeral last month. That was really good of you.” It would never have occurred to me to do such a thing, but it did to Ernie and he was well thought of because of it.
My grand title then was “Deputy London Area Sales Manager.” Ernie insisted that our names were the first thing you read on the card, in large letters in the middle. “If your name is printed so small that they cannot read it, they will think you are not important and will probably forget it.” He would say, “It is you they are talking to and your name is what they want to know.”
After the person’s name, the title on the business card is important. Any customer being handed a card forms an impression of the person from what he sees before him in person and from what he then reads on the card. The title on a card paints a picture for the customer and if he does not understand it, he will feel negative. He likes to feel that he knows who to expect coming through his door from the job title of the visitor. Later on, when I worked for Plessey, I noticed that the company had a subtle way of keeping salesmen’s egos in check. No matter what your business card said your title was, your payslip each month always just said: “Sales Rep”.
After I had been with Ernie a few months, I arranged a first meeting with the Marine Superintendent of a small Greek shipping company in the City that Ernie had asked me to get to know. I duly arrived at his office five minutes early and handed my card to the young, slim, dark-haired secretary sitting behind the reception desk.
I smiled and said, “Hello, my name is Gray. I have an appointment with Captain Theodakis.”
She barely looked up at me. She glanced briefly at the card in a bored way, then said, “Wot company do I say?”
“Decca Radar,” I replied.
She dialled a number on the phone and while still studying the letter she was typing, said in her best London estuary accent, “Captain Feo? The decorators ‘ere.”
Demonstration Van
Decca had a demonstration van that was fitted out with a range of radars, fish finders, radios etc and was used to mount demonstrations at the fishing ports around the coast. This normally tied in with the fishing season so that the van would follow the fleets that followed the shoals of herring, s
o to speak. A visit was planned for Eyemouth on the East coast of Scotland. The Scotland Sales Manager, Eric Anderson, was tasked with ensuring all the skippers knew about the visit. Eric was a fine Aberdonian Scot who was well loved and respected around the coast. He had been doing the job for many years and had a lovely, gentle way with him. Frank had sent me up to Glasgow for a week to see how Eric operated and dealt with his customers, who were predominantly fishermen and ferry companies. His sales technique was brilliant in its simplicity. He would listen carefully to the skipper, then say in his slow, soft Scottish accent, “Ah, yes, I see, now what you will be wanting, skipper, is one of these excellent new fish sounders and two of these super new radars. Now, shall I deliver them to the boat next Monday or Tuesday?” Sale done!
On the day of the Eyemouth demonstrations, the Sales Director Charles Taylor and Frank Headington arrived in Eyemouth from London and met up with Eric.
“Now, is it all arranged?” growled Charles. “Do all the skippers know about this?”
“Yes, of course, Mr Taylor, I have spoken to them all myself,” assured Eric.
A short while later, Charles and Frank were chatting with Eric outside the van, when two skippers spotted the van and wandered along the quayside towards them. Eric, keen to welcome the guests, moved towards the skippers. “Good Morning, Good Morning. Glad you could make it,” welcomed Eric.
The skippers both stopped in their stride and stared. The bigger one put his hands on his hips and said in a west highland drawl, reminiscent of Private Fraser in Dad’s Army, “Wheel, wheel, wheel, Airick Undersun!… We thought you were deeead!”
Charles and Frank saw the funny side but poor Eric was mortified.
We have all heard the stories of business men meeting gorgeous blondes on flights and having mad, passionate flings at their destination. Just once, in over thirty years of business travelling around the world, have I ended up sitting next to a gorgeous blonde and it was on that famous, romantic long-haul route: London to Douglas in the Isle of Man. I was asked to go across and help the demonstration van team during the Isle of Man herring season. The aircraft was an old Vickers Viscount, if anyone can remember them. It had four propeller engines and lovely big round windows. As I boarded the aircraft on a warm summer’s day at Heathrow, I counted the seat rows and realised that this gorgeous creature was actually sitting in my window seat. However, being the old smoothie that I am, I ignored her protests and let her sit in my window seat in the sunshine while I sat in the aisle seat next to her. She was about my age, with a ready and pleasant smile, very shapely and dressed in a colourful summer frock. I took the plunge and introduced myself. I discovered she was called Sheila. I splashed out and ordered a British Airways complimentary gin and tonic for her and as the warm sun shone through the window and the planes engines droned happily away, we chatted on and even had two more each before we got to the island.