Tortoise and the Hare 2

 Laura takes a few deep breaths and she sits down with a piece of paper and pen in hand and proceeds to make a plan, giving herself attainable targets to meet each day.  This helps her deal with her fears as suddenly all she has to do is a little bit each day and follow the plan. “Just follow the plan” she says to herself.   Slowly, steadily, she calmly speaks with customers; she finds out their requirements and then directs them to the right product for their needs.  She dissuades them from buying anything unsuitable and encourages them towards the right item(s) for them.

At the end of the first two-week period, their employer calls them both in separately to encourage them and give them their fortnightly wage packet. The employer informs them that there is still some way to go to reach the sum required to keep the store open but each girl has exceeded their regular levels of sales.

Susan, on receiving her wage packet realises that she has enough money for her Jimmy Choos. Woo hoo!, she runs off to get them before the shops close. She takes them home and sets them in a place of prestige in her wardrobe.   Laura goes home feeling good but looks over her plan and readjusts her targets as she is a little more comfortable now with creating more sales so she raises the challenge a little to give her more to aim for.

The next day, Susan is back at work, wearing her new shoes. They are a little uncomfortable so she needs to break them in.  The shoes make it a bit difficult to accost every customer as quickly as she would normally but she still speaks to a few.  She figures that to have had such a big bonus, she must be doing really well and maybe she can give herself a bit of a break now and then.  She looked over at quiet Laura and decided that by not working quite as hard, she was giving Laura a chance to make a few more sales. Susan decides that she could have a break from selling hard and still make up her sales on another day and definitely stay in the lead when it comes to keeping her job.

Laura just plods on and on, following her plan and trying not to take diversions.  She realises she is getting better at selling, the more she does it.  So because she is keeping records of her activity, she realises she is exceeding her target quite easily now and she also knows which techniques work better for her when speaking with customers.  She also regularly changes her target to keep it challenging.  She has noticed that Susan has slowed down a bit and is not really sure why but decides to plod along anyway.  Susan also spends a lot of any break time they have together boasting about how well she is doing so she must be exceeding her goals at a really quick pace.

The day of reckoning arrives.  They are once again summoned into the office of the employer…