The little black book and the man with no friends

by John Passmore

If something works three times in a row, does that prove it’s a success?

I don’t know but I felt confident enough about my new prospecting system to recommend it to Chris down in the West Country today.

Of course then I had to go out and try it just once more to prove to myself that I was right…

And sure enough the young man behind the counter in the Garden Centre looked up with genuine interest when I said: “While I’m here, do you want to know how to earn some extra money?”

“Yes.”

“OK, write your name, your email address and your mobile phone number in there and I’ll send you something.”

And the next person in the queue waited patiently while he did just that – and then I gave him a DVD for good measure.

Encouraged by this I went straight home and rang the guy from the music shop we met yesterday: What did he like best about it?

“Very impressive,” were his exact words.

“OK, have you got a bit of paper. I’ll show you how the money works…”

You need this sort of response to balance the next chap I talked to. He was a “garden groomer”. I had pulled up on in someone’s drive especially so that I could type the mobile number from his van into my phone. While I was doing it he came out of the gate. So I saved myself a text and gave him the 30 second thing in person.

“Does anyone ever moan to you about the credit crunch and the cost of living?”

“Not really.”

“Not your customers?”

“I never see them. They’re always out at work.”

“Not your friends?”

“Haven’t got any.”

“Your family.”

“They all moved away.”

I was beginning to feel that I wasn’t surprised. We agreed that this was not for him.

Never mind, the delivery man who came with my son’s new desk (from Argos) thought it sounded great – so great, in fact, that he’s now going back to the distributor who signed him up as a customer and left him with a DVD which, of course, he never watched.

Never mind, I was 15 minutes early for my afternoon appointment so I sat outside the house and called three people from the list. If my arithmetic is right, I’ve earned my prawn risotto.