Short Story Competition #3 Winning Entry

Written by Nichola Vaughan
Gloucestershire UK

PROMOTION

She stared sternly at her reflection in the mirror.

"How hard can it be?" she reprimanded herself. "It's what you do. Sell the product. Come on girl. If anyone can do it you can."

She looked away. If she couldn't convince herself then how on earth was she going to convince others? Persuade complete strangers that what she was offering was worth having. That is it was the missing component in their lives? That they'd be mad to pass up the opportunity she was offering them?

To do that you needed to have faith in the product and she wasn't sure that she did.
Failing that the key was to identify it's strengths and focus on those. Find, as they said in all the management-speak seminars she had attended throughout her career as a merchandiser, the "USP". That was all very well but what if there wasn't a unique selling point?

She sighed. What was the point - Unique Selling or otherwise?

"Stop this" she said firmly to herself. The only way to do this was to it logically and sensibly. Start at the beginning. Evaluate the product calmly and rationally. Look at it through clear eyes and with an open mind. Decide on the best features are and concentrate on them. Ignore the rest. It's sales. It's promotion. It's highlighting the pros and letting the cons be discovered later on.

"What about the packaging" she asked herself. Taking a long look she sighed. Perhaps it was a little dated. A little worn around the edges but all things considered it had a certain appeal. The colours were a little faded, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a bit of time and effort, but overall it was certainly acceptable.

She smiled faintly. Now she was making progress. It wasn't an impossible task. Difficult maybe, but certainly not impossible.

"So after what it looks like, its time for what it has to offer" she said to herself sighing heavily.

What did it have to offer?

Reliability. Yes it was definitely reliable.

And it was multi-functional. There was no question about that. And adaptable. Sturdy too. No apparent signs of damage. No real cracks showing - although if you looked closely enough the creases were beginning to appear. But her target market would expect that. It would be unrealistic of them if they were expecting flawless. That was impossible.

So she had her list. Relatively pleasing to the eye, adaptable, sturdy and in good working order.

Not exactly a list to set the world on fire with.

She toyed briefly with "daring, dazzling and dynamic". She shook her head. She might be a good saleswomen but even she knew when she was pushing her luck. In her line of work you could fool some of the people some of the time. But that wouldn't fool any of the people any of the time. Good as she was, even she couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. She would just have to the best with what she had.

She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smoothed down her skirt.

Taking a deep breath she opened the door and walked into the crowded room. A stick-thin twenty-something blonde beauty trotted towards her beaming broadly with hand outstretched.

"Hello" the blonde trilled brightly "Is this your first time at speed dating …….."

© Nichola Vaughan 2006

Linghams Booksellers Wirral UK

ABOUT LINGHAMS BOOKSELLERS

Linghams Booksellers have two bookshops on Wirral, one in Heswall and one in West Kirby, both also stocking top quality early learning materials, children's toys, sheet music and musical accessories. Their staff are knowledgeable and have their own specialities within the shops enabling them to give you advice whatever your requirements.

Linghams have up to a dozen author events each year with local and national authors talking about their books, and signing copies. With competitive prices and worldwide postage - why not give the Linghams website a visit - you won't be disappointed!

Maybe you enjoy entering competitions or are you even ‘Comping Crazy’ - if so check out www.britabevis.co.uk