Christmas Presents

There aren’t many shopping days left before Christmas now, and I haven’t even started looking for presents yet. I don’t suspect I’ll have a real problem though as I tend to work on a theme. This year I’ll give everyone books. It’s been quite a book year for me having written four. The first of which went for publishing earlier this week after it came back from the editors. Just as well he checked it over, I hadn’t realised how bad my punctuation was. It should hit the book shops next April. As it’s called ‘How NOT to be Property Investor’ I quite fancied April Fool’s Day for a launch, that should be fun. It won’t be my own books I’ll be giving this yuletide though, presents have to be right for the people you’re buying them for. They have to match their personality, that’s the art of giving.

Kids are easy to buy for; they just come straight out and tell you what they want, whereas older folks need some thought. My son has spent two days tromping the stores without any joy looking for the ideal thing for his girlfriend. He’s looking in all the wrong places though because he’s wandering, hoping he’s going to see the right thing. He may well hit lucky but I think he’d do better with an idea in mind first. It’s going to be a tough old time for a lot of people next year. Last weekend I had a few far flung appointments all over Manchester and travelling around I noticed just how many places are closed up and what a real mess areas are starting to look. Sad really because all those boom years in the early part of the century have dwindled away in the last three and what’s more the worst is yet to come. There is still a bit of Christmas cheer around though and the parties start in earnest this weekend. I can’t attend all the events I would like to. I missed two in London last week which I’m still waiting to get the full low down on. Two of my team are going to miss our own celebrations this Friday due to family commitments but that’s just the way it is, we can’t do everything. I’m still toying with Christmas in Morocco as the sun, sand and learning experience would for me be far more inviting than the cold, damp and British TV. Not that I’ve actually got a television yet. Another Christmas in Manchester and I might have no choice. Often what should be the simplest decisions are the hardest to make especially when it involves buying something. I need a new car but can I decide what I want? Maybe it’s just because I’m spoilt for choice, but even knowing what I like can be a problem, finding it is even more troublesome. Then it comes down to price, so it’s know what you want, find what you want, then pay the price you want to pay, not so easy. Several times over the last month I thought I’d found the car for me only to be turned off by the salespeople who quite frankly don’t treat me in a way I would expect when I’m intending on parting with a large amount of money. The buyer is always king and few products really sell themselves these days; you can have a job on your hands even giving some things away for free. We normally buy with our heart and our head follows. When you get bad sales people in a large company complain to head office and you’ll be surprised how quickly those same people will come back to you with a better deal to make up for their poor performance, so you might get what you want at a price you want to pay and teach a salesman how to sell at the same time.

Endeavour to buy logically……..always happy to help.