Dialogue: I'll just think it, others can do it

By ROANNE PARKER

I've never been a scholar, and I'm sure that comes as no surprise to you. My mother has told me she's often tempted to take to my columns with a red pen to correct my grammar. I tried to explain that I try to write in a chatty style, to write as I speak, if you will. She remains unconvinced but I'm sure that's what an editor is for anyway.

I have started a degree and thrown in the towel three times in three different cities. Actually, four times if you count the law degree twice, but the second time I only got as far as being accepted. I think at the time it was enough for me to know that I was at least bright enough to pass the acceptance process.

Each time, life itself has lured me away from the hallowed halls of learning. I have to say, though, that the last time I decided to give away the study, I was running the marketing department for a rather large national company and raising children who were aged 3, 5 and 7, so it was a case of being sensible and realistic. While they are two of my least favourite words, I can be both if I really have to.

I am a great one for rushing off half-cocked because everything always seems more interesting in the theoretical stage than the doing.

I love it when life presents one exciting challenge after another, and I love it even more if I don't have to stop and finish the last one before I move on to the next.

I am at my happiest when I'm allowed to come up with scheme after scheme and not be expected to follow through with any of them. It's my favourite form of relaxation.

And I'm so lucky my best friend is just like me. We can sit for hours inventing new and better ways to do pretty much anything you can name.

Some of these ideas have done well out in the big, bad business world, and I just know there are a dozen more I could do now if I just had a dozen of me to get on with it.

Hmm. No, that's not strictly true. What I really need is a person to wander around behind me, taking notes, drawing flow charts and doing feasibility studies as we go. That's an aspect that would be particularly helpful because my brain tells me that if I can think it, then it's feasible, so let's get on with it.

I exhaust myself at times. I have thought that it would help if I could go through my daily life with horse blinkers and a squint.

This might help to keep my eyes on the task at hand rather than the horizon. It might mean I can get a good sleep at night rather than lie awake thinking how much more money the local pharmacy would make if it stayed open until 6.30 pm and changed its paintwork.

I might be able to think of a nice juicy topic for my next column instead of composing a snappy new name for the plumbing company whose van I am waiting behind at the red light.

I wonder if other people are like me. I wonder if dentists go through life suppressing the urge to accost people in the street and urge them to try bleaching.

I am sure if I were a bricklayer I would be evangelically knocking on doors suggesting that a bit of tuck-pointing would help that tired old fence.

I really do feel like I can help nearly any business there is, and I really do mean well, but I am also aware that it's socially unacceptable to thrust yourself at strangers and tell them you know their stuff better than they do.

Knowledge of your subject goes a long way, but enthusiasm for the task at hand is the most endearing quality there is.

I love a great salesperson. Show me that you love your product and I'm much more likely to love it, too. I might not buy it but I promise that I'll notice how hard you tried.

Marketing with passion isn't new, despite what Kevin Roberts would have us believe. I have a clear memory of the Electrolux man in our living room when I was about 12 getting all of us to have a turn with his flash new vacuum cleaner.

"Feel the suction," he enthused, each time one of us had the hose in hand. "Can you feel that suction?"

I could feel the suction all right, but I could feel his enthusiasm even more.

Do I need a degree to succeed? I'm not sure, but I have to get one some day and I'll let you know if it changes my life.

In the meantime, I'll keep ranting about the gut-instinct living that I love, and if my grammar is a bit off occasionally, it's just because my words trip over themselves with enthusiasm.