A little faith and a forgotten friend

by John Passmore

What a good day – and not just because it was a “One Customer, One Distributor Day” (in which case my work for the week is done on Monday!)

As usual it began with me wondering how on earth I was going to talk to six people. I suppose you just have to have a bit of faith and sure enough the first serving of spam arrived - or rather the first bit of email marketing, to give it its proper name.

Because we do Bed & Breakfast we get a lot of this stuff – they hoover up email addresses off B&B websites and here was an insurance company wanting to save us on our premium. So I rang them, spoke to the man whose name was on the email and asked him if he wanted to take 30 seconds to find out how he could make an extra income on the back of his insurance business – and, guess what, he did.

But there my luck ran out and I was reduced to calling the numbers in the “Services Directory” – a little booklet full of local small businesses which dropped on the mat a couple of weeks ago. Out of that I got a wedding video company, an accountant and an IFA all wanting to know how they could make extra money.

However that was the end of the booklet and I still needed two more so I looked up “IFA Suffolk” and “Electrician Suffolk” on Google and started calling.

“Hello,” I said. “We’ve not met but I’m calling because I have several colleagues who are IFAs/electricians and they find they can make a very good extra income on the back of their regular business. Would you like me to take 30 seconds to tell you what they do?”

And guess what, the IFA listened and said: “A friend of mine was telling me about this a few months ago.”

“Well get back to your friend and say ‘I’m in’.” I told him. “ It works brilliantly for people in your line. I went to a meeting last week and there were four IFA’s in the room.”

“Yes,” he said. “I think I will – trouble is I can’t remember his name.”

Clearly this was a use of the word “friend” with which I was unfamiliar. So now he’s running over the business again on my website…

Then another IFA called back and he wanted to know more and that was my six. But by this time I had created what they call “momentum” so what happened during the rest of the day was this:

First of all an electrician called Stan phoned back. This was hardly surprising since his number seemed to be all over Google in a variety of different guises. Just as well, though. This is what he said: “Now it’s funny you should call. I heard about this some while ago and thought I should do it. I was planning to look it up on the internet tonight but you could save me some trouble if you have the company’s website address.”

And then I looked at my Business Development Planner and realised I hadn’t rung anyone from my list. The trouble is it’s a very old list. The first person said no. The second person said: “John Passmore? My word that’s a name from the past!”

It was too. According to the database, we first spoke in March 2007.

“You still doing that Utility thing?” he asked.

“Certainly am. Let me tell you what it’s done for me…”

Then I asked him: “Are you any richer than you were last time we spoke?”

And this was all very well except suddenly it dawned on me that I’d put “give out three DVDs” on the Business Development Planner and I hadn’t given out any and now it was getting late.

There was nothing for it but to shift two to parents waiting outside my son’s dancing class. They didn’t seem very interested but that was their problem. I’d done my bit.

For a while I tapped the last one on my fingers wondering what on earth to do with it.

Of course! I had an appointment at 7.45…

Like I said. You just need a little faith.