Archive for October, 2011
Needs Must
With my company’s current promotion and my plans for next week, the pressure was on: I have to get one more customer by Saturday.
I tried our handyman who came to ease a couple of doors and put up a shower rail – he’d heard all about it before. But still, he listened politely once again – but what with one thing and another it wasn’t for him.
So, with the deadline looming, there was nothing for it: I had to hit the street with the Win a Mini forms.
Now, regular readers of this blog will know all about this – how I hang around the corner of the car park asking people if they want to win a Mini or £10,000. In fact some regular readers may be thinking they can’t imagine anything worse.
But it’s all down to how much you want something. If you want something enough, you’ll be prepared to do what it takes.
One or two people agreed to enter the draw. Several didn’t. Some walked past without even looking.
Then more walked past without even looking. I began to think I was doing something wrong. I started counting the number of people who said “no” to entering my free prize draw. I made little marks on the corner of the form – four marks and then a line across for five… then another five… and another.
When I got to 15 without a single person wanting to enter the draw, I decided that if reached 20 I would pack up and go home.
I reached 20.
The trouble with that was that if I went home now, I would go without an appointment and miss out on the promotion. I decided to stay. I reasoned that not everybody could possibly say no. If I stood there long enough and invited every single person to enter my prize draw then the law of averages demanded that someone would say ‘yes’.
So I asked the 21st person – and, guess what? They did say ‘yes’!
In fact they gave me an appointment.
And so did the 22nd.
In fact I went home after an hour in the car part with three appointments – two of them before the weekend… and out of two, surely one would join!
It was only when I got home and found out how far they lived from Kettering where I would be having breakfast on Thursday that I realised I would have to try and reschedule for the afternoon. But when I rang them, they explained very politely that they had been about to ring me: Thursday was no good. They would have the decorators in. Could we make it the following week?
I was back to the uncertain single appointment. I couldn’t risk that. So today I repeated the process.
But this time it was different. This time I knew that I would get the appointment I needed. I knew it with a burning certainty because all I would have to do was just keep on asking people – and I had two hours if I needed it.
And it’s a funny thing about certainty but it accelerates your outcome. This is what happened.
I was in the car park for 35 minutes. I spoke to 12 people. Five of them agreed to enter the prize draw – and four of those gave me appointments – and one of them for Thursday!
Enough People Looking
The trouble with getting used to something is you forget that it may not seem usual to other people. And so, within a minute of putting down the phone, I am going to recount the conversation that just took place.
Here is the background: The travel insurance needs renewing and currently we only have European cover. But the company is taking us to Las Vegas in April so some changes need to be made. The process took only five minutes – the terms and conditions which I was forced to listen to and approve took about ten!
Then the agent said: “Thank you very much Mr Passmore. Have a good holiday.”
I said: “Thank you very much. By the way who have I been speaking to?”
(He had a rather unusual name and so for the sake of anonymity, I shall call him Jim.)
I continued: “Thanks for that Jim. I must say it can’t be easy reading all that without it sounding bored. I think you must be very good at your job. I hope they apprecieate you…”
He laughed: “Well I don’t know about that.”
“Come to think of it,” I continued as if the thought had just occurred to me. “I’m always on the lookout for good communicators – and clearly you’re a good communicator. Tell me, are you in the market for more time, more money – or possibly both?”
Quick as a flash he came back with: “Both!”
Well I run a business part time – that is to say I get paid a full time income for it but I only work part time – and I’m always looking for good communicators. If the money was good enough, do you think you could find a couple of hours a week?”
“Certainly I could.”
“OK then, what I suggest is that you look at a website and see what you like best. I’ll text you the details. What’s your mobile number… and how soon are you going to be able to review the information on there?”
He said he would do it as soon as he finished at 5.00 p.m. but that may not be convenient for me so we’re going to talk again after 8.00 p.m.
Maybe he will join me and build up a part-time income of his own. Maybe he won’t – I don’t know. But it doesn’t much matter – it’s another person looking and all you need to succeed in Network Marketing is enough people looking.