Tiler No Grout Slouch

How often do you pick up a sales tip from a builder?  Raging Man Utd fan Salie is turning out to be a winner.  He’s renovating my pad in Cape Town.  I must admit, I’m having a bit of difficulty trying to “manage” the process. 

When the workmen talk, it’s either in their mother tongue, Afrikaans, which of course I don’t understand (apart from the odd expletive; ‘kak’ or ‘fok’!) or in English so heavily accented, it might as well be Martian. 

In addition, their idea of committing to do something is not one I even remotely share.  We agree to act “just now” and I can be hanging around for literally hours.  Even when they feign urgency and say “now now”, the wait-time can still be interminable.

Nevertheless, a quarter of the way through the project, Salie and I spoke (for the hundredth time that week) about the tiles he was buying.  At the end, he asked me if I was free the next day at any stage.  When I asked why, he replied “I’d like to come and explain everything that I’ve done and what the money you’ve given me so far has gone on”

Brilliant.  What a superb lesson in how to keep the prospect/customer on-side during any buying investigation or project delivery.

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