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I Used to Pick Catalogues Up Off the Wet Floor…

In 2001, I lived in the back bedroom of number 35 Cedar Way, Guildford.

I shared the house with seven other people.

I had a big double mattress on the floor of my bedroom, and every single day I’d carry that mattress downstairs and shove it behind the sofa in the living room.

Then I’d go to work at the Carphone Warehouse (a mobile phone shop) for 8 or 9 hours, come home, and then teach guitar in my back bedroom.

The reason I carried that huge mattress downstairs every day was that I was ashamed to be teaching from my bedroom, and I didn’t want my guitar students to know.

Anyway, one day, my housemate and good friend Neil came to me and said:

Hey Gav, I know you’re not feeling great at the moment and want to find a way to make some more money. I’m meeting up with a guy called Paul at the Holiday Inn who’s going to be talking about some kind of business opportunity, would you like to come?

He didn’t need to ask me twice…

I was interested.

So, a few days later, we went along to meet Paul. 

He was a small, balding, middle-aged guy and seemed quite nice.

After the initial small talk, he started drawing circles on a piece of paper and talked about the potential of the business and how much money we could make.

By the end of the presentation, we were excited and ready to join.

It turned out the company was called Amway, which I’d never heard of at the time.

I was excited…

I was motivated…

I was ready to do whatever it took to have success.

So, we went back and met up with Paul a few days later to get started, and Paul told me I needed to speak to my family and friends and try to “get them in” the business!

I was nervous…

I was scared…

I was worried…

I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in that situation before, but it’s a bit daunting, isn’t it?

Especially when you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

If you’re anything like me, most of your family and friends just laughed at you and told you NO!

They might have said…

What is it, some kind of scheme…?

Or…

Be careful, it sounds too good to be true…

95% of them didn’t join…

5% of them did join but only after I’d invited them to a hotel meeting, and they felt “pressured”…

However, they did nothing and eventually dropped out!

Leaving me very upset, frustrated, and let down…

I felt lonely and on my own…

I felt stupid…

Because I’d failed!

And I felt like I wasn’t worthy.

I’d basically run out of people to talk to, and because of that, my upline moved on to the next person he’d sponsored, to see if he could get a better result from them, leaving me practically abandoned and on my own.

He used to say… “Just follow the system”… and “Get in the trenches and just do it, Gavin”…

Stop making excuses, Gavin…

”I didn’t have the confidence to just go up to random people and strike up a conversation with them…(even if it was only about the weather…)

I didn’t have the self-esteem to get on the phone, call random strangers, and get rejected time after time…

In fact, I didn’t have the motivation to carry on at all…

Something about it just didn’t feel right to me…

Chasing people…

Pestering people…

“Pretending” to be people’s friends so I could bring them into my business.

Practically “using” them… inviting them around to a home party so I could make some fast cash from them.

My mindset was all wrong back then, and I really had no clue what I was doing.

Eventually, I QUIT and continued my day job in the mobile phone shop.

Then a couple of years later, I joined another Network Marketing company to see if I could make that one work…

This was a company called Kleeneze.

Could I make it work?

Err… no!

Still the same problems…

None of my friends and family would even listen to me this time.

And I still didn’t have the confidence to meet new people.

So, to try to make some extra cash, I ended up walking around the streets, pushing a shopping trolley, posting catalogues through people’s doors…

Then going back 2 days later, picking the catalogues up off the wet floor, and hoping and praying they’d ordered something…

Most of them had NOT.

I barely made enough money to make it worthwhile…

I definitely wasn’t going to be able to give up my day job doing it…

So…

Eventually, I gave up on that too…

Until eventually, everything changed for me.

And my business exploded!

Because of that experience and what I learned in the process, I’ve now personally sponsored over 1000 people into multiple opportunities over the years using the Internet…

…although interestingly, it wasn’t a network marketing business where I had my first success; it was actually a gambling website I bought where I sold digital products, courses, and software.

I made quite a lot of money with that business, and that’s where I learned all about the wonderful world of “High Tech” Internet Marketing.

I’ll tell you more about that adventure another day.

~ Gavin

P.S. If you’d like to learn how to attract a consistent stream of qualified leads & sales to YOU, be sure to complete my 4 Day Attraction Marketing Challenge. It’s powerful and you’ll learn so much you can apply to your business immediately!

Gavin Mountford

Gavin Mountford is a dedicated Social Media Sales Strategist and Mentor with over 20 years of experience helping home business owners and online entrepreneurs, simplify their social media sales processes. He believes in the power of building strong connections and taking consistent, focused action to achieve lasting success. Through his framework, The Social Sales Success Machine, Gavin empowers his clients to Build, Attract, Nurture, and Convert quality leads into loyal customers, clients and team members. His mission is to inspire others to overcome overwhelm and build self-belief through achievable goals. When he's not coaching or creating content, Gavin enjoys spending quality time with his family and finding new ways to simplify life and business.

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