Setting Goals

I haven't been keeping this blog up to date for years, and the only reason I am re-starting it again, is so that I can track my progress over the next couple of years.

Now I have been basically drifting when applying myself to build my part-time business. I haven't set any concrete plans or goals to get myself to where I would like to be. I have splurges of activity, for a short period, then procrastinate, and do very little in the way of activity!

So, now to actually try an experiment to see if what I have been reading really works.

A couple of years ago, I joined a book club, where every month I receive a book on personal development. It is safe to say, that I haven't read most of them yet, but I have started to listen to the audio books (making good use of my time walking our dog). Two books grabbed my attention and started to rings some bells in my head.

The first book is called Appreciation Marketing, by Tommy Wyatt & Curtis Lewsey. This book gave me some helpful insights on how I would like to be thought of by others. I already do some of this on a daily basis, just not to the extent that they suggest. So that is something for me to aim on improving.

The second book I listened to was The Answer, by Allan & Barbara Pease. Now this book basically started talking about how your brain works, or more to the point, your R.A.S. (Reticular Activating System). What this books drives home is that once you decide to do something, your brain starts to find a way to achieve what you want to do. One message that struck a chord with me, was "Think of what you want to achieve, not HOW you are going to achieve it. The how will happen without you realsing it, if you just keep picturing in your head everyday the end result of what it is you want.

One of the tasks the book tells you to do is create a list of goals you want to do in your life. It can be absolutely anything you want, from doing charity work, or sleeping under a bridge with the homeless, to being a millionaire and living the jet-set lifestyle! The list of goals is only as good as your imagination! What did you want to do when you were a child? What ambitions did you have as a teenager? What projects that you secretly wanted to do, but never had the time to do them?

I have started my list today, and I will be adding to it whenever something crosses my mind as something I would like to try. There are further stages to the process of setting your goals, such as prioratising them into those you really want to do as soon as possible, those that you want to do, but just don't have the resources (money or time) available right now. And the the final section of those that sound interesting, but you don't have a burning desire to pursue right at this moment. But first you have to make your list of goals, before you can sort them into any order. So I am giving myself one week to make my list before making an attempt to sort them into any sort of shape for my future.

Now, tomorrow, is the Annual Conference of the Network Marketing Company that I am affiliated with. When I come back from the event, I will be a lot more motivated than I am today. This Company consistently rewards us for the work we do in building our businesses. One of the incentives I have been hoping to achieve is the chance to get a brand new BMW Mini. To get this Mini, I need to gather more customers until I have a minimum of 75. I average gathering about 3 to 4 customers a year, and with only 38 customers at present, you can see it will take me about 20 years to get there!!

I am now going to set myself a goal of getting the Mini in March 2021, as there is a particular reason I want to be ready to order it at that time. I want the Mini to have a personalised number plate and it will be this UW21CTM. To achieve this goal I will need a minimum of 37 more customers over 2 years, which equates to about 2 customers a month (allowing for some to leave and need replacing). Now switching from 3 to 4 customers a year to 2 customers a month (24 customers a year), is going to be an enormous jump for me. I am not looking at HOW I am going to do this, only that this is what I WILL achieve! I will let my R.A.S start working on the solution in the background (subconscious). I will keep you posted on my progress.

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!!

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.

Some You Win, Some You Lose.

A couple of weeks ago, the MLM company I am involved with, unleashed a holiday offer to those of us who went to the Company Conference. All we have to do is gather 20 average customers (that means they have 3 or more services) before the end of January 2014, and the company will then take you on a weekend trip to Paris! They will also include £250 spending money. We would be visiting the Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, Champs-Elysées, Notre Dame, to name but a few!

The Company then made it more difficult to attain, in that you have to meet certain criteria along the way. Basically, I have to gather a minimum of 2 customers in September, a minimum of 4 in October, and 4 in November, 2 in December, and 4 in January. The 2 customers in September have to be gathered after the 15th September. Any customers gathered before this date do not count!

I had a couple of appointments lined up to go to this month, but unfortunately, both customers cancelled their appointments, one didn't reschedule, and the other rescheduled for mid October. So as I needed to find some new customers, I got off my lazy backside and took a stroll down to my local town to attempt to drum up some more appointments by doing a High Street W.A.M. (Win A Mini prize draw). This time I stood in the High Street for an hour, and the table below shows what I got for my efforts -

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	13:10 - 13:25	25	1	Nil	Nil
	13:40 - 13:50	25	1	Nil	Nil
	13:54 - 14:05	28	1	Nil	Nil
	14:08 - 14:10	4	1	Nil	Nil
Totals	60 Minutes	82	4	Nil	Nil

So for the one hour of effort, all I have managed to achieve is gain 4 more chances to win £1,000 for myself next year!

Yesterday, I received a call from one the the Mystery Shopping Companies I am affiliated to. They were desperate for me to make a telephone call assessment. I thought all I had to do was make the phone call and fill in a report, but no, they want a lot more from me!

The phone call had to be recorded. Then I have to wait 24 hours for the recording to be sent back to me, so that I can write my report based on the recording! All done and dusted? Not on your Nelly! I then have to wait a further three days to see if I get any literature through the post, or receive a call back!

At least this is one project that will be successful... eventually!!!

A Little Bit Of Part-Time Work Can Pay Dividends.... Eventually!

In 2005, July 29th, to be exact, I joined a MLM (Multi Level Marketing) Franchise Company called Utility Warehouse. I had never been self employed, I had never sold anything professionally, and I had a full time job that paid well. All I had to do was recommend the services to friends and family, and anyone else who I talked to, and if they used the services, I would get paid a commission each month.

The Utility Warehouse set targets that, should I meet them, I would receive substantial bonuses. The first of these was the joining fee. When I joined, the registration fee was £200, and if I gathered 6 customers within the first three months, I would receive the £200 back as a bonus (today you only have to gather 3 customers to get your registration fee back, and the registration fee is now only £100).

Because I didn't have a large circle of social contacts, I found it difficult to talk to enough people to build my business. I had no support from the people who introduced me to the business. I was left completely on my own to find my own way forward. Also gathering 6 customers would then release the monthly residual income!

 It actually took me 15 months to finally gather my first 6 customers! The company provided free training, and recommended I should attend a training course at least once a month. Guess what I did? I attended two courses in September 2005, and one in October 2006. Admittedly, because of the very slow start to building my business, I freely admit that I totally lacked any motivation to be successful quickly. I wasn't prepared to go on training courses, wasn't prepared to read any books that would help with my self development. I had no role models I could follow, or look up to. Yes there were the high flyer's within the Utility Warehouse that were constantly being talked about in the newsletters that were sent to me on a regular basis. I didn't know there was a better way to build this business. In July 2007, I finally managed to introduce someone into the business, and hopefully begin to build my business into something substantial! Only, I did exactly what my sponsor had done to me. I totally left my new distributor to fend for himself. In one year, he managed to gather just 3 customers. Then he quit!! I have only myself to blame for not giving him the support and help he probably needed to be successful in this business.

I refused to give up. The company charges a monthly fee to maintain my position within the company, and there were frequent months when the fee deducted was greater than the monthly commission that came in!! Admittedly, I never had to pay more than a couple of pounds each month, and it galvanised me into doing more activity to gather a new customer. So I never had to pay the company out of my own pocket for more than three months in a row! The next target I had to reach was gathering 12 customers (today it is now 20 customers), and this I finally managed to achieve in May 2008.

It was also in 2008 that I finally met up with someone who's team I was in. He had a vested interest in making me successful, and so he took me under his wing, and taught me how this business really works! I started attending special events, went on loads more training courses (5 of them in November and December 2008 alone!). I was also told that as I was self employed, I had to register my business with Inland Revenue, and submit tax returns myself, or employ an accountant! Admittedly, my income from this business wasn't anything to write home about. In fact, I had been probably operating at a loss, if I included all the travelling, and advertising I had done so far. What I didn't realise was that I could offset the business costs against the tax I paid from my full time employment! Now, every year, I have received a tax rebate from Inland Revenue!! Eventually, my business will begin to bring in more money, and I will, at some point in the future, have to start paying MORE tax, but happily, that time hasn't arrived, yet!

Since 2008, I have applied myself to this business in fits and starts. I would get fired up and become enthusiastic and focused on building the business, then become despondent, and lethargic. The trouble was, that the failures, or should I say lack of success, kept happening, no matter how hard I tried! Consequently, I would  take my foot off the throttle, and the business would grind to a halt, until I would have another bright idea, or go to one of the company seminars or training courses and get my motivation levels back up again. The one thing I am really proud of though, is I DIDN'T QUIT!

As a consequence of not quitting, I have now introduced three other people into this business, and they have begun to build a business for themselves. I  offer them help and support, and keep in regular contact with them, which is why they are still in the business and haven't quit. Because of their efforts, and my own efforts since 2005, this week, I was able to move up another step on the stairway of success within this business, and become a Team Leader! My monthly income still has it's ups and downs, depending on whether I do any work or not, but I can definitely see, that this business WILL eventually provide me with an income that will increase every month until the day I die, and then provide an income for my family for the rest of their lives too! How big that income will be will depend on how much effort I put into building this business.

I'm not an Entrepreneur, I'm not a salesman. Deep down, I hate to think that I am useless, and incapable of being successful. This is the vehicle I have chosen to prove to people that I can be successful at something!!

Working Smart can pay dividends!

Today, my wife had an appointment to see her doctor, so we decided to do some multi-tasking. My wife, my daughter, and myself arranged to walk to Stony Stratford. My wife to go to the doctor's for her appointment. My daughter to take our dog for a walk, and myself to keep them company and do a 30 minute High St WAM. We all achieved our various aims, our dog was completely worn out with the exercise (our daughter too!). My wife completed her appointment which conveniently took 30 minutes to complete. During the wait, I successfully managed to do the following -

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	09:58 - 10:05	6	1	Nil	1
	10:09 - 10:16	11	1	Nil	1
	10:20 - 10:28	7	1	1	Nil
Totals	30 Minutes	24	3	1	2

Not bad for 30 minutes work, that would have been spent idly sitting in a doctor's surgery!

Multiple Chances For Me to Win £1000

As You may be aware, I am trying to build my business into something substantial. Unfortunately, because I am basically very lazy, and lack drive and motivation, the business is growing at a snails pace. the only saving grace I have is, I don't quit! To that end, I decided to do a High Street WAM (Win A Mini competition), only this time, I set myself a target of gathering at least 2 appointments every week, no matter how many WAM's it took! Rather than look to get the appointments in one day, I have to keep going every day until I do achieve my target. So this post is a work in progress, showing what I get up to over the course of this week.

Monday

Today, I visited Stony Stratford again, to see if I could gather any appointments. I did gather one appointment, but unfortunately, the customer then phoned me 15 minutes later to cancel the appointment. He didn't want to reschedule the appointment either! I spent 90 minutes there, and only got 6 forms filled in. At least that means I get 6 more chances to win £1000 next year! Below is the table of my efforts in Stony.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	10:30 - 10:45	27	1	Nil	Nil
	10:50 - 10:55	14	1	Nil	Nil
	11:00 - 11:10	23	1	Nil	Nil
	11:15 - 11:20	3	1	Nil	1
	11:25 - 11:26	1	1	Nil	Nil
	11:30 - 12:00	41	1	Nil	Nil
Totals	90 Minutes	109	6	Nil	1

Tuesday 

I didn't do any major work promoting my business today, as I had a hospital appointment in the morning, and took my wife shopping in the afternoon. My 3 week holiday was cut short after only the first week as I was desperately needed back at work to cover for staff sickness. Initially it should be for only 5 days, so hopefully, I will be back on holiday next week. So tonight, I will be working night shifts for the next 5 nights.

However, I did have an appointment to see someone about the business opportunity. The meetimg went well, but he couldn't be considered a canditate until he turns 18, which is next week. So I have another appointment arranged to see him on his birthday!

I also received a phone call from a potential customer, and have arranged an appointment for Thursday evening.

Wednesday

As a bit of activity to drive my business forward, I placed 50 business newspapers inside the daily Metro newspapers. Hopefully, they will spread out around London, and someone might pick up the business newspaper and give me a call.

I had to take my wife to work in the morning, and collect her again in the afternoon, so my day's sleep was disrupted somewhat, so not much time was available to do much else today.

Thursday

Again, I dipatched another 50 business Newspapers inside the Daily Metro Newspaper. This time I chose a different location for the Newspapers. My idea was that a completely different number of people would pick up these papers. So far, there has been no response - yet! I won't be giving out any more of these newspapers, as I have finally used up all the stock I had. Considering that I bought the supply nearly 4 years ago, it's about time I got around to distributing them all! It will be a few months before I order some more newspapers, as I am currently saving up for a mobile booth to do the WAM (Win A Mini) events at Car Boot Sales, Fairs, and weekend Markets.

Friday

Today, I arranged to do a High Street WAM with one of my team. Together, we went to Stony Stratford, and we stood there for 30 minutes asking people if they wanted to enter a free prize draw. My team member managed to get a few forms filled in, but alas, she didn't get any appointments. Below is a table of my own efforts, which ended with me gaining an appointment next week!

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	14:55 - 14:57	7	1	Nil	Nil
	15:00 - 15:03	3	1	Nil	Nil
	15:07 - 15:08	1	1	Nil	Nil
	15:14 - 15:16	2	1	Nil	1
Totals	30 Minutes	13	4	Nil	1

At least the first hurdle has been negotiated, now all I have to do is get over the next hurdle of getting the customer to let me visit them as arranged. Then I stand a chance of getting over the final hurdle of getting them to become a customer!

On my regular occupation, I have now been asked to work the full 7 nights! What happens next Tuesday could be interesting, as that is when I would have been doing my own night shift if I wasn't on holiday. The person who is supposed to covering my shift, is now on holiday himself! So it is anybody's guess as to who will be covering those duties next week. I wouldn't be surprised if I get a desperate phone call from my manager asking for help again!

Return of the High Street WAM

After a couple of months of finding excuses not to do WAM's (It's raining, it's too cold, haven't got time), I arranged to do a High Street WAM with my colleague Matt, who is in need of some confidence and motivation in moving his business forward.

So together, we visited Stony Stratford High Street for 30 minutes. It wasn't raining, but there was a cold wind that made me wish I had been wearing gloves! Matt stood on one side of the road, and I stood on the other side, that way no-one would be able to escape us!!

Matt managed to talk to 39 people, but unfortunately he didn't get anyone to stop and fill in a form. I talked to 51 people, of which 2 stopped to fill in a form. As a result, I now have one appointment, and one call back to make next week. I even managed to give out a DVD about the Business Opportunity!

With this and any subsequent WAM's I do, I am trying to focus more on looking for people who are interested in the Business Opportunity. Gathering customers, will just be a useful bi-product that happens by default. I have been set a challenge to recruit someone into the business by one of the most successful people in this business, and get the new recruit qualified before July 1st this year. So now I will need to ramp up my activity to make sure I achieve the challenge set before me!

Below is the chart of the activity I did in Stony Stratford.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	10:30 - 10:35	10	1	Nil	1
	10:38 - 10:55	41	1	1	Nil
Totals	25 Minutes	51	2	1	1

Success in Rugby!!

As you may have noticed, I have been attempting to build my business through doing WAM's (Win a Mini) in various town and village High Streets. I was told that it was a far better method of utilising my valuable time to gather customers.

Last year I delivered 25,000 leaflets at the rate of 200-400 a day, taking anything from 90 minutes to 3 hours to complete each day I did them. For all my effort, I only successfully gathered 10 customers and one new team member (distributor). By my calculations, I invested about 185 hours of my time in this enterprise.

With the WAM's, I now invest a maximum of 30 minutes each time I do it. Within that time, I now manage to get at least a call back or an appointment on each occasion. I didn't when I first started, so I have now improved my technique, to progress to the present stage I am at now.

Last month I travelled to Rugby to meet up with another colleague in this business, to help him get used to doing the High Street WAM. It was bitterly cold, and I managed to stay there for only 10 minutes. I did manage to get a form filled in with a call back to be made in early February. A few days ago I made contact, and arranged for an appointment today.

Whilst I was in Rugby, I also did a High Street WAM, this time I managed 20 minutes before getting too cold (The temperature only got as high as 2 celcius!). The results of my activity are displayed below. My colleague also came along but he didn't do much activity.

The person I had appointment today with has become a customer! So this is my first successful completion of gathering a customer through the High Street WAM, start to finish!! Now all I need is for the weather to warm up, and I will be going for this technique BIG time!

I am also learning another technique that will hopefully gather customers at a faster rate than the High Street WAM's. Again, it will take a lot of practice before the dividends will pay off. Between these two techniques, I hope to step up my conversion rate and achieve my target of gathering at least one customer a week. At the moment, I feel like an airoplane bouncing along over bumpy ground, trying to gain speed. Eventually I will get up to speed and then I will suddenly take off! Then the skies the limit!!

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Rugby	12:50 - 12:55	21	1	Nil	Nil
	13:00 - 13:10	10	1	Nil	1
Totals	20 Minutes	31	2	Nil	1

Business Activity this week

Rather than give a day by day account of my activity with the WAM's and other methods I use for gathering new customers into by business, I decided to amalgamate a weeks worth of effort into one post. Probably, that will mean only one entry, if I don"t galvanise myself into doing more activity! This week has been a fairly busy one so far.

On Sunday, I headed off to Birmingham to attend a company Kick-Off Seminar. The idea of athe word Kick-Off is to literally Kick-Off the Christmas blues and get back into building your business again. The seminar was interesting as we had a guest speaker Tom 'Big Al' Schreiter give us some very good ideas on how to talk to 'prospects' as he called them.

On Monday, I started my personal self-development, by beginning to read a book "Goals!" by Brian Tracy. My aim is to try and read 10 pages a day. Also I visited Northampton to do a WAM

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Northampton	12:05 - 12:30	37	1	Nil	Nil
Totals	25 Minutes	37	1	Nil	Nil

On Friday, I visited Stony Stratford High Street, where I had some success. In the space of half an hour, I got 4 forms filled in and one led to an appointment being made. So the first hurdle was negotiated, geting an appointment. Now it remains to be seen if I actually get to the appointment, or will the customer cancel before I even get there!

Below, is the activity generated at Stony Stratford.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Stony Stratford	15:50 - 15:52	1	1	Nil	Nil
	15:56 - 16:05	20	1	Nil	Nil
	16:10 - 16:15	14	1	Nil	Nil
	16:20 - 16:25	5	1	Nil	1
Totals	35 Minutes	40	4	Nil	1

On Saturday, I visited Bletchley High Street. I had to do this in the late afternoon as I am working night shifts this week, and I normally sleep in the mornings. Of course by the time I got to Bletchley it was nearly closing time for a lot of shops, so the number of people walking by on a bitterly cold night was a lot less than I expected. After only 24 minutes, with fingers numbed from the cold, I was about to give up and go home without getting anyone to stop and enter the prize draw, when someone did stop and give their details. More importantly, they agreed to have an appointment the next day!

Below is the result of my efforts in Bletchley.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Bletchley	16:25 - 16:49	43	1	Nil	1
Totals	24 Minutes	43	1	Nil	1

On Sunday, an hour before my appointment with the customer I met in Bletchley the day before, I phoned them to confirm the appointment was still going ahead. The customer then said that something else had cropped up and could they arrange another time? So the appointment has been postponed until the next day. This is something that happens frequently, and I have learned from bitter experience to ALWAYS ring the client BEFORE setting out. The one occasion I didn't do this was to a client who lived 100 miles away. Despite waiting for 2 hours at his house, he didn't come home, and he wouldn't answer his phone!

I will phone the Bletchley client again to confirm that they will be there at the appointed time, before I leave home. That way I don't waste my time and fuel setting out on a pointless journey.

Still No real progress yet!

This year hasn't got off to a good start yet regarding my ability to gather new customers, or build my business empire by finding new team members. I have set myself some targets this year, to help me stay focused and push forward in building my franchise business into something that I can be proud of in achieving. Others in this business seem to have far greater ease at building their businesses than I do. It may be that their work ethics are far more driven than mine have ever been. I don't do this because I need the money, or extra free time. I don't have the driving ambition to be come a multi millionaire. I have consistently found it very difficult to find a big enough reason WHY I do this that would make me want to keep going out day after day and getting negative answers to my questions of wanting to help people save money.

This year I am trying a new tactic. I have told my friends and family what I hope to achieve this year with this business. What I have set out is possible with sustained effort. I am determined to better than I did last year, and last year was my most successful year yet, mainly because I took the time to deliver 25,000 leaflets over the course of the year. I still have another 5,000 leaflets to deliver, but this year I will only deliver them when I have time available. This year is where I hope to begin to perfect my technique at High Street WAM'S (Win-A-Mini). I still have a lot to learn, such as what is a good location, what time of day is best, and most important of all, how to get someone who stops to fill in a form to agre to let me do a presentation in their home! So far, it has yet to happen. I now manage to attract people to fill in the forms, I can also seem to get them to agree to call them back or pencil in an appointment, but I still fail to really take it to the next step. All the call backs have either not answered their phone, or said they were not interested. The one appointment I managed to get so far cancelled when I phoned him to confirm the appointment the next day!

 Sometimes this process can get so frustrating! Yet all I can do is keep trying. To that end, I took a colleague with me to Buckingham town centre again to see what would happen. My colleague spent the entire time chatting to me, and only asked one person walking by if they wanted to win a car! I was a lot more vocal, and asked a lot more people. However, this time I got the wrong type of people to stop and fill in the forms. Out of the three who stopped, two were young boys/men who were living at home with their parents, and the other person made me feel that he knew exactly what he was doing by giving answers that guaranteed that I could not go any further with my script. Basicically, he was telling me that I would be wasting my time taking the matter any further.

The one theing I am proud of about myself is I do not give up! I will keep on trying until I eventually become skilled enough to get the results I want. For those of you who are interested in my success or failure at my High Street WAM's, below is the result of my attempt in Buckingham.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Buckingham	17:10 - 17:15	14	1	Nil	Nil
	17:20 - 17:25	2	1	Nil	Nil
	17:30 - 17:45	13	1	Nil	Nil
Totals	25 Minutes	29	3	Nil	Nil

WAM in Newport Pagnell

This morning, it was very cold, and despite dressing warmly I could only stand in the High Street of Neport Pagnell for 20 minutes before my fingers became too numb to hold a pen! Again, I took a colleague with me on this adventure. He managed to get one person to stop and fill in the WAM (Win-A-Mini) form. Unfortunately, he got no further than that as the person didn't want to be contacted unless it was to say he had won the prize. In the 20 minutes I was there, I only had 2 people stop to enter the prize draw. One person didn't want to be conacted again, and one person told me to contact them in the New Year. Below is the table of my efforts today.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Newport Pagnell	09:48 - 10:00	23	1	Nil	Nil
	10:05 - 10:12	5	1	1	Nil
Totals	20 Minutes	28	2	1	Nil

More Business Activity.

Yesterday, as the weather was fine, I decided to deliver another 200 leaflets around a nearby housing estate. The purpose of this excercise is twofold. One, it might lead to someone calling me for an appointment, and two, it gives me some exercise! As I have nearly 5000 leaflets still to deliver, I will be doing this as and when I have the time to devote to this task, Oh and the weather is dry too!

Today, I again went to another town's High Street with a fellow distributor to give him confidence at doing the High Street Win-A-Mini. It also gives me opportunity to practise too! We chose to visit Towcester, and allthough the footfall (number of people walking by) was very light, it has proved for me the most successful so far (see below for results), I got my first appointment! O.K, the appointment is in January, but it is still looking promising. My colleague, made a few mistakes in his presentation, but that is the whole idea of why we do this again and again. The more you do it, the better you get at it. Like everthing we do in life, we have to learn how to do it first before becoming accomplished. All of us had to learn to walk, some of us have learned to drive a vehicle, but when we first start out, we make more mistakes than getting it right. Eventually we become accomplished at our task, and make it look effortless and easy. That is what I am hoping to do with this business, learn the techniques of talking to people to get their interest, and knowing the correct way to talk to different personalities to maximise the chance of getting the result I am aiming for.

My next task is to find ways of gently motivating my fledgling team into doing some activity to build their own businesses next year. I will let you know how my own baby steps to success work out.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Towcester	14:40 - 14:45	2	1	1	Nil
	14:50 - 15:16	23	1	Nil	1
Totals	31 Minutes	25	2	1	1

Another visit to the High Street W.A.M.

Today, I arranged to help another Distributor try a High Street WAM (Win-a-Mini). We chose Buckingham. The footfall was very low as the temperature was freezing. We stood there for half an hour, and my colleague initially observed me in action, then started to join in.

After only half an hour, with my fingers numb from the cold, I'd had enough! I hadn't managed to get an appointment, but I did get two call backs. More to the point, my colleague got one form filled in, and it was a call back too!

I am in the process of learning a new way of gathering customers, that can be used once I have the appointment. So, I have arranged to go with this colleague a couple of days next week to do some more High Street WAM's

I think it is about time I also got back into the swing of things by delivering some more leaflets too. If I start now, I should be in full overdrive by the New Year, ready to push towards my goals for 2013.

Below is a summary of my efforts today.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Buckingham	15:55 - 16:00	3	1	Nil	Nil
	16:10 - 16:11	1	1	1	Nil
	16:16 - 16:25	13	1	1	Nil
Totals	29 Minutes	17	3	2	Nil

Win-a-Mini progress

Today, I had some time available whilst my wife went shopping in Wolverton. I decided to give the High Street WAM a try.

I learnt that you need to choose your location very carefully. Even though there was a market across the road, and a shopping mall next to it, there were very few people around. I was there for an hour, and did not get one appointment, or call back

The only positive thing I gained from this is experience. I became comfortable with standing on the pavement, asking anyone who came near me if they wanted to "Win a car, or £10,000 cash". I now need to practise more on the next stage of the process, which is to secure an appointment. This will only happen with time and practice!

Below, is the result of my efforts today. This is to show myself, in years to come, that you have to fail your way to success!

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Wolverton	12:06 - 12:20	20	1	Nil	Nil
	12:23 - 12:28	2	1	Nil	Nil
	12:30 - 12:41	12	1	Nil	Nil
	12:44 - 13:07	41	0	Nil	Nil
Totals	61 Minutes	75	3	Nil	Nil

If someone says "I Don't Have Time". Read On!

I decided to try an experiment today. As I hadn't attempted another High Street WAM (Win a Mini) since Saturday, I decided to get myself  back into the swing of things. The only problem was I have to go to work for my normal job, which meant either trying a WAM locally in the morning, or trying a half hour stint during my lunch break at work. As the weather was warm and sunny, I decided to try the latter as it would then limit me to only 30 minutes.

So at 17:10 I was standing in Camden High Street talking to anyone and everyone who came past, if they would like to Win a Mini. At first nobody seemed interested. Then in the last ten minutes, things started to get interesting. For those of you who say you cannot find time, I just found 30 minutes within my work day. I haven't encroached into any of my quality time at home with my family, and yet I have just managed to create an appointment from leveraging my time smartly. Here are the statistics for my 30 minute stint below.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Camden Town	17:10 - 17:40	113	3	Nil	1

High Street WAM (Win A Mini) Hitchin

Today, my wife had a job to do in Hitchin. As she was only going to be there for two hours, and it takes nearly an hour to drive from my home to where she was working, it seemed like a good idea to try the High Street Win A Mini for an hour. I very quickly learned that I still have a lot to learn about this technique!

I first placed myself near some bus stops, and in the space of 15 minutes had asked over 100 people if they wanted to enter a Free Prize Draw. Not one person stopped and entered their details!

I then changed location and walked to the market square. Here I had more success. I spoke to about 50 people, and had 3 people enter the prize draw. One person has asked me to call them back when they return from holiday in November!!

The biggest surprise was meeting up with a work colleague from my place of work in London. He was interested in becoming a customer, but says his next door neighbour is a UW distributor, and he would prefer to sign up with his neighbour instead.

Location	Time Taken	People Asked	Forms Filled	Call Back	Appointments
Hitchin	11:00 - 11:45	156	3	1	Nil