by Sugar, Alan
I picked up my first order from a shop in Wood Green. Nervously, I walked into the shop and presented the products to the owner. After a short demonstration, he gave me an order for one record-player. That was my first trade sale, on the first day I was out on the road. But as far as tape recorders were concerned, I don’t think I sold a single one all week.
In those days, although there were some multi-retailers, the radio and TV industry was fragmented into hundreds of individual retailers who owned one or two shops. One thing I quickly discovered on visiting these retailers was that Robuck was not a new company. It had once reached dizzy heights as a leading supplier of tape recorders, but had then lost the market. This latest recruitment was a new initiative to relaunch the company.
The retailers told me, ‘Yeah, we know about Robuck all right. They ended up flogging off loads of these machines in Gamages at low prices and screwed us all.’
Gamages was a large department store in Holborn that was known for bargains and often flogged off discontinued lines. This was before the abolition of retail price maintenance (RPM), so in those days retail prices were adhered to very strictly – there were no such things as discount warehouses. Prestigious brands controlled the retailers to ensure prices were maintained, and the whole industry played along with this as a way of securing margins. Therefore, one can understand the response I was getting, which was ‘Bugger off, why should we buy from Robuck again?’
Later, when I questioned Robinson about this, he told me that the tape recorder was actually a new product, but in reality they’d only changed the colour of the plastic material used to cover the wooden cabinet. The tape deck mechanism was exactly the same and was instantly recognisable as the old model – not an easy sale.
When I think of it now, the territory I had – Greater London – was massive. It was the biggest commercially intensive area in the country, and it had been given to this seventeen-year-old.
Anyway, I got stuck in and as the weeks went by, I started to pick up orders. I called a few of the boys up north to find out how they were doing. Some of them were experienced salespeople who’d previously worked for companies like Philips or Ferguson, and they were just picking up a few orders here and there – so I was doing quite well.
I visited one particular customer in Hounslow, a very large, busy and prosperous shop, and managed to see the boss, a lady. She told me they would never deal with Robuck again, as they’d been let down badly by the Gamages fiasco. In my weekly report, I deliberately wrote this down in a way that would, I hoped, spur Robinson into action. He took the bait, got on the phone to this woman as he knew she had buying power, and smoothed matters over with explanations and apologies. He managed to sell them six machines on my behalf.
This technique of getting Robinson on the case worked for me several times. I’d come into the office with a tale of woe and persuade him to get people on the phone. He was a super salesman in his own right.
It was around this time that one of the most important realisations in my business life dawned on me, and it led to a big breakthrough. Here I was, spending all my time visiting individual retailers who owned one or two shops. The decision-making process of the individual in charge was an important one – I had to put in a lot of effort to sell to them, and in the end they might buy one or two tape recorders. On the other hand, it occurred to me that Currys had about 150 shops in the London area alone. It would require the same amount of effort to persuade the boss there to buy from me, and if I did persuade them, the order would be huge. So I decided to make contact with the head office of Currys and, eventually, managed to get through to Michael Curry, one of the bosses. He explained that this product was not one that they would normally buy in bulk, as it was somewhat specialised in comparison to the sort of tape recorders they sold.
I reported this back to Robinson who gave me a real bollocking, telling me that I shouldn’t have contacted such a big retailer. He told me it was out of my league, and that things like that were his domain. Then he said, ‘You actually got through to Michael Curry?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you manage that?’
‘Persistence. I phoned about ten times and kept leaving him messages. Maybe he was intrigued to hear from someone with the name Sugar, I don’t know, but I got him on the phone. He said that he wouldn’t buy bulk lots.’
But he had also mentioned to me that some of his individual managers at store-level did have a certain autonomy to buy goods locally if they wanted to, so that they could top up their supplies of batteries, plugs and other small accessories. I managed to get a verbal okay from Michael Curry that I could offer them hardware like tape recorders. My eyes lit up as if I’d won the jackpot. There’s nothing better than investing buying power in the bloke who normally has to rely on head office to send him stock. Most shop managers relish the chance of picking products to sell other than those foisted upon them by some buyer sitting in his ivory tower at head office.
Once given permission by Michael Curry, my boat had come in. The easiest sell in the world was to go and see a Currys manager and tell him that he now had the power to buy. I gave up dealing with the other retailers for a while and concentrated solely on Currys branches. I must have sold at least fifty or sixty machines to the various branch managers and I was looking forward to receiving my pay slip showing my commission at the end of the month.
*
By now I’d decided to give up my Saturday job at Mr Allen’s chemist’s, mainly for financial reasons. As nice a guy as he was, what he could afford to pay wasn’t worth my while any more. On top of that, the photographic side of his business was going down the pan, migrating to Dixons, who were expanding rapidly. He had taught me a lot and I remained in contact with him for many years.
My brother-in-law, Harold Mazin, who was a salesman in Silver’s mens-wear shop in Tottenham Court Road, told me that Silver’s had a big demand for Saturday salespeople, particularly in their two Islington branches, and that they would pay £5 plus commission for a Saturday. He got me an interview with Mr Silver and I took a job in the smaller of the two Islington shops.
There I met a man by the name of Mr Shuster – not shyster, Shuster. He was the greatest salesman I’ve ever seen, and he could talk the hind legs off a donkey. He would stand outside the front door of the shop with his arms folded and accost anyone who looked at the window.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
‘No, I’m just looking.’
‘Well, come inside. Let me see if I can help you out.’
‘No, really, I’m just looking.’
‘No, no, come on, sir. There’s no obligation, please come in. Let me see if I can help you out with something.’ The amount of times Shuster did this and persuaded some poor, innocent punter to buy something was incredible.
Sometimes we worked in the larger shop. There, Shuster really came into his own. It was like watching an artist at work. Having sold someone a suit, he would then move on to their need for a shirt.
‘No, I’m okay for a shirt, mate, thank you very much.’
‘No, no, no, let me show you a couple of shirts to match the suit.’
And before the customer could refuse, Shuster would have two or three shirts tucked into the jacket. Then, without even mentioning it, he would bring out six or seven different ties. ‘Look at that – a wonderful match.’
Normally the customer would be with his wife or girlfriend. ‘Yes, it is nice, it’s beautiful,’ she would say.
‘Absolutely Which one would you like, sir? The pink shirt? The white shirt? Or both?’
He didn’t stop there. ‘Good, now how about some socks? Socks we sell at one pound ten shillings for half a dozen pairs.’
Instead of saying the socks were 5s a pair, and selling only one pair, he would present six pairs. He would also do this with handkerchiefs, which he’d offer at £2 a dozen. By the time the poor sod had walked out the door, laden with bags, he’d spent a fortune. And many times the fe
llow had just been casually looking at the window.
When I was back in the smaller shop with another manager, I couldn’t resist emulating Mr Shuster and started to adopt his techniques. It was obviously successful, as a week or two later, Mr Silver asked me to work for him full-time, but I wasn’t interested in a long-term job as a menswear salesman.
One day, my antics had my colleagues rolling up. I had a customer who wanted a suit to go to a wedding party that night. As ever, the suit needed alteration and it was a case of getting it altered quickly or losing the sale. To the amazement of the other salesmen, I said to the guy, ‘No problem, it’ll be ready by six o’clock tonight. Leave it to me.’
The customer duly paid and left the shop. One of the salesmen turned to me and said, ‘How are you going to do that? There are no alteration hands working here at weekends – normally we quote three days for alterations.’
I told them I’d do it myself. The fellow had tried on the suit in the shop and I had pinned up the jacket sleeves and trouser bottoms.
Taking up the trousers was a walk in the park. No problem at all – my dad had taught me how to do that. However, the sleeves were a different matter. There were four buttons on each cuff and a lining inside, all of which had to be disassembled, shortened then put back together again.
I was in deep, deep trouble. I’d undone the lining, but I couldn’t work out how to cut the sleeves shorter, put the buttons back on and reattach the lining. And the customer was coming back in a few hours. I was panicking, while the others were cracking up at the fix I’d got myself into. In the end, I took two of the buttons off and sewed them on further up the sleeve. Then I folded the end of each sleeve over and cross-stitched it underneath. Needless to say, it was quite a thick sleeve ending – a real mess.
When the chap came in, I slung the jacket on him and told him he looked great. Luckily, the trousers fitted perfectly, and he was happy as Larry. I told him that because he needed the suit quickly for the wedding, I’d just done a temporary job on the sleeves, and that if he brought the suit back on Monday, the seamstress would be in and she’d do it properly. I thought about saying, ‘Don’t do too much dancing or bend your arms at the wedding,’ but resisted. Next week, one of the boys told me that the seamstress was killing herself laughing at this disaster I’d perpetrated, but she managed to recover the sleeves.
I turned up one Saturday to discover that a new manager was in place, an ex-army man. He was a little eccentric in that he’d organised the suits in regimental fashion, with every sleeve tucked in perfectly. All the shirts were neatly stacked on the shelves, and the trousers and jeans were hung in such a way that the legs all lined up. That was the only time I saw him because next week I heard he’d been carted away in an ambulance. Apparently, he’d started dishing out orders like a sergeant major and urging imaginary troops into battle! So Mr Silver asked me to be manager for a day and was pleased enough with my performance to ask me to do the same at some of the other branches on Saturdays.
At Silver’s on Leytonstone High Road, I met a new manager who was a friend of Harold’s. Harold referred to him warmly as ‘Boxer’, as he had a boxer’s muscular frame and a squashed nose from too many punches landing home. Boxer was a bit of a character, particularly with the women – he could charm the birds off the trees. But he had one big problem: gambling.
I had a lucky escape in this direction because Boxer started to show me how to gamble on horses. He was always popping into the bookmaker’s next door and placing a bet. Sometimes he’d come back laughing; other times he’d tell me he’d lost his money. On one occasion, he told me he had this great tip and that I should put ten shillings on this horse, which I did – and unfortunately it won! I think I got about £5. With the money, I went to the jeweller’s shop and bought a ring for Ann. It wasn’t an engagement ring, more what I think you’d call a friendship ring – a small opal.
I’m delighted to say that over the course of the next three weeks or so, I gave back that £5 to the bookies, plus at least £5 more – I didn’t win another penny. A great lesson learned!
I presented the ring to Ann that Saturday night. I said, ‘I saw this ring and I thought it was nice, so I bought it for you.’
She was kind of embarrassed. Delighted to receive it, but embarrassed in the sense that normally someone would give you a ring if they were suggesting there was something more formal in the offing. I suppose, in the back of my mind, that was what I was thinking, but I didn’t have the courage to say it.
It was that Saturday night that I dropped Ann back home and met her family for the first time. Strangely enough, I wasn’t nervous at all. I walked into their lounge, bold as brass. ‘Good evening,’ I said to her mum, dad and grandfather (who lived with them). Ann went off to the kitchen and I started talking freely, as if I’d known the family for years. They asked the usual questions: ‘Where are you from? Where do you work? What do you do?’
That was my first introduction to Johnnie and Rita Simons, as well as Izzy Schneider, Ann’s grandfather. There’s a funny story to tell about him later.
*
While working for Robuck, I got one of the first smacks in the face that would toughen me up for my later business life. I walked into an electrical retailer’s shop in Stamford Hill, near where I lived, and told him that I was Alan Sugar from Robuck.
‘Robuck? Who are they?’ he said.
‘The tape recorder company.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I’m so pleased to see you. I’ve heard about you and I’ve been wanting to see you. Tell me what you’ve got to offer.’
I showed him a tape recorder and he said, ‘Excellent.’
He bought six. This was the easiest sale I’d had so far. I was very naïve.
I called on him a week or so later to see how he was getting on. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘I’ve sold a few of them already. In fact, I’d like to order another four.’
A month later, I was asked by Robuck’s credit controller to go down to the shop and chase payment. When I got there it was closed. Empty. I went to the shop next door and asked, ‘What’s happened to them?’
The chap told me, ‘They’ve done an LF, son.’
‘LF? What’s an LF?’
‘Long firm, mate, long firm.’
‘What’s a long firm?’
A long firm turned out to be an organisation that buys loads of stuff on credit then sells it very quickly and cheaply with no intention at all of paying the supplier. At Robuck’s expense, I’d learned a tremendous lesson in life.
When I looked at my payslip that month, I was shocked to see my commission was not what I was expecting. Fair enough, the long firm sales were deducted, but on the upside I’d sold fifty-odd units to Currys.
I called up Robinson and said, ‘What’s going on?’
He told me he’d cut the commission on Currys as their head office had cottoned on to the fact that I was selling to them. They wanted a lower price, which Robinson had to give them. And because of that, he decided he would reduce my commission to a quarter of what I was getting when I sold to small retailers.
I told him it was bang out of order, since I’d spent the whole of the month plundering these Currys stores. Had I known there was no money in it for me, I wouldn’t have bothered spending my time talking to all these branch managers. I had effectively opened the door to Currys for Robuck, especially bearing in mind the problems caused by selling stuff to Gamages.
I was quite angry. ‘I’m not working for you any more,’ I said as I walked out of the office. ‘You’ve cheated me.’
Mum told me that Robinson had called a few hours after I’d stormed off, wanting to speak to me urgently. I got hold of him and he asked me to meet with Mr Korobuck the following morning. We went to the factory just around the corner from the office. This was the first time I’d met Mr Korobuck, a quiet-spoken gentleman, about fifty years old, with a slight stoop. After greeting me, he told me that he was very pleased to have heard how well I�
�d done in such a short time and he let me know that I’d become their top salesman, something that Robinson hadn’t told me.
Mr Korobuck had heard I was quitting and, in an effort to change my mind, he shared his plans with me and showed me some new models. They looked a bit more compact, but still used the same old tape deck mechanism. Essentially, they were rehashed versions of the same machine presented in a different cosmetic.
I told him that I would think about it, but I reiterated my disappointment at not being paid the full commission on the Currys deal. He sympathised with me, but told me this was a matter to take up with Robinson, who stood resolute on the issue.
A week or so passed. I happened to notice an advert in the Evening Standard placed by the electrical wholesalers R. Henson & Co. in Finchley They were looking for salesmen to sell electrical goods, and the job came with a car. I contacted them and went up to north Finchley for an interview with Mr Henson Senior and his two sons, John and Peter, who were also in the business. Henson’s product range was vast, with items such as miniature tape recorders, transistor radios, record-players, electric lamps and loads of other things – all under brands I’d never heard of. If I got the job, I wouldn’t have to concentrate on selling just one product.
Mr Henson Senior explained that John and Peter would go out in a very large vehicle laden with stuff and sell it, literally, off the lorry to the retailers. Some would pay there and then; others, whom Henson had a relationship with, would pay on account.
I told Mr Henson I wasn’t interested in working for peanuts. I wanted a minimum of £20 a week, clear of tax, as a basic, plus some commission structure. Twenty quid a week clear was a lot of money in those days. The trio stepped out of the meeting for a few minutes. When they returned, Mr Henson said he was prepared to give me a trial.
My next question was, ‘What car have you got for me?’