By community correspondent, Eleanor Roberts.

I now know that this closed question is not the way to approach a customer thanks to my experience recently at a Marketing evening hosted by John Lewis in Kingston. As part of a Young Enterprise group at Surbiton High School we were invited to take part along with other schools within Kingston Borough including, Tiffin Girls and Boys Schools, Kingston Grammar School and the Hollyfield School.

Young Enterprise is a nationally recognised scheme where sixth form students set up a business selling either a product or a service with the aim of making a profit and going further in the national competition.

On arrival at John Lewis, we were led up to a boardroom where we were given an introduction to the evening and split up into smaller groups to begin the first of two workshops. Firstly, we were given the task of writing down as many attributes needed when working as a sales assistant. Drawing on our own retail experiences, both good and bad, we included words such as 'friendly, cooperative, approachable' and so on. We were then given a bag containing an object. One member of our group then had to retrieve the object from the bag, in this case a water bottle and sell it to the rest of the group in such a way that would persuade us to buy it. As she had never laid eyes on the object before, she found it quite difficult to feel passionate enough about it to sell it on. The lesson learned of course, is that having a good selling technique should enable you to sell any item without having to love it.

Our next task was about presentation. We were given a table and some props to arrange in such a way that they would look attractive to the customer, therefore, persuading them to buy. Our group, were given t-shirts and knitwear, all of which looked fairly delicate and very hard to present! Nevertheless we took a number of hangers and colour coordinated the sweaters. We all agreed that where this type of clothing is concerned, it would be beneficial to sales if the salesperson was wearing the items, encouraging the customer to buy.

Finally, it was time the part we'd all be waiting for, a guided tour around John Lewis! The sales assistant who led us explained how imperative it was that the objects for sale are presented in the right way, I had no idea just how much thought and preparation went into it all! For example, chocolates may be placed next to biscuits on a gift stall which will lead to increased sales of both as people will pick up both on impulse.

Overall, I found the whole experience very worthwhile. For Young Enterprise, our group, Vibe, has decided to manufacture and sell hair accessories and as with the majority of products, it is always a great advantage to learn good selling and presenting techniques from those who do it for a living!

On 28th November, we will get the opportunity of putting in to practice some of the things we learnt. It is the Surbiton High School Christmas Fair and the first sales event for Vibe. Our stall will be professionally presented with all of us keen to practice those selling skills! I think we have been very fortunate to have had this opportunity to receive business and marketing experience from John Lewis who are renowned for their high standards of customer service and shop keeping.