EXPEDITION - Stappert Spezial-Stahl Handel GmbH

8
Expedition – the reports
The snaps world champions
Two men in a chair: Artur Lehmann
took his winning photograph on
the beach in Bergen aan Zee in
the Netherlands.
Herdsman,
horse breeder
and hazelnut
dealer: his
uncle from
Turkey is one
of Selcuk
Büyükakman's
funniest relatives.
“Now speak Swabian to me!”
That good salesmen have to be capable of more than simply knowing their goods like the back
of their hand becomes apparent almost every day at the Stappert sales office in Ulm. Anyone
wishing to successfully sell their products here has to do the same as Martin Luther and “speak
to the people in their own language” ...
“Hend-Se nedd noh äbbes anderschts?”
Anyone born in Swabia
will immediately answer this question
with “Of course we have
something else!”. In Swabian of
course. Anyone who has moved to
the region, however, breaks out in
a sweat when confronted with the
local dialect. Especially if he or
she moved here just two years
ago from North Rhine-Westphalia.
And so sales office manager
Marko Müller had to capitulate
when a customer insisted that he
reply in the Swabian dialect. Fortunately
the “man from the north”
is assisted by a competent and
very dedicated team which not
only has profound technical
knowledge at its disposal, but is
also excellently acquainted with
the regional dialect. This is very
popular in Swabia amongst all
classes of society and is considered
polite in day-to-day business.
Because in comparison, anyone
using standard German is considered
to be “conceited”.
Charm ... and
dark red wine.
Gisela Wittmer
was happy to
find both served
on a silver tray
in Premantura/
Croatia.
Inner-Swabian “Border
Crosser”
The requirements placed on the
salesmen and women in the south
of Germany are somewhat unusual.
A total of seven male and female
employees and one apprentice
handle the Swabian-Bavarian
“borderland” from the twin towns
of Ulm and Neu-Ulm. Ulm is on
the western side of the Danube
and belongs to Baden-Württemberg.
Neu-Ulm is located on the
Thank you very much for the large number of photographs
you submitted, which made our e-mail account
much more colourful than usual for some time. “Who
will be the holiday world champion of 2006?” we
asked you in the summer – and requested that you
send us your most original holiday snapshot with the
enclosed yellow T-shirt. Many of you accepted the
challenge, packed the T-shirt into your suitcases and
took a large number of attractive photographs –
making our selection extremely difficult!
Finally, however, we did manage to find three worthy
winners: first place goes to Artur Lehmann from Miki-
Plastik GmbH in Mannheim. For his tongue-in-cheek
contribution he receives a voucher for a three-day stay
in a wellness hotel for two. Second place was won by
Selcuk Büyükakman of Willi Stober GmbH & Co. KG,
with third place going to Gisela Wittmer from the firm
Flow-service in Hamburg. Both receive a voucher for
two nights at a hotel for two people. We wish all three
“holiday snaps world champions” an enjoyable short
holiday!
opposite bank and forms part of
Bavaria. The young team with an
average age of 31 deals with a
clientele that is as diverse as the
landscape from which it comes.
From the Swabian Alb through the
Lake Constance region to Allgäu, all