Cynics and cheats

by John Passmore

“Do you cheat?”

That’s what people have started to ask me.

Well, I could. I could have cheated this morning. This morning I said my 30 second thing to 25 people before nine O’clock in the morning. I went to a business breakfast club. But I couldn’t very well count that – not after what Robin Brooks told us at the Norwich COP last night.

This isn’t the place to repeat everything he said. But I tell you one thing: I know why they say going to the COPs will make your business go faster. This is the effect it had on me today…

For a start I decided that counting the breakfast meeting would be just too easy – apart from the one member I chatted to before we sat down. How did my business work, she asked me.

“Well, what I do is listen out for people who moan about the credit crunch and the cost of living…”

But then, back home again, I had a rather long Meeting Two with a new distributor and the afternoon was going to be spent putting together IKEA bookcases. The one window of opportunity was a quick trip to Felixstowe.

First I asked a young man in the street for directions to a stationers. He spent a long time telling me.

“Thanks for being so helpful…. Actually, I’m always on the lookout for helpful people. Would you be interested in earning some extra money?”

He was – Two.

On a high now, I bowled into a betting shop and advanced on the three clerks behind the counter announcing loudly: “I’m looking for someone who wants to bet on a horse that never loses.”

I don’t know what made me say it but it’s what Jimmy Chapman said to his first distributor.

Of course, I should have realised that betting shop staff must be the most cynical beings on the planet. Imagine watching an endless sequence of broken dreams being played out in front of you day after day.

They watched impassively as I told them how it worked.

“Interested?” I asked them.

“Nah…”

Who cares, I was up to five. In the car park was a little family group: Granny, daughter and granddaughter. Flinging open the boot of the Mini, I grabbed a DVD and thrust it at them: “This is for you – just in case.”

Granny took it: “Thank you very much.”

Then, as she examined it, she matched up the pigs on the DVD with the pigs on the car.

“D’you want one – the car I mean. They give you one of these…”

And 30 seconds later she knew how and I had her phone number and email address.

So that was my six – or perhaps my 30 if you count breakfast.

But guess what, a friend – the teacher from Tuesday – called round to drop off Lottie from Ballet and of course he and his daughter came in to see the puppies.

“D’you want one?” I asked them. “D’you want two?”

“Oh no,” he said, “We’ve thought of it but with both of us out all day, it wouldn’t be fair.”

Now, this friend is a customer. He and his wife have known for four years that you can make money out of this business – heavens, they’ve seen me make money out of it and I’ve never mentioned it again since that first time – but tonight I was still fresh from my infusion of Robin Brooks.

“I can fix that!” I said – and grabbed a DVD. “Have another look at this – it works…”