There is a simple way that you can find out what a customer costs. From there, you can easily find out how much you bought each customer for. Depending on how much money you made from an ad, you either bought them at a profit or at a loss!

Assume that you place an ad that costs you $500. That ad generates 100 orders! That means you spent $5 for each order you received. That means that you bought each of those 100 customers for $5.00!

You can, through testing, find ways to pay less for each customer. For example, you might test another ad in another place. Let’s say that ad cost you $300. From that ad, you get 100 orders. That means you only spent $3.00 per customer!

Try to find out how much you are spending to get each new customer you bring in. Then begin to test to find ways you can bring in each customer for less than you are right now!

Customers are busy people. Advertising is a very intrusive thing that attempts to poke a hole in a person’s train of thought and persuade them to do something. People have their own routines, their own lives, and their own problems. They don’t care about you.

The only way people care about you is if they believe that you are looking out for their best interests and that you really have something of value to give them.

Return envelopes are a powerful thing because they make it easy for people to send away. Many times people mean to send away for what you have to offer, but their regular life interferes and they don’t do it. Including a return envelope is one tiny thing you can do to instantly stop a lost sale!

Because of this you have to make it as easy as you can for these people to respond. A return envelope is one way to do this. You have to do everything possible to make it as easy for people to order, and a return envelope is a very powerful way of doing this.

This is how to add one small thing to everything you send to your prospects and customers - and make three times more money! That return envelope will make it easier for the prospects to respond.

One problem we’ve noticed most beginning Internet marketers have is that they don’t think small - they think huge, and this is a problem, not only with the people on the Internet, but with people in regular mail order. Now we’re going to help you by telling you how you can make huge piles of cash on the Internet by thinking small.

To really get rich - to really rake in the huge piles of cash - I’ve got to find a product and have a product that every single, breathing human being on this planet wants to buy.

That’s a tough order to fill. If you find that product, then you have to remember that not everybody on this planet has the money to buy it. You’ve got to get it at a reasonable price and then you’ve got to market it to everybody on the planet - and, of course, that costs you money and it’s one of those things that just never seems to work out.

The secret to making money, whether it’s in mail order or on the Internet, is don’t think so large. Don’t think you have to sell a product to every single, breathing human being on the planet. Think small. There are huge profits in small markets.

This is something people will really hang onto because you can actually turn a few niches into amazing Internet riches. You go out there and you market to a very small group of people interested in one particular thing.

Let’s say for example, you market to people who collect things. Maybe they collect salt and pepper shakers or coins or stamps. You can market to people who are pet owners. You can even market to people who own a specific pet. Maybe a cat, maybe a dog, maybe something exotic like lizards, snakes, tarantulas or whatever.

There are people interested in arts and crafts. There are magicians. There are hunters. There are people who like to cook. All of these are niche markets - very small markets. They don’t have millions and millions of people in them. They might have hundreds of thousands and then in some cases maybe lower millions.

Not everybody in the world is interested in cooking, not everybody in the world is interested in magic or collecting salt and pepper shakers or stamps. These are just small markets. What you’ll find when you get into that small market is they’re very hungry markets. They’re very excited about their topic. They’re very excited about whatever they do and whatever they’re interested in, and they buy. They don’t buy once - they buy again and again and again and again.

There are a lot of people getting rich on the Internet, but not by trying to compete with the Internet Wal-Mart or Amazon.com or any of the large multi-million dollar companies on the Internet. Instead, what they’re doing is they’re finding a niche - a very small market - and in many cases, it’s a small market that they themselves have an interest in and they’re just servicing that market and they’re getting rich. Those people in that market are hungry and they don’t have the interest for a short amount of time. They’re hungry over a long period of time and they come back and buy again and again and again.

One of the great things and side benefits of working with a niche market, especially one you have an interest in, is you really build up a relationship with your customers, and that is something powerful that a lot of these larger websites can’t do.

Let’s say for example you have an interest in magic and you set up a magic site. You’re selling some magic videos and maybe some effects as well. Magicians come to your site and they’re going to e-mail you to ask, “What’s interesting? What have people bought? What really works? Have you seen this latest video? What’s it like? Can I get a discount on it?”

You’re going to build up a relationship with people so that you can build up that e-mail list and whenever a new video comes in or a great effect comes in or a good trick that you’ve just seen on T.V. and you’ve got it in stock, you can go back to those customers and say, “I just saw this great video. We’ve got it at special price, how would you like to buy it?”

Since you have that relationship with your customers, in many cases you’re going to get a large response from them because you’re going back to a small niche market of people who you have a personal relationship with. That’s something that even the huge companies that hire tens of thousands of people, working on the Internet every single day, dealing with customers every single day, can’t build up - that personal relationship - because they don’t share the same type of interests. They’re trying to be the Wal-Mart of the Internet, and you have a real strength of being that niche on the Internet.

Why focus on a niche? They’re easier to start. Is it easier to sell maybe five products to a niche or try to be an Amazon.com and have to stock thousands and thousands of products? It’s easier to start small. Plus, you can beat the big guy.

A lot of these bigger stores on the Internet cannot service the smaller market because they would have to go out and literally pack up with things that only a very small market would buy and there’s not enough profit there for them to do that. So they can’t service a lot of the small markets. You can go out and very quickly and easily service many small markets if you choose to, and make a killing on that.

The customers are hungry and they come back again and again. Plus you can charge more because if you’re going to a target market where people have that interest, they’re willing to spend more for what you have, especially if it’s something they have a real interest in. So instead of selling ten or twenty dollar products, all of a sudden you’re selling two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, a thousand dollar products and they’re coming back and buying more and more and more.

There’s real money in niches. Don’t think you have to sell to everybody in the world. Focus on that small market. There’s a lot of money out there and there’s going to be a lot of money over time in these small niche markets.

Collect all of the ideas in the marketplace that other companies are using successfully, and use those ideas in your own ad copy.

The big companies monitor the marketplace and learn what others are doing. This is how they get their ideas, and they spend hundreds, thousands, and sometimes even millions of dollars gaining this valuable information.

The more you immerse yourself in the market itself and explore it from all possible angles, the more good ideas you will be able to come up with.

It doesn’t take much money to do this, if any at all. It is work, though. You will have to find the publications that other companies in your market place ads in. You will have to do research. You will have to see which ads run the longest, because those are the ads that were successful. Why else would they have kept running?

Do not be dissuaded by the work this takes, though, for this will show you what works in your market, what is popular in the market currently. You can add these ideas to your swipe file. You can change them to fit your product so they can make money for you.

Next, find someone else who’s in that business. Contact them and ask them if you can interview them about their experience, their advice, how they feel about the business, the pit falls that they’ve had to watch out for, and the opportunities that they see for other people entering that business. Initiate a recorded telephone interview with that person.

For instance, if you decide you want to put together and sell a start up manual on How To Form A Desktop Publishing Business Working From Home (working from home is a good subject), you would find someone local who has a desktop publishing business and approach them, asking them if they would be kind enough to take part in an interview and share some of their success.

You might think right off that people won’t do this. You might thing they won’t want to create more competition, but the truth is generally just the opposite. They’re so flattered that you would ask for their opinion, acknowledge that they do a good job, and that they’re successful, that they’re more than happy to help you.

Now you set up a telephone interview. Telephone interviews are best because they’re less stressful for people, they fit into their schedule very easily, and telephone conversation is much easier for most people then going into a recording session.

You just write up a list of questions that you would like to ask this person, call them up at the appointed time, send them a list of questions in advance so they have no surprises and are very comfortable, chat just a few minutes, and then start your recording.

You could conduct an interview about that business for an hour or less. Now you have the report - you have an audio tape! And If you want to add more value, you can transcribe that audio tape and add it to your package.

Now you get the frosting. Frosting is how you start your own business, how you do the bookkeeping, how you do advertising, how you do marketing, and all of that information is available for free from sources such as the small business administration. You can write for material or you can go to their web site.

Now if you’re a smart cookie, we think you should put a price on that newsletter, even though you are giving it away free. Put a price of $79 or $99 and more, because that really makes people think they’re getting value. Also, put a time limit on it. “For a limited time to build our subscription base, we are offering our $99 XYZ newsletter absolutely free. But you must respond by the 15th of the month.”

People anticipate receiving a newsletter, and one reason that they will keep it is because they don’t have to read it right at the time.

If I come in Monday morning and find about forty pieces of e-mail, which I have, I throw most of them out without hardly looking at them. If I see something is a newsletter, I set it aside. I might not read it till that night or tomorrow, but I’m going to look at it.

We think we should set up a newsletter for almost any marketer. We think that if you’re a marketer, you should set up a newsletter. This is how to e-mail your way to an online fortune.

There is so much information on the Internet ... there are so many authors who are experts in the subject matter that you cover! You could agree to publish their articles in your newsletter, and at the end of the article you will give their address or a little blurb about exactly what they have to sell. It’s a good way to get free content!

Now, here are some rare ideas for getting free web site advertising.

Faxaway.com has something for free. They are actually an Internet faxing company. They use the Internet to send your faxes. We’ve made a lot of money with our fax machine - What a great invention that was!

Well, Faxaway.com have IMPROVED it. There is no per page charge. It doesn’t tie up your phone line. You don’t have a long distance fee. It’s just as easy as sending e-mail, yet it comes out the fax machine at the editor’s desk.

More and more editors are receiving news releases by fax. A lot of people are using faxaway now. The two free things that faxaway offers are:

1. They’ll let you send up to fifteen free faxes just to let you see how easy it is to use. You can pick the top fifteen best that you would think of and give it a try. It’s absolutely free on their web site!

2. They also have plug and play software called Faxomatic which lets you fax from any desktop application on your computer, and you can download it for free. By going to the faxaway.com site, you can get this free Faxomatic that lets you fax from any desktop application for free as a download, and then you can also take advantage of their offer for fifteen free faxes. They broadcast them out over the Internet.

So . . . There are fifteen free news releases sent out on the Internet for free advertising and a free software product to help you do even more of them!

The other idea is something that worked well before the Internet came along. Now, it’s working together with the Internet - in a very unusual way. We feel the potential is just huge. Namely, radio interviews for publicity.

We’ve had friends who’ve sold a lot of books by just appearing and talking on radio talk shows. Basically, you set at home in your bathrobe and slippers and you put your feet up. The radio station calls you at a predetermined time, 9:00 in the morning from WKRP in Cincin-nati, they say, “Hey, we’ve got (Insert YOUR name HERE) and we’d like to talk to them today about whatever it is that you’re selling.”

You talk about it. Now, as they interview you, in the process you try to say “By the way, my toll-free number is,” or “By the way, here’s how you order.” Now, you say “By the way, we have some more information on this on our web site.”

Like Edcals.com, that’s a free white paper, and it makes you go there and read it. You say “By the way our web site is,” or “By the way, we’ll move on to the next subject, but we have a special report on my web site which is www.whatever.” By giving out your web site on these free radio interviews, thousands of people who are listening to the radio can go, as you’re talking with the radio playing in their office or at home, onto the Internet and go to your site. They’re listening to you talk while they surf your Internet site. Amazing! You’ll be saying “Some of your listeners are probably on my site right now. They notice blah blah.” You keep bringing your site up all through the talk.

Now, how does this tie in with the Internet? We have a friend who was interviewed by a radio talk show host in New York. After the interview, he put the interview in audio format on the Internet!

You can go to his site and actually click on his different interviews. He’s interviewed a lot of people. You just click on the person and you hear the whole interview coming out the speakers of your computer.

Then, on the interview you mention your web site, and the person is already on the Internet. They can type that in after they’re done listening and go to your site. Not only are you on the radio, but the interview, if it’s a good one, can live forever on a site.

You can also make an audio tape and throw it in with any package or anything that you sell. It’s a great bonus. Of course, it mentions your site over and over. People that are listening to it can go to your site.

Radio interviews are really actually pretty easy to get. You just send a news release like you would with anything else to radio stations.

If you have a health plan, what you should eat, how you should exercise, gardening, certain times of the year you plant perennials, you plant annuals, whatever it is. There’s so much you can talk about. Some radio stations just want to talk all about farming. Other ones are city issues. There’s car talk. All kinds of things about your cars. Whatever your product is, even if it’s just a business opportunity, there are business interviews. Have some news releases done up. Send them off to radio stations.

You can get the names and addresses from Gebbie. You can also go to the library, look at the Gebbie directory and write down the ones that you want to give a try. It’s free. You can even try fifteen free faxes to some radio stations. Get interviewed. Ask permission and tape it on your end of the phone using the Radio Shack TCR200. It costs $95, I think. Ask for permission to use that tape as a bonus. Load it up on your site or someone else’s site. You can use your radio interview to drive people in different market areas around the country that are listening to go to your web site.

Run your ads in local newspapers. Or you can use Direct mail - or national newspapers such as USA Today.

Newspapers and Direct Mail let you get your advertising message out there fast. It’s actually possible to generate huge profits very quickly - assuming you have the right offer. It has to be something very exciting, and you must target your marketing. Assuming you can get these two things - you could make huge money fast, in as little as 5 to 7 days!

Now I want to talk about how to make $25.00 with the snap of a finger, and do that 100, 500, or even 1,000 times a month. This is big, folks!

This is content that the web is hungry and starving for ... and it is very easy to create. I know you can sell this because people are doing it ... they are just not doing it enough! We’ve had a few rare individuals contact us offering this service, but they aren’t any good and I know you are! You are better than they are!

It is digital photography! Or any photography, actually - you can do this with a regular camera and any scanner connected to a computer. These days, if you’ve already got a computer, scanners typically cost in the area of $90.00. You can use your regular camera and take pictures as always.

Digital cameras have come down in price, and now you can get a really high quality digital camera for a couple hundred dollars. Then you can literally set yourself up into a business capable of creating thousands of dollars a month.

All you’ve got to do is browse the web and focus on web sites that interest you and have subject matter that require photos. Study the site. Look where photos are required. Look for places where a photo would make the site sizzle. Then take the picture and e-mail a copy of the picture. You could also send some of your samples to the site and offer them reprint rights to use your photos.

Let them know that you’ll have others available. You can literally sell these photos.

This is the beauty about digital photography: there is no print paper. There is no mailing. There is no darkroom work. You can do it all on your computer and spice it up, make it bright, and make sure the size of the photo is right. You can also include the ability for web sites to request specific photos from you whenever they need them in the future.

You can set up a subscription based fee system whereby you’ll offer your prospects and customers five photos a week for a month at a set price.

There are any number of ways that you can tailor your own photo service for web sites. The trick is to create a few good samples, attach them like file attachments to a message, and send them out to various web sites that need photos.

Believe me, they need them! Photos are great copy. They dazzle a site! They make it look great! They use them for backgrounds. They use them as little highlights along text. They use them with their logos. They use them all over the place. They just don’t use them nearly enough so I know they need more.

Size is important. The real key here is to make your photos (when you’ve created a digital image) down to 72 dpi. (72-74 is really good) Most people work around 72 dpi. The idea is to keep it so that it loads fast but still looks good. That’s one of those...72 dpi is a magic number that seems to still look great on the web, but it keeps the file size down so it transfers quickly. Then keep it relatively small - a modest size. You can always blow it up or provide a larger or small one if they need it.

You attach these samples to an e-mail offer and just send it out to web site owners. Or, you could actually set up your own web site if you have that capability, and we can always help you there. (Somebody will be glad to help you with that.)

Set up a web site with five or ten rotating samples of your work that are available free to anyone who visits the site, but also include your sales pitch on this service that you’ll provide them with customized photos to order and a rotating number of additional photos that they can get free of charge.

This is a great way to spice up a web site - to offer content to web sites that they’re dying to get - and it is a relatively easy way to create content that people need. If you’ve got a good camera and a decent eye, it is really easy to create 100 photos - or even 1,000 photos - a month once you get going.

You can always get the help of other budding young photographers or amateur photographers in your area, and offer even more photos ...dozens of them! It could even expand into artists offering artwork and designing capabilities.

The idea is to not limit yourself to just the photos you can take. Don’t even take any if you don’t want to. You could just be a broker. This is one of the areas that I know the web is dying for, and I know they’re more than willing to pay for. It is a great business! You can start part-time, full-time, or whatever!

We know you’ve probably heard of the term “guilt by association.” Well, there is an opposite situation - and it can be very useful in marketing copy!

Positive association is when a person is seen in a good light based on the company around them. This is something you can use in your sales copy to make it more believable, and to make yourself seem more trustworthy to prospects!

The technique is normally used by finding people in your market who are very successful - celebrities in the market, so to speak. Then, you run a picture of them or

Classified ads can make you a F-O-R-T-U-N-E! If your ad runs in 100 different publications and you make ten dollars from each ad a month, that’s $1,000 a month!

And it can potentially grow even bigger . . . How much would you make if you ran your ad in 500 publications? A thousand publications? 1,000 publications times $10 per ad equals $10,000! Potentially, classified ads present you with a huge opportunity to make big money.

The secret is, you have to be able to locate the good publications that will continue to pull a nice net profit for you. Then test new publications all the time.

Remember, just because you have a publication already that’s been making money for you doesn’t mean it will keep doing so indefinitely. Always test new ads, always test new publications, and always keep running and re-running your ads in the publications that have shown the initial profits.

Now we’re going to cover a major buying trend that is making millions of dollars for many individuals and companies - and it can make you rich, too!

What is it? It’s the home shopping revolution.

For over a hundred years people have been buying things by mail. But in the past ten years, there has been an explosion in home shopping. More and more catalogs, thousands of them by mail. The QVC, the Home Shopping Network, and Value Vision, the home shopping networks have emerged.

And now, in recent years, the Internet is the best place for home shopping. You want to take advantage of this, and the way you do that is to design your web site so it’s so easy to shop. You don’t want any problems. You want it all set up in such a way that a person can shop till they drop, and do it so simply.

If you have multiple items on your site, you want to get one of these software programs that are called “Shopping Cart” programs. With them, people can come to your site, pick up different items, throw them in the virtual shopping cart just like if they were at Target, or K Mart, or Walmart, and then when they are finished shopping, check out and pay for it simply.

This means you have to take credit cards. Don’t kid yourself. If you are just trying to make people send you checks or money orders, you are making a big mistake. You have to take credit cards to really be doing business on the Internet today. This is the way to get things really rolling.

Here’s another secret that we just learned in Investor’s Business Daily (I.B.D.). We just read about it last week. They’ve talked to thousands of people concerning what they liked about on-line shopping. People said, “Oh, I love to shop at home. I love the ease of it. I love how much fun it is to surf the Internet,” and many other things they said very positively.

Then they asked, “What don’t you like about on-line shopping?” And many things were mentioned like we just covered. It is difficult to buy, and so on, and so forth. But the number one reason people did not like to shop on-line was high shipping and handling costs.

They said, “Hey, we can buy furniture, we can buy books, we can buy music, but often the shipping and handling costs make it more expensive than if we bought it at the local shopping mall.”

In fact, they mentioned one company, E-Toys, that sold a children’s book for $4.95 but then had a $4.00 shipping charge. In other words, the shipping and handling charge was almost as much as this darn little book.

A lot of sharp retailers, and on-line e-commerce sellers, are doing this - they are packaging the product and the shipping cost into one price. Let’s say you are selling an item for $25.00 plus $5.00 shipping and handling. It is much smarter to say the cost of this item is $29.95 and no extra for shipping and handling. That seems to really turn people on when they don’t have to pay shipping and handling.

A Friend and business associate of ours has developed a Website System. Basically, it’s a package where the customer pays one time and gets a website that follows the traditional mail order methods that have proven successful for more than a century. The website works on the web to market products, information, and services.

When he last talked to us before this writing, he had literally attracted more than 5,000 customers into signing up for his Website System services! This is ANOTHER AMAZING INTERNET SUCCESS STORY!

And, as if that’s not exciting enough to think about . . . the total number of websites he’s currently hosting is more than 8,000 - he’s attracted all of them in just a little over a year’s time!

Our friend charges his clients $995 apiece to create a web package for them. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Yet, over 5,000 people have already signed up for his services. Why?

You can’t just have a website and wait for success to come your way. It doesn’t work that way! There are specific details that have to be watched and outlined in the development of a commercial website if it’s to stand the greatest chance of success it possibly can.

For an amateur to try to pull this off on their first try is nearly impossible. But, our friend covers these bases for his customers. Since he’s been in the business for so long, he knows what will work and what won’t.

He puts his knowledge to work for his clients, and because his knowledge could bring them many thousands of dollars, they’re willing to pay quite a bit for it . . . $995 to be exact! This is how one man got over 5,000 customers to pay him a huge $995 each for this special service! And you could do it, too!

Those companies have to work with those big markets - but you can actually make a fortune by focusing on the tiny little markets that these huge corporations can’t touch. It’s how to make huge profits and huge amounts of cash with tiny little markets and gain a HUGE advantage over Fortune 500 companies!

So, you wonder, how do you decide what small niche market you are going to go into? Our suggestion is to work with someone with a subject or a hobby that you are already interested in.

There’s a quote that says something to the effect of “Do what you love and the money will follow.” That’s very true. If you find something you love, you can make money at it and have lots of fun, and it just comes automatically because you’re excited about it - after all, it is something you are interested in.

We’ve said it time and time again - Internet auctions are one of the greatest ways to get rich. We firmly believe that, and we are going to tie that concept in with this subject matter and show you how you can make it work.

Electronic books are generally small software programs that are actually designed to open up a book, or a text file, and display it on the user’s screen on the computer as if it were a book. They can read the text. Some of them actually allow you click on the various programs and it literally flips the page over and you’re on the next page. Others display a book out on the screen, and allow you to just scroll up and down, and then click different chapters and jump to different sections of the book. Many of them allow you to actually offer a book in such a way that it is hyper-linked, much like web sites are, with various references in the book highlighted. People click on it, it jumps to other parts of the book that explain that. It just depends on how complex you want to get.

Now, how do you make any money if people don’t buy anything? Our recommen-dation is you sell per view advertising that goes out with the free information or the free report. So, basically, you’re setting up sponsors that will sponsor your e-mail message or your auto-responded message, the free report.

Regardless of what information or what product you’re selling, you can come up with a report that tells people more information about it. Basically, it’s just like people asking for it and getting your information. They are getting it via auto-responder. You’re making money not only from everybody that ends up buying your product, but even if they don’t buy you are making money from advertisers that are advertising in your auto-responded message.

When we say “per view” advertising, what we recommend you do is actually charge people based on the number of click throughs they get. If you have a report and on your web site it tells people to get a free report - or maybe you’re even sending out offers for the free report via e-mail - every time someone actually clicks to request that free report that’s a click through or a view. Then, you charge your advertisers based on that.

At the top of the auto responded message, you can say something like, “first a word from our sponsors.” You might have one sponsor, you might have two, three, four, or five sponsors.

You don’t want the whole e-mail to be full of sponsors. You don’t want twenty sponsors and then three lines of text. You need to take that into consideration.

The sponsor would then pay a set price for every ad that was sent out automatically via the auto-responder and your special report.

When it comes to Internet forums and discussion boards . . . those messages that you post with an answer and a link to your Web page, stay on those news groups almost forever! There are even places that archive past news groups when they get old, so people can go back and read that.

We have gotten responses to our own answers we’ve posted on news groups, over a year ago! This is how you can turn 60 seconds of your time into sales and profits for years!

And it’s free! Carry this idea one step further. In every e-mail program today that we know of, every one that I’m familiar with allows you to create what they call a “signature line.” That’s where you can put this, and it’s on every message you leave at that point at the bottom of your message. It just automatically inserts it for you when you’re posting the message.

You can go to a message group discussion and, say, you are interested in “painting in oil at home.” You could actually go to the interest groups that interest you most and discuss oil painting. Get into it, enjoy it, have fun!

Every message you post at the bottom has this little two-line tag line. “Oh by the way, interested in some business opportunity? Interested in making more money at home so you can paint more often?” Add your tag line with your link to your Website. That’s not considered an ad in these news groups. That’s just a tag line at the bottom. As long as you don’t get carried away with it, it’s a perfectly legal and acceptable way to do it.

You’re providing a service to the people that go to the news group! It’s more of a soft sale than anything. Then the hard sale can be done once they go to your Site! You can do whatever you want to do! You have to be careful about not blatantly trying to sell to people. First of all, it’s a turn-off to all the people on the news groups. Second of all, the owners will kick you off. But then when they come to your Website, you can do whatever you want with them.

If you just get on there and post ads, on most news groups you can get yourself kicked off or locked out. Or what people will do individually is, they’ll set their e-mail filter to ignore anything from your e-mail address when they’re browsing that news group. It will just block you out so you’re not even being seen!

No expert will help you if he/she thinks you are the competition. That is the way it is in any business. If you need help, do not expect the competition to help you, unless there is an incentive.

You might be able to get some help, however, if you know how to go about it.

Firms will help you if they feel there is something in it for them. So, you have to convince them that you will help them if they are willing to help you.

If you call some of the bigger names in the mailing-list business, tell them that you are interested in having your list of names managed by them. Tell them your list contains many buyers of mail-order books. They will be more than happy to answer your questions, if they are interested in managing your list. You might say that this method is unethical. But if it is the only way to get knowledge of the mailing-list business, either you use it or get out of the business.

When it comes to experts, remember that a good list broker is an expert on the lists he or she offers. They will tell you everything you want to know, because as long as that list makes money for you it is making money for them. Also, list owners will tell you about their lists. After all, it is free publicity. They want you to know they have something to offer you. This is how to get the insiders in the business to tell you everything you want to know!

Occasionally, you might even find someone who will be willing to give you some free advice just because he/she knows you are sincere and need it. It never hurts to try.

Giving away free samples works better with some products than others. But when you have a product that naturally lends itself to being bought and reused again and again, there is no better marketing strategy.

The key is getting people to try it one time and getting them hooked in. Then they are compelled to buy from you repeatedly. This is how “samples” can make you THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!

Also, anytime you are willing to give someone a free sample, you are proving that your product is the best. You are making a very strong, very convincing argument for your product or service by just offering to send a free sample.

Stress experts have investigated what distinguishes writers who cope well with stress from those who do not. They have come up with some surprising data. Researchers found that the “copers” use simple anti-stress strategies that other executives ignore.

Most writers who don’t cope well with stress don’t use these coping techniques. In short, this is why some people completely destroy their chances of making huge amounts of money. It’s not what happens to you that counts in life; rather, it’s how you handle what happens to you that matters.

When you are out to find success, you are going to face a lot of obstacles. Problems go hand-in-hand with success. In business, the highs are higher and the lows are lower. Business has a lot to offer - freedom, flexibility, money - but there’s also a price for this.

There is no simple road. The more you want out of life, the more you have to do. Successful people have more problems than unsuccessful people. As you step out there to achieve more, more obstacles will come your way.

Now, let’s list some of the coping devices writers use to help meet their struggles. Here are 7 things that separate the rich winners from the losers:

1. Size up stressful situations, and decide which aspects are worth worrying about and which can be ignored. Postpone thinking about a problem until an appropriate time. Expect the unexpected, and allow time and energy to deal with the inevitable stressful events that seem to come from nowhere. Easily detect fatigue and respond to it by cutting the day short or taking a little time off during the week.
2. Know when perfection is possible and when it is not.
3. Take vacations.
4. Get regular exercise.
5. Talk to colleagues, friends, and their spouses about job pressures they feel.
6. Delegate tasks, such as typing, proofreading, etc., to others when stress starts to increase.
7. Do not be afraid to laugh at yourself.

Who says it takes money to make money? Guess what? THEY’RE WRONG! We started our multi-million dollar empire with a few hundred dollars of cash we received for selling a broken down van that barely ran. It’s possible for you to make money with almost no investment, too. Here is our powerful advice:

1. Run small ads. That’s how we got started. You can get credit with the newspaper or magazine.
2. Sell something really HOT! Something exciting! Something that’s making a profit for another company or person right now.
3. Use your profits to grow. Put them back into more advertising.
4. Continue using the profits to re-filter back into the business.

This is the same four step strategy we used to go from $300 in 1988 to over 21-million dollars worth of sales in only eight years... Another variation of these four steps is to sell some type of distributorship. This allows you to make money on the marketing promotions of other people. You still have to grow with your profits, but your group of distributors becomes your primary market. Your job is to develop new materials for them. You give them new sales material and new products and they spend their money to sell your products and services.

This is why some really GREAT ideas fail: the company gets wrapped up in thinking about themselves instead of thinking about the customer, be it a catalog or an individual purchaser.

Companies - and yes, even small companies - can get very bureaucratic in their thinking. They forget that they’re only in business to serve other people.

There are people out there that say terrible things about capitalism. They say that capitalists greedily exploit other people.

Granted, that may be true when it comes to some “fly-by-night” operations. The companies that make their profits from working with established customers repeatedly, though, can’t get away with cheating and ripping people off over and over again. The bottom line is: they have to provide value. It’s easier for people to think of themselves before they think of their customers. It’s easy for a company to get locked into its own love for the product it’s offering and not think about how the customer perceives that same product. Remember, it’s the customers and the prospects - the market - that really count in the long run.

Yes, we have to love what we sell. We have to be able to communicate enthusiasm for our products and services. We have to feel strongly about what we have. Then, we have to try to transfer those emotions to the prospects and customers. If you are excited about a product and you are able to convey that excitement to me, I’m going to get excited about the product!

Remember, think about your market, your prospects, and your customers. Think about what they’re really interested in. It should all center around thinking about the customers, not around the business.

For some reason, it is extremely difficult to see the offer from a reader’s point of view. Don’t fail to understand that anything you have to offer is as important to a consumer as it is to you. Millions of dollars are wasted every year because mail-order marketers with great ideas fail to understand that what consumers want to hear is not always what the marketer has to say.

Why does a news release make money? A news release is nothing more than just a write-up of your product or service with a picture, preferably, if it is a product. It is very similar to a sales letter. Its purpose is to show the editor of the publication all of the things that your product or service can do for their readers.

Editors are always looking for something that is of interest to their readers. That’s why they will give you this free publicity. The magazine’s life or death depends on whether or not they can find material that will interest their readers.

If you have a product or service that really would be of interest to the magazine’s readers, you are actually doing the editor a big favor. Why will hundreds of magazines and newspapers give you THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF TOTALLY FREE ADVERTISING? Read the first sentence of this paragraph again - THAT’S THE ANSWER!

Whether the medium is a publication, radio show, or TV talk show, the same principle applies. The people in charge are looking for things that interest those who read, listen to, or watch the media they produce. If you show them how your product or service will interest and help the people who are in their market, they will be much more open to giving you an endorsement or write-up. It is a win-win situation.

Your news release must be interesting and have news value. It must somehow be perceived as being useful and benefiting to the readers. That means presenting all of the factual benefits and advantages that your product has to offer.

Before you can begin to write a news release with the skill of a seasoned newspaper reporter, you will have to learn the differences in approach and style that differentiate ads from news releases.

The secret to getting free publicity is to make it as easy as possible for the editor so they don’t have to work on it much - if any - themselves. Do the ad writing for them. Give them all the ideas of what to write about.

People are busy. People are lazy. If you have already come up with some great advertising ideas to sell your product or service, give the editor the ideas.

All of the concepts of free publicity are currently being used right now. There are large, multi-million dollar advertising agencies and publicity agents that specialize in using these concepts. Every time you open a magazine and see write-ups about some company’s product or service, that means someone sent that publication a news release.

Ok, so you’re ready to become a buyer and/or seller on eBay or some other Internet auction site. The first thing you typically need to do is register on the site, and let them know who you are.

Usually, this is simply a matter of giving your e-mail address. You do have the option, if you want to maintain a little bit of anonymity, to use a pseudonym or user ID where eBay knows what your e-mail address is, and they’ll pass it on to the right people. This is how to maintain your total privacy - while raking in thousands of dollars with Internet auctions!

This can be nice, because it stops somebody from coming in, grabbing your e-mail address, and selling it so you end up on loads of Internet name lists getting loads and loads of junk e-mail, or “spam” as its known by the Internet communities, that you don’t want.

Once you have registered, which was a matter of minutes for us, eBay will send you your password. Then, within ten minutes, we were able to bid, and were on our way! It was that easy!

Here are 12 proven ways to get rich in direct response marketing!

1. You must know who you are trying to reach with your unique selling proposition. Use the highest-quality names available.

Target marketing means getting your offer to the right people. Remember, it is not the quantity of names you send out, it is the quality that is important.

2. Choose the right market for your selling message. Make certain your service or product meets the interest and expec-tations of your target group. Do not try to sell lawn mowers to an apartment dweller in Manhattan, for example.

3. Make certain your proposition is targeting the right people. Make certain your offer is compatible with the list you are using. Mailings aimed at a targeted audience have the best chance for success.

4. Make your mailing package hard to refuse. What you offer must fit the interests of the receiver. Fill your offer with self-interest benefits. Be clear and direct in your copy. Do not ramble on with trivial information. Let the receiver know what your unique selling proposition is, and how it will benefit him/her. Using these techniques will make your mailing package nearly impossible to refuse!

Make your offer sincere and believable.

It may take hard-hitting copy and a unique selling proposition to get a reader’s attention. But your overall sales pitch must be sincere and believable. Many people are skeptical when they receive a direct mailing, especially if they have never done business with you before. Sincere and believable copy will eliminate doubts and mistrust. It will motivate a reader into placing an order.

6. Make sure your graphics fit your copy. The right illustrations can enhance a mailing piece, but too many graphics will simply cause a distraction. If you get too “graphic crazy,” the graphics may be looked at with great interest, but your unique selling proposition may not be read. Composition, copy, and illustrations must be integrated and blend well together.

7. Coordinate your time. Often, people work against the clock instead of with it. Allow enough time to do your job well. Plan ahead. If you want to start a mailing campaign on July 1, do not start stuffing envelopes the day after. Coordinate your time, and plan ahead.

8. Check every detail before you begin. To get the most from your mailing program, you must check every detail for any flaws. Have you checked your printing to make certain the quality is sharp throughout? Is the order form complicated, too small, to hard to read? Does your form have the right return address, zip code, telephone number, price, etc.? Those small details are crucial.

9. Is your fulfillment department organized and ready to go? Getting orders is exciting! But there is someone on the other end who is excited also - the person anxiously waiting for the order. Providing good service means being prepared and organized to get an order out now! If you cannot turnaround an order within 24 hours, you should ask yourself, why? If you do not, your customers will.

10. Always include “back-end” offers. The most successful direct-response marketers know they must depend on back-end offers to make maximum profits. If the normal postage costs remain the same, whether you stuff in one page or five pages, it only makes sense to go the limit with additional offers. If the buyers are pleased with the original offer they purchased, you should assume that they will be willing to purchase something else that appeals to them. Get your money’s worth in your mailings. With it will come extra profits.

11. Here are five ways to get ten times more money from your customer base!

• Establish a long-term relationship with your customers. Once you start accumulating your own customer list, do not “allow any dust to settle.”
• Customers represent your greatest potential source of repeat business. Your own list can out-pull new, untried lists by a three-to-one margin and more.
• Continually develop new offers, even if you have to deal through other supply sources.
• Send new mailings to your customers at least every three to four months.
• Let them know that you value them as customers, and as a convenience to them, you will make them aware of new products and services continually.

12. Is your marketing strategy set up for maximum results? This is how to develop your marketing strategy for maximum results! Do these seven things and you can make mega-profits!

• Are you in close contact with your mailing broker?
• Do you work closely with your printer and suppliers?
• Are you selling, renting, or trading your name list to obtain full financial benefits?
• Is your fulfillment department operating smoothly?
• Are you looking for new ideas you can incorporate into your mailings?
• Is every aspect of your marketing strategy working smoothly? If not, fix it!
• Keep moving forward.

All magazines, newspapers, and card decks publish something called a “rate card.” This is a list of prices they charge to run various size ads in their publications. Here’s the truth: The only people who pay these rate card prices are those who are new to this business. The rest of us negotiate for the best price we can get. Negotiating is the simple secret you can use to get all of your ads for up to HALF the cost others pay. Sometimes you can even get as much as 90% off the rate card price!

Here’s an insiders secret: Send the publisher your camera-ready ad and a check for a fraction of their rate card price. Include a small letter that says something like: “I am struggling for cash and can’t afford a penny more than this amount. If this suits you, please run my ad. If not, send this check back.” Most publishers will keep your check and run your ad.