Learning a New Skill

As some of you may be aware, I have a full time job, but I am also working part-time on my fortune. Part of my part-time work involves finding ways to talk to people. One of those ways is to have a Win-a-Mini event. This is a free prize draw held once a year, that anyone can enter (so long as they are over 18), and one person will win a brand new BMW Mini, or £10,000 cash!

Now this the interesting part, every form that I get filled in, has my ID number on it, and should the person who wins the prize be someone I had spoken to, then I win a £1000. Even better, if the person I got to fill the form in actually joined the company promoting it and started saving money on their household bills, I would also win a BMW Mini!!

I have attended a number of these events before. But they have always been organised and set up by someone else. I just arrange a 3 hour slot to be there and talk to people.

This time, for the first time, I have gone through the process of organising and setting up a Win-a-Mini event. It has been quite an experience keeping in contact with other team members, and sorting out what time slots they wanted. Then it is making sure I have contact details in case any changes needed to be made.

Finally, one thing I needed was the promotional material to display. I could have asked other team members if I could borrow them, but I felt that I would be cheating myself from taking full responsibility. Because my part-time business makes me self employed, I gain substantially from this aspect, by being able to get a tax rebate from Inland Revenue. This year, the tax man gave me back nearly £900. With this money I re-invested it into my business (it will count towards next years tax rebate), and I now have all the promotional materials to provide a noticeable display, which looks quite impressive!

Main Booth & Roller Blinds

Feather Flags outside entrance

I have already organised and booked my next Win-a-Mini event next month, and hopefully the momentum generated will propel my part-time business with rocket fuel!!

Fullfilling a Lifelong dream AND doing something for Charity!

A few weeks ago I was notified that there would be a special walk through the Thames Tunnel this weekend. The proceeds would go to The Brunel Museum and the Railway Children Charity. Volunteers were asked for to walk the visitors through the tunnel.

Plaque on the wall at Rotherhithe Station

Now back in 1995, when the tunnel was closed for some very urgent repairs, I had wanted to go and see it before it was lined in concrete. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see it then, and the opportunity to see it at a later date seemed highly unlikely.



Then in 2010, lo and behold, they opened up the tunnel again for people to walk through. Everyone was told that this would be a one off event, never to be repeated. Again, circumstances conspired against me, and I was unable to visit the tunnel.

Inside the original shaft that lead to the Rotherhithe entrance. You can still see the recess where the stairs used to be.

When the request came for volunteers this weekend, for the first time, I was not at work, and had the opportunity to volunteer. So I quickly replied to the message that I would be able to help on any of the three days the tunnel walk were planned.

Another picture showing where the staircase used to be. The money raised this weekend, half goes to the Railway Children Charity, the other half goes to the Brunel Museum, where they hope to restore the stairway to this shaft.

I quickly received a reply asking me to volunteer for two days, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday. I was given the afternoon time slots, starting at 13:00, and finishing at 18:00.

My wife (luda) and my daughter (Anastasia) standing in front of the original tunnel entrance at Rotherhithe. Above, where the metal is, is where the shaft would have come down.

A few days later, I received another letter from the organisers stating due the unprecedented success of the venture, all tickets had sold out in 9 hours. They decided to do an extra hour of tours on Sunday. So we would finish at 19:00 instead. We were also told as a thank you, we would be allowed to bring two guests with us on a tour of the tunnel at 20:00. When I asked my wife and daughter, if they would like to go, they both said yes!

Myself and my daughter inside the tunnel. What you see is the 20cm thick concrete seal used to stabilise and reinforce the tunnel in 1995. The cost of this work was £23 million!

So, on Sunday, we left home and drove into London. We parked the car near where I work at Euston, and, as it was a glorious sunny day, we decided to walk to Rotherhithe. An hour and 45 minutes later, we arrived at Rotherhithe, where I entered the station to be briefed on what I was to do. Meanwhile My wife and daughter decided to explore the surrounding area, and return to Rotherhithe at 19:00.

Halfway through the tunnel!

The system the Brunel Museum were operating was very simple, they were allowing parties of no more than 25 people to go through the tunnel. Each group had two volunteers with them, one in the lead who would give the commentary as we walked through the tunnel, and the other would be at the back to make sure nobody strayed, or got left behind. The 'tail end Charlie' also carried a radio, and had to check in when we commenced going into the tunnel and once again when we came back out. The whole trip lasted anything from 35 minutes up to an hour, depending on how the commentator talked, or how much certain members of the party felt they just had to take pictures of every single object their beady eyes could see!

This was taken on the left side of the tunnel where the original tunnel ended and the new concrete lining was started. Note how the 20 cm lining has made the tunnel slightly smaller than the original.

The work wasn't very hard, you just had to be careful of certain equipment on the ground that could catch the unwary and cause a trip hazard. Fortunately only one or two people fell over each day, and no one was hurt. On the first day I was there, I was kind of pushed into being the guide up front, as none of the other volunteers felt confident enough to do it. The first two times I went through the tunnel, I was reading from the script we had been given. By the 4th time I went through, I was hardly checking my piece of paper at all!

This was taken on the right side of the tunnel where the original tunnel ended and the new concrete lining was started. Note how the 20 cm lining has made the tunnel slightly smaller than the original.

By the end of the first day, I was completely knackered. My daughter had blisters on her feet. My feet were extremely sore, but thankfully no blisters. My legs, though, felt like lead! By the time I got home at 22:00 I could just about managed to walk, stiff legged, upstairs and sink into a nice hot bath! As soon as I got out of the bath, I crawled into bed and was out like a light in seconds!

There are 60 arches like these through the tunnel. In 1843 when the tunnel opened, traders set up their stalls in these arches. So the tunnel became the first ever underground shopping mall!

This morning, when I awoke, I discovered my feet were still sore, but at least my legs were functional again. So once again I set off to Rotherhithe for the second day of volunteering.

This is the Wapping entrance to the tunnel. The golden portico entrance is still in tact, exactly the way the Victorians would have seen it in their day.

This time, the weather wasn't as good as yesterday. When I arrived at Rotherhithe, it was overcast, within an hour of my arrival the rain set in for the rest of the afternoon. On this occasion there seemed to be more volunteers than yesterday, so I was only called upon to lead three tours, and be the 'tail end Charlie' on my very last tour through. This gave me the opportunity to take some extra pictures, in case the pictures I took yesterday hadn't come out as good as I expected. I discovered my SLR camera had developed a fault of leaving a black shadow over part of the image, so I was glad I took some extra pictures with my mobile phone today. Unfortunately the only pictures I have of my wife and daughter in the tunnel were taken with the SLR camera!

The tunnel was used for pedestrians from 1843 until 1865, when it was sold to the railway. The single span tunnel above was constructed in 1869 to allow trains access to the tunnel.

We were told in 2010 that there wouldn't be another opportunity to walk through the Thames Tunnel, yet this weekend, the opportunity was made available again. When I asked the organisers if this would happen again, all they would say is they don't think so, but should circumstances like this weekend come into play (i.e. the line being closed for a weekend for engineering works), then perhaps the possibility may arise again.

Weekly Update

Tuesday 1st April

As many of you will have probably found out, today is traditionally a day for pranksters to come out in force, and try to fool as many people as possible. The biggest prank of all has been played on all of us by the Government. below is my reason for thinking this.

At 9am today, most people will embark upon another eight hours of doing something they don't enjoy, which makes someone else more money than it makes them, and they'll continue going back everyday for another 45 years, reaching retirement age having had precious little free time or control over their lives.

When offered the chance to retire in 3 to 7 years, and to get paid over and over again for a job you did just once, some people will snigger and make fun, as if it's our system that's broke, soulless, without control, with no free time, glass ceilings and unrewarding, when it's theirs.

This is the system our schools and governments teach.

Actually, this isn't an April Fool. This is the reality for most people and it's our job to help them realise that there is another way. The more people you help, the further away you push yourself from this broken system.

So, my April Fools Day has been a busy one. I just completed a mystery shop at a restaurant in Leighton Buzzard (no, I won't mention who it was here), along with my wife and daughter.

Then I had to chase up Sports Direct about our online order. It got delivered to us on Saturday, but had one item missing, one item was the wrong size, and two were faulty! They have a wonderful returns system - fill in the returns form and then pay the postage to send it back to them. I spent a long time searching the internet, trying to find out if I could take the items back to a Sports Direct shop for an exchange or a credit note (this still wouldn't have helped with the missing item). From what I could determine, it is very much up to the individual store and it seems that you have to put your foot down with the store manager to get them to accept items bought online.

Another option was to send Sport Direct an email detailing what was wrong with the answer. I sent my email out on Sunday, and only got an automated response that it will be looked into.

Finally today, I tried another alternative, phoning them up. I found on the MoneySavingExpert forum other people who had had this problem, and someone posted up Sports Direct's contact number which was 0845 129 9200. This time, I got to speak with someone, and it proved a very productive call

First, the missing item would be sent out again. Second the faulty goods and the wrong item could be returned to them, but instead of having to pay the postage, I was given a freepost address! So if anyone requires to send back goods bought online at Sports Direct, but do not wish to pay the postage, then all you need to do is post it to the following address

FREEPOST
RRGJ-ZZSB-GLBX
Sports Direct
PO Box 9034
Mansfield
NG18 9DD

After sorting out the above problem, I then went out and stood on my local High Street for 45 minutes. Not as good a result as Friday, but I still look at this as gaining another 4 entries into next years prize draw.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	14:50 - 15:09	28	1	Nil	Nil
	15:09 - 15:15	4	1	Nil	Nil
	15:15 - 15:25	10	1	Nil	Nil
	15:25 - 15:35	8	1	1	Nil
Totals	45 Minutes	50	4	1	Nil

After all this activity, I then had to prepare to go to work commencing the first of seven night shifts! To keep up my momentum, I took some special business opportunity newspapers with me, which I placed inside the free Metro newspapers first thing on Wednesday morning. I try not to put them all in one place, but place a few at the stations I travel through. Interestingly, where I work, I get a lot of contractors coming in overnight to work too. One of them became interested in the newspaper, and took it away with them. Hopefully, they will get in touch with me to ask a few more questions!

The rest of the week has been fairly low key, as I have been feeling exhausted with the amount of contractors to deal with at work, and getting broken sleep at home (getting cold calls in the morning!). However, I have been going through my contact list and making a few phone calls each day. One call has resulted in an appointment to see them next week! I am also in the process of educating myself with a bit of personal development. This week, I am reading a book by Gerry A. Ford about how coaching people is a very important part of building a successful Network Marketing business. Until I started reading this book, I hadn't realised there was a learnable technique to coaching! The funny thing is, is at my full time job, I am on a list of available Supervisor's that trainee Supervisor's can shadow, and learn from. So this book is now going to help me in BOTH areas of my working life!

Here we are, the end of the week (Saturday). As I had to take my wife to work for 15:00, this gave me a reason to do another High St WAM (I'm all ready out and about right?). Again I stopped of in my local village of Stony Stratford. This time I only spent 20 minutes there, as it was quite chilly, and I hadn't dressed properly (short sleeved T-Shirt) for the temperature! Even those 20 minutes proved productive (see below). Now I will just have to see if the appointment is successful on Friday!

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	15:10 - 15:22	10	1	Nil	1
	15:22 - 15:30	14	1	1	Nil
Totals	20 Minutes	24	2	1	1

My personal best!!

Earlier today, I posted about how I am actively trying to up my game where building my part-time business is concerned. As a result of my activity doing WAM's (Win A Mini), I have for the first time beaten my own record of customer gatheing, by signing up three customers in one month!! The third one was a direct result of standing on a High Street for an hour on Friday!

Like I said, I need to up my game to try and gather at least four customers every month, if I am to stay on track and quailify for one of the Luxury holidays on offer. The beauty of this business, is that although I may be trying for the stars, I inadvertantly reach the moon without realising it!

Now all I need is to see what happens later this week as I have another appointment lined up.

The buzz I got from today also galvanised me into volunteering to do some mystery shops (my other part-time hobby). I now have two to do this week and one next week. Oh, and I also have to go to work full time too. Just about to start seven days of night shifts (if that makes any sense to you).

My Part Time Business Allows Me To Rub Shoulders With Important People!

I haven't posted anything about my part-time business for some time, mainly because I don't want to bore you with all the times I have stood in a High Street offering a Free Prize Draw to anyone walking by. I certainly got a lot of forms filled in. I even got a few people to agree to an appointment! However, it is always a little bit depressing, when they phone you back to cancel, and downright annoying when you turn up at their door and they have either forgotten about the appointment, or worse still, refuse to open the door!

This business is definitely not an easy thing to keep going at, but if you persevere, and never give up, then you WILL succeed! As a result of my efforts over the years, I managed to move up one step of the companies stairway to success (note: I did not mention ladder, as the stairway is wide enough for anyone to go at their own pace and not be held back by someone above them in the corporate ladder). As a result, when the company held their annual conference last week, I was invited to meet the top Directors at a Champagne reception afterwards. The following pictures are proof!

This is me with the CEO of Telecom Plus - Andrew Lindsay MBE. He was a Gold medal winner at the Sydney Olympics in 2000

 This is me with Network Director Wayne Coupland.

And finally, this is me with our Executive Chairman - The Honorable Charles Wigoder.

I also had the chance to rub shoulders with some of the most successful people in this business. There is nothing like the buzz in a room of successful happy people! It makes you forget all your trials and tribulations in the past and focus on positive thoughts and ideas, thus giving you the motivation and enthusiasm to go out and get knocked down by narrow minded, glass half empty, miserable people - who only feel happy when they make others miserable too!

As I have a full time job too, I fit this business in as and when I can, offering to help people save money on their household bills, and if they are genuinely interested in working towards their financial freedom - there is the business opportunity side to consider too! Part of my skills training for this involves personal development, by reading books and listening to CD's. What I have discovered, is these books are designed to help and motivate both yourself and your team. This is something that is proving very useful, not just with Telecom Plus, but now, with all the changes about to happen with the management structure of London Underground (my full time job), it is helping me learn about management skills I will need if I wish to remain working for London Underground.

Anyway, Telecom Plus have given us some new incentives to help motivate us over the coming months. Some I will achieve, some may prove to be a bit harder for me. The hardest one for me will be to gather at least 4 customers every month for the next 18 months. Should I succeed (only gathered 2 so far this month), then I will be given a one week luxury holiday for me and my family. It could be a trip on a luxury Ocean Liner, or a trip to Las Vegas. All I know is the value of these holidays are in excess of £1,000 per day!

To give me a chance to actually qualify for some of these holiday promotions requires some extra effort on my behalf. This means I have to go out and talk to as many people as possible, either over the phone, or face to face. I am presently, going through my phone list contacting everyone again. I have the excuse to ask if they would like to enter in the new Free Prize Draw that has just started. It makes a good opening gambit to start a conversation again. Also, I am going to step up my activity with promoting the WAM (Win A Mini) events. I just did one in February over a weekend in a Wickes store (signed up one customer as a result), and have another one lined up in April at a B & Q store. In between these large official events, I am also still popping down to a local High Street to conduct an impromptu WAM for about an hour. This is by far the cheapest and easiest way to get people to stop and talk to you, although the quality of the leads are very much hit and miss, I can promise you it does work! This is the result of my most recent High Street foray -

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	12:58 - 13:03	12	1	Nil	1
	13:08 - 13:15	13	1	Nil	1
	13:20 - 13:27	11	1	1	Nil
	13:32 - 14:03	32	1	Nil	Nil
Totals	65 Minutes	68	4	1	2

So this week I have two appointments, that I didn't have before as a result of my efforts. I will let you know how I got on with the appointments, as there is no guarantee that they will become a customer, as I mentioned earlier.

Company Incentive helps to Galvanise me into Action!

At the beginning of this month the Franchise business I am involved with (Utility Warehouse) made an offer that is too good to miss! All I have to do is gather a minimum of two customers each month until the end of May and I will be given 500 Telecom Plus shares. If I manage to gather a total of 15 customers by the end of May, I will be given 1000 shares! At present, the Telecom Plus shares are trading at around £18. So I have the chance of gaining £18,000 for just a little effort!

My usual methods of just talking to people and the occasional High Street Win a Mini, only produces about one customer every other month! To achieve a higher gathering average, I needed to try something different.

One of the tools available to me is to post a neighbourhood letter to the houses in my village. The idea is to post the letters, and then knock on their doors a few days later, to see if they have read the letter. At the moment, there is a lot of discussion regarding whether this is doorstep selling, as this is no longer allowed, especially where energy is concerned, I am a bit dubious of working this way. The way some people have got round this is to knock on peoples door and ask them if they would like to enter a Free Prize Draw. If they say yes, then you give them the form and say you will be back to collect the form in a day or two. Attached to the form is the neighbourhood letter, which they can read if they want to. This technique, I am told, proves to be quite successful.

Yesterday, I stapled Win-a-Mini forms to 20 neighbourhood letters, and set out to deliver them. I had to knock on 50 houses (it feels uncomfortable when you first start, but it gets easier with practice), before I managed to give out the 20 forms. This morning, I visited the 20 houses again, and out of the 20, 6 of them returned the forms - without filling them in! 2 had already lost them! 4 couldn't find them, or hadn't looked at them and could I come back later in the week? The rest either were not at home, or wouldn't answer the door!

What I have learned from this experience, is that I need to do more of these, as there is a definite skill to approaching people this way. It is like climbing a ladder. Take a step with your left leg - learn the techniques. Take a step with your right leg - put the techniques you've learned into action.

It looks increasingly likely I won't manage to gather the required 2 customers this month, but there will be other opportunities in the future, and by then, I will have built up enough skill and experience to achieve the goals I set myself.