How to win at business (or not)

From: Dracunculus Draco
To: Landscape Gardener X

Hello Landscape Gardener X

Thank you for your visit this morning.

On reflection and with discussion with my partner we are writing to ask  you not to quote on the garden work we require. It did seem to us that you did not really understand what we wanted from our garden, in fact you rather seemed to wish to impose a solution that would be the simplest for you to implement (or were competent enought  to implement), rather than what we actually wanted; in particular despite telling you that we did not want a patio you could park a 747 on numerous times this was the "solution" you repeatedly returned to.

I understand you will be disappointed at not securing this contract but as a businessman may I possibly offer you some advice when dealing with prospective clients, based on our interactions this morning:

1) Arriving 45 minutes late for an agreed appointment without any apology or explanation does not a good impression make.

2) Generally speaking demanding a coffee from your prospective client's wife with the words "I guess you're in charge of the kettle" does not endear you to said clients wife. Normal procedure is to at least introduce yourself and ask the name of your client's wife (not 30 minutes later when asking me sotto voce "What's her name?")

3) Sparking up a cigarette without asking first on a prospective's client's property is really quite unprofessional. Both Mrs Dragon and myself have breathing problems and therefore issues with cigarette smoke; causing a severe asthmatic reaction in your clients is rarely the basis of a long and successful business partnership.

I trust you will find this email helpful


Dracunculus.

And yes, an email very similar to this one was sent to the individual in question.

Chung Kuo

Whee... Dragon is off to Hong Kong again in a fortnight courtesy of my employer who is stumping up for a nice business class seat on Cathay Pacific and a room at some swanky down town hotel. Better dig out my copy of Cantonese for Dragons I guess. For those of you who remember the last trip I will this time (a) be blogging more as the room comes with as much 10Mb broadband as you can eat and (b) not frequenting the "Neptune II" bar in Wanchai.

Shouln't have sold it then, should you.

Aw diddums, the Cadbury family are all upset that some yank multinational purveyor of crappy nom has taken over their old family firm.

The Cadbury family today launched an attack on “asset strippers” Kraft after the US maker of Dairylea cheese sealed a £12billion hostile takeover.

Felicity Loudon, great granddaughter of George Cadbury, said: “For us to sell out to a company that doesn't bear any resemblance to us at all is a horror story. Kraft won't understand the history and quality of the company.

“Kraft will have to asset strip to afford this. They will cut corners, they will sell out. To me they are a plastic cheese company and this is the jewel in the crown.”

Well you, my dearest Felicity, did not sell out to Krapt, these people did.

Roger Carr
Chairman

Todd Stitzer
Chief Executive Officer

Andrew Bonfield
Chief Financial Officer

Dr. Wolfgang Berndt
Independent Non-executive Director

Guy Elliott
Senior Independent Non-executive Director

Lord Patten
Independent Non-executive Director

Raymond Viault
Independent Non-executive Director

Baroness Hogg
Independent Non-executive Director

Colin Day
Independent Non-executive Director

... collectively know as the board of directors of Cadbury PLC. Not a single Cadbury among them because, my dear Felicity, at some point in the company's past your ancestors took the company public, trousered a fat load of cash and from that moment it wasn't "your" company any more.

Not that I care anyway as I never eat the vegolate that they produce anyway, unless it's 70% cocoa solids and/or comes from Belgium it doesn't get past the fangs. The only good thing I can think of is the Caramel Bunny who was, to be fair, seriously hot.

But just when it can't get any worse guess which eeeeevil nasty bank helped fund the deal...

Royal Bank of Scotland risked public outrage today over its role in funding Kraft's GBP11.9 billion bid for Cadbury.

Yay! Go Banko Di Haggis! Cue the fathead politicians...

Vince Cable, the Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman, branded involvement by the bank “a scandal” and said: “This is not what a nationalised bank should be doing.”

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, whose Birmingham Perry Barr constituency includes a lot of Cadbury employees, complained to the Chancellor, arguing that RBS should be supporting British business.

Vince, B di H isn't nationalised, we just happen to have UK PLC as a majority shareholder and Mahmood, get down from your minaret and attend to me: The duty of RBS is to it's shareholders, that would be me and the rest of the 50 million fuckers you extort tax from, to pay back our money and they do that by being profitable and funding this little escapade is probably going to go some way to helping that along.

It's not as though Cads were exactly looking after the poor downtrodden British worker as they have in the past closed plants in York, Blackpool and made severe cutbacks in their Bristol operation (can't find the reference but it was on the Beeb's site).

Now, where did I leave that bar of Green and Blacks.