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No other business venture seems so inviting, or attracts so many people
than that
of selling via mail order. On the surface, it appears to be an easier
and faster way to
become rich than almost any other method of doing business. All the
people in the world
are your potential customers; you work from the privacy and comfort of
your own home;
you set you own working hours; and you answer to no one but yourself.
Ideally, you should have a product of your own - something you can
produce at very low cost, and sell at top price. If you are buying
something, advertising and reselling it, in order to realize a profit,
you have to mark it up at least 500%. This is not an unreasonable
mark-up for mail order sales.
Your product has to have mass appeal, and it has to be something not
readily available to your prospective customers except through you. The
product should be such
that you can carry an inventory without worry of spoilage, aging or
other damage. It
should be something you can send through the mail - deliver to your
customer - for next
to nothing in relation to your selling price.
The best money-making product of all is a "How-To" report such as this
one. You
don't have to be a literary genius, or even an experienced writer to
write one of these reports. In fact, the easiest way is to buy a set of these reports - read
each one over, set it aside and write a similar one with more
elaboration or from a different point of view.
Give your report a commercially appealing title, set a price for it,
advertise it widely in a
number of nationally circulated mail order publications, and you could
have something that will continue to bring in money for you for many
years to come.
The absolute best money-maker of them all is a report you've found a
great need
for, researched thoroughly, and written from scratch. Discovering these
needs is not that
difficult a task.
If you just don't have the time to write and market one of these
reports, or just
cannot produce one for whatever reason, the next best thing to purchase
a set of these
reports with reproduction rights. Here, you can have a number reprinted
for as little as
one or two cents each, and sell them for one to five dollars each. The
only problem with
this approach is that after a year, nearly everyone in mail order will
have a copy of these
reports, and will be trying just as hard as you are to sell them.
Now, if you have bought the reproduction rights to the reports, you
simply rewrite
them, put new titles on them, make up a new advertising circular, and
send them out as
new reports each year. There are a number of mail order self-help
reports that have been
making the rounds for the past 25 years in just this manner.
Just because you haven't got the time or the tools to write one of these
reports is
no reason for not producing one. If you have an idea or the background
material, and the
confidence that such a report will sell - get in touch with someone who
specializes in this
kind of writing, and have then put the finished product together for
you. Generally, the
fees will run to $100 per page. But this is an "incidental fee" indeed,
if you come up with
something that has the potential of bringing in several thousand dollars
per year for the
next ten years or so. Remember, once you have it together and written,
you just continue making copies of your original and filling prepaid
cash orders for as long as you wish to stay in business.
You should also have advertising circulars, a catalog or a "follow-up"
offer for
every order you get. Many people make the mistake of "sending their
whole store" in
response to every inquiry. When you receive an inquiry to your
advertising, you should
have a prepared sales letter describing the item you're advertising, and
perhaps a circular
listing in catalog style some of your other products that tie in with
the product of your
sales letter. This is known as the "featured Selection Plus Alternates"
approach.
When you receive an order for the product you've been advertising or
featuring in
your mail efforts, include one of your product catalogs in the package
with the customer's order. The most effective practice is to include an
advertising circular or brochure of a leader item or
special-of-the-month, and your catalog. The main thing NOT to do is to
include more than a couple of separate "featured selection" circulars.
Keep your eyeson how the big mail order houses do it, and duplicate
their operating plan within your own means.
The important point to remember here is to be sure to include something
different -
something new - something your customer has not seen or been offered a
chance to buy -
with each successive contact you make with him. Once you've broken the
ice and got him
spending money with you, continue showing him products of a related
nature that should stimulate his appetite for greater success. For sure, he'll never be
more in the mood to buy
from you than when he receives something he has ordered. So every time
you fill and
send out an order to a buyer, include an opportunity for him to buy even
more from you.
You can make a very comfortable income, but you'll never get rich so
long as
you're having your orders dropshipped for you. Having a connection with
a prime source
that will dropship orders for you is one of the surest and best ways to
"learn" the business
of selling by mail - but if you really want to make it big, you'll use
dropshipping sources
for learning, and to back up your primary product with follow-up offers.
If you don't have a primary product of your own, the next best thing is
to buy in
quantity lots at wholesale prices. A work of caution here, though: do
not buy a quantity
supply of anything until you've seen a sample of the product and have
thoroughly tested
the salability of that product.
Too often, the beginner is sold a quantity of a certain product at
so-called
wholesale prices, only to find that after he had spent his capital he
either doesn't want to put forth the effort and time to sell that
particular product, or that he can't "give it away," let alone sell it.
Suppliers who operate this way, almost forcing you to buy an inventory
to have available for your orders, generally derive most of their income
from the sale of the initial "required" inventories. Always investigate
and check out the salability before you buy anything more than just a
single sample.
Selling your reports depends on your advertising. You have to get the
word out
that you have "money-making information" available for sale. Start out
small by using
short classified typed ads. Look at how some of the established mail
order reports sellers
are doing it, and copy their methods. Do not copy their ads -instead,
use them as idea
stimulators for your own original copy. Place an ad in one of the
largest circulation
publications you can find, then use the income from that ad to buy and
place more
advertising. In other words, use the money that comes in from the first
ad to place similar ads in three or four other publications.
One of the insider secrets of the mail order business is in multiplying
your
advertising exposure. This means simply that you start with an ad in one
publication, and from there, expand your exposure by advertising in more publications. Be
patient, and
wait for the returns form your current ads, then use that money to
increase the number of people who will have a chance to see your ad.
It's as simple as that, and it works every time. Try it and see for
yourself.
All of this means that as you are getting started with a new mail order
business,
you have to reinvest all your business income back into the business. To
do otherwise is a straight line to business failure.
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