"Nooooooooo, no, no, no ... not a cat in hell’s chance ... no, no, absolutely, positively, definitely no, never, no, no ... Oh, ok …YES!"

How collecting the word ‘NO’ can make you a fortune!

98% … that’s ninety eight bleedin' percent of people you talk to about business and personal development will not be in the least bit interested in changing their lives; they will not have the slightest interest in what you have to say ... FACT!

Of the remaining 2% you will find that half of them will appear captivated by the great wisdom you share, but will do absolutely bugger all about it, and finally, a measly 1% will listen to you and actually take action.

Q. What do you get if you cross an Irishman with a spider?
A. Paddy Longlegs!!!

Pathetic isn’t it? And for those who don’t understand the joke, ‘Paddy’ is an affectionate nickname for an Irishman.

I have to point out before we proceed, that no offence is intended to all you Irish!

The fact remains though, that daft joke was my killer weapon in a desperate war waged against the holidaymaker.

Poor, defenseless tourists who had been looking forward all year to a break in the sunshine would take their first walk along the promenade in Tenerife, unaware of the hideous, spotty, teenage timeshare touts waiting to pounce like coiled springs at any given moment.

It would be literally seconds before they were approached …

Every couple of minutes they were ambushed by young reprobates who would try just about anything to get them to take a tour of the resort they were promoting.

"Just hop in this free taxi and it’ll take you back to your hotel" (via a three to four hour grilling designed to part you from several thousand dollars they can ill afford).

"Hi, I work for The Holiday Programme and we are filming at this wonderful vacation
destination. We need genuine holiday makers to make up the numbers at our featured resort - how would you like to be on the TV?"

They arrive … no one filming!!!

"Oh that’s a shame, you’ve just missed them, but seeing as you’re here, why don’t you take a tour anyway … there’s even a free gift by way of an apology for the film crew not being here" (everyone got a free gift regardless!).

The most resilient holiday-makers would only last a short while before relenting to the pressure and half-truths. They would eventually jump into the taxi and be whisked, smartly up to the resort where they would be introduced to the infamous 'Super High Pressure, Nitrous Oxide, Turbo Charged, Timeshare Sales Rep.'

Some holiday-makers would manage a day or so before they gave in, but give in they would, if only to be able to say to the tout that they had already taken a tour ... it was carnage!

Personally, I never had to stoop as low as some who would say anything to earn a commission; once my killer joke had grabbed their attention I was pretty persuasive and extremely tenacious.

I would not stop talking until the weary couple had taken a tour and I had another bonus in the bank.

The barrage of solicitations heaped upon innocent tourists was relentless. It’s awful, I know, and if you’ve ever been to a destination where timeshare touts operate you’ll know what I’m talking about.

As you already know, I was one of those dreadful pests; I was a timeshare demon.

Why was I involved in the systematic harassment of sun worshippers whose only desire was to get to the beach and forget all about the systematic harassment they experience in their stress-filled lives at home?

One reason ... The Money!

Working timeshare afforded a good life for someone right out of university granted: sun, sea, sand ... girls! - Oh and beer, more girls!!! But without a doubt, the greatest attraction of all was the big fat pay cheque.

The income structures and incentives were phenomenal. The end of each week would see teams of young men and women dribbling as the cash ... yes, tax-free cash … was handed out in wads.

We were taking home more than most white-collar professionals!

But, this was not easy money!

There were around six resorts in Tenerife where I was employed and each had a team of approximately ten to fifteen ‘OPCs’ (Outside Personal Contacts) as they were called - dog-rough, pain-in-the-arse, touts for short!

The main strip that we were allowed to patrol by the authorities was only two miles long at most, so potentially, there were 90 youngsters crammed into a very small area ... nightmare!

By the end of ‘Day #1’, holidaymakers were thoroughly fed up and some were even at the stage of issuing profanities!

Who could blame them!

By the end of their holiday most wanted to go home for a rest.

It was hard for them, and understandably it was very difficult to get a couple to even look at you, let alone stop so that you could deliver your well-rehearsed pitch. That’s where my killer joke came in, it broke the ice.

We were paid commission on each and every tourist we managed to cajole into taking a tour of the resort. Competition for our ‘quarry’ was fierce.

This truly was basic animal behavior, survival of the fittest. Nevertheless, there were a select few of us who consistently earned top money. Notice the word 'us', I included myself in that group because I was one of the best!

The most prolific performers were a tight-nit group of friends, and I was at the very top of our team.

Two mates and I regularly out-performed all others. In fact, most weeks our cumulative total was more than the rest put together.

Week in, week out, we marked up the highest scores.

Week in, week out, we took home the biggest pay packets.

Week in, week out, the rest of the team would ask us how we did it!!!

We had a formula, and contrary to what most would do when in possession of a recipe for success ... we shared it!

What did we have that made the difference; what was it that set us apart from the rest?

What was it that was so powerful that it ensured we always took the top three positions on the winner's podium?

What was that winning formula?

We understood the ‘Numbers Game’ … nothing more!

We knew that, as a rule, one person in twenty we talked to would take the tour ... That's it, and once you embraced that concept the rest was plain sailing!

Talk to twenty people, and one will take the tour!!!

Talk to forty people, and two will take the tour. How simple is that???

Obviously, you need to throw in a bit of drive, grit and determination, which sadly many of our contemporaries lacked, but that’s it!!!

If I got paid £20/$30 for every person I got to the resort and, on average, I would get one person in twenty to visit - then a quick calculation will show that each person I talk to is worth £1/$1.50

Whereas, the other OPCs would look at a holiday maker and see only the 'knock-back', the rejection, all we could see was a big, fat $ sign on their head.

Now apply the same rule to your business!!!

Building any business is simply a numbers game.

You can’t be all things to all people ... In fact, it’s impossible to be anything at all, to all people!

No matter what you do in life or business, there are only a small fraction of the population who share your sentiments, ideas and paradigms.

This is a wholly good thing and what makes the human race so diverse and successful.
What a dull place the world would be if we all wanted the same things.

Not everyone wants to be rich, not everyone wants success; not everyone wants to drive a fast car or sail a magnificent yacht ... Not everyone wants the same things as you!

I found this an exceptionally hard concept to grasp - but it's reality - most people are quite happy with their lot. You'll often hear them say they're not but inside they're just not 'programmed' in the way I expected.

Saying you want change and actually generating the desire, then taking action are entirely different things.

This is part of human nature and there's nothing we can do about it - more importantly we don't want to do anything about it!

Your job is to find the pearls. An pearl diver discards many oysters before he finds a jewel. But he knows that he must continue in his search to be rewarded. He knows that there are an 'average number' of shells he must break open before he finds a pearl ... so he breaks open as many as it takes and each one is simply a number in the equation!

He doesn't waste his time trying to grow a pearl in an impotent oyster, he simply takes a look and if there's no fertile ground he moves on!

It’s 1897, you’re on your way to the Klondike. You’re going prospecting for gold!

Caught up in gold rush fever; you brave the harshness of the terrain, the heat of the open plains, the danger of the Indians. The robbing, lawless highwaymen; you battle into the unknown.

Finally, you arrive, stake your claim and set up a dwelling. This is your land, and it’s bountiful.

You have a crystal-clear stream running right through your plot - a perfect gold-bearing tributary, ‘Bonanza Creek’. You push your pan into the silt and take your first momentous step towards riches.

You rhythmically swill the sand with the translucent water washing out the debris; you sift out all the mud and ... disaster!

Nothing, the pan is empty, not one grain of gold dust!!!

Do you throw down your pan, break camp, jump on your horse and make the arduous journey back from whence you came? … Of course not!

You know it’s going to take many attempts to produce a nugget; many hours spent swilling river sand, many tons of sediment to be moved ... and after several months of toil this turns out to be just the case. You discover that, on average, an ounce of gold takes about twenty-five pans.

Each and every time you sift through a cupful of sediment you’re 1/25th of an ounce of gold better off!

You may pan twenty four times with no harvest but the twenty fifth will pull out an ounce nugget – you may hit nothing for forty-nine pans – but the fiftieth produces a whopper!

Overall, there is an average return directly proportional to the effort put in.

That return can be small - but sometimes it can be massive, depending on what you’re working on.

On average, only 5% - 8% of the people you contact will have any real interest in The Cash Club, but the right person in your customer database could be worth many thousands of dollars to you over time.

If you run an affiliate programme (as I've recommended) it only takes one big hitter to transform your business but it can take a long time to discover them ... If you keep digging, the law of averages has shown that you will eventually recruit one.

I’ll make you a 100% watertight guarantee today: If you put in just two hours a day to your business, within 12 months you’ll find someone to transform it - THAT’S GUARANTEED!

Some of you will find someone within a month or so - others will take longer.

But if you keep plodding on you’ll succeed just by sheer coincidence!

Think about this: There is a television programme we all know called ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ To get on the show you need to call in and answer a question.

The chances of picking up the phone and getting on the show at the first call are so remote as to be almost non-existent ... but it happens.

Most people spend months trying and others, years!

As you keep ringing the odds of your getting a place stack higher and higher, in your favour.

You will eventually get onto the show, unless you’re extremely unlucky! (May cost you a fortune in premium rate phone calls but you'll get on!)

You could try for two years without success and give up the whole game as a bad loss, but what you didn’t know was that the next day was pay day.

The next day you were destined to call the number, get on the show, win fastest finger, and answer all the questions ... but you didn’t call that day because you gave up the day before and all the time spent calling was now a complete waste of time, energy and money! You might just never have bothered at all.

The reason you can never stop until you’ve completed a task you’ve embarked upon, is that you never know if tomorrow is the day it comes through for you.

If you persist, then the numbers game will ensure your number comes up - it has to eventually!

You know as you go through life, people say things that stick with you?

I was in the Boy Scouts for a while and we went on many expeditions. I was one of the younger boys in my group during a particular outing an older lad kept taking the piss out of me - i can't remember what for now but it was some argument about who could do what and who was better than who.

I was the smallest so he was picking on me when the leader said something that has become a mantra for me and helped me through many hard situations.

This kid had said something that obviously raised a reaction in the Scout leader and he retorted with "Young Money King is the strongest here" (something like that!).

Now, that really upset the older kid and he bounced back with: "What, no way, he's a grotty, little scrotum, I'm the man; I'm twice his size and can lift loads more!!!"

Which was when the Scout leader shot him right down in flames by saying simply. "the strongest in endurance."

This made me feel so good at the time and at every opportunity I did everything humanly possible to live up to that.

If you tell yourself something often enough, you become it. Ordinarily, I would have given up on many things I set out to do but when those words would fill my head, "you're the strongest", I would be!!!

Success is all about attitude - If I tell you that collecting 'Nos' is hard and depressing, you'll get depressed and give up. Now, if I tell you the collecting 'Nos' is how you build success; the more you collect, the more you'll achieve, you'll look at them in a totally different light won't you?

You need to keep collecting the 'Nos', 'I don't want its', 'not for mes' knock backs and disappointments along the way - it’s the only way!

It’s an integral part of the formula to success!

You know that 90-98% of the people you contact will say NO ... great!

Start collecting them thar ‘NOs’ - they’re absolutely fundamental.

If people are not saying ‘NO’ then you’re not talking to them; how do you ever expect to get a yes?

Earlier I said that, ‘contrary to what you may think, we as the top performers in our timeshare team did share the secret of our success with others.’

Our formula was simplicity itself:

There are a given number of people you have to contact in order to get a positive reaction - talk to that given number of people and you will get a yes!

EACH ‘NO’ YOU COLLECT IS ONE MORE TOWARDS YOUR GOAL ... SO SIMPLY COLLECT THEM!!!

Reality Check