Slumming it
For our first meeting my new distributor suggested the “18th Century splendour” of his local country house hotel.
It was closed. We ended up in the Little Chef.
This was not, I hope, an indication of his potential for making money in this business. But it’s strange the way things turn out. We sat there for an hour and a half over cups of tea while I explained things, drew diagrams, told him how the money worked. As the time went by he became more and more excited – which is what usually happens.
The place was empty apart from a handful of staff and from time to time they came by and offered us refills. But apart from that I’m afraid to say I took very little notice of them.
But then, when I came to pay the bill, I asked the man at the till: “Is it a long day for you?”
“Not too bad,” he replied. “I started at one and I finish at nine. It’s only part-time.”
“Really,” I said, aware of my new distributor watching carefully. “What do you do the rest of the time.”
“Nothing. I was made redundant.”
It turned out he had been a production manager but the factory closed. Now he was looking for another job.
“Maybe you’d like to look at what I do…”
And we left him with a DVD. The following day I spent half an hour on the phone with him. He became equally excited. I think I left him fired up enough to watch the DVD (he had the usual excuses for not having watched it).
I’ll let you know if he signs up. It would be nice if he did – if only to prove to my new distributor that opportunities are all around us.