What has happend to British manners?

I am frankly puzzled why some people have no manners. The world would be a much better place if we all practised being polite and being honest. Time and time again, I meet people who do not have the decency to respond politely to me. For instance, at work we have a radio comminication system that you can set for each individual Station. It is easy to accidentally switch the channel from your own Station to another one. When I hear someone request information on my Station channel, and know it isn't one of my staff, I politely let them know they are broadcasting on my Station, and they should check which channel they are on. What I would like to happen is the person to radio back and say thank you. What normally happens is dead silence! It's as if they are embarrassed to acknowledge they have heard me!

Another annoying habit people have is their way avoiding having to say no! I arranged to see someone today. As common courtesy, I phoned them an hour before I am due to be there to see if it is still convenient. Their first reaction is, "Sorry, I can't hear you, you're breaking up." Then the line goes dead. When I ring back again, they pick the phone up, as soon as I speak, they put the phone down on me. When I phone a third time, their answer phone is switched on! And all I was trying to do was confirm it was OK to go and see them! How difficult would it have been for them to say "no!".

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