Sliding Doors

If you went to “An Audience with the SMDs” you will have heard about the “Sliding Doors” moment.

This is based on the film of the same name in which Gwyneth Paltrow slides effortlessly between two storylines developing in different directions depending on whether she did or did not get onto a tube train before the doors closed.

I think I might just have had one of those moments today.

For one reason and another the arrangements for MAD did not go smoothly and I ended up without a room at the hotel where Jez Tromans organised his party. It was a great night but I ended up staying at a pub a mile away. This meant that the next morning I had to walk back to pick up the Mini.

Now I’d already been exposed to one MAD in Southport and Jimmy Chapman had talked about a challenge he had set his team – to hand out 50 business cards a day for 90 days. That’s 4,500 in all. What effect do you think that would have on your business? I had decided then and there to do the same.

However at 8.30 a.m. on a Sunday morning when I knew I was going to spend the entire day in a room with 2,000 other distributors, it suddenly didn’t seem so easy.

But everything’s possible if you just think about it for a moment. So I started pushing cards through letter boxes. And of course there were a few people walking home with the Sunday papers under their arm, so they gone one and a cheery word to go with it.

But then, when I came to the paper shop I saw Cheltenham’s most dedicated entrepreneur. He turned out to be a redundant Porsche salesman who had bought himself a van with an Expresso machine in the back and he was parked on the pavement dispensing coffee and muffins to go with the Sunday supplements. What a great idea!

So we got talking and I asked him if people stood around the van drinking their coffee and whether he talked to them … and whether they ever moaned about the credit crunch and the cost of living…

And yes, he’s now looking. And if he does it, how good do you think he’ll be?

The more I think about him the more excited I become.

By the time I emerged from my second MAD of the weekend and embarked on the 170-mile drive home, I wanted more of those sliding doors moments. For instance, what if I pulled into the service station on the M5? Who would I meet there?

It turned out to be a woman with a new baby who had decided that after this one she was not going back to work.

And I found a new line of introduction too. There were a lot of people I wouldn’t go out of my way to talk to . Since I’d rather talk to people who at least look successful, I tried this: “Hi, you look successful. Am I right?”

I’m rather pleased with it – after all it was only a few days ago that I decided to give a pink pig to everyone wearing pink (or purple, or certain shades of blue) so that I could say: “I’m going to give you one of these because it matches your top…”

And you guessed it, without any apparent effort, I had spoken to my six. I can hardly wait to call them back and see what happens.

Isn’t this business exciting?