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Archive for the ‘networking breakfast’ Category

What can you do to further your business on Christmas Day?
Well, it didn’t look like a lot. By the time the children had unpacked their stockings and we’d breakfasted off the biggest pannetonne in the world (it must have been two feet high by two across – half price from M&S) it was time for the Christmas morning walk.
This involved saying “Merry Christmas” to everyone we met – but that was hardly a conversation likely to lead in the direction of: “Are you in the market for more time, more money or possibly both?”
So we came home and started eating again – and we didn’t rise from the table until late afternoon – just in time to start on the presents under the tree.
That left just time to spend a jolly hour wrestling my son’s new time trial bars onto his bike before filling two bin liners with old wrapping paper.
And it’s now late in the evening, the older children are watching their new DVD and I have wandered into the office for the first time today and began jotting down a preliminary list of goals for 2012.
One of them is a “Clutter-Free Office.”
And when you set a new goal, it’s a good idea to do something towards it immediately. It doesn’t have to be anything big or dramatic. But it does have to be immediate.
So I took the letter from the overflowing pile in the basket on the desk and dealt with it.
The letter was from the Suffolk Constabulary (… nearly gave me heart failure when I opened it!) In order to maintain my status as a community volunteer – occasionally I man the community speed gun – I needed to update my details. Had I acquired a criminal record in the last 12 months… or begun to associate with known criminals?
… or been charged with a motoring offence?
And this is how my speeding conviction came to light – which is not good news for a speed gun volunteer.
But it did give me the opportunity – just before I sealed the envelope – to reach out and pop in a recruiting leaflet in along with the completed questionnaire.
Police officers make darned good distributors. Everyone knows that…

This is Chris Williams’ guide to Goal Setting. An absolute must for anyone who wants to achieve their dreams. Chris designed my company’s Goal Setting course and I go on it three times a year.

It was a road trip. In fact this was a spectacular road trip. From my home near Ipswich in Suffolk, I had volunteered to address a breakfast meeting in Swaffham in Norfolk – a distance of some 71 miles before 8.00 a.m. From there I drove to Sheffield for a team meeting with a distributor who had been inactive for a while because of family difficulties but who was now keen to get started again. Then it was on to Birmingham for the Opportunity Meeting – and then home. A round-trip of 426 miles and it involved the A17.

The A17 made it seem longer. I don’t know if you know this dead straight and depressing stretch of tarmac. It starts in Kings Lynn and tramps endlessly across the fens through places with names like Fosdyke and Swineshead and Stragglethorpe until it fetches up at Newark in Nottinghamshire. In fact that’s only 63 miles. It just seems like forever. The landscape is nothing but vast fields and sky, there don’t seem to be any bends and since it is single-carriageway, there is nothing to do but pootle along at 50 miles and hour looking at the back of a lorry.

In fact the only reason for mentioning the A17 at all is so I can introduce you to the girl in the filling station. I can’t even tell you her name because – to my shame – I didn’t ask. I was that fed up and in a hurry that I just pushed a card at her and hit the road again… not at all your successful network marketer.

But the conversation was a gem – particularly because I didn’t even start it.

She said: “Going anywhere nice?”

- Sheffield. Is Sheffield nice?

“I don’t know. I’ve never been. I’ve been to Newark and Leicester and Switzerland and Notts.”

Switzerland? How did Switzerland get in there? Was it down a B road south of East Heckington?

But she pulled me out of my gloom – especially when she smiled.

“You’re cheerful,” I said.

And then, like an actor who has been given his cue, I blurted out: “I’m always looking for cheerful people. They can make some really good money. Are you in the market for extra money?”

And that was how I came to give her the card. The whole exchange had taken no more than a minute before I headed off to Kirby La Thorpe and Coddington.

The last I saw of her, she was looking at the card as if it was a missing fragment from the Lost Scrolls.

“Cool,” was what she said.

I’m just back from my company’s big autumn convention. On the last evening there is a reception for the speakers during which everyone kisses everyone else and there is much back-slapping and mutual congratulation.
Last year I was new to the stage and flattered to be asked – obviously I was not going to miss the celebration. I joined in for half an hour or so and then decided I had a long drive ahead of me and had better get going.
But as I walked out of the door a voice inside my head told me: “Are you an idiot? Don’t you realise every single one of the most successful distributors in your business is in that room… and you’re walking out!”
I went back in and proceeded to talk to every one of those leaders and soak up as much knowledge as I could hold.
Of course it was the right decision. It didn’t matter what time I got home – if I could associate with successful people, I was going to do all the associating I could.
Well this year I was in the same room but this time I was one of those successful distributors – and I was very conscious that people were coming up to me to see what knowledge they could soak up… what success would rub off…
And, almost without thinking about it, I began to exude knowledge.
There is one thing that came out almost without any thought and here it is:
Your “No for Now” list is more valuable than the list you start out with.
Here’s how to get the best from it:
Continually work the list. Call everyone in strict rotation every six months or every year. If they say “No” again, just say: “That’s fine. Maybe another time.”
Most will agree to that (they think they’re getting off the hook).
You are thinking: “That’s great, they just gave me permission to keep them on the list.”
If they say “No”, it’s: “That’s great, I don’t have to clutter up my list with people who don’t want to know.”
But after three years -… or four years… or ten years, people will say: “Are you still doing that thing?”
- Absolutely. It’s great.
“Does it work, then?”
- Certainly does. It pays for the shopping/the mortgage/holidays.
Then they will say: “Do you think we should join?”
What do you think?
Meanwhile just to show you that life goes on, today I was sorting out the pile of books in the downstairs cloakroom when I came across a collection of receipts addressed to our builder – he had been fixing the roof last week.
But no, he said he wasn’t missing any receipts – and now I came to look, I realised they were dated 2008 (is that when I last sorted out the shelf?)
But I had noticed the size of his bill for his mobile phone: “I could save you 75% on what your’re paying now,” I told him.
I had his attention (builders use their phones a lot).
So now he’s coming round tomorrow morning.
As a sort of quid-pro-quo, I’ve promised to pay for the roof…

I’m getting really lazy because, hot on the heals of just copy and pasting an email straight into the blog, I’m going to do it again.
Here’s the background: I met a small businessman at a networking breakfast. He came and did some work for me and I showed him the benefits of being a distributor (it would work splendidly alongside his business).
He joined up. But then, almost immediately, he told me his doctor had advised him not to take on anything new. He had high cholesterol and was in danger of a heart attack. So he resigned his new position and went back to working long hours for himself.
Then on Friday I met him at another breakfast and noticed he sat down to a plate of fried egg, sausage, bacon, fried potatoes and heaven knows what else from the banned side of his diet sheet.
“What would your doctor say about that?” I asked him as I cut up an apple to go on my muesli (yes, all right, I can be insufferable!)
He told me it was only his first Full English of the year.
I didn’t say it but I thought: “For heavens sake! We’re still in the first half of February!”
I thought about him a good deal over the weekend. He’s overweight, has high cholesterol and works regular 14-16 hour days. I weighed up the consequences of being a busybody against the possibility that I might just be able to save his life.
This is the emaill I just sent him (with key omissions to save his blushes):

Since we sat next to each other at breakfast on Friday – you with your Full English and me with my Continental, I’ve been thinking a good deal about the talk we had when you came to visit me last year.
Here’s the note I made at the time:

21/11/10: Signed as distributor then his doctor said don’t take on anything else.. Try in six months

Please tell me to mind my own business if you feel I’m interfering but I would like to say that to succeed in anything – whether it be running a successful business or becoming healthy, you have to give it your full attention.

I know all about this because as a company trainer, it is my business to introduce new distributors to the concept of personal development. Most people, when they first join, don’t even know what I’m talking about. They just think they’ve joined to get rich. But you can’t get rich unless you first become the sort of person who deserves to be rich.

And that’s where personal development comes in: The books, the CDs we play in our cars – the whole concept that to have more, you have first to become more.

So to begin with, we have to instil in new distributors the importance of self-discipline. After all, there will be no boss to ensure they show up for work every day. That is something they will have to do for themselves and most people have never experienced that – therefore it is fair to say that most people have very little self-discipline.

At the risk of upsetting both you and your doctor, I would say that his giving you pills to lower your cholesterol and suggesting a low-fat diet is not going to work because he was not there at the breakfast table on Friday to wag his finger at you when you first stuck your fork into the sausage.

And if it’s not working, then you and he will know better than me what will be the consequences for your health.

My own view is that it may be better for you to approach this differently – and you will laugh at my suggestion – but far from jeopardising your health, I believe that becoming a  distributor would actually lengthen your life.

There, I said you would laugh. But I know of too many people whose lives have been completely turned around by this amazing business. I simply cannot bring myself to pass up the chance of helping one more person. In fact if you let me have anything to do with it, I am willing to bet that in five years’ time you would recognise neither yourself nor your bank balance.

It’s up to you, of course. But if you carry on as you are, where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

Modesty is a wasted virtue! And so today I am turning the blog over to Tim Griffiths whom I have never met but who circulated this the other day:
Hi everyone, I am down in Ron’s downline somewhere and I want to tell you about my week.
Now if you weren’t at MAD this year, you must be. If you still haven’t watched John Passmore speech on the extranet, you definitely are.
So he said – “I joined and told my family. They said ‘we will see how you get on with it’. And whichever way you re-arrange those words it doesn’t make ‘yes’.”
So I became a Distributor last summer. I told my Mum & Dad and it was like French & Saunders. My Dad actually said “you know where you are with BT”. My cousin Gary said he would take a look at my website if I had one. But he decided to make babies instead with his wife. My cousin Jenni said “no” as she didn’t see the point as she is living with her parents again. So I had failed.
Wel,l whilst on a coach somewhere outside Hambury this summer with my cousin Gary on the way to the airport, he asked: “Are you still doing that phone & broadband thing?”
I said “yes”. So after a four hour delay at Lubeck-Hamburg airport and a drive back to his, he signed up to Broadcall and a Cashback card.
My parents remained a mystery still – as in the meantime they had signed up to AOL at higher prices than I could offer. But two weeks ago my mother phoned up and said their energy supplier had lowered their direct debit in the spring and phoned to say this week they were putting it up again. “Can you do me a quote?” she asked. So I did. I told her how much she could save by having her home phone with us as well: Total saving of £250 a year. Then I told her about the Cashback card and ASDA. She said ASDA are taking over the co-op up the road in Harwich in the New Year. Result! She signed up.
There’s a family get together this weekend. Finally, after nearly 18 months I have sold a mobile phone! My cousin Jenni signed up for Freetext + Cashback card. My Aunt said: “Your Mum has mentioned this Utility thing…”
She signed up for phone, broadband, electricity and a Cashback card. Sainsbury’s deliver her shopping every week! Fantastic!
And then I went around my parents for a cuppa before heading back to South , I told my Mum they had all signed up and my cousin had taken a mobile.
“Oh I fancy a new mobile” she said. So I added another mobile
So you see, I failed to start with. But just like John Passmore said at MAD, they will sign up! Three customers, 8 services, 3 Cashback cards in a week. And another person who said he wants me to call on Wednesday so I can arrange a time for him to say yes!
So if you’re in the early stages and some people have said no. Never give up, keep dropping hints, and eventually they will sign up!
If everyone in Ron’s group signs up 3 customers this week, how much will we have grown our great club by!
Yours
Tim Griffiths
Qualified Executive (but hopefully for not much longer!)

I seem to have two blogs going.
I’ve joined a business networking organisation called 4Networking and they have a very good forum devoted to Multi-Level Marketing. I see nothing to be lost by simultaneously posting on there whenever I update this blog.
And that was how I came to be taken to task over the “Parking Problems” post of a few days ago. Today I replied and, naturally I don’t want to waste it, so here it is:

Phil Hendy wrote: “If you came up to me in a car park I would very politely tell you to get lost.”

Yes, this does happen – although generally you get a simple “No thank you”. However I find that is very rare. A good 90% of people are happy to take a card and say: “Thank you very much”. Believe me we wouldn’t do it if people were unpleasant to us – life’s too short.

But what you must remember is that some of those people who say “Thank you very much” go on to bless the day they were introduced to network marketing. I know how grateful I am that someone thrust a leaflet into my hand back in 2005. Without that I know where I would be today – where many 61-year-old men with inadequate pensions find themselves: Filling shelves at Tesco’s at two O’clock in the morning – go and have a look some dark night. But instead of that I no longer have any financial worries whatsoever.

I do appreciate that to people with traditional businesses, Network Marketers can seem a bit evangelical. For instance today I am very excited after having it explained to me that in order to earn the same amount I get paid annually from signing up two customers a week, I would have to invest £14,000 a week in an ISA. No wonder the IFA who worked this out has signed up his firm as a distributor. Now he will offer all his clients a choice: Either invest £14,000 a week or put in two hours part time work in Network Marketing.

Yes I know it sounds ridiculous and I know that if I were well set up in a traditional business and somebody showed me something this far-fetched I would laugh at them and deride their “scatter gun approach”. But the fact is that these days you can have no idea of someone’s financial circumstances just by looking at them. There are plenty of people with large houses, two or three cars and supposedly steady jobs who are secretly mortgaged to the hilt, up against the limit on their credit cards and not sleeping too well at night as they wonder whether redundancy is stalking them.

The media tells us things are only going to get worse. Large scale redundancies are predicted in the public sector and everyone knows that the idea of a job for life belongs to pre-history. I hope I don’t sound too pious if I say that I feel an obligation to offer my solution to as many people and I can – and yes, I admit it does make me feel good when I know I have helped someone turn their life around.

Did I want to spend an evening of corporate go-karting, the voice on the phone wanted to know.

This was a cold call forwarded to a traffic jam on the A14 and with nothing better to do, I gave it some serious consideration. Actually it might be quite fun – I could get some of the team together, we could do some networking . It would tax-deductable…

And as always on these occasions, I said: “Thanks very much for ringing me. I appreciate a professional call – may I say how good you are on the phone. It’s a rare quality…. come to think of it, I’m always on the lookout of people who are good on the phone. I don’t suppose you’d be open to looking of new ways to make money?

Half an hour later, the following text arrived: “Thank you very much for your details. I am so glad that you feel I have  qualities to be an asset for a company. I am currently looking for another company where my services are more appreciated as I have various skills with the general public. I am very interested in what you have to offer.”

I’m meeting him for lunch tomorrow.

Which all goes to prove that all you have to do is ask…

“Would you be open to looking at new ways of making money in 2010?”

“I certainly would. I’m being made redundant in March.”

Now could I have known that? This business gets more peculiar every day.

The piggies and I were out on the streets of Colchester. We’d just been to sign up the solicitor from yesterday’s networking breakfast meeting (and he says I’m going to get a call from the partner who deals with the office). Out on the pavement again, I started dispensing the piggies. There’s a new record for this. I just heard about it: 50 piggies given out in 14 minutes. I had a good half an hour to play with: “Have you had one of these… here take one of these… it’s about money… it’s absolutely brilliant.”

And people who a moment earlier had been staring at the ground, their expressions apparently matching their hopeless thoughts, suddenly smiled and said: “Thank you.”

And then I looked through the plate glass window of a building society and saw a young man sitting at a desk near the door. He wasn’t there to deal with the money. He was the “accessible” member of staff; ready with advice or to help you open a new account – and he looked as if the world was about to end and he’d got all his money in fixed-term bonds. I pushed open the door.

“I’ve come in on a whim,” I said, sitting down opposite him. “Tell me, would you be open to looking at new ways of making money in 2010.”

And that was when he told me about the redundancy.

Now isn’t that strange. “I came  in on a whim,” I told him. “I get them sometimes. Now isn’t that peculiar… Anyway, let me tell you what I’ve got here…”

And I did. I showed him the company and I showed him how the money works. I was in and out within within ten minutes. Now I wonder if I just changed somebody’s life?

Back on the street the piggies flew out of my fist – and so did a couple of DVDs: These were what we call “quality prospects” – a couple of street canvassers handing out leaflets about whether I’d made a wil… but I wonder if you can spot my big mistake?

“I have made a will. But you know, I’m always looking for people who are good at talking to the public. Do you enjoy your job?”

“Oo yes,” she said. “You have a laugh.”

“That’s what I thought. Tell me, are you open to looking at new ways of making money in 2010?”

And she was. And so was her friend. And now they’ve both got DVDs and invitations to our meeting on the 17th.

I even remembered to tell them to join first so they could bring their friends. But I’ve just realised my big mistake: I never took one of their leaflets about the wills – will writers make excellent distributors…

“Ah yes, I’ve heard of this,” said the man sitting on my right.

We were at one of those business breakfasts that work so well for network marketers – lots of small business people all wanting to raise their profile and increase their profits. Unfortunately this was one of those where they give you place cards. This meant I had the misfortune to be sitting between somebody on my left who I had already met over coffee – and, on my right, a solicitor. Which is usually bad news.

Sorry about this, solicitors – but in the main, the one who gets delegated to the networking breakfast is likely to be the junior associate who doesn’t even know which partner is the firm’s decision maker. They might even be still living at home where Mum makes the decisions. But then I looked again and realised that this one had grey hair. Indeed, he went on: “Yes, I went to a networking breakfast at the Rose and Crown and there was a chap there who did a ten-minute slot about this. It sounded brilliant.”

Good news. Clearly he was already half way to signing up. Bad news for the distributor at the Rose and Crown. Why didn’t he sign him up? Apparently my new prospect had even looked at the website and meant to sign himself up. How much encouragement would he have needed to accept an appointment. But did he even get a call…

Well now he’s got a appointment – this afternoon with me.

In fact my early morning trip was worthwhile for another reason. On the way back the phone rang: A redundant advertising salesman  had passed me on the way and seen the business opportunity plastered all over the back window of the Mini. “What’s that all about?” he wanted to know.

So I told him.

Then into Ipswich for a couple of errands. Normally this is an opportunity to give out double my quota of cards but for some reason, I didn’t have a spare stack in the car. Never mind, I could afford to be choosy about who I gave them to – picking out those people who looked as though they had “a bit about them”. It was startling to see how few people did look as though they had “a bit about them”.

But the salesman in the menswear department of Marks and Spencers looked at my badge: “How do I make Save Money and Make Money, then?”

“Well, which do you want to do, save money or make money?”

“Make money.”

“You serious about that?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Right then ,” I told him. “Because you’re serious, I’ll give you one of these. Take that home and watch it tonight. If you like what you see give me a ring.”

Then we walked round and established that, like Debenhams, M&S won’t have any blazers until the summer stock comes in. And as we parted, he waved the
DVD from across the rails of suits: “I’ll watch this tonight. Thanks.”

Maybe he really will.  People do. On the way home my newest distributor had been doing the same and called to ask me how to fill in the form for his first distributor.

It’s wonderful to see the business growing – and all from talking to people. How easy is that?

Or else I could

Did you spot it? There was no blog yesterday.

Events conspired against us. On Wednesday the Piggies and I started out with the best intentions but what with one thing and another…

However, you don’t want to know about that. This is not about what we didn’t do. This is a positive start to the day.  So let me tell you about my business breakfast meeting yesterday.

Once a week I go and have a very good breakfast at a local  hotel with my Refer-On group:  A dozen or more of us get together to discuss our businesses and make new contacts. Yesterday the visitors were a building project manager and a printer and it turned out that the printer was part of a nationwide organisation which had printed the Piggies – so obviously we got talking.

“But you’re too late,” he said. “One of your colleagues has already signed me up.”

“That’s great. And are you going to be making money as well,” I asked him. “Are you going to be a distributor… oh, you should. As a printer, I expect you have lots of customers starting their own businesses and wanting their stationery. You could offer them all 0800 numbers.”

(We provide 0800 numbers for £1 a week in my company).

This was not something he had considered (and, I might add, not something the other distributor had mentioned).

And now I’m going to see him this afternoon to show him how the money works.

In fact the Piggies were on a roll. When I got home for a meeting with a new distributor (who had also been a guest at Refer-On) I wanted to show this newcomer the company website where I could see what all my customers were doing – and there at the bottom of the list was a new one whose name I didn’t recognise. When this happens there is only one explanation: This is someone who has been onto my website and signed up without my knowledge – someone, in other words, who had a Piggy.

That makes three in the last three weeks. Does this mean that giving out 50 Piggies a day gets you a customer a week without even having to talk to them?

And of course, I help too. Remember a couple of days ago I gave someone a Piggy and they said they were interested in making money and we went and had a coffee… and I was so excited about my new “skills” that they ended up wanting to be a customer instead. Well now we’re going to have another cup of coffee next Wednesday so I can sign her up!