Would You Like Chips With That? - Hoodman

Did goe to a sales training course today and was greatley amused. Not that I do not find the daily round of consultations here in the shop a wondrous and nourishing experience, but it was an opportunity to learn new sales techniques and skills. I was particularly taken with the plan that involved perfecting the Vulcan sleeper hold and then using a portable vacuum cleaner to clean out all the customer's small change.


Apart from this the presenter pointed out that a well-known chain of roadside restaurants has made a fortune, if not a career, out of a simple phrase that they teach to their staff " Would you like fries with that?" I hope our North American readers will not be miffed if I tell them that local Australian parlance for these potato derivatives is "chips", rather than "fries" and there were heated arguments over a number of restaurant counters about the terminology. Here, what you know as French fries are called chips and what you know as chips are called crisps. Blame the English.

Well, anyway, when the restauranteurs invented that phrase they played to people's desire for complete happiness - subtly suggesting that while the hamburger might be supplied, it wouldn't be complete without the fries. Clever.

In our turn we are going to add the phrase to our camera sales but in our case there is a better logic. If you buy a new digital camera from us these days, hardly any ( read none) of the manufacturers supply a memory card with it - a card with a chip in it. You have to buy your own. Hence we will start asking whether you want chips with your sensor. Unlike the restaurant people we can be assured that if you don't get chips with it you won't be eating the camera - you'll have to come back in again for them.

IF you are the sort of good person who uses a camera with the big card slot -the CF card - and if your camera is young enough not to be coated with moss, then Hoodman have some amazing cards for you. These are the Steel 1000X we are always on about - 150 Mb/sec reading and 120 Mb/sec writing make for the fastest combo yet from this company. They have a lifetime warranty and are steel-clad for mechanical integrity as well as electronic safety. Nothing small about them - 16, 32 and 64 GB cards in stock right now.

I am mostly a diner at home, and have not been to many of the local roadside eateries. Is there another firm that has evolved a similar approach? And what do they ask?