THE YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR AND THE CHAMPAGNE

Mark Price, former MD of Waitrose, shares his workplace fables – true stories from the business front line that can teach us lessons about career success

Everybody admired the Young Entrepreneur who had taken on all of his bigger, established rivals by selling cut-priced wines. He felt very pleased with himself, too, because he had managed to build a chain of more than two dozen of his Uncorked shops. At Christmas, the Young Entrepreneur had a great idea: he’d sell cut-price champagne and then even more people would flock to his shops. Unfortunately, the Young Entrepreneur had a problem. The top champagne producers refused to sell to him. They didn’t want to devalue their finest products.

“Never mind, I’ll do exactly what’s worked like a charm for me before,” said the Young Entrepreneur. “I’ll buy just one case from elsewhere and advertise that I’ll sell the champagne at ridiculously low prices and everyone will be talking about Uncorked.”

Sure enough, everyone went wild about top-class champagne being sold for just £20 when the press printed huge stories declaring it the bargain of the festive season.

Uncorked sold out of its one case of fine discounted champagne in less than an hour and the many, many customers who ran to the shops fizzing in excitement were sorely disappointed. “We’ve been conned,” they cried. “We’ll shop elsewhere for our wine in future.”

Moral of the tale: You can only fool people for so long.

Mark Price is author of Workplace Fables: 147 True

Life Stories (£10.99, Stour Publishing). To order your copy for £8.99 plus p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books. telegraph.co.uk

Share your Workplace Fables and learn more about Mark’s mission to improve workplace happiness at engaging.works/ideas

Customers who ran to the shops fizzing with excitement were disappointed