Jonathan Hamilton:
My Utility Warehouse success story
How I discovered Utility Warehouse
I first discovered Utility Warehouse in December 2007 when a good friend of mine, Tim Parker, asked me if I would like to save some money on my household utility bills. Initially I was sceptical – there are so many companies out there promising to save money. However when I looked closer, there was strong evidence of some excellent independent third party credibility in consumer magazines. Additionally, the value of the CashBack card made the decision a no-brainer.
Tim who signed me up was a lovely elderly gentleman living in Brighton supplementing his pension as a part-time journalist and also Utility Warehouse Partner.
How to make money
After we had been customers for six months, I became inquisitive as to how Tim was making money as a Utility Warehouse Partner. Tim invited his sponsor Sarah Riley to meet with us both. Sarah showed me how the money works and gave me a DVD.
I watched the DVD over a weekend and promptly signed up as soon as I could. I was blown away by the concept of doing the work once and getting paid forever.
Being a successful Partner
I worked at building my Utility Warehouse business steadily for a few months and then the penny-drop moment came when I attended a seminar hosted by Utilities Warehouse Partner Duncan Mackenzie. The format was simple – Partners with varying levels of experience would stand up and explain what ideas and techniques were the most successful for them. I noticed a prevailing trend. Many of the really successful people seemed to do one of two things regularly: BNI or WAM.
BNI is the world’s largest breakfast networking organisation. There are groups of business owners all over the UK (and the rest of the world) who meet once a week to exchange business referrals.
WAM stands for Win a Mini. Any Utility Warehouse Partner can run a WAM stand. Essentially WAMs offer members of the public the opportunity to enter a competition to win a brand new Mini One or a cash alternative. In doing so, a conversation is started with the Partner running the stall. Very often people who have entered the competition go on to become customers. WAMs can be run at church fetes, summer fairs, Christmas fairs etc.
WAMs are great, cost little or nothing to run and many Partners have built very large businesses by doing nothing else. For me, BNI was the answer. Two years later I now get 95% of my customers through BNI and am playing an active role in running the breakfast meetings as well as looking after 2 other chapters in Kent.
Achieving my objectives
After I had been a Partner for 18 months I was making serious money and I achieved my first significant goal: I purchased a brand new BMW S1000RR motorbike – a midlife crisis on wheels as I like to call it! I bought the bike on HP and use my monthly Utility Warehouse income to pay for the bike which it more than covers. The deposit was paid by my first tax refund which my accountant was able to negotiate from the inland revenue. Another perk of being self-employed.
Now that I have had the bike for a year and am making more money, I am very nearly qualified for a free BMW Mini One from head office.
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