On the other hand, travelling via a roundabout will either bring you back where you started or make you very dizzy.

Sometimes I exaggerate, I know.

But not this time. This is totally true.

A lady phoned me and starting talking about beds and mattresses and how I could have a discount on them if I just filled in a questionnaire first.

She rambled on and on, not allowing me to say a word until suddenly she said, "Have you or your partner suffered from a bad back or other conditions like that in the last five years?"

I said, "I tell you what, I'll tell you my medical conditions if you'll tell me yours first."

And she put the phone down.

I suspect that maybe she was trying to sell me a new bed or a new mattress - or maybe even a new partner - but it was all in a roundabout way.

And that fascinated me because sometimes people tell me that my selling is very roundabout and it would be far better to get straight to the point.

But like so much in the social world, that notion might be right on occasion, and it might be wrong on occasion.

There is no rule. Best to try everything.

I go round and round in these little snippets from the Toppled Bollard and sometimes I know I never get to the point at all, and yet some people, when we get a-chatting on the phone quote me back things I have said, as in “I really liked the one about…”

Sometimes they even buy stuff.

People are different, and thus customers are different, and just as I was saying yesterday, schools are different.

Selling isn’t one size fits all.

Although I can’t help feeling that cold-calling in relation to beds and mattresses is not necessarily the best thing to do. Or maybe she was trying to sell me pills for whatever ailment I confessed to. I never really found out.