Archive for the ‘part-time business’ Category

Network Marketers tend to have a compulsion to give out cards: Leave a paper trail, they say. In my company there was a fad for giving out 50 a day – I think it was dreamed up by a printer.

You might as well give them out as not. Just don’t expect much in the way of results. What we need to do is talk to people – although of course giving out cards is a great way of finding people to talk to – particularly if you have an interesting card. In my company they’re shaped like pigs which is definitely interesting and people tend to say: “What’s this?”

Which means it’s not very polite if we don’t tell them.

However this is where we run up against a bit of difficulty: After our wonderful 60 second explanation, the prospect can say: “OK, I’ll have a look and get back to you.”

They can do that because they’ve got your card – which means they have all the information they need but you have no means of following-up – and as we know, the fortune’s in the follow-up.

Yesterday one of my team came all the way from the Midlands for a day’s training (and for readers in Texas which is nearly three times the size of the entire UK, I should add that over here 100 miles is a really long way). He was asking how do you get the information you need for the follow up.

Let me recount a conversation that took place on my doorstep this morning.

Dramatis Personae: Network Marketer; Delivery Man

DM: Parcel for you. Sign here.

NW: What’s this. Ah, it’s for my wife. Feels like clothes. More clothes!

DM: Tell me about it.

NW signs

NW: I don’t think we’ve met before. Have you delivered here before?

DM: No it’s a new route for me.

NM: Oh well then, you haven’t heard my intriguing question. Would you like me to ask you my intriguing question?

DM: What’s that?

NM: If there was a way you could earn more money without it affecting what you do at the moment, would you be interested?

DM: More money? Certainly would.

NM: OK, I’m afraid I don’t have time to tell you about it now but if you like I could send you some information by text. You just listen to a recorded message. Would you like to hear that? Have you got hands free in the cab?

DM: Yes.

NM: OK what’s your mobile number?

DM did not know his own mobile number. Had to go to the van to get it.

NM: That’s great. Now if you find the recording interesting, you might want to look at the website so if you like I could email you a link. Would you like me to do that?

DM: Yes please.

NM: OK, what’s your email address.

DM did know this.

NM: That’s great. Do you live round here by the way? [yes] Because we have a monthly opportunity meeting. If you give me your postcode, I can send you a text to invite you.

DM gives his postcode.

NM: Terrific. Now if you make a point of listening to the recording and reviewing the website tonight and then download the information pack they will tell you almost all you need to know. That will just leave me to tell you how much you get paid and how quickly. We can do that tomorrow morning, what’s the best time for you?

DM: Any time is good. I’ll be on the van.

NM: that’s great. I look forward to talking to you tomorrow.

CURTAIN

The dog has an appointment. I don’t know why I never thought of this before but the dog is a a better Network Marketer than I am. Here’s how it happened:

I needed to go to the bank. I needed to get my glasses tightened up so they would stop falling down my nose. I needed to get another appointment and the dog needed a walk.

It might just be possible, went the reasoning, to combine all of these disparate activities into one trip to town – after all, I could tie the dog to a drainpipe while I did my half an hour of prize draw to get my appointment. One appointment, you will remember, is the expectation from half an hour – two if you’re lucky.

So we went to the bank and the optician and we were just heading for the drainpipe when the dog spotted a kindred spirit – nearly dragging me off balance as I juggled my planner, my pen, my prize draw forms and my script in readiness for going to work.

The two dogs did what dogs do and the man on the end of the other lead looked at me with that exasperated smile common to dog-owners the world over.

It was while all this was going on that I realised I had a golden opportunity. “Tell you what,” I said brightly. “Since we’re stuck here, I’ve got something you might like. It’s a free prize draw. You could win a car or £10,000. We just put your name into a hat and if your name comes out, you win the car. And if you win one, I win one too.”

He said that sounded good and we filled in the form. I asked the four questions on the bottom of it. We read through the script together and, in four minutes start-to-finish, I had an appointment for tomorrow afternooon.

Now tell me: Would I have got that appointment without the dog? Why didn’t I think of this before? Obviously the dog did not get tied to the drainpipe after all. Instead she stood patiently beside me as I told a dozen people they could win a car or £10,000.
Then a cheerful-looking woman in late middle age turned up: “Oo, aren’t you lovely. Helloooo…”

This to the dog of course…

The dog backed away to the full extent of her lead. The cheerful woman held her ground, hand out,  fingers twitching. What she said, as far as I remember was: “Choo-choo. Who’s a lovely…come on say hello…”

The dog, who is a sucker for this sort of thing, advanced cautiously and allowed herself to be stroked.

“There you are,” I said to our new friend. “Clearly she likes you. You must be a dog person. What kind have you got?”

- Sadly no dog now. Just a cat. What’s she called?”

“Meg.”

So we talked dogs and cats for a minute or two until I said: “Tell you what, I’ve got something here you might like. It’s a free prize draw…”

And we went through the same procedure as the man who did have a dog – and we made an appointment – with a proviso: “But only if you bring Meg.”

So next Thursday Meg and I will go to visit the cheerful lady and her cat. Two appointments inside 15 minutes: I decided to roll with this.

For the next 15 minutes, instead of saying to people: “Here you are, you can win a car…” I said: “Here you are, you can win  a dog…”

I believe that the amount of interest I received more than doubled. Of course, I had to explain: “Not really… you don’t win the dog. But you could win a car or £10,000…”

And sure enough it wasn’t long before I got my third appointment. That was three appointments in half an hour (see below). No callbacks, nobody saying they didn’t want me to tell them what it was about – just three appointments over the next week.

I don’t know how pleased Meg is about it though – now that her morning walk is going to be down to the car park instead of along the river or through the woods.

But still, she is getting a cat to chase…

+++ The last Cold-Market Academy will take place on May 1st  – see tab above for details +++

Every town has its rough area: Furniture in the front gardens, cars on bricks – you know the kind of thing – and when you hear someone lives on that street, you know what to expect.

The trouble is you might not know the name of the street next to it which is almost as bad – and as soon as I turned the corner for my appointment yesterday, I groaned. Quite honestly, if this person wanted to join, I was going to have to make some excuse. In fact it was a relief when it turned out they weren’t home (why would I expect anything else).

So now I had an hour to spare and no new customer. Guess what I did?

Absolutely: Down to the car park with my prize draw forms. It was a grey day, a little chilly and 2.30 in the afternoon: Not ideal. In fact as I stood there and waited in vain for a passer-by (any passer-by), I wondered if I would do better just to go home and start again on the “No-for-Now” list.

But the wonderful thing about the Prize Draw is that it will always work – anywhere, anytime, any place because it relies not on the weather, not on the time of day, not even on me. It is driven by something that is unstoppable and immutable: The Law of Averages.

You can see what happened below: After eight minutes, the 21st person stopped and agreed to go in for the draw. I asked my questions. The answered “No” to every one of them.

I should explain that the questions are so worded that only the most awkward or stupid person would answer “No”. But then the Law of Averages demands that awkward and stupid people be heard.

Another seven minutes went by and another 19 people walked past without stopping. But the 20th did. She was a pleasant woman in her 50s. She gave the right answers. She gave me an appointment for next Tuesday and when I gave her my appointment slip, she asked: “Why don’t you give me your surname – you know mine.”

So I wrote that down too, adding that I didn’t usually because I didn’t want people calling me “Mr Passmore”. As soon as she saw the name, she asked if I was a member of the sailing club and the next few minutes were spent discussing boats (or as network marketers would say “building rapport”)

The next 18 people were not interested but number 19, a woman of retirement age wants me to call her when she gets back from holiday on May 13th. Personally I would like to put it down as another appointment because it felt that certain. However, technically speaking, it’s just a call-back and a lot can happen in three weeks.

Still, it just goes to show what you can do with a No-Show

+++ The last Cold-Market Academy will take place on May 1st  – see tab above for details +++

Three things happened this week that can teach us all we need to know about Network Marketing.

First of all I would like you to read an extract from an email sent to me by one of my team. This is a woman who has teenage children, a husband and a part-time job. She’s busy. But she joined me because she was determined to have a secure and comfortable future for her family. She told me this several times. She got started, she overcame the early obstacles. She promised me she would never give up – and indeed she didn’t.

So finally I decided that this woman was going to be be the one to build her leg of my business. Obviously it made sense for me to help her. So I sent her an email suggesting a home meeting – that if she would like to get some friends round, I would come and present our opportunity to them. What follows is a small section of her reply: “I would love to volunteer to be someone you work closely with to get to the leadership level in 3 years but I am too nervous to invite people to a home group meeting so maybe I am the wrong person for you to ask. I need to think of another way to get a quick start with distributors.”

I didn’t reply to this because I didn’t know how to. There’s no point in bullying people but I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be critical. I wanted to say: “If you knew you would make £50,000 from inviting people for a home meeting, would you do it?” but I had used that one to get people to our annual convention. I suppose I was just plain non-plussed at the idea that someone could start a Multi-Level Marketing business and then baulk at the idea of inviting people round for a coffee to look at it. Is she ashamed of it or something?

And then I was invited to a Leadership Meeting by the top distributor in our company. This is a man who knows more about this business than anyone I have ever met. It brings him an income that would make your eyes water and now he sees it as his mission to help as many people as he can to achieve the same (oh, all right it won’t do him any harm either but that’s Network Marketing for you!)

Anyway he showed us a Youtube clip which I would like you to watch before you go any further. Just copy and paste the link and then come back and read on. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ&feature=youtu.be.

Isn’t that great? Do you think the leader was nervous? Or the first follower? No, they were too busy having fun to be nervous – or was it that they were so determined to have fun that they overcame their nervousness? We don’t know. But what we do know is that the people who followed them did not join in right at the beginning – so what was the reason for that? Was it nervousness? And did they overcome it?

The point is that in this business you do have to stand out from the crowd. If you’re not different, why would anyone stop doing what they’re doing and start doing what you’re doing?

Which means that sometimes we have to do something we don’t want to do in order to get what we want to have.

And it just so happened that there was a piece in The Times which illustrated this to perfection. It was by Matthew Syed, the author of the fabulous book “Bounce”.  He had interviewed Andy Murray about facing Novak Djokovic in the final of the U.S. Open in September 2012. After gaining a two-set lead, Murray had slid back to two sets all and it was looking as though the young man who had come so close to a grand slam title so many times was going to let another one slip through his fingers. He was beginning to believe what people had started to say about him – that he was another British player who just wasn’t quite good enough.

Then, during a rest break, Murray went into the changing room and looked at his face in the mirror. The face that looked back at him was haggard and drawn – not the face of a winner.

Suddenly he found himself doing something he had never done before. He gave himself a pep talk.

“You are not going to lose this match,” he said to himself. “You are NOT going to lose this match.

As he explained to Syed: “I started out a little tentative, but my voice got louder . ‘You are not going to let this one slip. You are NOT going to let this slip. This is your time…’.”

And when he walked out onto the court again it was with his head up and confidence in his stride. In short, he looked like a winner.

And guess what he became?

So what will my nervous distributor do? Will she give herself a pep talk? Will she square her shoulders and ring up her friends and say: “You know my part-time business? Well I’m expanding it and I’ve picked out just a few people to help me take it to the next level – and guess what, you’re one of them! There’s money in it and you’ll have a lot of fun. Come round on Thursday at seven and I’ll show you what it’s all about. If it turns out to be for you, that’s great. If not, that’s fine too – but I think you’ll love it!”

Do you think the average person could read that over the phone to a friend and survive? I mean, would they be struck down dead or would the world stop turning? In fact would it be anything like as bad as dancing appallingly badly in front of a crowd of total strangers?

Probably not,

In fact what might happen is that some people would turn up and of those, some would join – even if it was out of curiosity.

… and one way or another, the momentum would begin.

+++ STOP PRESS: THE LAST COLD-MARKET ACADEMY TRAINING SESSION FOR DISTRIBUTORS WITH MY COMPANY: MAY 1ST – SEE TAB ABOVE+++

We’re moving house. It’s been very sudden: We just saw something we liked better.

So on Friday our house went on the estate agent’s website. It looked so good I immediately wanted to buy it – the trouble is, so did a lot of other people. Suddenly I had bookings with potential buyers stacking up through the diary – and Tamsin was out all morning.

Why was this a problem? Well, when the photographer came to take the stunning pictures, we carefully moved all the piles of clothes and books and toys round behind the camera. Now it all had to be put away – and all in a single morning…

It was then that I discovered the truth of the phrase “You don’t get into Network Marketing until Network Marketing gets into you”.

The first thing I did was to call my Clarinet teacher and put off my lesson – after all, is one missed lesson going to make any difference if my Grade 6 exam isn’t even booked yet?

Then I decided not to go down to the town with my Prize Draw forms – after all I don’t do that absolutely every day. So Friday could be one of those days when I don’t do it…

And then I thought about putting off my calls – and stopped dead. Suddenly I thought of all the people in the business who say it doesn’t work – who are making no money at all – and I remembered how they’ve been really busy – their mother has been ill, they have a child off school, there’s trouble at work, the dog’s been sick, the screen door came off its hinges…they’re moving house…

… and I knew I couldn’t miss my calls.

You see, in Multi-Level Marketing, as in life, if you do the right thing and you keep on doing the right thing, you get what you want in the end – and if you’ve been doing the right thing for long enough then one day you won’t have to wait for what you want.

So I turned up my list, grabbed the phone and promised myself: “I’ll just make six calls as fast as I can.”

In fact I made ten. It took about 25 minutes and I made two appointments.

Now I can’t prove any connection but after the calls were made and the house was tidy (and Tamsin came home and tidied it again) the first potential buyer walked through my (pristine) office, out onto the terrace and stood there looking at the view.

What he said was: “Wow…”

It’s too cold.

We’ve just had the coldest March day for 25 years – the daffodils should be out, for heaven’s sake…we should be taking walks in the country with “just a light pashmina…”

Instead of which the news tells me that half the country is spinning its wheels in the grip of the “white hell”.

Which is why I had an email yesterday telling me to keep up the good work on the blog and that the writer would get out there with his prize draw forms as soon as the weather warmed up. He found, he said, that people don’t want to stop when it’s cold.

… and I suppose they don’t want to stop when it’s raining either… or when they’re in a hurry… or they’ve left their pigs trotters in the library…

The fact is that – just as with any other aspect of Network Marketing – there are no excuses.

To prove the point I picked up my forms and headed off to the corner of the car park and the very first person stopped.

… well, actually he didn’t stop. He said: “No thanks”.

But that is just an excuse. I know this – and so I said: “Which charity would you give the money to if you won.”

He stopped. He thought for a long time and finally settled on “Cancer Research”.

“That’s fine,” I said, leaning backwards as we learn on the Cold-Market Academy and writing “Cancer Research” on the form. “Who shall I say it’s from?”

And we filled in the rest of the form. We got chatting and it turns out that he is more interested in the opportunity than the services. Also he’s staying with friends this week so he’s going to watch the DVD with them and I’m calling him at 10.00 a.m. this morning.

The next person to stop gave me an appointment for Tuesday next week – and the last person was somebody from the Premier Crew.

The Premier Crew is our wine-tasting club. Actually it’s is more an excuse for a drink with friends than any serious education. For the sake of form, we all get clip boards and pencils to write out comments but after the first couple of “hints of gooseberry” and “long metallic finishes” everyone tends to give up and just have a good time.

Lucie  had hosted the last evening and now she stopped to ask if I knew about the next one – and come to think of it, I have nothing in my diary.

Something else that had been in my diary had been a date to go round and explain to Lucie how she could build up a residual income to get her children through university (they are only at primary school but we had been talking about the prospect over the Sauvignon Blanc). However one of my colleagues died suddenly and I had to postpone our meeting to go the funeral – and then it transpired that I had made a mistake in writing down her phone number. So in the end I dropped something through her door.

“Ah yes,” she said. “But I’m working now. I really don’t have the time for anything else.”

This too, is an excuse. Here’s what you say to it: “Tell me, in your average day, do you think you could find one-and-a-half seconds?”

- One-and-a-half seconds? Of course I could.

“And in your average day, does anyone ever moan to you about the recession and the cost of living?

- Well of course they do – all the lime!

“So you would have time to say to them: ‘I could probably help you with that’. It takes one and-and-a-half seconds if you speak slowly. This means you have the time to earn yourself enough money to put your children through University.

“Now I do admit that if somebody’s interested, you will have to sit down with them for an hour. But ask yourself, would it be worth it? You see if it turns out you can help them with their problem, you get paid up to £50 – which is not bad for an hour’s work. But more importantly, you then get paid every month – £5 if they’re an average household – and £5 a month is £60 a year. Now if you went to Barclays Bank and asked for an income of £60 a year, they would point you to a deposit account paying 3% and invite you to deposit £2,000.

“So your hour is now worth £2,050. Do you see how that works?”

And now she’s watching the DVD and I have to call her this morning.

In fact, as you will see from the statistics below, it was a very good day – even if it was freezing…

This is where we began.

One of the leaders in my team called me the other day and asked if I would teach his son to talk to people in the street. Young Sam had left university and discovered that he was not the only one looking for a job. So after hanging around at a loose end at home for a few months he finally agreed to his father’s insistence that he become a distributor – at least then he would have a job… even if it was one he gave himself.

The trouble was that all his family were already customers (his Dad had seen to that). So he was left with the prospect of talking to strangers – which is my speciality.

We met at the corner of the car park as arranged – but the first thing to do was take him for a coffee and convince him that this was going to work. Also I had to teach him the script. It’s only 45 words for heaven’s sake but you’d be astonished how long it takes some people to learn it – about 45 minutes is the average.

But of course Sam has spent the last 15 years learning everything from Boyles Law to the order of Shakespeare’s plays. He has a brain like a sponge. He mastered it at the third attempt.

So we stepped out onto the pavement. “Watch me,” I said – and went into the routine.

The first person said “No thank you” the second made an excuse – the third was in a hurry…

I could see Sam out of the corner of my eye. I could read his thoughts: “This is daft. This doesn’t work. There’s no way I’m doing this…”

But I had a great advantage over Sam. I knew that I had the Law of Averages on my side – and sure enough the twelfth person stopped and went in for my prize draw … and gave me an appointment. I could see he was impressed.

So then it was his turn. He held up his form, he recited the script – and I walked past him again and again playing the part of little old ladies, brisk young businessmen, mothers with toddlers, retired colonels (I rather enjoy this bit).

Sam was brilliant. With a bit of cajoling, he started to speak up, we managed to get him to smile and talk at the same time…

Then we tried it on other people. After ten minutes (with a little bit of help) he got himself an appointment for Monday. But what I found really exciting was that he was then so full of confidence that he started again all by himself and somebody else stopped for him.

Now, I have to admit that the second person did not give him an appointment – but that is neither here nor there. The fact is that, of his own volition, with no prompting for me, he had asked her to enter his prize draw and she did. The rest – as Sam already knows – is just a matter of  doing it – and doing it again and again.

I think we were both rather pleased with the morning’s work.

It was only later when I got home that I realised I had devoted something like 90 minutes to teaching one person the secret to a successful Network Marketing business. It was hardly an efficient use of my time.

… and, of course, that is how the Cold-Market Academy started.Which means there really is a call for it.

So I am pleased to announce that the next seminar will be in Ipswich on April 10th. To find out more and to book, click here.

If you have been following developments you will know that February came to an end rather too soon – I had been away for a week – there were only 28 days anyway and I needed one more customer to meet my target for the month. So I went out into the street with my prize draw forms and got myself two appointments for the very last day – the 28th: One in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Network Marketers who are graduates of The Cold-Market Academy will know that we always assume half our appointments will be cancelled or postponed – and sure enough the first one rang to say that she was just too busy and would I ring her in a couple of weeks.

This meant two things: It was now really important that the second one signed – and I had nothing to do in the morning.

Also, you will know that the engine behind the Cold-Market Academy is the Law of Averages – and while such natural laws cannot be manipulated, I believe their outcome can be influenced.

Of course it is possible there is a professor of mathematics reading this  who will shoot me down in flames. But I firmly believe that the best way of getting a “yes” in the afternoon is to get as many “No’s” as you can in the morning. There is, of course,  not a shred of scientific evidence to support this.

But I’ve got something more important: I believe it – and there is plenty of evidence to show that we tend to get what we believe in.

As you can see below, I spent 41 minutes asking 83 people if they wanted to enter my prize draw. All but six of them said “No” – and those six said “No” to an appointment – and even “No” to a callback. This made me feel very smug indeed. It was just what I wanted.

So what did I get when I went to see my appointment afterwards?

“Yes” of course!

There are only two things you can rely on in Network Marketing: Yourself and the Law of Averages.

This has come home to me with a vengeance this week. You may have noticed – indeed some people have commented:  I appeared to have abandoned my prize draw in the street – the system I used to advocate in The Cold-Market Academy.

The fact is that I had become captivated by the idea of getting referrals – a new distributor has popped up in our network and he’s an expert in the art of asking for referrals – and, of course, if you get ten referrals from every customer, you will never need to stand in the street with a Prize Draw form again, will you?

Well, that was the theory – and in theory it was great. But like all theories, it can suffer in practice. For one thing, I found that some people found my new technique “pushy”.  Now this may just be me and the way I did it but the fact is they rang up a few days later and cancelled – worse still they cancelled their referrals. Even if they didn’t cancel, I had to rely on them to ring the referrals and get permission for me to call – and of course some of them didn’t.

It all came to a head on Tuesday when I called to see a referral from November who had finally agreed to meet me – and it turned out that he had gone to Bangkok instead!

He had been a sure thing. I was counting on him. I needed him to meet my target for the month – and there were only two days of the month left (isn’t February short – especially if you take a week off to go skiing with a bunch of fellow distributors).

What was I to do? I fell back on the only two things I know I can rely on: Myself and the Law of Averages. And so yesterday and today I was out with my Prize Draw forms at the corner of the car park – and to my great relief I found that it still works.  You can see the statistics below. But what I found really interesting was the effect of my urgency on the Law of Averages: I needed one more customer by the end of the month. As if responding to that need, in the first six minutes I got two appointments. It was if the Law of Averages was trying to win me back. On top of this, one of the callbacks has already turned into another appointment.

Quite honestly I think that this is the only thing that works all the time. You can build a list of all the people you know but maybe they’ll refuse to join just because they do know you – in which case they also know that you’re brand new to it. You can get ten referrals from every customer – but you don’t get that unless you have a customer to start with.

I believe in the Cold Market because there are no variables – no anomalies. You ask a certain number of people to look at your business and a certain percentage of them will. There is nothing anybody can do to alter that – which means that you have something you can rely on.

And that’s all anybody needs to succeed in Multi-Level Marketing.

If you’re a distributor with my company, check the Cold Market Academy tab over the next week. I think it’s time to open it up again.

If you’re with another MLM business, you can always buy the book…

It’s time to write about Bob.

Bob was my room-mate on the company skiing holiday and he became something of a celebrity.

For a start there was his name: “Bob”.  There can be no doubt that Bob is a funny name: Think of Rowan Atkinson saying “Bob”. Think of Bob the Builder: Can you imagine a children’s book about Quentin the Builder or Alexander the Builder? Bob is just one of those names that make you smile.

When I booked the holiday they gave me the option of paying a single-room supplement but suggested it was quite likely that the hotel wouldn’t be full so I would get a room to myself anyway.

I didn’t. Instead I got Bob.

I suppose they put us together because they thought we were both old men. I am not an old man. I just have a face that is falling off and no hair. It seems that Bob was was thinking along the same lines: Every morning before he set off for the slopes he spent ten minutes strapping himself together with Velcro in case bits of him should fall off with the exertion. At night he manhandled a disgusting contraption into his mouth to stop himself snoring.

It worked a treat except on the Monday night when either he forgot it or it fell out and I spent the night wondering about the protocol of thumping somebody I hadn’t been properly introduced to but who happened to be obliviously asleep a mere 18 inches away while making the window frames rattle.

It was this business of not being properly introduced that was the problem. Because he was in my bedroom (I did consider it my bedroom), I kind of assumed that he was a distributor with the same Network Marketing company – after all, who else could he be? The only other people in the hotel were a party of very serious and athletic types from the Ski Club of Great Britain who set off for the mountain top before the rest of us were properly awake and certainly didn’t need any holding together with Velcro.

In fact it was two days before I embarked on a conversation which clearly left him mystified so that suddenly I looked hard into his face and demanded: “You are a distributor aren’t you?”

“A what?” he said.

Now this would have been the perfect moment to explain what we do – to give him a brief overview of Multi-Level Marketing, show him how it could pay for as many ski holidays as he could manage…

There were two reasons why I didn’t take the opportunity. One was that I was in my underwear – admittedly this was very stylish black Peter Storm Merino wool base layer skiing underwear – but underwear all the same and not designed for business presentations. Second, for the past three days I had been reading a book about prospecting which purported to teach me to bring up the subject of my opportunity in a subtle, natural way which, of course, meant I didn’t bring it up at all.

It was later that day that I became acquainted with the following facts: Bob was in the same ski group as one of my MLM colleagues. She lived within three miles of him. He would very much benefit from the services we offer. He promised to call her as soon as he got home.

So I suppose there are two lessons to learn from this:

1. If in doubt blurt it out.

2. Always pay the single-room supplement.