A guy starts a new sales job at one of those huge wonder stores that sells pretty much everything and anything under the one roof. The manager sits the new salesman down and tells him that to be a salesman, he has to find out what the customer really needs and suggest solutions for their "problems" - the essence of true salesmanship. The new guys duly takes this on board and sets about his first day of sales.

At the end of the day, the manager reviews the day's takings and is amazed to see that the new salesman has made over £120,000 in sales....to the one customer. The manager goes to the new salesman to find out how he accomplished such a large sale.

The new salesman replies that he took the manager's advice and found out what the customer needed and presented solutions to his problems.

The manager asks how did he achieve such a staggering sale ?

The new salesman replied "Well, I sold him a fishing rod, and suggested that he would need extra hooks and lures in case of mishaps. I then found out that he didn't have a box to carry his fishing gear in, so sold him one of them plus a cooler for his beer and food, which I also sold to him. I asked him about sun protection on the water and found out that he was sun sensitive, so I sold him a hat, sunscreen, and polarised sunglasses. When we talked about the best fishing spots, I found out that he didn't actually have a boat, so I sold him a 20 foot fishing boat, complete with radar, sonar, GPS and communications. He didn't have a trailer to carry the boat, so I sold him one of them, and then when I found out what sort of car he had, we agreed that it wouldn't have enough power to tow everything, so I sold him an SUV."

The manager said "So you sold him all of that simply because he came in to buy a fishing rod ? "

"Well actually" said the new salesman, "he came in to buy some tampons for his wife, and I said that seeing his weekend was well and truly fucked, he might as well go fishing".