We both worked for Daikin distributors, both gave it up to work for other manufacturers as technical managers and both ended up in sales director roles.

In quiet periods we reminisce about the glory days of working for giant corporations, the huge salaries, the stress and the day to day dealing with corporate structures and reluctant customers.

The beauty of our position is we can look back at your time and see the humorous side of the roles. As sales directors you push your new products and at every opportunity you big them up (apparently that's young people's speak for telling everyone they are good).

I have spent many a day at press conferences telling people the wonders of the latest new fangled kit to be released.

In these days of the internet anyone can see what is about to be released and what's available in other countries. We as sales directors had to launch these new products months before they were in production. The result was that customers all wanted the latest version of the kit and no one wanted the old one without a discount.

Some of the kit was so far off that we had little to no information to go on, claims of performance etc had to be exaggerated, purchase costs guessed at and features exaggerated beyond belief.

If we had ever got this kit we could have taken on the world.

And of course there was always a prettier, more efficient and cheaper model available exclusively for the outer Mongolian market, which if bought to the UK would allegedly transform the market.

I know I was not alone in this position so would like to propose a new category at the industry awards events -Unavailable Product of the Year.

Products not available could be talked up. We could all get excited, someone would win a prize and the kit would never arrive. It would be the best award of the night!

If you have the power, please make it possible.