Tag Archives: next byte

I miss Vita so much

The exterior of the Vita Place building

It’s March 17, 2023. My last day of employment for the foreseeable future.

While my official record reflects 16-odd years of service, that’s not the whole story. Through various acquisitions and job changes, it’s more like 16 and-a-bit years split up into a few different chapters. From work experience at Next Byte and my first ever retail job, then moving to Brisbane and starting my first corporate role on an IT Service Desk, all the way through to making mistakes and learning even more as an enterprise applications administrator, it’s been a hell of a ride.

Looking back on it now, all I can remember are the good times.

It’s true what they say. As the years coalesce into each other, no one remembers what you did or said in specific scenarios, only how you made them feel. And I feel so, extremely privileged to have been able to work with not just some of the best and brightest, but also, and more importantly, the nicest and kindest people.

In the first few years when I started, when we had quarterly meetings with the rest of IT, and I was exposed to everything else IT was doing — not even the rest of the business, just what we were doing within IT — that made me, just a lowly IT Service Desk lackey at the time, feel like such a small cog in the machine.

And a little later on, after I had a little more experience under my belt, every time I was starting a new project and in a meeting with other people from other departments, I felt so proud to be working alongside those people. Almost none of which I knew all that well, at that early stage — but who all seemed to know what they were talking about. It made me feel like part of a team, knowing that everyone had their own little speciality, and just needed some IT glue to put it all together. The entirety of Vita support was such a small team, occupying maybe 120 seats in total, give or take, but though the power of collaboration and ruthless efficiency, we ended up doing so much over a period of years that I often wonder how much big businesses get anything done with so much overhead.

How does it feel?

It feels strange. To know I’m leaving behind people I’ve worked with for years, just like all the people I’ve worked with in the past that have already left. To know that it’s probably extremely unlikely that I’ll work with those people ever again, or that we’ll never ask each other what’s for lunch, or commiserate over the work that needed to be done, or laugh at whatever crazy thing just happened (again). I feel sad that we’ll never bring up issues to the attention of the group, that we’ll never problem solve together, or collectively come up with some brilliant solution that ends up being the silver bullet to all our problems.

But as they say, all good things come to an end. Maybe not to an end of your choosing, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. The important thing isn’t to be sad that it’s over, but be glad that it happened at all. I’m so grateful for the experiences that I had at Vita, and especially the people that I worked with. I know it’s probably not that healthy to have such a large attachment to your work, but with work occupying such a large portion of your waking hours, I feel as though it’s at least partially justified.

Chances are I’ll never find a place like Vita ever again. Now that I’m a little older and wiser, I wonder if I’ll ever again feel the wonder of what it’s like to know that everyone else is smarter than me, or that I know nothing and they know everything. And because I carry those experiences with me to my next job, I’ll be able to lament the lack of email address consistency at my new gig, question why things are done a certain way, or wonder if the lack of meeting attendance punctuality is a symptom of more deep-rooted problems, or just another example of individually poor time management. Probably a little of column A, a little of column B.

Above all, I miss being close enough to not just the coworkers in my direct team, but those colleagues in other parts of the business that I worked with on a frequent basis. I miss being able to just go and hang out or catch up. Not necessarily to talk about anything work-related, but just shoot the breeze. I realise that this kind of camaraderie can be built up, over time, but the timeline for this sort of thing is years, assuming the people I work with don’t leave during that time. I’ve been at my current workplace for four months, so I’ve still got a long way to go in this regard.

But I miss Vita so much. I miss working in the city, for however a brief period we were there. I miss being the guy that people came to ask questions to, the guy that knew what they were talking about, most of the time, by sheer virtue of being around for so long. I miss knowing how most parts of the business operated. I miss knowing who to go to if I had a problem I needed help with. I miss having that pre-established rapport to know that they would usually be willing to help, be willing to answer a question or two, or even show me how something worked if I had no idea.

I miss Vita so much. But mostly the people I worked with.

A tale of two ratcheting screwdrivers

Two ratcheting screwdrivers

At its peak, the Australian Apple Premium Reseller known as Next Byte had more than 20 stores around the country, and I spent most of my earliest possible employment years at just one: Next Byte Hobart.

Today, the Apple landscape in Australia is a lot different to what it was over a decade ago. Thanks mostly to the iPhone, Apple is the largest company in the world. Apple owned-and-operated retail locations don’t so much compete with general electronics retailers as much as they offer an experience of their own. But as any reseller will tell you, slim profits on Apple products means it’s extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to match Apple when it comes to the unparalleled customer experience that Apple Retail can offer. Any third-party Apple presence is either small enough to fly under the radar, or niche enough to carve out a market of their own. For the rest of us, Apple retail stores in every capital city CBD besides Melbourne, Darwin, and Hobart means out in-person sales and service needs are fulfilled, with any gaps covered by Apple’s online store and mail-in repair programs.

I have plenty of stories from my time at Next Byte. Maybe one day I’ll even write about a few of them, once I’m a little more comfortable the statute of limitations has passed. The one I’m telling you about today is about a really nice screwdriver I used to use, but also about some really nice screwdrivers I now own.

When I was doing iPhone repairs at my first place of employment, Apple mandated using a torque-limited, ESD-safe screwdriver on iPhone screws. I think this Wera 1460 ESD Kraftform Micro was the exact one that we used. It was a really nice screwdriver because it made it impossible to over-tighten the screws used on the iPhones, thus preventing any tool-based damage to the devices, but my managers at the time took every opportunity to remind me how expensive it was if, for whatever reason, it needed to be replaced. Which was fair enough, Apple repair margins were slim enough without having to pay three figures for tools, but it meant that while I wanted one, I could never justify owning one for the handful of times I’d need to use it around the house.

Until now.

Just kidding! We’re talking about ratcheting screwdrivers, remember? That particular Wera torque-limited model wasn’t ratcheting, but I feel as though I would only own one (and the specific bit set that it comes with that can’t be used for any other non-Wera screwdriver) if I was getting serious about repairing devices, which I’m not. So the next best thing is a ratcheting screwdriver, which has more general use cases outside of device repair.

Because work has progressively slowed down as we get into the Christmas and New Year period, I’ve been watching a bunch of YouTube videos. And when you watch ANY tech-related YouTube, you inevitably get recommended the Linus Tech Tips channel. You know the one, all praise the algorithm. Which is fine, LTT videos are fine. They can even be great if you’re looking to build a PC, or see lots of sometimes very-interesting PCs get built. One thing I’ve been noticing is that they’ve been pimping their screwdriver for what seems like years now. And the crazy thing about how marketing works is that when you get repeatedly told about how great something is for long enough, you start thinking about how great it would be to have one of your own, even if you have no real use for it outside of a handful of times per year.

But the truth is I’ve wanted a ratcheting screwdriver for a while now.

Now, the question that you really need to answer about ratcheting screwdrivers is, what does it really give you that you can’t get from a good electric screwdriver, given that you’ll basically pay the same amount? And the answer is that, for the handful of times a year that you might actually use a screwdriver, you don’t have to worry about whether your screwdriver is charged, or worry about having to replace its batteries in however many years because the battery can no longer hold a charge and is borderline useless. Plus, by all accounts those handheld, pencil-shaped, battery-operated screwdrivers have such low torque anyway that they fall exactly into the chasm of suck between “might as well have used a manual screwdriver” and “might as well have used a proper cordless screwdriver”.

But a ratcheting screwdriver? When you’re working with computers, that can come in handy. Being able to use a screwdriver without having to remove and re-insert your bit into the screw, or take your hands off your screwdriver to reposition it, is actually super useful and comes in handy when screwing things in at awkward angles or when a little forwards pressure is needed.

But which one? Obviously, for any purveyor of LTT videos, the LTT screwdriver is the only choice. There’s only one problem: it’s $70 USD ($95 USD including shipping), which seems untenable in this economy. Even if it is undeniably good and purpose-built for working with computers, as you’d expect an LTT screwdriver to be.

So what did I buy instead? Two ratcheting screwdrivers, for less than what the price of what one LTT screwdriver would have set me back.

The TTI ratching screwdriver that I found at my local hardware store is pretty similar to the LTT one. Like the LTT screwdriver, there’s a knurled portion of the screwdriver shaft for when you need more precise rotation, and while it doesn’t have the fancy pop-up bit storage on the back-end, the end cap screws off to reveal a bit storage compartment. Although the 10 included bits are not mounted to the inside of the screwdriver, you can completely remove them and the clip they’re attached to if you prefer a lighter screwdriver. It’s even similarly balanced when the bits are stored in the rear compartment. But the TTI “only” comes with 10 bits instead of 12, and its included bits are less computer focused and more general use, so no hex or square bits. Instead, the TTI comes with Torx bits. The magnet seems strong enough, even if it’s not quite as strong as the LTT one. The TTI also has a satisfyingly loud, industrial-sounding ratcheting mechanism, and I picked it up because it seemed like the best option of the other ratcheting screwdrivers that they had available. Plus, it was comparatively a steal at $40 AUD — not the cheapest one there, but the it was better than the cheaper alternative.

The Wera 816 RA, on the other hand, was more of a luxury purchase at $66 AUD with no included bits. That’s not a huge deal, as I can either use an adapter to use some 4mm precision bits I already have from an older iFixit screwdriver kit, or use the bits that came with the TTI, or even choose to pick up another bit set entirely. But where the TTI is a fairly generic screwdriver, the Wera seems like some thought was put into its design. The handle is contoured, has grippy green rubber sections, and feels nice in the hand. The bit-holding mechanism is exactly the same as the one on the torque-limited ESD-safe screwdriver that I used for iPhone repairs, ensuring that there’s no way the bit is coming out when being used, and the ratcheting mechanism feels more precise and sounds more refined, more engineered, even if both screwdrivers have similar amounts of wobble and play in their mechanisms.

As for which one I prefer, I’m not sure. The Wera seems like it is better for more general PC usage, just because of how compact it is compared to the comparatively large TTI, while still being able to do some of the heavier duties like working on the exteriors of PC cases. But even the Wera is much larger and much heavier than the precision screwdrivers you can get from the likes of iFixit, which I prefer for using on tiny-scale electronics repairs like most consumer electronics, so maybe it really is just a case of using the best tool for the job.

Crazy, I know.

Benny’s Top Tunes

photo showing iPod dock clearance specials and other accessories

At its peak, the Australian Apple Premium Reseller known as Next Byte had more than 20 stores around the country, and I spent most of my earliest possible employment years at just one: Next Byte Hobart.

Today, the Apple landscape in Australia is a lot different to what it was over a decade ago. Thanks mostly to the iPhone, Apple is the largest company in the world. Apple owned-and-operated retail locations don’t so much compete with general electronics retailers as much as they offer an experience of their own. But as any reseller will tell you, slim profits on Apple products means it’s extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to match Apple when it comes to the unparalleled customer experience that Apple Retail can offer. Any third-party Apple presence is either small enough to fly under the radar, or niche enough to carve out a market of their own. For the rest of us, Apple retail stores in every capital city CBD besides Melbourne, Darwin, and Hobart means out in-person sales and service needs are fulfilled, with any gaps covered by Apple’s online store and mail-in repair programs.

I have plenty of stories from my time at Next Byte. Maybe one day I’ll even write about a few of them, once I’m a little more comfortable the statute of limitations has passed. The one I’m telling you about today is about the music we listened to while in the store, but also about the music I listen to.

Background music. Unless there is none, you never really notice it. Which is exactly how good background music works, seamlessly blending into the background of whatever you’re doing, and subtly preventing an eerie silence from descending. If you’ve been to any retail store lately, chances are it’ll be there if you listen for it, but otherwise it’s just providing a little filler noise to create a comfortable atmosphere to do your shopping in.

In the early days at my place of employment, there wasn’t any mandated background music. No specific genres, and certainly no set playlist. That meant we could, more or less, play whatever music we wanted. Provided there was at least some reasoning applied about what was and wasn’t appropriate for the retail setting we were in, we were given total freedom over what we chose to play, and there wasn’t really any limit on what could and couldn’t be played. No death metal and nothing religious, obviously, but pretty much everything else was fair game, or at least was until someone questioned it. After all, it was just background music. It was supposed to be unnoticeable. Maybe not unremarkable, but certainly not outlandish enough to draw attention.

And boy, did we play pretty much everything. There was a lot of pop, which I was completely fine with. But I remember a lot of indie stuff being played, a lot of soft-rock, gentle/casual stuff, and plenty of stuff from Triple J, back when it was good. Even plenty of stuff from local Tassie artists and bands, which I thought was pretty cool. It was sometimes surprising what we got away with, but it turns out that if you play something quietly enough, no one notices. Which is perfect for background music.

Because we were an Apple retailer, an added bonus was that we got to play it on some truly great sound systems. There was the venerable iPod Hi-Fi, of course, which we used an AirPort Express to AirPlay music to. When Sonos systems became a thing, we started using the Sonos Mac app even though it didn’t integrate with iTunes to begin with; I think we started using (the now-defunct) Rdio for that specific reason.

We had plenty of iPod docks as well, none of which I remember the names of now, but the real standouts were always the higher-end docks and speakers from brands with known sound chops. Bowers and Wilkins was the most memorable of these. Even when the store was busy, no one really minded if you turned up a good-sounding dock to drown out everything else for a few moments, if you were doing it for the purposes of demoing it to a prospective buyer. Blasting something, anything, was certain to draw the attention of everyone in the store. Customers and staff alike would have their conversations interrupted momentarily and look up to find the source of the din. But even then, raising the noise level above ambient was fine as long as you didn’t play anything questionable, or turn it up too loud for too long, they realised soon enough that you were just giving a demo to a customer, and went back to what they were doing.

The thing about background music was that no one really wanted to spend too much time on it. Between serving customers, and selling Apple products, background music joined a list of administrative tasks that needed to be done, but wasn’t as important. As much as great background music was entirely unnoticeable, the best background music was the playlist you could cue up at the start of the day and only worry about if it stopped playing, or wasn’t resumed after being paused.

For that reason, we had pre-prepared playlists of retail-appropriate background music ready to go. They contained easy listening tunes we liked. Music that created a chill atmosphere. Remember, all of this predated music streaming, back when people purchased their music off the iTunes store or acquired it through other means. Playlists were a much bigger deal because in those days, you couldn’t just outsource your playlist creation to everyone else or just let the algorithm take the wheel (all praise the mighty algorithm). When we were doing our prep for the day, we’d start a song from one of several playlists, set iTunes to shuffle and repeat all, and that would be it. The best background music was entirely set-and-forget.

But on the days that I worked, I occasionally eschewed the normal playlists in favour of my own. Sometimes my playlists were exclusively newer pop hits or whatever brand-new album I had purchased at the time, and other times they contained my favourite subset of the existing retail playlists mixed in with a few of my pop favourites.

Whether intentional or not, these playlists meant that other staff would hear the same songs, over and over, on the days that I worked. There was nothing wrong with the tracks I had in the playlists, but by some accounts there may have been too few of them. This meant that some songs were played more than once per day. Generally not more than a couple of times per day, but over consecutive days, it became noticeable.

Which is how “Benny’s Top 40” came into being.

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The FaceTime Interview

Sliding glass door entrance to Next Byte Hobart, circa 2008

At its peak, the Australian Apple Premium Reseller called Next Byte had more than 20 stores nationally, and I spent the tail end of my high school and all of my uni-going years at just one: Next Byte Hobart.

Today, the Apple landscape in Australia is a lot different to what it was over a decade ago. Thanks mostly to the iPhone, Apple is now one of the largest companies in the world. Apple owned-and-operated retail locations compete with general electronics retailers, who now sell Apple products more out of obligation rather than any real profit-chasing exercise. But as any reseller will tell you, slim profits on Apple products means it’s extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to match Apple when it comes to the unparalleled customer experience that Apple Retail locations are able to offer. Any third-party Apple presence is either small enough to fly under the radar, or niche enough to carve out a market of their own. For the rest of us, Apple retail stores in every capital city CBD besides Melbourne, Darwin, and Hobart means out in-person sales and service needs are fulfilled, with any gaps covered by Apple’s online store and mail-in repair programs.

I have plenty of stories from my time at Next Byte. Maybe one day I’ll even write about a few of them, once I’m a little more comfortable the statute of limitations has passed. In the interests of becoming a better storyteller, the one I’m going to tell you today is about the time I was went for an interview at my current place of employment. Which, now that I think about it, has happened more than once.

It’s maybe 2012, or thereabouts. I forget the exact year, but can estimate it based on the technology available at the time, and the rough timing of documentation of what would eventually be known as the Learning Academy.

Towards the end of my tenure at Next Byte, my role on Saturdays was to run the Learning Academy, a small-group based education scheme designed to give Apple product owners a leg up learning what their new hardware and software was capable of. The classes offered ranged from macOS/iOS essentials, which offered a just-the-basics introduction to the Mac/iPhone/iPad, to more specific lessons on iPhoto, iWork, and other Apple software.

It was the ideal role for me. I had never been all that interested in being the pushy salesperson type, and by virtue of only working one day a week — we weren’t open on Sundays, a peculiarity for an Apple Premium Reseller located smack-bang in the middle of the CBD of a capital city, but I guess that’s Hobart for you — almost never made enough sales to make the commissions worth it. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I made commissions based on sales. Being the training facilitator meant that I wasn’t “stealing” sales from the other guys who otherwise relied on sales and their commissions to support themselves and their families, while also allowing me to do something I actually cared about1. It was a win-win.

Anyway, although my position and job description didn’t change noticeably, the powers that be still wanted to interview me to see if I was suitable for the role. That was kind of a problem, given that our head office was based in Brisbane, and I was in Hobart. Flying prospective candidates in for interviews seemed like a big ol’ waste of money, so they ended up suggesting FaceTime interviews. Mostly so they had some confidence that the person they picked for the job was able to speak English and knew what they were talking about, I think.

The interview happened during a random weekday that I happened to be working for some reason or another. It wasn’t uncommon for me to work weekdays, either during school holidays or in-between uni semesters, but it happened. We didn’t really have offices with doors, so I found myself sitting at the store manager’s iMac at the back of house, separated from the main sales floor by a wall that was more of a partition, seeing as it didn’t connect with the ceiling and thus allowed sound to carry between the sales floor and back of house easily enough.

I don’t remember much about the actual interview, but I can remember that whoever interviewed me wanted me to talk for a few minutes about something I really like about Macs. I don’t even remember what I talked about, but it was either Spotlight and the many things it could do besides just finding things, or it was about the menu bar, how the menus changed depending on what application had focus at the time, and how it was one of the biggest differences to using a PC. (So-called “switchers” made up a significant portion of our customers, given that the iPhone’s rampant popularity had plenty of people interested in the kinds of computers that Apple made.)

Whatever I talked about, all I remember is acing that interview. Any nerves I had dissipated once I started talking about something I was familiar with, confident in my knowledge of, and knew well enough that I could add in a few phrases that demonstrated how well I could talk to people in a small group setting. I was eloquent, knowledgeable, and presented myself in an approachable, friendly way — in other words, exactly the kind of person they wanted to lead small group training. I might have been a nerdy shut-in the other six days of the week, but holy hell, did I know Spotlight. Or the menu bar. Not difficult topics, to be fair, but still, I get the feeling that the interviewers were impressed with my knowledge and delivery.

You already know I got the job. And, even though they weren’t willing to fly people to Brisbane for that initial interview, they ended up flying all the trainers from Next Bytes all over the country to Brisbane twice in the next two years, both of which I’ve written about previously.

The rest, as they say, is history. I have other Learning Academy stories, and might even recap one of those Brisbane trips one day. But that’s for another time.

  1. Not that I didn’t care about selling Apple products, but too often I felt that it wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing. Obviously, I understood that selling Apple products was part and parcel of working at an Apple Premium Reseller, but I never really felt that I was ever as focused on ever-increasing sales figures and profits as those that ran the store were. Sure, a lot of the time, Apple products sold themselves. But I always hesitated to be the pushy sales person. It just kind of worked out that a lot of the time, I didn’t have to be, and I was extremely grateful for that. ↩

Work Experience, Part II

At its peak, the Australian Apple Premium Reseller called Next Byte had more than 20 stores nationally, and I spent the tail end of my high school and all of my uni-going years at just one: Next Byte Hobart.

Today, the Apple landscape in Australia is a lot different to what it was over a decade ago. Thanks mostly to the iPhone, Apple is now one of the largest companies in the world. Apple owned-and-operated retail locations compete with general electronics retailers, who now sell Apple products more out of obligation rather than any real profit-chasing exercise. But as any reseller will tell you, slim profits on Apple products means it’s extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to match Apple when it comes to the unparalleled customer experience that Apple Retail locations are able to offer. Any third-party Apple presence is either small enough to fly under the radar, or niche enough to carve out a market of their own. For the rest of us, Apple retail stores in every capital city CBD besides Melbourne, Darwin, and Hobart means out in-person sales and service needs are fulfilled, with any gaps covered by Apple’s online store and mail-in repair programs.

I have plenty of stories from my time at Next Byte. Maybe one day I’ll even write about a few of them, once I’m a little more comfortable the statute of limitations has passed. In the interests of becoming a better storyteller, the one I’m going to tell you today is about the time I did work experience at my place of employment.

All up, I spent about seven years at Next Byte. Mostly on a casual basis, working on weekends and school/Uni holidays where I could. By the end of that seven years I had proven myself in basically every aspect of the business; sales consultant, service technician, stock administrator, executive assistant, and Apple educator.

I was a stand-in in the truest sense of the word, capable of performing basically every role besides, perhaps, running the joint. And not that I didn’t want to, but somehow, there was always someone more senior than me who managed to hang onto that responsibility. Which, being as young as I was, was totally fine by me.

It’s sometime in June, 2007.

I’ve been working at Next Byte on a weekends/school holidays basis for about six months now, and everything is great.

The end of the school year is coming up fast. I need to find somewhere to complete a week’s worth of work experience for the Vocational Educational and Training subject I’m taking, and what better place than my current place of employment? Maybe not in retail though, I’ve already done plenty of that. What about service?

One phone call later and it’s all sorted out, and the service team lead (and business manager) couldn’t be happier — he gets a free week of labour from someone who already knows a few things about the business, a few more things about Macs, and I get to tick a box for one of my subjects. It’s win-win.

Technically, it’s the second time I’ve performed work experience at Next Byte. But while that first time was mostly spent out helping out doing whatever boring mundane completely necessary chores mixed with a little customer service, I didn’t get any hands-on time with some of the tools poking around the insides of Macs.

That changed the second time around, with my second go at work experience involving performing light administrative duties, observing repairs, and even a few very basic repairs of my own — all under the careful observation of an actually certified technician, of course. Still, I had a hard time shaking a certain sense of déjà vu as I’m shown the ropes on a different aspect of the business.

The week passes by uneventfully, and at the end, I get a glowing recommendation from the service manager, extolling my incredible work ethic, ability to quickly learn new things, and willingness to give anything a go with a smile.

I like to think I still have some of those skills.

Assertive Confidence

There was this one time, at band camp, when a customer brought in a working Macintosh Classic. We just had to display it next to the mid-2010 (?) iMacs for a few days. Wouldn’t be able to do that an an Apple Store.

At its peak, the Australian Apple Premium Reseller called Next Byte had more than 20 stores nationally, and I spent the tail end of my high school and all of my uni-going years at just one: Next Byte Hobart.

Today, the Apple landscape in Australia is a lot different to what it was a decade ago. Borne off the back of the smartphone era and being one of the biggest companies in the world, we now have more Apple retail stores than we ever had Next Byte stores. In a world of slim profits on Apple hardware and an unparalleled customer experience from the Apple owned-and-operated retail locations that’s extremely difficult if not outright impossible for any reseller to match while maintaining some semblance of profitability, any third-party Apple presence is either small enough to fly under the radar, or niche enough to carve out a market of their own. For the rest of us, Apple retail stores in every capital city CBD besides Melbourne, Darwin, and Hobart means our in-person sales and service needs are fulfilled, with any gaps covered by Apple’s online presence and general electronics resellers. The latter of which are all too eager to carry products from one of the most popular brands in the world; even if that’s not where they’re making the majority money, it’s yet another drawcard in their fiercely competitive deck.

I have plenty of stories from my time at Next Byte. Maybe one day I’ll even write about a few of them, once I’m a little more comfortable the statute of limitations has passed. The one I want to tell today is about some of the stuff I learned while working there, and the confidence that came from some of those experiences.

In every sales role, there’s always some sales-specific training. Whether you’re a sales consultant1, associate, specialist, or whatever title your corporate overlords have decided to bestow upon you, chances are, at some point, you’ll get some training on sales technique. If you’ve been in the role long enough, you might even see significant changes in your organisation’s sales strategy, which usually goes something along the lines of attempting to move as much product as possible regardless of cost, focusing on metrics like conversions, to something that’s a little more nuanced, while still prioritising metrics like average invoice amount that prove you’ve really listened to the customer while selling them as much as possible. Then you’ll definitely have some sales training.

It’s a normal day in 2014. Probably. I mean, I could have made that up, but I think it sounds about right, if I think about the rough timeframe that I think these events occurred in. It was during one of these aforementioned sales training sessions that I learned about closing the sale and handling objections. You know, the business end of the sales conversation that you usually have. The part where you get to find out what, exactly, the customer has a problem with what you’ve sold them on, or perhaps that they’re just not interested in buying today.

This particular training session was big on roleplay, so we were paired off and practiced closing sales and handling objections. For the life of me, I can’t remember what the recommended approach to handling objections was2, but I can tell you that it didn’t match up with my own. If I had spent the last 15-20 minutes talking to a customer about a new MacBook Pro, for example, and they had been extremely non-committal about taking it today, then apparently you’re not supposed to straight-up ask the customer exactly what they’re hesitant about.

I know, right? News to me too.

But as it turns out, asking the customer about their hesitation is frowned upon. At the time, I didn’t really get it, and the people delivering the sales training were incredulous, mixed with curiosity: why would you directly ask a customer about their trepidations, instead of backing down, accepting their uncertainty, handing them a business card, and letting them go about their business?

As I explained, I thought that if you had determined that they were in the market for whatever they wanted to buy, answered all of their questions, assuaged their fears and concerns, and otherwise completely performed the full sales process, you had some right to know why they weren’t willing to take it then and there. I said that if you had done your job as a sales consultant, listening to their needs and wants, then pairing each of those up with a solution, then why couldn’t you know why they didn’t want to take it home today? It’s not as if that simple question removed their right to give you a perfectly valid reason in return, in which case yes, I would absolutely give them a piece of paper with my name on it, and then let them get on with the rest of their day.

And sure, I get that people have their own reasons for not wanting to drop a few thousand on a new Mac, especially at the drop of a hat. But if, during our sales interaction in the time they were in the store, I had correctly worked out that they were in the market, and was confident enough that I had done everything in my power, and given them all them all the information they needed to be more sure about their own decision, then I would have thought I have some ground to stand on when asking them about their reasons for not whipping out the plastic.

I think I remember the trainers agreeing with me. Perhaps somewhat begrudgingly, but agreeing nonetheless.

I like to think it was this same assertive confidence that let me approach every customer with aplomb. Safe in the knowledge that I would be able to handle every interaction, even if it were slightly technical or needed me to quickly demo some great new feature that was the best thing since sliced bread. I knew that as a fresh teenager and/or awkward unit student, even if I didn’t have the interpersonal skills needed to to quickly secure some kind of rapport within the first five seconds of our interaction, I would be able to nail any kind of product-question they threw my way.

I knew that sometimes, all it took was a enthusiastic attitude and a slight grin to connect with the customer in those first crucial seconds. But knowing when to ask about a customer’s objections? Knowing when to push and how? Now that’s assertive confidence.

  1. Bonus round: given that a lot of my employment at Next Byte was on a casual basis, I took great pride in putting Casual Sales Consultant in my email signature. Not only did it serve as a useful indicator to customers that I wasn’t a full-time employee, on the rare occasions I would email them, but a part of me liked the play on words. Was I a sales consultant employed on a casual basis, like many would think, or a consultant of casual sales? I liked to think the latter, even though the former was probably closer to the truth. ↩
  2. Ugh, this is going to bug me now. I know it. ↩