There is one thought that has been in my mind for a long time (probably before I left school) and it’s this – “I don’t want to have to wait until I’m 65 or 70 to enjoy the money and time freedom of retirement”. The thought of working 47 or 48 weeks a year for 45 years did not appeal to me AT ALL.
I left college with some A-Levels when I was 18 and got my first job, working for a conveyor belt manufacturing company as a development technician. Sounds quite good doesn’t it? Well it was that good my salary was £6,000 a year. I stayed in that job for 17 months.
For the next couple of years, I worked in many different jobs, including a QC technician, a removal man, a factory worker, and even a couple of part-time jobs in bars. Looking back, this was the most unhappy period of my life. Switching from job to job, often through various employment agencies, was alienating.
Unhappy at home, I started making enquiries about spending some time working and travelling in Australia.
In September, I set off for Australia, where I stayed working and travelling for just short of a year. It was a magical experience and although it was a lonely affair at times, it was one of the best things I ever did. My brother Rich even came out to join me for a few weeks and we travelled thousands of kms around Queensland in my old Ford Stationwagon I had bought.
When I got back I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. Although I was feeling better, knowing I had worked and travelled in Autralia for a year, I was still not happy. I was thinking about learning a trade, but at 23, it was very difficult for me to enrol on such a course.
The thought of ‘not wanting to wait until I was 65 or 70 to enjoy the money and time freedom of retirement’ was still on my mind, but I could see no way of getting around it for the time being. I decided to go back to college late in September. I studied Biology at A-Level and did a foundation course to help me get on the degree I was after which was ‘Environmental Studies’.
A year later I started my joint honour BSc degree in ‘Environmental Biology and Geography’ at my local University in Hull. My studies went well and I passed my first year with good grades.
During the summer break, I was working with my brother on a van, dropping and collecting charity bags. It was good that we had the freedom and got to travel about a lot through East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.
Around this time, I came across some advert on the internet which mentioned earning $$$ from home on my PC. Intrigued as to what it was all about, I clicked on the advert and actually ended up joining an online money-making, or ‘affiliate’ programme. I never made any money with it (in fact I lost some money) but I learned about the concept of network marketing – the concept of leverage and residual income. I liked it… a lot. Finally, a possible answer to what I wanted – lifestyle!
The programme (which was American) I was involved with, charged $30 a month which gave you access to a website with various resources on it and also, the right to sell on a very limited range of products for the home (at the time, less than 20 products). Basically, the way you made money was to recruit other people, where you made money from their monthly subscription to the programme.
I wrote to the guy who put the programme together, asking if he could market more ‘real’ products that I could sell in the UK. I loved the concept and I had lots of ideas I wanted to put in place. The guy (to his credit) did reply back to me saying that they had no such plans for the near future. At this point, I started wondering what else was out there.
I went back to university late in the September to continue my studies, but what I had learned about this idea called network marketing was taking up more of my thoughts. A couple of weeks later, I came across a small ad in a newspaper offering the opportunity to earn an extra income. I visited the website and requested a free info pack.
When it actually arrived a couple of days later, I never bothered opening it straight away until some guy called Steve called me, who encouraged me to have a read. The next day, I read through it.
Within a few minutes, I could feel myself being torn between scepticism and excitement. It was a company called Kleeneze who market their products via a catalogue, which are taken door to door. Although I had never heard of this company before, a few things struck me which made me take a serious look at the business:
- It was a British company that had been around for nearly 80 years.
- There were hundreds of real, everyday products.
- You didn’t need to sell the products – you simply distributed the catalogues door to door and collected orders.
- There were many testimonials of people earning good money, even on a part-time basis and these people were prepared to show proof of income.
- It offered leverage and residual income via the network marketing side of the business.
Looking back, the email I sent to the founder of the first internet programme I was involved in, proposed very much the same as what I had just read about the Kleeneze business. I got very excited!
The next day, I spoke to Steve again and we arranged a time to meet up in Huddersfield (where he was studying at university).
We met the following week (Nov, 2001) and I signed into the business with 100 catalogues, which cost about £100. I had to make money pretty quick as my student loan savings were very low!
In my first month in the business, I made well over £200 from my own catalogue distribution (retail) efforts and proved that people do buy from the Kleeneze catalogue without any salesmanship at all. This was achieved mainly without a car (it wasn’t until the following month that my Mam put me on her insurance).
Also, during this first month, I shared lots of ideas I wanted to put into place with my sponsor Steve. I got on well with Steve and we share a similar kind of vision for the business. Even though we were having to learn a lot about the business, we had plenty of laughs in those early days! It was during the next few months when a lot of our ideas came about for our system.
A couple of months before I joined Kleeneze, I registered a web address called www.realearners.com and we decided to call our group the ‘Real Earners Group’. We wanted to help as many people as possible earn a real income. There’s so many things out there where people earn nothing or very little, but carry on because they’re not aware of any alternatives. If you’re prepared to work and follow the system, you will always make money with Kleeneze, pretty much straight away.
Half way through January I was becoming more aware that I couldn’t be really successful with my degree AND Kleeneze at the same time. I had to put one of them on hold.
I decided the following week (to the dismay of my Mam) to put my degree on hold so I could focus more on getting my Kleeneze business off the ground. A couple of weeks later, I registered with a few employment agencies (again!) but this time knowing that is was a temporary measure.
During the next 8 months or so, I continued to build my business and Steve and I developed our system, to help new distributors that joined our team.
It was October when I hit a level in Kleeneze called Bronze Executive, by helping 2 members of my team: Jaspal Dhani and Simon Hilton & Tracey Ricketts get to Gold Distributor level. This allowed me to quit the driving job I had – no more agency work!
When I joined Kleeneze, I was unsure of what my future held. I was enjoying the content of my studies, but knew it was never going to give me the lifestyle I was looking for. What Kleeneze offered was the chance to achieve that lifestyle – all for an initial investment of just £100.
That first year wasn’t easy. Working around my studies and then the driving job meant I was working harder than I’d ever worked before and I had to make some sacrafices. But… I started to believe more and more that it would be worth it in the end. I believed if I worked the hardest I had ever worked before for 4 or 5 years, I would build up a business and the momentum that meant I would never have to ‘work’ again.
Three and a quarter years into the business, I’m already starting to experience the kind of magical lifestyle that I had long dreamed about.
I’ve just got back from an all-expenses paid, 5-star trip to Dubai – big thanks to my upline Gill Nicholson. Next month, Kleeneze are taking me away with another 200 distributors to Sydney for a week. Again, it is 5-star, all-expenses paid.
Even if I take a month off the business, I will still earn over £3,000 a month passive income from the business I have built up over the last few years.
There’s a few things which helped me tremendously in this business (and in my life) since I’ve joined Kleeneze and they are:
- Books – there’s a tremendous selection of personal development and industry books available through the business.
- Audio Tapes / CD’s – these are just another way of picking up information and motivation to help you be the best you can be.
- People – meeting new people and working with like-minded people who share a similar goal is amazing.
My goal now, is to help people in my team to achieve success in the business and keep trying to provide them with the inspiration and information they need to achieve their goals.
I look forward to the journey ahead.
Paul Flintoft
February, 2005.