Back in 1994 at age 18, I was on top of the world.
Just out of high school, I had a good job as a draftsman and department manager, and a part time job as a cell attendant at the local Police Station.
A buddy of mine in our basement band invited me one day to hear about some kind of business.
This guy gave one heck of a presentation! He drew excited frantic circles on his white board set up in a tiny little living room and was practically dancing as he spoke! We named him Jumpin’ George.
He told us all about the power of networking and leveraging our time, and how by just getting people to buy all the same things they normally buy at the store from our businesses, we could all retire before we turned 20 if we worked at it.
I was hooked!
From the first circle, I could see where this was going, and boy, this could be HUGE! I had absolutely NO prior exposure to the concept of leverage, and absolutely no clue that network marketing had been around for more than a few months!
I signed up with this company three days later when Jumpin’ George came to my parents house to follow up with me.
I got to know George and his wife very well over the next couple of months.
I phoned them daily, visited their home weekly to pick up product and tapes and the book of the month, bought everything they told me I needed to buy, listened to every motivational tape ever made, and traveled to every seminar within 100 miles.
I’ve always looked very young for my age. I could have gotten into the local water park at the discounted kid rate if I had tried!
Despite my young looks, I became a prospecting MACHINE!
I would put on my “Power Suit” complete with red tie and wing tip shoes shined to the nines, and imagined I looked like Michael Douglas delivering his “Greed is Good” speech!
Then I would hop into my 1980 Chevy Citation looking like a 12 year old dressed up for Sunday School and head off to harrass the masses!
My favorite was the mall.
I would start out just randomly walking up to strangers and pitching them right out of the gate. “Hi there!” I would start with a big smile on my face. “Do you have a minute?”
If they didn’t run away at that point, they would wish they had after the next thirty seconds. I bashed on …
“How would you like to learn about a revolutionary new way to create massive wealth without changing any of your current spending habits and retire from whatever it is you’re doing now without having to worry about your financial situation for the rest of you life and provide all the things for your family that you never thought possible within just a few short years?”
I could get that all out in one breath! If I said it really fast without pausing, they couldn’t interrupt me!
Most of them were polite enough to take my card. Some of them even waited until I was out of sight before they threw it away.
When shoppers began avoiding me, I moved on to the poor store clerks – a captive audience. I always asked them a shopping question before I socked it to them so they wouldn’t call security right away. Somehow that trick worked for a long time!
And pity the poor saps that allowed me into their homes for a business presentation!
I’d pull up in their driveways in the Citation that cost me $110 from the local classifieds – rust holes all over, huge crack down the windshield, and lumpy caulking on the roof to seal the leaky sunroof. They’d hear me coming because of the breaks in my exhaust system, and when they looked out to investigate the noise, they’d see me sliding over to the passenger side to get out because the driver’s side door wouldn’t open from the inside and the window wouldn’t roll down.
One day I visited a beautiful new home on the other side of town with a brand new truck and car in the driveway. The large yard was fenced for the inground pool, and their fishing boat was roomier than my apartment.
When the noise died and the smoke cleared, they watched from the window as I emerged from the passenger side in my power suit and red tie, opened the hatchback for my easel and followup packages, and headed inside to tell these people how to make some REAL money!
Their teenage son, who looked older than me, ushered me in to the living room where I proceeded to draw circles like Columbus describing the world to Ferdinand and Isabella. I was sweating feverishly by the end of my presentation and all smiles. I KNEW I had these people in the bag! I was Jumpin’ Justin!
After about half an hour of trying to get them to take my overnight packs, they were kind enough to let the door close ALMOST all the way before bursting into laughter.
There’s a lot more I could write about those days. There were some things about that time that I really enjoyed, like the personal development. The business side of things, however, lacked something CRITICAL that I never understood until recently.
Even though we DID build personal relationships in that business, it all
came back to a bottom line. If you weren’t getting meetings, moving product, bringing numbers in, i.e. ‘producing’, no one had time for you.
The only advice I ever heard was to go get a bunch of no’s and bring the upline a yes. If you couldn’t take that beating, you weren’t worthy of their time.
Even if you WERE bringing people to the table, if they weren’t buying
product, YOU were doing something wrong. “Go get them and close them!”
What a load of crap!
Today, I’m using a system that’s so superior to that way of doing things
that I could literally write a book about it! Fortunately for all of us, though,
someone else already has!
And that someone is Michael Dlouhy, and that book is Success in Ten Steps.
Today, I don’t have to go out and harrass anyone.
Today, If I call someone that I haven’t spoken with yet, they are happy to talk to me. It’s a whole new world out there!
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