Sunday, 18 January 2026

The University of the Third Age meeting report

Twenty Amusing Years in Sales and Marketing

Speaker: Tim Forman

The guest speaker at the u3a Todmorden Members Meeting on the 18th of January 2026 was Tim Forman who presented 'Twenty Amusing Years in Sales and Marketing'.

Tim qualified as a teacher in 1982 but subsequently began his sales career with Endsleigh Insurance. He gave his first talk about today's subject in 1992 and passed on a tip to any budding public speaker, perhaps mainly men. This was ABC and XYZ; ABC – always be clear, and XYZ – examine your zip; to ensure the audience isn't distracted. Tim will kindly donate his speaker fee to his favourite Charity – 'Candlelighters' for children with cancer in Yorkshire.

In a very early part of his career, part of his wage was something called 'subsistence allowance' – which was twenty new pence per day. After some time, this allowance ceased, but Tim didn't know why it was there in the first place. His then boss explained that the allowance was to buy cigarettes, to offer to customers who were thinking of taking out life insurance and were smokers. He described this as a 'self-fulfilling prophecy'.

Tim's presentation was by no means solely about insurance and money. He recounted something told by his brother, who was an RAF jet fighter pilot. Police officers were carrying out speed checks on a road, and a reading indicated that one car was travelling at over three hundred miles an hour. The officers were confident that this was some sort of error, and their device was examined. Somehow, the police found that this reading was from a jet plane with a Dutch pilot in control. The pilot realised that his aircraft systems had locked on to something and would automatically send a missile to the source – in this case the speed gun – but was quick enough to cancel the launch. At the same time, it disabled the device held by the police officer.

He went on to describe marketing - the strategic process of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings (products, services, ideas) that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society.

One of his early jobs was for Ensley Insurance. Tim had gone through some training with the company and was then sent out to get some sales. After one of his pitches to sell life insurance, a customer wanted the policy and wanted to invest £20.00 a month. But Tim was only allowed to sell products up to half that figure. He told the customer this and, within a day, had his 'limit' increased, and made the sale. He described being hooked on selling – the exhilaration was unexplainable. Another, more important, thing was that many people – particularly widows - needed and used the payments after their loss of the main breadwinner. Tim told us about a couple who took out another life policy year after year, but there was one year they didn't. He asked them why, and the reply was that they fell out with the salesman on that occasion.

He told us about one of his many visits, this one being on the Brandsholme Estate in Hull. The visit was quite late in the day, a 7pm appointment at the client's house. Tim had worked hard up to then, and it was raining heavily. He considered not attending, this was a time well before mobile phones came about and he could go another day and apologise. But he remembered a mantra drummed into salesmen in their training…One More Call… so he went to the client's house. Entering a cul-de-sac, he noticed that every house in it was in darkness – except the one he was going to. In front of the house were two cars – one burnt out and the other on bricks. Two inner voices came into his head – one saying 'go home, go home..' and the other 'one more call, one more call..'

He knocked on the door and heard a very loud 'woof!!' coming from inside the house - just what he didn't want. The door opened and the lady of the house was holding an Alsatian dog, whose head was level with her middle. She invited Tim in, and showed him into the lounge where the gentleman of the house was sat in a chair eating his tea and watching the television. The man had his back to Tim, but didn't react to Tim's greeting. This man never spoke in the exchange that followed. Tim recalled the man was eating egg and chips while watching Coronation Street and smoking a cigarette. While going through the policy with his wife, Tim noted that her husband followed the same order of his meal, TV and cigarette. Egg, chips, cup of tea, corrie; Egg, chips, cup of tea, corrie: Egg, chips, cup of tea, corrie.. In time, after more dog restraining and their six feet plus tall son had been sent outside to keep an eye on Tim's car, it was time for Mr. to sign the form for the policy to take effect. He did this without looking at the form itself, after Tim strategically placed it on the chair arm. Just one of Tim's many stories about financial matters.

He went on to say that anybody these days starting a career in any form of financial services would not face a customer for, on average, a year.

Moving on to the Marketing side of his career, Tim asked the audience if they recognised any names or titles of companies from a few words. We recognised the 'Black Horse' being connected with Lloyds Bank and 'put a tiger in your tank' with Esso. He said the last time the Esso strapline would have been used in an advert was around sixty three years ago now. He continued to describe more well-known brands, advertisement and mistakes from companies in our lifetimes.

A proportion of our members clearly recalled how Gerald Ratner described the quality of jewellery that he sold just using one word – that led to his company collapsing. Ratner had inherited the business from his father in 1984, and in the next six years transformed it into a multi-million business, but in 1991 used the unfortunate term. But, said Tim, Mr Ratner is now a government advisor. Tim described a number of wrong decisions by other well known companies that suffered, or even went out of business.

But Tim led us through the some of the firms that became famous, and still familiar to us because of good decisions, particularly due to the images and messages that we could still remember from years ago – British Gas advising us to 'Tell Sid' about their service and efficiency, JR Hartley finding his own name in 'Yellow Pages', a Gorilla pounding the drums to Phil Collins' hit 'In the Air Tonight' for Cadburys chocolate and that people 'couldn't believe that this was a Skoda'

Tim was working for Legal and General Insurance when, one year, the company made an offer to their customers. A free umbrella for any policy taken out from £100 to £200 in the following financial year. A hugely successful campaign.

Tim ended his presentation with advice for anyone thinking of a career in selling: If you don't listen to what the customer wants, you will never understand the customer's needs.

Not yet a member? We're always delighted to welcome new members. Contact details: website at www.u3atod.org.uk or email at info@u3atod.org.uk.

Many thanks to Colin Sanson for this report

 

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