THE BEGINNER'S OPPORTUNITY GUIDE

The Mail Order business is not a business of itself, but
is another way of doing business. Another term coming into vogue
is "Direct Response". Mail Order is nothing more nor less than
selling a product or service via advertising and the offers you
send out by mail. Your classified ads, ads on radio and TV and
the offers you send out in the mail have to appeal to and evoke a
"response" from the recipient.

Therefore, to start and succeed in a mail order business
of your own, you need just as much, and in some cases, more
business acumen than you would need in any other mode of business.

Remember too, there are good guys in mail order, and
there are bad guys, just like in any other business. So, your
best bet for a proper start with the greatest chance for success
is after a thorough investigation of the products being offered
and being sold; an analysis of the costs involved to get a fledgling
mail order operation off the ground; and a good sixth sense
of what your potential customers will buy. You'll need a great
deal of patience, and persistence as well.

Mail order is saturated with plans, directories, sales
materials and products that have been around for ten, fifteen,
twenty years and longer. Many of these materials were not that
good in the beginning, and yet they're still being sold as quick
secrets to wealth and fame. This is part of the reason for the
junk mail reputation of mail order.

You can get very rich in Mail Order and other types of
Direct Response marketing, but... not with a lot of the "get rich
schemes" you see advertised. The "get rich schemes" are just
good ad copy written by some "ripoff artist" to get your money.
The ripoff artists take your money and run and you never hear
from them again. A better way to get rich in mail order and
direct response sales is to develop an ever-expanding customer
list and to follow-up your initial sale with additional products
or services that your customers will have the confidence to buy
from you. Small sales in the beginning can turn into large sales
on the "back end". There are too many good ways to make money by
direct response without resorting selling junk.

Just a little investigation on your part will show that
the most successful people doing business by mail are always on
the alert for new products and they quickly add these products to
their own sales inventories as they become available. This is a
must for success rule, regardless of whether you do or don't
produce your own products.

It's almost impossible to gain much success with a single
product, report, booklet, book or manual. The best way is to
search around for a number of related products, then, after
arranging for below wholesale price deals with the suppliers of
the products you want to include in your listing, along with your
own self-produced product, make up a catalog listing. It is best
if this is a single 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, printed on both
sides, listing the products or the titles of the reports and/or
books you have available, including your own, with a tear off
order coupon at the bottom.

You should also have a sales letter. The name of the
game with sales letters is to KEEP THEM SIMPLE. When "selling"
by direct mail, simplicity doesn't mean using just one ordinary
piece of paper, printed black on white, and then inserting it in
a plain, unmarked envelope. Your sales letter may contain a
number of pages. Simplicity means being able to express your
offer with such extreme clarity that there is absolutely no doubt
on the part of your prospect about what you are selling and what
action you want the prospect to take.

This search for simplicity can start by taking a long,
hard look at exactly what you want to say. The best way to find
the answer is to ask yourself the question, "What is the single
most important point I need to make in my offer?" See, even the
question is simple!

In other words, if you only had a split second to commu-
nicate your offer - and that's sometimes all the time you really
have - what do you want your prospect to know? Somewhere, in
even the largest pile of paper we mail, is the offer we want to
convey. Why cloud it with all the other things you "think" you
really need to say right now? Make the offer simple and clear.

Start the offer by avoiding the "baseball approach" to
direct mail. (This technique is where, by trying to cover all
the bases, the reader can hardly find where home plate is.) Look
at the direct mail you develop as a preassembled hobby or kit.
Your readers just don't have the time - or, in most cases, won't
take the time - to assemble the components of your offer. Your
intent shouldn't be to send prospects direct mail for a hobby.
So do the work for the prospective customer.

You will need to work hard on extreme clarity that will
take all the guesswork out of your sales letter. And clarity
typically begins with the kind of simplicity that comes from
relying on a single, basic selling proposition, a unified theme,
and a strong, cohesive message.

Now, read your sales letter. If it wouldn't excite you
and cause you to want to buy your product or service, don't
expect others to get excited about your offer either.

After preparing your sales letter and your catalog or
circular, you can take or send them to the printer of your
choice, and have copies printed in the quantity you need. The
next step is to insert these sales letters and circulars in all
your mailings.

This is what you need for a money-making start in this
business: a sales letter, a full page circular advertising your
product, plus another full page circular listing products or
titles related to your primary offering. If you are also selling
products that you are buying below wholesale (maybe even getting
the vendor to dropship for you) it is advisable to have another
full page circular for this purpose. In other words, one adver-
tising your product, and another advertising a list of related
products or titles available to your customer.

Once you start receiving orders from this mailing, you
must immediately acknowledge receipt of the orders and follow up
with other offers. The follow-up offer is where most beginners
fail. Either they don't have follow-up materials to send or they
just don't send out these follow-up offers. To follow-up after
receiving orders from customers, simply write a short note,
thanking your customer for his patronage, and advising him when
to expect to receive his order, and then include a follow-up
offer, such as the book catalog, in that mailing. And that's how
you will build your business, and attain success in mail order.

But, let's get back to the beginning and help you to
learn what else it takes to succeed in mail order. Don't believe
those ads that tell you it doesn't take any money. First off,
you are going to need envelopes: #10 mailing envelopes with your
name and return address imprinted in the upper left corner.
You'll also need a return reply envelope with your name and
return address on the face of the envelope with each #10 envelope
you send out. These can be either #6 or #9 return envelopes.
Ask your printer or office supply store to let you inspect samples.

To realize profits of any consequence, you'll need to
send out at least a thousand, preferably five thousand letters
per mailing. And to back this up, you'll need a supply of
envelopes for your acknowledgment and follow-up offers. You can
purchase imprinted mailing and return reply envelopes from your
local quick print shop; but for better prices, and with the
thought in mind of keeping your costs in line, it's best to shop
around for the best prices. Generally speaking, you'll find the
lowest prices offered by those printers who do business by mail.
Look for "printing by mail" advertisements in all the mail order
publications you come across. Write to them for a price list and
a sampling of their work.

Here are some of the materials and services you might
think about starting to shop for:

Envelopes- large envelopes and order-mailing envelopes.
Shipping labels.
Letterhead paper.
Circular printing.
Typesetting & graphic layout/design.
Copyrighting assistance.
Booklet printing
Hardback printing.
Business cards.
Posters.

As you can see, the mail order business is very closely
tied in with the printing business. Unless you have your own
printing plant, always shop around for the best prices and keep
your production costs in line.

Once you've gotten your envelopes ready, and your circu-
lars made up, you'll need a potential customer list. Again,
don't believe the advertisements and free advice which states
that all you have to do is send your materials out to a fresh
opportunity seekers list. We have found that the best prospects
are those people who have purchased similar or related items.

Identify your most-likely buyers, contact a reputable
mailing list broker (one source is the Standard Rate and Data
Services Directory at the public library) - tell the mailing list
broker about your offer and ask for his help in choosing a mail-
ing list that will be profitable for you. Renting a mailing list
from any source other than a reputable mailing list broker is not
only foolish, it's a short-cut to the poor-house! By matching
your "buyer-profile" to the mailing list broker's most responsive
list, if your ad copy is worth anything, you'll make money - lots
of money - every time. Anything less is just an exercise in
futility.

When selecting a supplier to work with in the mail order
business, always be sure they are quick to fill your orders.
Customer complaints are the last thing you want, and poor service
leads to dissatisfied and lost customers. Always be sure your
suppliers protect your customer list, and always make sure they
go that extra mile to work with you, and not just for their own
profits. This is the kind of service they want therefore it
isn't unreasonable for them to expect you to want the same.

Finally, a little more on classified advertising... in
addition to direct mail, you should consider advertising the
different offerings you have for sale in the classifieds. We
suggest that you start small with a few experimental ads in your
local paper or shopping news. This is an inexpensive way to
check out your ad copy. Then, once you come up with an ad you
like that pulls, you can move on to the bigger publications such
as GRIT, CAPPERS WEEKLY, BUDGET ADS, FAMILY TRAVEL LOG, INSIDERS,
AMERICAN BUSINESS, SPARE TIME, MONEYSWORTH, etc.