How I learned French

We had a complete sales team in German-speaking Switzerland, but it didn't really work out with the French salesperson. Since neither Lukas, Tina from the office nor I spoke French, we looked for a French salesperson who also spoke German. We found Jean-Claude Moy, a former manager who wanted to work a little after his retirement. He was very amiable, extremely charming, able to communicate with us in German as well as with the prospective French buyers in their mother tongue. He had a wealth of experience when it came to selling and was ready for any situation - only something was wrong: he didn't sell anything! One day he told me that he had tried long enough to sell our vehicles and that he just didn't want to succeed. He was giving up and already had a replacement for him: Marc Klauser. Marc used to be a photographer and had then sold processing equipment for Kodak. Marc was a very good salesman with one drawback: he didn't speak a word of German.
We arranged to meet at a trade fair in Bern. I had a stand there and a potential buyer came to the appointment with Marc. The interested person had cerebral palsy and was hardly able to speak. A person with cerebral palsy cannot fully coordinate his muscles. If he was not fully concentrating on something, he would lash out wildly and uncontrollably. He could also hurt himself or others. I had trouble concentrating on Marc and the prospect at the same time. Since the interested person with his uncontrolled movements demanded more of my attention, I occupied myself with him. I quickly realized that behind his somewhat special appearance was an alert mind. So I put him on a vehicle. We went through the service, and he repeated everything in his mumbling and difficult to understand language. We talked with everything at our disposal: speech, paper pencil, hands, feet, all objects lying around were included in the communication. Then came the test drive, during which I first accompanied him and then let him drive freely. In the end, I had a completely satisfied prospective customer who later also bought a vehicle from us and became very happy with it. After about two hours - that's how long the whole demonstration had lasted - I turned back to Marc. I asked him in German if he would be able to do it. " Quoi? Je ne parle pas l'allemand. Est-ce que vous parle français?" Marc asked. I replied : "Non - mais : Est-ce que vous êtes intéressé à vendre des véhicules pour nous ?" "Oui !" "Est-ce que vous pouvez faire ça comme moi ? " "Oui, je pense ça va. "" Et, est-ce que vous apprenez l'allemand?" "No! Ça ne va pas.... ! Mais, j'ai une idée : Vous apprenez le français et moi, je vends des véhicules pour vous en suisse romande ! " We looked into each other's eyes. Marc meant this seriously, as did everything he said, as I was to know later. We shook hands and I had my French salesman. There was only one problem left: I had to learn French. If only my former French teacher had known that. She rated me as "has and is making an effort", a difficult case. But now there was no way out. Marc was a patient teacher. He was my co-worker, so he had to understand me. If he didn't, he asked until we found a common consensus. That's how I really learned to express myself in French a little better, and Marc sold the vehicles for us in French-speaking Switzerland very successfully for many years.

I learned in the process:

• Sometimes you have to go beyond your limits to succeed
• Learning a new language broadens your horizons