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 |
