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Posts Tagged ‘electricity’

Now I know why they give us Minis. This is because they’re made by BMW and the BMW garage is quite an experience. Not only do they wash your car every time but they send you home in a taxi – and then send another one to pick you up. Also, the taxi drivers rightly assume that anyone with their car in a BMW main dealership is doing pretty well.

This is why I have been writing about taxi drivers so much – that and the fact that the garage can’t figure out why the engine warning light keeps coming on.

Anyway there I was with the latest taxi driver and this is how the conversation went:

Me: “Is this full time for you – driving?”

Driver: “Yup, I used to be a brickie but I had a heart attack.”

“I expect this is less stressful – that’s good isn’t it?”

“Less stressful but it’s 80 hours a week.”

“Good heavens”

… this went on for some time until eventually I said: “I ought to tell you about what I do.”

“What’s that then?”

“Well I’ve got my own business. I work with this discount club. They’re listed on the London Stock Exchange but they don’t advertise. It’s all done by word of mouth. What they do is shrink the bills for all their members. New members joining now find their bills shrink by around 30% after the second month and then go on shrinking to about half their usual size within a year.

“Also it’s very easy to recommend this club by word of mouth because they come topl in the reviews in Which? Magazine. Would you like to know how they do it?”

“How?”

“Well the thing about the club is that it’s rather exclusive – you can only join it if you’re invited by someone who’s in it – and we only invite people who we think are going to pay the bills. Now, do you think that makes our members rather special? Do you think that big shops like Mothercare and Boots and Debenhams and Sainsburys would like to see those sorts of people coming through their doors – the sort who see something on a shelf and say: ‘I like that. I’m going to buy it. I can afford it.’

“Too right they would – and the shops are prepared to pay for to get them in. They pay 5% of what the member spends and they send that to the discount club – who knock it off the member’s bill.”

I had his attention by this time. I went on: “Now the arithmetic is rather clever. Let’s take the average family. For  their shopping and petrol, their clothes, their sports goods, their DIY, what do you suppose they spend:  £!,000 a month? Yes, at least. And the same family paying their utility bills – what, £150 a month?

“Well 5% of £1,000 is £50, right?  And £50 deducted from a £150 utility bill is 30%, right? So that’s how their bill shrinks by 30% every month. That’s 30% off their electricity, 30% off their gas – 30% off their phones and so on. For some people, the discount is bigger than their bill so they don’t pay anthing at all!”

The driver was nodding by this time. He was saying quietly:”Amazing!”

I continued, matter-of-factly: “Now the really clever thing is this: What would happen if British Gas or BT or Vodafone reduced their prices by 30%? How long do you think they could stay in business? But our 30% doesn’t come out of the company coffers. It comes from Debenhams and Argos and Mothercare and Sainsburys and the rest.

“And do you think that if our members are getting that much off their bills every month they’re going to0 tell anyone – that’s right, of course they are! In fact they’re encouraged to tell their friends. Typically, if they tell ten friends they get another 20% off – now they’ve got 50% off! So they pay only half their electricity bill every month – half their gas bill…”

As always seems to happen, he was driving more and more slowly. By the time we reached the garage, I’d told him a bit about the money and now he’s got a DVD and we’ll talk again on Monday.

The only bad news is that I think they’ve fixed the car…

It can be embarrasing, the badge. After all, how many people would feel entirely comfortable wearing a bright yellow proclamation on their lapel: “Save Money… Make Money – Ask Me How!”

Or “Lose weight now!”… or whatever it is your company happens to do.

But there comes a time, after a while, when you’re more embarrassed about not wearing it. That day comes when you realise just what network marketing can do for you.

You see, to begin with – maybe for the first two or three years, you don’t really know.

Oh, you think you know – you’ve read the company compensation plan, you’ve seen the leaders get up at the conventions and talk about their sports cars and homes abroad – but you don’t have that deep-down conviction that it’s going to happen to you.

There will always be a small voice telling you not to make a fool of yourself. There will always be moments when you feel awkward about dropping your business into the conversation. You talk about something else instead – as if, deep down, you believe that the real way to long-term wealth is to have a job like everyone else and this network marketing thing is only a game.

Until one day when you look at your commission statement and it dawns on you that network marketing does work. That this is going to pay you more than any of your  friends who rely on ordinary jobs – and it will pay you in a way they will never get paid… forever.

I have someone in my team who had a badge made which says: “I have the best job in the world”. When people ask him why, he looks them straight in the eye and says: “Because I get paid forever“.

And he puts such passion into the word “forever” that they just have to know more.

It’s as if this is not a badge at all. It’s a sheild and it gives him a magical protection from all the negative people he’s going to meet during his day. It makes him invincible.

On Friday I discovered exactly what he means. I had an appointment fixed for the afternoon – a couple I had met at our “Win-a-Mini” in the garden centre. They said they wanted to enter our free draw. They were happpy to answer my six quick questions – and they ended up saying they would like me to come round and show them how to shrink their household bills by 30% or more. They even said they were serious about shrinking their bills.

And then they got cold feet: “”We’ve thought about it and we don’t want to change,” said the husband on the phone.

Now, I could have let that spoil my day. But I had my badge – and if anyone asks me why I wear that stupid badge, I tell them: “This badge recognises the fact that I’m in partnership with the top-performing company on the premier stock exchange in the world.”

(I’d like to add “and what do you do?” But I want to make friends not enemies!”

One way and another it did’t bother me that the man from the Win-a-Mini had changed his mind. But, more than that, the magic of the badge was still at work. Ten minutes later he called again: “I’ve spoken to a friend and it turns out that she’d a member of your club. She says it’s brilliant. So you can come round after all if you like.”

So I did. And of course it’s the converts who make the most enthusiastic members. We went through our Cashback Challenge and worked out that he would save 40% on his bills – and that was without the extra 20% he reckons he can get when he introduces ten of his friends.

Then it turned out that the retirement he had been talking about doesn’t start until June – and he works as a painter and decorator… and of course B&Q is one of our Cashback partners. Did he think he could buy all his paint there?

I reckon that between now and June there will be some months when my new member joins the 200 who pay nothing at all for their gas, electricity, phone, broadband or mobiles.

And in June he’s going to think about being a distributor as well.

And yes, even though I’m sitting at home on a Sunday morning, I’m wearing my badge. Why not? It makes me feel good.