Moving to Freienstein

The move was pending. In no time at all we loaded all our belongings into 25 trucks and drove off towards Freienstein.

I hired a new salesman: Bernhard Hafner. He used to live in Olten and ran a business for solar products. He was also active in the local council. Bernhard wanted a change and immediately moved in with us in Seuzach. In the meantime, there were already five of us living in the small three-room flat. Bernhard had a very winning manner and could give really good speeches. He was good at motivating our team. During the move, he lent a hand. That was exactly the kind of person we needed.

What we had underestimated was that we had to set up a mechanical workshop again and there was an interruption in production and sales for two months. The money was slipping through our fingers. By September 1996, we had finished the provisional mechanical workshop and were able to produce again. To show this to everyone, we held our first open day in Freienstein. That's when the tradition was born to always have an open day on the first Saturday in September. Many visitors came - some even from as far away as Düsseldorf: Mr. and Mrs. Golasch ran a medical supply shop. They had heard about CLASSIC and about us and wanted to distribute our products in Germany. Although we had a lot of contacts and I kept talking to interested parties, we did not sell any vehicles! It had also become increasingly difficult to use the two Solar-Eis: Sorbetto didn't want them anymore and returned them to us properly cleaned. The money continued to slip through our fingers. The account balance was close to zero when an older man walked through the mechanical workshop door: He was Mr. Schürmann and had read about me in the newspaper. Whether I needed money was his question. I answered in the affirmative and we went into my office. He said he didn't have very much time left, he was in a lot of pain. "How much?" I mentioned the sum of CHF 150,000. He closed his eyes for a moment - that was fine. He told me to prepare the loan contract and we agreed on the terms. He wanted to come back two days later to sign. Astonished, I prepared the contract and waited to see if Mr Schürmann would show up again. Right on time, he drove up in his Citroën Xantia and we had a coffee together. He was feeling better today and had brought more time with him. We made one little change to the contact and it was mutually signed. Afterwards he promised me: In a few days I will have the money in my account. I wanted to know more about Mr Schürmann: His first name is Peter, we can be on first name terms now. He was not a very rich person. He had worked all his life. He started as a stonemason - until he had to change his job because of pneumoconiosis. After that he was a gardener, ran a carpenter's workshop, and then worked very successfully as a car salesman. He explained to me how he sold the cars: he always made up his own mind about what was good for the customer. He never tried to talk a prospective buyer into a car that did not meet his wishes and needs. But what he did do very often: He would bring a car to someone in the evening so that they could look at it in detail with their wife and really decide whether the car was the right choice for both of them. Quite simply, he took his customers seriously. This gave him a lot of good contacts and thus more customers. So I learned a lot about sales from Peter. I got a completely new image. Until now, a salesman was someone who tried to sell a customer something he didn't need by using his words. Peter, however, obviously always sold his customers exactly what they wanted and could use in the best possible way. I asked Peter about his opinion of Bernhard Hafner, my current salesman. "Him? That's a greyhound. He wouldn't buy anything from him." Ouch! That was clear and could be an explanation for why our sales figures were faltering. He would join me in sales himself and believed in success, but unfortunately he was too old and in far too much pain.

I also wanted to know why Peter trusted me. Was he not afraid that he would not get his money back? Peter explained: "He has been cheated before, but never by a craftsman in his life. For him, I was a craftsman and there was no question that I would pay him back the money.

I learned as I went along:

• Peter showed me what makes a good salesman
• I needed a new salesman - again....
• Contracts based on trust are the best ones