The Slight Edge
If you haven’t read this book or listened to the CD, you’re missing something. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson is the one book that all the top distributors recommend. This is what took Esther Callis from Group Director to Marketing Director while she lay motionless in hospital after breaking her back.
And this is what made me stop and get out of the car after I found myself driving down a cul-de-sac, had to turn round and go all the way back. I was mildly annoyed but I’m pleased to report that I was not so distracted that I stopped looking for opportunities.
Which was why I clocked the guy peeling the graphics off his van. I suppose I noticed it because he’d just peeled off the mobile number so I wouldn’t be able to send him a text.
I was about to keep driving when the slight edge kicked it: “Just do the extra little bit – the tiny 0.1% that makes the difference. ..”
I pulled up and got out.
“Hi, “ I said with a big smile (which I hadn’t been feeling two minutes earlier). “I need to ask you a question.”
He stopped peeling. He smiled. He readied himself to be helpful. There was a huge tank in the back of the van and a hose reel.
“Are you one of those filtered water window cleaners?”
He was.
“That’s how I get my windows cleaned. It’s a great system. Tell me could you use an extra income alongside the window cleaning. “
Now isn’t it funny the way everyone always says the same thing to this question: ”I could always use an extra income…”
And so we got talking – which is what this business is all about. It turns out he wasn’t interested. He used to sell gas. He knocked on doors, he stood in the street with a clip board. He’d done it all and now he just got on with his window cleaning and paid his bills and no offence but it wasn’t for him.
And that was fine. But he was a talker. For one thing he wasn’t worried about the future because he was a Jehovah’s Witness and the world was going to end anyway.
I’ve always found this fascinating because I remember a leaflet going round when I was at school. I think in those days the world was going to end in 1960 and everyone went around asking each other if they were going to repent (at the age of 11 we weren’t quite sure what that meant).
And so the window cleaner and I carried on talking: There’s a Jehovas’s Witness in my business. He’s hugely successful*. He does it so he can give his income to the church.
I suppose it must have been after a good ten minutes, while my new friend peeled away, that he suddenly looked at me and understanding dawned: “You mean that if you stopped work today, you’d still carry on getting paid?”
“Yes,” I said (why had it taken so long for the penny to drop?)
“Every month?”
“Yes.”
“The same amount every month?”
“No, every month it goes up. After a while it’s not what you do that counts. It’s what other people do.”
We then had a rather odd two minutes in which he stopped peeling the letters off the van and stood looking me hard in the eye, saying things like: “This is absolutely genuine? You promise you’re not making this up? Can I trust you?”
It was a bit un-nerving, really. What can it be like when you’re initiated as a Witness?
Then he took the DVD – and we had another minute of “I’ll watch it. I’ll watch it tonight. I promise you I’ll watch it…”
D’you know what? I think he will – and something else: If he does start this business, he’s going to fly!
• Yes, I’m told one of the marketing directors is a Jehovah’s Witness. I’ve a fairly good idea who it is but maybe I shouldn’t publicise people’s beliefs without asking them first.