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Friday, July 17, 2015

Love Your Customer.












Louis Shalako




The Greatest Salesman in the World was written by a guy called Og Mandino and first published in 1968.

We had the book around the house, as my mother Shirley had shelf after shelf of motivational and self-help books.

If you read the section titles, you will quickly realize there are essentially no negative messages in the book. All right, I’m an atheist, but the spiritual stuff was sort of expected at the time, and it still is in most markets. People are still looking for a magic bullet to fix their lives. (It’s not going to do you a great deal of harm. – ed.)

Mr. Mandino was the publisher of Success Unlimited Magazine and was inducted into the Public Speaking Hall of Fame.

I suppose I always pooh-poohed such books. For one thing, my mother wasn’t famous, she wasn’t on the speaking circuit, and she never sold millions of books. (She did write Financial Strategies for Women: the Basics.) She was basically just my mother, an amazing person who had done a lot of stuff.  Obviously the books had an influence on her. They probably also had an influence on me, although I really only read a few of them—for example Leo F. Buscaglia, David Chilton, and of course Tony Robbins.

She must have read a thousand of those books. Mom loved them guys, I always viewed them with a slight suspicion. That was because I understood the message a little too well and didn’t much want to do the work. And yet, somehow, in spite of being a naturally lazy person, perhaps even a negative person in so many ways, I have done the work. The necessary work, all that goes into becoming a writer.

This is a tough job, and it requires some serious personal motivation.

As a construction worker, there’s not such an obvious correlation in terms of motivation.

But let’s think about that for a minute. You can learn much by observing your fellow man. 

(We were doing industrial doors much like these.)

Some of my co-workers were notable for showing up at ten after eight, their boots untied and the laces hanging. They would have a newspaper in one hand and a coffee in the other. The first thing they did was to disappear into the restroom for forty-five minutes or so while they read the paper and caught up on the comics or the sports pages. This was our lead hand, ladies and gentlemen. The rest of us were basically sitting around in the lunchroom, (seriously, boss, secretary and all, hell, even the odd customer sometimes), while we waited for him to come out and begin the process of figuring out who went where, and with what, and using which truck, and which welder and which helper and so on.

As a young guy, showing up for work at eight a.m. it is definitely a bit of a lesson when you can’t seem to get out of the shop before nine-thirty; and the first place we all headed was the coffee shop—after all, nine-thirty was break time. Bear in mind we’d just screwed the company out of an hour and a half for seven or eight men and now we were standing on principle.

I liked welding and carpentry. I liked my job, and fixing things, and making the customer happy. For me, anything, even working, was better than sitting around with our thumbs up our asses while we awaited old Dinglebob’s pleasure. It was far preferable to sitting around talking about the Leafs and the Blue Jays and the Jets and the Tigers and the Red Sox and what Mayor Dingbat was up to yesterday. And let’s be honest, Dinglebob was always going to get all the good jobs while we got all the shitty ones. All you had to do was look and listen, you knew that after a while.

We all have to start out somewhere in life. I’ve never held that against a person.

After you put your time in in the trenches, you get to decide who you want to be. And so I have.

I am a writer and I sell books. This is who I am and this is what I do.
 
As for you, you do what you want. 

***

Here’s my take on the business of writing and publishing in particular, as well as sales in general.

You have to love the job, you have to love the work. You have to love the product and to believe in it. You have to believe that the people want it or need it and that it will serve their needs and improve or benefit their lives. You have to love people, and to love the customer. You have to love it so much that you do it every day, for the rest of your life, and it’s not work—it’s fun, it’s being who you are, and it’s what you are now meant to be doing.

Money, and draining people’s wallets and wasting their valuable time, is the last thing on your mind, because that’s not who you are. This is not what you are about.

Trust me on this: if it is really meant to be, the sales will come, and it’s a lot less work and a lot more natural when you are doing what you love.

This is the message.

You are destined for better things, assuming that is your decision and you make the effort.

That, believe it or not, is basically what I got out of Og Mandino’s book as well as a few others.

If that was all I got out of it, then it has served me very well.


END


Sunday, July 12, 2015

Excerpt: How to Rob a Bank. Louis Shalako.



Credit Lyonnais, Rue des Italiens, Remi Jouan, (Wiki.)


This is an excerpt from a work in progress. All materials subject to revision. Working title, 'How to Rob a Bank'.


Louis Shalako


***


The switchboard put him straight through without argument.

“Jean Baptiste, please.”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Maintenon. Crédit Lyonnais. Dead man and possible robbery—”

The line clicked and Chiappe’s personal assistant Benjamin put him on.

“Gilles. What are we looking at?”

A real mess, as Levain had said.

“Ah, we have a dead man in a locked vault. At first glance it appears there is nothing missing. They will need to do an inventory of cash, and one would think any other financial instruments or valuables on hand.”

“Ah.”


“Also, there is the question of the safety-deposit boxes.”

“Were they accessible from where the body was found?”

It was the usual layout as far as Maintenon knew. He didn’t have a box personally, and had never really been in a bank vault before. There was a first time for everything.

“Yes. He was found in front of the little front rooms, where customers can sit and examine their box’s contents in privacy, without the staff looking over their shoulder.”

“Merde.”

“There’s no apparent damage to the outer facings of the safety boxes. It would take a real fool not to want to know for certain. There are already reporters outside, incidentally.”

“Yes, I’ve already had calls.” Chiappe had seen it all before.

A main central branch like this one would have a large number of regular and occasional customers. One of them might have been a reporter, short of cash after the long weekend.

“They’re very quick.”

Either that or someone phoned in a tip to a friendly editor or their favourite paper.

“Hmn. Double-merde.”

“Sir. We can try to get a blanket writ. Most judges would stand on the law. They will say the people who rent those boxes are not criminals, and that’s most likely true. They also have the right to privacy. Also, let’s say we open a box and find some envelopes. What’s in them is theoretically none of our business. But. What is to stop us from having a look? After all, we are looking for evidence, and once we’re in there, we’re not likely to stop with a quick look. People would raise one hell of a squawk and we really are just fishing at this point. The trouble is, how would we know if anything is missing, unless we contact an owner or customer with an inventory? Even then, they’ll insist on coming in and checking their own box.” He gave Grosjean a look, eyebrows raised.

The young detective whispered back.

“There are a thousand boxes.”

Gilles nodded, holding up a hand to stop him there.

“Grosjean says there are a thousand boxes, sir.”

“Argh.” That was one way of putting it, thought Gilles.

“In the meantime, sir, while we’re thinking about that, I want to have a look in all the un-rented boxes.”

Jean-Baptiste sighed audibly over the phone, and there was the sound of someone else breathing on there as well.

“And why would we do that?” Jean Baptiste sounded resigned to it.

“Because I have one idea, at least to begin with. We can at least eliminate them, while the staff are in the main vault counting money. Bear in mind sir, this is no tunnel job—no safe-cracking, no armed attack…this one doesn’t fit the usual profile of a bank job.”

Yet he had instincts, and those instincts were screaming.

There was a silence, with Grosjean at Gilles’ elbow, straining to catch any sound that might escape from the telephone.

“Very well. Gilles…how soon can they reopen the bank? I’m already getting calls from the company’s senior management. Monsieur Bouchard, one of the directors, is hanging on the other line, even as we speak.”

“When I’m done with the crime scene, sir.”

Grosjean’s wolfish grin indicated his approval of this answer—although he wasn’t quite sure he ever would have had the nerve to make it himself. Gilles gave him a quick wink.

“All right, Gilles. I guess that’s the best we can do and I’ll just have to tell them that.”

“Thank you, sir.” He hung up before Chiappe could think of too many more questions—he had nothing to give him anyways.

Maintenon turned to Grosjean.

“We need to speak to Monsieur Noel.”

***


Monsieur Antoine Noel, branch manager.
Antoine Noel was waiting in his office, sufficiently sumptuous-looking to display wealth, power and dignity, while still clean, open and functional. In order to keep everyone together and under watch, the rest of the staff were in the employees’ lunchroom, up on the third floor.

He leapt up out of his seat.

A slightly younger man seated on a low leather couch by a wide, un-curtained window, barred from top to bottom, got to his feet as well.

“Hello. I am Inspector Gilles Maintenon.”

“Antoine Noel. This is our assistant manager, Orson Tremblay.”

They shook hands like the gentlemen they were. Grosjean found himself in the unique social position of being left out. Having arrived on the scene at the height of emotional upheaval, social niceties had been the last thing on anyone’s mind.

As if sensing this, Tremblay, whom Grosjean had never seen before, turned and offered a hand. His senior nodded but didn’t give his own, turning his eyes instead to Maintenon. The two men waited.

“Camille Grosjean.”

“Ah. A pleasure.”

“Well, gentlemen, this is a terrible situation.” Monsieur Noel had recovered his equilibrium.

That’s not to say he wasn’t under a lot of stress.

“Yes,” Maintenon was willing to listen for a moment, and then he would instruct them.

The biggest part of the job was listening.

“Daniel was a wonderful young man. He was one of our most valued employees, and destined for much better things. I was at his wedding, in fact.”

Tremblay nodded his agreement. He picked up the thread.

Tremblay: Daniel was well-liked.
“He was well-liked by everyone. This is a tragic loss for the company. He leaves a lovely young wife and two children—”

Monsieur Tremblay broke up in that moment, turning away and going over to stand by the windows. His shoulders heaved and he was clearly having some problems.

Monsieur Noel regarded them steadily.

“Gentlemen.”

“Ah, yes.” Maintenon cleared his throat.

This was the psychological moment.

“Okay, gentlemen. We need to determine several things.”

Noel broke in.

“Absolutely.”

“One. Is this a death by natural causes? In which case, there may be no cause for alarm. Unfortunately, until we can determine that—and I would suggest that an autopsy is the only thing that can prove that either way. Basically, we draw no conclusions without evidence. There are no obvious signs of trauma on the body…yet he did not die peacefully, I think. I think we have enough documentation now to at least remove the body.”

“And what are you suggesting?” Tremblay, wiping his eyes dry with a handkerchief, had rejoined the conversation from his place by the window. “I mean, what’s next?”

“We need to know if there has been any theft. Until we can determine that, we cannot allow the bank to open, nor can we allow outsiders in, for example anyone that might have rented a box.” He explained that the Commissioner, Chiappe, was taking a personal interest in the case.

He would be adding his weight to Maintenon’s request for search warrants for the private, rented boxes.

“We will not proceed without a warrant, I can assure you gentlemen of that.”

The men were nodding, not happy with it but understanding the necessity. Both men glanced at the clock on the wall, a pair of like-minded professionals.

“How soon can we get into the vault?” Tremblay had recovered, eyes still red and raw though.

He sighed, deeply, and gave his superior a quick look.

“It will take time to perform the autopsy, but I can assure you that this will be an absolute top priority. As soon as we clear the body, and the technicians have gathered all their evidence, we will need two or three employees. They can inventory the main vault.”

“I see.” Noel looked at Tremblay. “Any ideas?”

“Yes, sir. Emilie, Corbyn, and Lorraine Gérin, I think.”

The older man nodded.

“And as for Monsieur Tremblay, perhaps he could assist us in another way.” Gilles was calm but firm, this was going well so far.

“Why, certainly.”

Tremblay looked at Noel for approval, receiving another quick bob of the head.

“Because I hate to waste time, and we have men and technicians on the scene already, I would like to eliminate certain possibilities.”

Noel’s mouth opened.

A man could do a lot, with four days in a vault.
“Whatever do you mean.”

“You must have a list of un-rented boxes…”

Noel’s eyebrows raised.

“Yes?”

“The autopsy will take a little time. In the meantime, we could check all of those boxes to see if there are signs of forced entry. I think we should open them up. At the very least. If there is even the slightest indication of forced entry, or of contents that shouldn’t be there…we need to know that. The quicker the better. N’est pas?”

“But, but…why, Inspector?”

“Well, for one thing, because a proper thief wouldn’t know which ones were empty, would he?” Unless they had special knowledge. “Masson didn’t exactly tunnel his way in there. He had four days, ostensibly. One man could do a lot in four days, the question is, what did he do? And if he took anything, how did he get it out? There was nothing of interest or real value on the body—as far as I know.”

Noel and Tremblay looked a little ill at all of this.

Noel spoke first.

“Tell me, Inspector Maintenon. Is there any chance that Daniel died…died of natural causes?”

“Yes. It is certainly possible.”

Noel stared at him.

Gilles calmly stared right back.

“But you don’t really believe that, do you?”

Gilles looked at Camille Grosjean, listening just as patiently as the others.

“Well, sir. It’s just that the body was in plain view of the entrance when the vault door was open. It’s difficult to believe that someone would close the door when the body was lying right there. We might assume he died in there, somehow, after the door was closed.” He cleared his throat. “Really, until we have some facts, it’s all pure speculation. Which is what we’re paid for, oddly enough.”

All eyes were locked on Maintenon.

“Let’s just say that we have questions. Many questions, gentlemen, and we’ll leave it at that for the time being.”


End of excerpt.

Ah, yes, the old brief marketing ploy:

Louis Shalako’s Blessed Are the Humble. Number Four in The Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery Series.

Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen.


***