The First Meeting
The next morning I went down to the dining room for breakfast. News of my arrival had clearly spread to the other staff members and I was delighted to be approached by a couple of guys eating breakfast, who asked if I wanted to join them. I was glad of the company and to finally be able to meet some of my colleagues. Jack and Ryan had only been out in Bansko a few weeks themselves and so were still finding their feet and we had a good chat about Bansko and the job over breakfast. They offered me a lift to the meeting, which I gladly accepted.
At 10:15am we set off for the office. All the staff were driving large people carriers/minibuses in various forms and I was told that this was because at weekends, they may have 3 or 4 couples to show around at the same time. Bansko was the place to buy property is seemed, which tallied up with what we had been told during the training.
We arrived at the offices and I was introduced to some of the local admin staff, who were lovely. We then all traipsed into the meeting room, sat down and waited for Richard, the manager. I knew that Bansko was a busy area, so I was surprised to see that were so few of us. Some banter flowed around the room and I was informally introduced to the rest of the team by Jack and Ryan.
The meeting was due to start at 10:30am. At 11am there was still no sign of the manager, Richard.
"He always does this," Nigel, one of the team said. "It's a power thing. He's always at least 30 minutes late."
I was shocked. What kind of manager always turns up at least 30 minutes late to meetings? Having already met Richard, I wasn't overly surprised, but still - surely he couldn't really behave this way at every meeting? Being late is one of my pet hates. It's rude and disrespectful to the person or people who are waiting for you and says a lot about somebody's character in my book. I hoped that I was wrong, otherwise I wasn't going to enjoy having Richard as my manager.
You Should be Grateful
At 11:10am Richard finally arrived, with Klaus in tow. He sauntered in, not bothering to apologise for keeping everyone waiting. Not a good sign. The meeting started and Richard welcomed me to the team quickly. He then went on to talk about the last sales figures and how the team were expected to do. He then launched into a speech about how privileged we all were to be working for MRI, but in particular to have been sent to Bansko. He told us that if any us wanted to and were good enough we could become a Director of the company and that we should all be grateful to Darragh MacAnthony for giving us this amazing chance. During this speech, Richard paced up and down the room like a caged tiger.
I didn't know what to think. I had been in many sales meetings in many companies and had never experienced anything like it. The ability to motivate a team is a great asset in a manager and is imperative in the world of sales. However, this wasn't a motivational speech. It was more of a "you'd better be grateful* that you're lucky enough to be working for MRI and if you're not good enough or grateful enough you'll be out on your ear" speech. It was at this stage that I really wondered what on earth I was letting myself in for and started to doubt whether I could work in such an environment. I looked around to try and gauge the reactions of my colleagues. What I saw was reassuring. They all looked slightly bored and had clearly heard the speech before and were just letting it wash over them. Nigel was almost sniggering! I was relieved. If the rest of the team weren't taking his spiel seriously then there was still hope.
* as an aside, the theme of being grateful to be honoured enough to be working for MRI arose time and time again during my time there.
Visiting Directors never failed to mention it and it was used both as a motivational tool and also as a threat. In fact, after I resigned, Darragh MacAnthony's response was "fuck her. Stupid, ungrateful bitch". Again, I was supposed to feel gratitude to this company for just taking me on - never mind that I was Outstanding Sales Person of the Year and had earned the company almost €4 million in profit . I was supposed to be grateful. Even after they stopped me the commission I was earning I was still supposed to be grateful.
After Richard had finally finished pontificating, it was down to business. The next stage of the meeting was assigning the "files". The file contained all the client information - names, address, what kind of property they were interested in, whether it was investment or personal use and also their budget. Those files with the higher budget were given to the staff who had been there the longest, or Richard's favourites.
Richard read all the files out and then gave them to each of the sales staff to whom they had been assigned. During the reading of each file, Richard would comment and if the budget was large, would tell the person he was giving it to, how many properties he expected that couple to buy.
The information contained in the files was written by the Exhibition Staff. For those not familiar with MRI's Modus Operandi, this is how it worked:
MRI's Modus Operandi
MRI ran overseas property exhibitions in the UK. These were advertised in the local press and proved very popular - it seemed that everybody in the UK was overcome by property fever at the time and buying abroad was the next big thing, as property prices in the UK had increased so much. Although MRI didn't advertise the Exhibitions under false pretences as such, neither were they completely honest. Elsewhere in the UK Overseas Property Exhibitions were also being run. Indeed I had attended one about France myself at Earls Court before joining MRI. The difference is, that at other Exhibitions, there were many companies exhibiting, not just one. So many people were surprised to find, when they arrived at the Exhibitions, that every single property on show was being sold by one company only - MRI. Again, I reiterate that there was nothing illegal about this. However, if you're a proud company and confident in the products that you're selling, why not be honest from the start? Why not advertise MRI's Overseas Property Exhibition instead of enticing visitors under false pretences? Although the majority of my clients did buy property and were happy to do so off MRI, even they felt a little as though they had been misled by the advertising in the local press. Plus of course, there were all the people who didn't book an Inspection Trip and simply walked out of the Exhibition once they knew that it was being organised and run by just one company.
Once at the Exhibition, it was the Exhibition staff's job to get as many people on Inspection Trips as possible. They would receive commission based both on this and also on any properties that were sold to the client. Inspection Trips were usually free for the client and if they could get people booked there and then at the Exhibition, all the better. The Exhibition staff would then compile the "file", a copy of which the overseas sales staff would then receive in their respective countries.
The MRI Files
I soon learnt to take the information contained in these "files" with more than a pinch of salt. As a new member of staff, I was always given the files with the lowest budgets initially. This didn't bother me in the slightest, as after just a couple of files, I soon realised that the information contained in them was generally way off the mark.
Imagine the situation. You've attended an Overseas Property Exhibition. You may well have travelled some distance in order to do so. You arrive only to discover that it's only one company exhibiting. You are approached by (sometimes very pushy) sales people and decide to attend an Inspection Trip. You are asked about your budget. How many people in that situation tell the truth? From all the files/clients in the 18 months I worked for MRI, in my experience, not many. People either completely overstated their budget (pretended they had more money they really did), or understated their budget as they didn't want to be pressurised into spending more than they wanted. Most people fell into the latter category. So, when I was given files that said they had a budget of €20k (on face value, not a very good file with such a low budget), I completely ignored what was written and simply looked at the names. Only by talking to the client in person would I really be able to understand what it was the client wanted and how much they wanted to spend.
Some of the Exhibition staff were renowned for the nonsense they wrote in the files. Most of us dreaded getting these files, as the client would often complain about the pushiness of the sales person at the Exhibition and it was necessary to start apologising right from the very start for the actions of somebody else. Plus you knew that if what they had written in the file was nonsense, then there was a good chance that they hadn't been completely honest with the client either. The most common lie that Exhibition staff told clients was that the transfer time from Sofia airport to Bansko was "around 1 hour". It wasn't. This was an outright lie. When I first moved to Bansko, the transfer time was around 3 hours - much longer if it was peak time when leaving the airport. This did reduce dramatically to around 2 hours by the time I left Bansko, thanks to the fantastic road building and repair programme that they had in place, but it was certainly not an hour and never would be. It drove me crazy. It's pretty hard to build trust with a client, when the have been blatantly lied to by another member of staff, in order to get them on the plane. The managers and Directors at Head Office were certainly aware of the transfer times, so I can only assume that it was MRI policy for Exhibition staff to give the false transfer time.
Other Exhibition staff were brilliant and were open and honest with the client. These files were great and I loved getting files from certain Exhibition staff members, as I could see that they shared the same kind of ethos when it came to sales as I did. This meant that the client would arrive well informed and with the correct expectations. Not only that, but the budget was usually spot on. This is because the client trusted the member of staff in the first place and so were happy to state the correct budget. If only all sales people realised that behaving in a non-salesy way and actually caring about and listening to the client resulted in a better outcome for everybody, then sales wouldn't have the reputation it does....
But I digress! Back to the meeting. So all the files were read out and allocated accordingly and the meeting finished.
I was sent to register for a vehicle and was told that I'd be shadowing Jackie for the next few days in order to learn the ropes and find out where the developments were. Finally, I felt as though I was going to be doing something useful. Plus Jackie had been incredibly friendly and I was looking forward to heading out and about with her.
