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Chapter

20

Creating a Steady Stream of Prospects

Randy Gage

A

director on my frontline called to ask if I would accompany him on a
one-on-one presentation. This was kind of surprising, because he
had a nice size group, and hadn’t needed help with a presentation for
months. I asked why.
It turned out the guy he was prospecting was the CEO of a multibillion-
dollar public company, a guy who was in the business pages and financial
publications every week. As CEO, he made several million dollars a year in
salary and had stock options that were worth millions more. He attended the
same church as my guy, and my guy had prospected him the previous Sunday.
How could I resist?
We went to the appointment, which was in his office. (Now that’s a mis-
take, but I went along with it because that’s how it was set up.) His office was
bigger than the home I lived in. Really. He had a conference table there that
must have cost at least 50 grand.
I was a little on edge, but we sat at the end of that table and I did my
presentation. He sat through it very attentively. When I was finished, he ad-
mitted that it was quite fascinating, but explained that he couldn’t get in-
volved. It turns out that his contract with his employer actually prohibited
him from doing any other business ventures, as his company thought that
would be a conflict of interest. He did go on to say that he was delighted my
guy had found the opportunity, and even recommended some people he
thought would be good for the business.
So I learned a couple of very important lessons from that encounter.
First was the realization that even some of the highest-paid people in the
world are still slaves to their jobs, and don’t own their own lives. Very inter-
esting. The second thing I learned from this gentleman and many subsequent
experiences is this: The easiest people to get presentations with are busy, suc-
cessful people while the hardest people to set appointments with are the broke
people who need the opportunity the most! Why? Because that’s why they
need it the most. They might be lazy, closed-minded, or just so busy meeting