The Network Marketing Blog

Archive for June, 2012

As a new member of the sailing club, I get to keep my boat in the woods.

Well not quite deep in the woods but in a sort of annex to the dinghy park where everything is a bit overgrown and the rabbits make you feel like an intruder.

Actually it’s not just the rabbits. As the sailmaker said when he looked at the several small holes in my sail “mice”.

Nobody could believe it this early in the season but there was no doubting the little teeth marks. However there was a silver lining: I got to talk to the sailmaker again.

Last time he flatly refused to listen to anything I could offer him – and that was fine; it’s his choice. And so this time I wondered whether to offer him a chance in my prize draw – he could only say “no”.

Or could he? He hummed a haa-ed. He said: “What is it?” and “How much does it cost” and “Will I get a lot of emails”. He put a tick in the box for not receiving any information…

And then when I asked him the four daft questions he said “No” to all of them – and then he took the form back so that he couldn’t go in the draw anyway.

You get some people like that. But you don’t often get two in a day…

It was later on that I was passing the supermarket. I once got a customer from that supermarket: We had been putting the shopping into our cars side-by-side and got talking. This time I didn’t have any shopping to do – but what did that matter.

So you’ll see below that my figures for today are down on the average. But then I noticed that it was just after 3.15 p.m. and a constant stream of mothers and children were emerging from a little lane at the side of the car park. And that’s how I met Sally.

Sally made the sailmaker look positively enthusiastic

She wanted to go in for the draw all right – but her level of suspicion was up there somewhere along with a Duchess invited onto Big Brother. Before she would give her name, she wanted to know what it was all about.

I love this part – the whole object is to tell people what it’s all about. So I did. In fact, as you can see our conversation lasted a full 15 minutes. I ended up standing there doing a full calculation of the benefits she would enjoy.

And now she wants me to ring her husband. She gave me his number without a moment’s hesitation.

You may notice that the statistics look a little thin today.

This is because I’ve been experimenting. Quite what I’ve been experimenting with will have to wait until I have some results worth reporting – but I was aware that I hadn’t posted for a few days and didn’t want anyone to think I’d been idle!

Meanwhile I do have a silver lining to report:

My company is currently taking us all out for a pizza once a month – all over the country distributors are gathering in their local Pizza Express for a convivial evening with a bit of chat about how to make the business go faster.

Where I live there are two of Pizza Express’s – one a very stylish establishment down by the marina on the quay.

The other, behind the bus station.

Guess which one I’m hosting.

Naturally everyone wants to go to the one by the quay and if it hadn’t  been for loyal support from my team, my party would have fitted on a table for two.

However there was one unexpected benefit to the bus station venue: When I went to collect the car from the car park, the attendant paused in telling me how lucky he was that I hadn’t been locked in an earned a hefty fine…

Then he noticed the writing on the car and said: “You were here about two years ago. You gave me one of your cards but I never did anything with it. Now I’ve been thinking – maybe I should…”

You can’t miss the Car Park Attendant. He wears a fluorescent yellow jacket covered with pockets like one of those waistcoats that fly-fishermen wear to look the part.

Only this would scare the fish.

You can see him coming from such a distance that everyone who had nipped into the greengrocers to buy a pound of apples with a ten pound note can now go running back to their cars, dropping their change all over the pavement.

But he walks very slowly, the Car Park Attendant. He’s a nice man.

In fact he’s such a nice man that even though he doesn’t want to earn a second income, he has offered to put up my card in the Car Park Attendants’ canteen.

That was just one of the “little extras” yesterday.

Here’s another one: I can’t believe how well I’m doing from the roofing company. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you will know all about the roofing company: They rang up and asked to ask if I knew I could get a grant to insulate my roof – and every time they ring back I get a chance to talk to to a different person about whether they would like an extra income. So far I have had three people looking at my website because of the roof.

Yesterday was number four. We’ll be talking about what he liked best about it tonight when he gets home from work. It will be a relief for him to talk to someone who doesn’t hang up…

They say that if you want to get good at something, start teaching it.

Consider this: A random day from the very beginning of these statistics: February 3rd 2012 – just over four months ago: In 46 minutes, I spoke to 86 people, made one appointment and got two callbacks.

Yesterday in 43 minutes, I spoke to 31 people, made three appointments and got one callback.

You see the difference: Three times the appointments from exactly half the number people.

I put this down to the new, longer script – and that only came about because of the videos which we use on the Cold-Market Academy. For the first time I could see what I was doing. This is like a professional golfer spending hours in front of the screen studying his swing. It was a revelation.

Until then I had spent five years saying the same thing – and had stood still for all that time.

Just to put the smugness in context, I should admit that in all three cases yesterday, I completely forgot to get a name and number for the husbands and wives at home so I haven’t made the follow-up calls and fully expect to see two of those appointments cancelled (the third lives alone).

But also there is a new development which is very exciting: I mentioned this back on May 24th and it really makes a difference. When you’re in a shop or a queue and you would normally hand out a card (basically when you’re within three feet of someone and the opportunity arises to say “hello”) instead of giving them a card, ask if they want to go in for your prize draw. Providing you go about it in a conversational way (rather than just blurting it out) almost everyone does.

And that is why I have an appointment with the man behind the counter in Jewsons.

Have you seen Marley and Me? It’s a romantic comedy wrapped up in the life story of a mischevious golden Labrador puppy – which basically means it’s a a sure-fire hit.

But for me it’s about the newspaper columnist who owns the dog – and who yearns to be a go-getting globe-trotting reporter. Because I was a go-getting globe-trotting reporter and I yearned to be a columnist. A columnist can write what he likes. Nobody goes through a columnist’s copy taking out all the jokes and adjectives. In fact I often suspect that nobody in the office  reads the columns at all. They just slam them into the paper like dumping beans onto a supermarket shelf.

Maybe that was how I managed to get one  in the end – inhabiting a small space on the Daily Telegraph’s travel pages for three years and later on achieving my life’s ambition and breaking through the £1-a-word barrier in the Daily Mail Weekend section.

And what has all this to do with Network Marketing?

Well, in May The Network Marketing Blog broke through the 1 Gigabyte barrier. That means 63,707 hits; 26,500 page views; 7,883 visits and 2,735 unique visitors – and I find that immensely gratifying.

Of course I’m not getting £1 a word for it. In fact I’m not getting anything at all for it – at least not directly. But I can tell you that if you know 7,883 people are watching you, it does make a difference.

Take today for instance: I had an appointment in the morning – or at least I did have until the prospect sent me a text from Ireland saying she had decided to stay on until the weekend so could we re-schedule.

Then I was due to meet a potential distributor in Caffe Nero in the afternoon. Normally I would check the evening before and ring when I set out to make sure there had been no last-minute hitches. But do you think I could find his number…

There was nothing for it but to turn up and hope for the best – but there was nobody in Caffe Nero looking expectant and answering to the name of  ”Anthony”. There was nothing for it but to sit and fiddle with the Blackberry which is what everyone does in coffee shops when they’re on their own … and that was when I discovered the very peculiar spelling of his surname. So that was why it hadn’t come up in a search.

I rang him – and then had to hold the phone away from my ear while he emptied a conscience-full of apologies for forgetting. So next week he’s coming to my house (providing he remembers).

All of which meant I had no success story to tell here – and that would never do.

But with the wind gusting 40 miles and hour round the car park, a Prize Draw was out. I thought of going home and making some calls – but nobody would use up precious bandwidth to read about that. And that was when I had the idea: I would do what we tell people to do on training. I would call on a customer – and I knew the very couple.

We had met through the Prize Draw in the car park on December 21st and they had signed up in early January – which meant I could call this their “six month check”. I phoned, said I was passing their door and wondered if I might pop in. Ten minutes later, I was sitting on the sofa, drinking tea with their dog’s head resting comfortably on my knee. I liked to provide a personal service, I explained.

They told me they were very happy with everything. In fact they were most enthusiastically happy.

“Well that’s good,” I told them. “Because now you’ve been with the company for six months, you’re qualified to recommend the services. I can take ten names today…”

I would love to be able to report that they opened their address book and gave me ten names – it has happened in the past. However, whatever liberties I may have taken with the newspapers over the years, only the truth is good enough for The Network Marketing Blog – and I have to tell you that I walked out of the house with just one referral.

But who knows where one referral might lead?

And here’s the thing: I would never have gone and asked for it if it hadn’t been for you looking over my shoulder at this screen.

For which I thank you.

I’m not complaining. When things are you’re own fault, you can’t complain – but  you can set matters down in a factual manner and appreciate it if people find it in themselves to be sympathetic…

I crashed the car.

Twice.

Honestly – once while cutting up someone in heavy traffic in Ipswich and then again in the same embarrassing circumstances on the roundabout not 200 yards from my front door. The second incident, on the very evening before the accident repair people were due to start fixing the first dent.

I am very sad about all this – not that I have any right to be. But I love  my little Mini and very sorry for itself it looked with its door all bashed in and the graphics scratched off. I felt that the least I could do for it, before it went off to to the repair shop, was replenish it’s card boxes.

If you’re not familiar with these, they are little plastic boxes placed at strategic points on the sides and back of the car containing my business cards. At least it went off with a full set.

I miss them. I miss the Mini. I am driving round in a grey Vauxhall Corsa with no card boxes. It’s not the same.

Then I got a speeding ticket (I said I wanted sympathy). In fact it was as I was casting around for something to prop up my smile that I received a call from a young man named Adam. He had a card. He had seen the website. He thought it looked brilliant. He wanted to know more.

“That’s great,” I said, attempting to lever up my enthusiasm to match his. “And what do you do?”

This is what Adam said: “I’m a paint sprayer. I’ve been spraying your Mini. I took one of your cards. I hope that’s all right.”

Yes that’s quite all right. In fact if Adam turns out to be really good, he might just earn me enough to pay next year’s increased insurance premium.

Total for May: Prize Draw: 6hr 26 mins. Customers: 6. Distributors 5.