The Network Marketing Blog

Posts Tagged ‘TelecomPlus’

Buying dogfood was on the list. It’s just that I didn’t happen to look at the list and at 9.00 p.m. the dog had not been fed.
She’s a springer, not a labrador so you wouldn’t know she was hungry. My solution was to let her go a day without food – it wouldn’t do her any harm. Alternatively she could have cat food – she loves cat food.
But no, as Tamsin pointed out, it would take me no more than five minutes to walk her up to the Co-op and get some dogfood – and why should she go hungry just because I forgot?
I threw on a jacket, I called the dog and I went.
At the checkout, the girl said: “Where do I get a badge like that?”
The badge said: “I Love the Club” with a big red heart for “Love”.
“D’you like shopping?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ll love this!”
Then she said: “I’ve seen it before. What’s the company?”
Now this was not on the script. But if someone asks you a straight question…
I told her.
“We’re with them,” she said.
“Are you saving lots of money?”
“Well I think my Mum and Dad are – I live at home.”
“How would you like to make a lot of money?”
“What would I have to do?”
“You just listen. You listen for people who moan about the recession and the cost of living. Does anyone moan to you about those things?”
“All the time.”
I gave her a card. I didn’t take her number – it was late on a Saturday night and anyway, to my shame, I didn’t have a pen and notepad. But I did have a pocketful of cards.
Always have a pocketful of cards…

Two things happened simultaneously:
A distributor who had given up wrote to me. In fact we’ve been writing back and forth for some weeks because I refuse to be the one to end the correspondence and obviously he feels the same. This is his latest:
“How to avoid being scammed:
“As with most things in life, the best way to avoid falling victim to a scam is to use common sense.
“If something sounds too good to be true it probably is. Do not be rushed into sending off money to someone you do not know, however plausible they might sound and even where an approach is personalised, the Office of Fair Trading warned.
“Ask yourself how likely it is that you can make money. Thousands of other people will probably have received the same offer to part with money and not made a penny from it, no matter how great others make it sound.
“Finally, think about how much money you could lose from replying to a potential scam. It’s not a gamble worth taking.”
My first thought was to suggest he report the company to the Office of Fair Trading – I think it’s a great idea. I’d love to see what happens.
But then they decided to send me on a public speaking course. As one of the company trainers, I have to get up and speak in public on a regular basis and this workshop with Lorna Sheldon comes highly recommended.
She’s sent me some homework to do: I have to write a two-page script to be delivered during the course. It can be about anything I like – but I would like nothing better than to have the sceptical distributor in the audience and tell him what I think (or rather what I believe to be a fundamental truth).
So this is it:
“Here’s the law of nature: There are two types of people in the world – the special people and the ordinary people.
There will always be more ordinary people than special people – which the way it’s supposed to be. The special people need lots of ordinary people to do the ordinary things they don’t want to do.
The special people need ordinary people to service their cars, wait on their tables, design and build their houses, look after their health, mind their money…
Let me explain: The special people have big dreams and they achieve them because they control their own lives.
The ordinary people allow others to dictate how their lives will turn out. This is because they work for other people and that means someone else decides what hours they will work and how much they will get paid. And out of that pay cheque – before it even reaches them – have to come their taxes and their pension contributions.
Special people don’t need pension contributions – special people pay very little tax.
But the ordinary people don’t know that. They are conditioned to accept their lot. They think it’s the only way to live. They suspect there is another way because their magazines are filled with people who somehow manage to live lives of abundance. This makes them feel envious.
And they say: “That person was born into wealth – they were in the right place at the right time – they knew the right people…”
This shows the ordinary people that their predicament is not of their making. The way their life turned out is not their fault. Or, as they say: “Some people get all the luck.”
But logic dictates that this cannot be true. Luck – or to use another word for it “opportunity” – is not presented to a select few. The same opportunity is available to all. There may be an element of luck about whether it comes sooner or later but that is rarely the issue. What counts is whether a person takes that opportunity when it does present itself.
And this is where the population gets divided. The special people see their opportunity and say: “This is just what I’ve been looking for. This will make all the difference. This I can do!”
The ordinary people look at the same opportunity but they say: “These things never work. If something looks too good to be true it usually is.” They say: “ I could never do that…”
They decide that the opportunity is some sort of trick. They convince themselves they’re not worthy. Maybe they try it out and wait for the first chance to prove that it won’t work for them – not with the people they know – not in the town where they live….
And guess what? They prove themselves right!
Meanwhile the special people who think only of success find exactly that. It’s the law of nature.
Now I don’t know who in the room today are the special people. Nobody knows. But what I can tell you is that when your opportunity presents itself, if you can seize it immediately. If you can act on it with certainty and vigour – and if you can persist in doing that for as long as it may take then you will be special – and you will hold in your hand the golden prize.
And you will have everything your heart desires.”

Breakfast at South Mimms services has become something of a ritual. Whenever I’m training at Head Office in Colindale, that’s where I stop.
This 45 minute pause in the day is necessary not only because there might be a hold-up on the road but also because it enables me to do my daily activity before I get shut up in the training room for six hours.
So there I found myself in the queue for the checkout at Smiths. I turned to the man behind me and offered him a Piggy Card.
“No thank you,” he said as if I had offered his a scorpion.
So I turned to the man in the queue beside me. He said “No thank you,” as well.
So did the woman in front of him.
“Isn’t this interesting,” I observed. “Once somebody says ‘No’ everyone else tends to follow suit. Who’s going to break the chain?”
The next person didn’t.
Then: “I’ll have one.” This from the young woman behind the checkout.
She took took the card. “It’s all about money,” I told her.
“What’s that about money?” said the man behind me who had started the whole thing.
I gave him a card too. Then I gave a couple to a pair of bystanders who were taking an interest.
And here’s the point: When I had paid for my purchase (a 5litre bottle of screen wash, if you’re interested) and had a bit more of a chat with the nice young woman behind the till, I found one of the bystanders was waiting for me.
“What did you say it was all about?” he asked.
He kept me there for ten minutes. Now he knows about our company which helps all its members save money and helps some of them make money – and I know all about his new baby.
I took his details and left him with a DVD which he promised faithfully he would watch – and I get the impression he has: When I rang him today, he said: “Look, I really want to talk to you. I’m really interested.”
However, as he explained, he was eight storeys up on top of a roof and maybe it wasn’t the right moment…

This was weird. The telesales lady wanted me to take my business electricity back to E.On.
“What business electricity?”
She then mentioned the name of one of my own business customers.
“Your current contract is coming to an end and I wondered if we could offer you a cheaper price,” she said.
I said nothing. I was trying to get my head round this. Gradually it dawned: When I had called E.On from the customer’s office two years ago to find out the end date of their contract, they must have asked for my phone number and I must have given them my own.
This was brilliant. I must remember to do this every time.
Because, of course, I listened politely. I even stopped washing up and dried my hands. Eventually I asked: “And if I moved my supply to you, would you, personally, get a commission?
She said she would – maybe she thought that if I liked her enough, I would move just so she could get her commission.
Not so. Instead I asked her: “And is it a one-off commission or do you get paid again every time I pay my bill.”
Of course it was a one-off.
“But would you like to get paid every time I pay my bill – that is, every month – month in, month out forever…”
“Forever?” she said.
“Forever,” I repeated.
And the upshot is that now she realises that there is an alternative to working for a wage, she is looking at my business.

I’ve just discovered that people have been leaving comments – and appreciative comments at that. I have a following!
… in which case I had better get on with it…

Here’s real life: One of the New Year’s Resolutions was to go to the gym. It’s not that I’m particularly unfit but having seen myself on the company video, I realise I have begun to stoop like an old man. This cannot go on and maybe the gym will help.

It was as I was coming out that the opportunity arose: I stopped to discuss my membership with the young man on the reception desk: Did I want to pay per session or take a monthly direct debit? Which was most cost-effective? Would I keep on going?

It was only when I was about to get into the car that I realised I had forgotten to invite him to look at my business. Now this must never happen. Everyone I speak to must be invited to look at the business.

But it was raining and I was anxious to get in the car – but that must never happen either. What must be done, must be done… that way lies success. In every other direction lies failure (I talk to myself a lot. I may appear to the passer-by to be mad but it keeps my attitude on course).

So back I went and found the young man talking with his colleague. They looked up.

“I thought I’d come back because I may have something for you,” I began.

They looked expectant.

“May I ask you both a question: “Are you in the market for more time, more money… or possibly both?”

They looked puzzled (they were supposed to look puzzled). They said: “What do you mean?”

And since they had asked, it would not have been polite if I hadn’t told them: “Well, I work with a big company which arranges for shops like Sainsbury’s and Tesco and Marks & Spencers to pay people’s electricity bills. Now what this means for you is that if you showed two people a week how to get the stores to pay their bills, then typically, at the end of the year you would be earning £500 a month on top of what you’re earning now. So would an extra £500 a month benefit you?”

They both said it would. They both said they would come round to my house at 8.30 that evening to join some other people who would be finding out some more.

Neither of them turned up.

Now, I could have left it at that. I could have shrugged and comforted myself with the knowledge that most people will never make the effort to help themselves – but I was passing the gym today and popped in. One of the young men was on duty. He was deeply apologetic. He said he hadn’t finished work until 9.30…

But the fact was, he didn’t think he’d have time for anything else. He was already doing two jobs…

Why was he doing two jobs?

Well neither of them paid very well…

We talked a little about jobs – about selling your life by the hour. We talked about wages and we talked about profits…

And we’re going to carry on talking when I go back in and see him and his colleague on Friday.

I’ve no idea whether they’ll join. If they don’t I shall comfort myself with the knowledge that at least there will always be someone to man the reception desk at the gym – and we do need someone to do that.