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A REAL LIST OF MAIL ORDER BUSINESSES TO CONTACT

Before you spend any money. Before you believe all the lies out there on the market — here are a few people you can contact that are honest and trustworthy folks in the mail order industry. Their names and addresses are current at the time of this writing, but since this report carries reprint rights, you could be reading it for the first time many months or years into the future. Therefore, you need to keep in mind that people move, lives change, businesses close and people die. However, since these people have already been in business a few years and become established — they or a relative should still be operating the business when you contact them.

Here’s how to contact them, write a letter that says something to the effect:

“I saw your name and address on a mail order report that recommends you as an honest business. I am enclosing two first-class postage stamps. Please send me updated information and prices on the products and services you currently offer. Thanks. (Your name and complete address.)”

Respected Mail Order Dealers

• J. Stewart Caverly, 216 McLean St, Wilkes Barre PA 18702
• Herman Holtz, PO Box 1731, Wheaton MD 20915
• Graphico Publishing, PO Box 488, Bluff City TN 37618
• Valentine’s Printing, 870 Bender Ave, Galion OH 44833
• Don Harris, PO Box 1052, Oviedo FL 32765
• Broadway Publication, 7546 Palm Rd, W Palm Beach FL 33406
• M.T.B. & Associates, 1482 Clairville Rd, Oshkosh WI 54904
• Ken Weiand, PO Box 624, Cherokee Village AR 72525
• Margaret Lucas, 1006 Runion Ave, Fort Wayne IN 46808
• Harland DeGroot, 2765-H Jefferson, Springfield IL 62702
• William Lee, Rt 1, Box 10790, Madisonville TN 37354
• David Dye, PO Box 1002, Battle Creek MI 49016
• Willie Damel, 25 Clifton Ave D-1508, Newark NJ 07104
• Robyn Hormel, 4615 Takilma Rd, Cave Junction OR 97523
• Gloria Rivers, 5308 NE 49th Ave, Vancouver WA 98661
• Mail Order Messenger, PO Box 358, Middleton TN 38052
• Gary Davis, PO Box 80, Foyil OK 74031
• Kathy Mathews, PO Box 8125, Fort Collins CO 80526
• Willie Mae Brehm, 1422 S Lake Pleasant Rd, Apopka FL 32703
• Gold Service, PO Box 508, Duarte CA 91009
• Joe Reinbold, PO Box 424, Morganville NJ 07751
• Glenn Bridgeman, PO Box 10150, Terra Bella CA 93270
• Tropics West, 130 E Main St #315, Medford OR 97501
• JRS Printing, PO Box 2508, Calcutta OH 43920
• Tom Leash, 64 W Main St, Dallastown PA 17313
• C.J. Nelson, 1825 Domanik Dr, Racine Wi 53404
• William Thrailkill, 4811-16th Ave, Chattanooga TN 37407
• George Norr, PO Box 70268, Salt Lake City UT 84170
• Gregory Bey, 1324« Lincoln Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15206
• Frank Novak, 3857 Heppner Dr, Chippewa Falls WI 54729
• Gail Lamothe, PO Box 46, Derby VT 05829
• Dale Rolland, 2045 Deer Trail, Floresville TX 78114
• Charlie Mims, 316 Hill St, Rochelle Ga 31079
• Ray Benbenek, 1151 Sonora Ave #118, Glendale CA 91201
• Bill Kern, 6460-65 Convoy Ct, San Diego CA 92117
• Edward Canty, 4828 Zorich Dr, Charlotte NC 27533
• Hamilton Plummer, PO Box 7768, Washington DC 20044
• Maynard Hawkins, PO Box 3403, Wichita Falls TX 76301
• Betty Culpepper, 3082 New Franklin Rd, LaGrange GA 30240
• Roy Beasley, PO Box 3087, Jekyll Island GA 31527
• Carl O’Shea, PO Box 700, Baldwin Park CA 91706
• Scott Covert, 24650 Eglinton Ave E #303, Scarborough, Ontario Canada M1K 5J7
• Don Smith, PO Box 7600, Newark DE 19714
• Chris Nelson, PO Box 745, Bloomington IL 61702

ADVERTISING MISTAKES: HOW TO AVOID THEM

Advertising isn’t hard to do. You prepare an advertisement or write a classified ad to sell your product or generate interest to send people more information. But the way most people make mistakes is either by their inability to write effective ad copy or by sending it to be published in the wrong publication. Here are some pointers to follow:

Writing Effective Copy

Never try to sell anything costing more than $5 in a small display ad or a classified ad. First of all, you don’t have enough room to tell people everything they need to know to entice them to order.

Instead, you need to employ the “Two-Step” method of advertising. Request the reader to send you $1 or 4 first-class postage stamps for more information. When they respond, you will send them a brochure, flyer, order form and cover letter so they can place an order for the real product.

Now that pricing is out of the way lets talk about writing your ad copy. The best way to learn how is to read the ads other people have written. Don’t copy them word-for-word, but use them as a guideline to write your own ads. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be writing effective ad copy just as well as the pros.

Here’s an example of an ad you could use to sell automobile wax: Free information on the best wax available on the market. If you care about the lasting beauty of your vehicle, send $1 for complete details to (your name and address.)

Advertising in the Right Publication

Even if you make and sell the best candy in the world, you probably couldn’t sell very much of it to people who are diabetics. The same goes for selling race car parts to women or dentures to teenagers.

Although this may sound a little silly and you think it is only common sense to know this — people will often overlook this fact when choosing the publication they will be advertising in. Instead, they will look for the lowest price for the amount of circulation they receive. Unfortunately, this does not work out.

Even though you need to look for good deals that make it easy on your pocketbook, you will be throwing money away if you don’t pre-qualify the publication you choose.

One way of pre-qualifying the publication is to send for a sample copy. Most publishers will send them to you free of charge for the asking. If you don’t know of any mail order publications, just write to Glenn Bridgeman, PO Box 10150, Terra Bella CA 93270 or William Lee, Rt 1, Box 10790, Madisonville TN 37354 and ask them to send you some. (Be sure to enclose $1 or 4 first-class postage stamps in with your request to offset postage costs.) If you tell them you are new to mail order and are interested in publications to advertise in, you certainly will find the $1 you spent is well worth the effort because both of these publishers are very reputable, honest and helpful.

Study the publication to see what other people are advertising and how they are advertising it. Contact some of the people who sell items similar to your own with the hope of networking with them. You would be surprised how much free publicity you can get just from corresponding, calling and networking with others.

Once you locate a publication you want to advertise in, give it a try for 3 months. If you don’t get any response or only a few orders, try another publication. There are millions of them and eventually you will hit the right target market that will be interested in what you have to sell.

Don’t Stop With One Publication

Just because you locate the target market of people who are interested in purchasing your product there is no reason you can’t advertise in more than one publication. In fact — if you don’t, your ad will become stale. If the same people continue to see your ad every month they will probably get tired of looking at it. Besides, if they wanted the product they would have ordered it by now. Don’t tire them out! Alternate different size ads and get rid of ones that don’t work well.

Leave your ad running as long as it brings in orders for you but also advertise in 5, 10, 20 or 50 other publications also to generate a steady stream of orders and to reach more people.

Key Your Ads

Many beginners in mail order never key their ads so they know what publication people saw their ads in. In fact, I personally never did this myself and ended up losing a lot of money. So please don’t make the same mistake I did.

Keying your ads means that you place a code of some sort in your address so that when people write and order something from you, you immediately will know where they saw your ad. Keep a record of every name and address of the publisher you send an advertisement to. Record the date you sent the ad and the date you received a checking copy, proving that your ad appeared. Also record the “code” you used so you can immediately identify where it came from.

An example of coding your ad would be: If your address is “123 Anytown St,” it could become “123 Anytown St, Suite A” for one publication and “Suite B” for another. The postman will still deliver your mail to “123 Anytown St.”

Of course, if you live in an apartment complex and there are apartment numbers you could turn “111 Johnson, Apt A” into “111 Johnson, Apt A-1″ for one publication and “Apt A-2″ for another.

Post office box addresses are also simple. You could easily turn “PO Box 585″ into “PO Box 585, Dept A-1″ for one publication and “Dept A-2″ for another.

People will sometimes even change their name on the ad for keying purposes. You might see the name “Harriet’s Recipe Book” instead of Harriet Ranger. Harriet might also use “Harriet’s Cookbook” or even “Harriet’s Solution to Stress” on her ads relating to these products. Use your own imagination and pretty soon, keying your ads will be a normal part of your life.

Be sure and keep track (on your Record Sheet) of how many responses you receive from each publication. After 3 months, look over your Record Sheet and get rid of the publications that didn’t do well. You’ll go broke if you spend $10 per month advertising a 2-inch ad if you only receive $1 back in orders. After while you’ll be able to see where it pays you to advertise your particular product and then you can send in larger ads to those publications. Never stop using this method and you’ll never stop getting orders in your mailbox.

It’s a win-win situation for everybody!

Tabloids vs. Adsheets

Another question about advertising that many people have is whether it’s better to advertise in tabloids or adsheets. Many people will sell you information on the best day to mail and the best time of the year to advertise. They think they have it down to a science and will convince you of their methods.

However, there are NO set rules that can be employed by everyone. That’s because there are a wide variety of ways to approach various products. If you sell travel services and read a report that told you not to advertise during the summer months, you’d go broke. The summer is the travel industry’s biggest money-making season!

Don’t get hung up on specific statistics made by people who claim to be expert researchers. There is no way to determine what is best for you than to try it yourself and see what works. You are the person in control of your business and you are where the buck stops. Take advantage of your authority and try every angle you can think of until you determine what’s best for your company’s product and/or service.

Tabloids are a fantastic advertising vehicle and adsheets are too. Sometimes people feel a small 1″ camera-ready ad gets lost in a tabloid filled with 100’s of them. This may be true in some circumstances and not true in others. Do you look at 1″ ads in tabloids? Of course you do. You scan the pages and your eye is always directed to one or two on the page that catches your eye. Ask yourself “why” they caught your eye. Was it because the ad was placed in a specific area on the page? Was it because of the headline or the word “free”?

There are a million different ways to market and sell your particular product or service. What might work for John may not work for Joe. You have to find your own way.

In addition, classifieds sometimes work well in tabloids and adsheets and sometimes they don’t, look in the back of the Globe or Enquirer. Don’t they have page after page of classified ads? If nobody was reading them and responding to them, the advertisers wouldn’t be submitting advertising to the Globe or Enquirer for them. So evidently, people DO read classified ads — even if there are 100’s of them. Test the waters and do what works the best for you.

WANT RICHES BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS? HELP A NEWCOMER! (PART 3 of 3)

NOW it’s time to motivate those people and get them producing an income for themselves and YOU!

One simple way I recently found to motivate our members is by running ads for them free of charge. The solution occurred because it had come to a point that I no longer could advertise a lot of my own products since I couldn’t place myself in direct competition with people in my own programs.

Since I had designed the ads to sell these products and they were already on the computer, I simply placed the member’s name and address on the ads and began sending them to adsheet and tabloid publishers.

It not only benefits my members, but builds the program as well as my company. It’s a win/win situation for everyone all the way around. The members are thankful that I am supporting them by trying to help them and will generate a more positive interest in working the program themselves (thereby creating more advertising and exposure). It also promotes honesty since members know that we are in no way trying to “cheat” them by “hogging” all the commission monies.

Another idea: If you sell mailing lists, don’t “hog” all the good names for yourself and give your members all the bad ones. This DOESN’T give you more money, it only cheapens your operation. If a member of any program does not make some money — they will drop out — plain and simple! If you work for your people and keep their interests in mind your business income will skyrocket!

Also, provide the newcomer with a list of 100’s of small, medium and large mail order publications to choose from. Encourage them to write the publisher and request a sample publication before sinking money into advertising. Explain to them about camera-ready ads and provide them with names and addresses of mail order typesetters. Tell them how print and mail works and give them names and addresses of reliable businesses that can do this work for them at a reasonable cost. Cover all the different methods of advertising this $22.95 information package and encourage them to develop other products to add to their line. You know as well as I do that nobody makes any steady money selling only one item in mail order. It takes a lot of different items to appeal to a wide variety of tastes.

Explain to the newcomer about mailing lists and how to run inquiry ads to generate their base in-house list. Provide names and addresses of legitimate people who provide this service and refer them to these dealers.

The Profit Potential of Being Honest:

Look at the PROFIT potential of this new scenario. If you can’t see it, let me point it out for you:

1. Any mail order dealer you have recommended to these newcomers normally will refer business to you also because they are appreciative of the new business you are sending to them. (It’s no money out of your pocket to refer them because you don’t deal in the products and services anyway.)
2. The newcomer who really is serious will actually make some money and they’ll feel happy about it. (Even if someone just gets a $2 commission in the mail, it’s a thrilling experience for the newcomer! It’s not the amount of money that does the trick — it’s the knowledge that they actually generated some cash on their own, without the aide of an employer. They’ll feel good about themselves and their abilities.)
3. In turn — because these newcomers have made a little money, they will tell others about it and bring new business to you. So not only do you benefit from word-of-mouth advertising by the dealers themselves, but from the newcomers too. That means lots of saved money in advertising costs!
4. And if you continue to provide support services so that some of these newcomers actually do make a living from mail order, they will remember you for the rest of their life. In fact, they’ll stick to you like glue and be obligated to you because YOU showed them a way to obtain the life they only dreamed of.

And when you reach this point, you won’t be a scam artist anymore. You’ll be rich financially and mentally!

Be sure and read Part 1 and Part 2 for the entire story.

WANT RICHES BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS? HELP A NEWCOMER! (PART 1 of 3)

Dale Rolland, Inner Circle, 2045 Deer Trail, Floresville TX 78114 recently reported on the scam for the “Fail Safe Mail Order Plan” in his “Mail Order Dealer’s Digest” newsletter. This is that deal where a newcomer is instructed to run a classified ad selling a book for $22.95. The scam artist tells the newcomer the exact words to use for the ad and where to run the ad. But, as with all scams, the poor newcomer gets burned to a crisp on this one too.

What happens is that the scam artist sells the SAME list of publications to everybody. All the same people get the same names so all everybody ends up advertising in the SAME publication. The scam artists don’t care if 150 people advertise the same book in the same publication because they made their money off the sale of the information — not the commissions from the sales of the book.

But this is one of those Legitimate Scams I’ve talked about before. Let’s break it down for crystal-clear understanding. This way you may be able to recognize a similar scam in the future and know why it is to your financial advantage to help a newcomer and end up with riches beyond your wildest dreams:

The Scam Begins

Okay. The scam artists initially run ads in magazines that newcomers tend to read the most (like Entrepreneur, Income Opportunities, etc.). The ad says something similar to: “Make $1,000’s with classified ads. Free information.” Almost anybody would be intrigued by an ad like this. The information is normally free or low-cost and this generates hundreds of thousands of responses — including people who only send away for something free with never the intent to buy! Besides the scam artist wants to find people who are desperate — people who will do just about anything to make money. Scam artists ALWAYS entice you by centering their entire program around money (the root of all evil.)

When people respond to this classified ad, they receive a professionally designed information package back in the mail. This package is designed by marketing professionals for a pushy and hard-nosed sale. They get the newcomer excited. They tell them that they can now pay for the child’s education, buy a new car, pay off old bills, take exotic vacations, and a number of other things that appeals to the average guy or gal on the street.

While visions of sugarplums are dancing in their heads, they are busy filling out the order form and enclosing with their check for $22.95, or whatever.

The mailings are timed precisely to arrive at the proper emotional time for the average person to react. (Believe me, there are people that make it their business to study the reactions of human emotions in various situations in order to base a general hypothesis. They then report or sell this information to marketing professionals who base their entire marketing concept upon these findings.)

After the newcomer has sent in his or her $22.95, the scam artist is done with them. They wipe their hands of this beginner, label them as a “sucker” and move on to another fish in the sea. It’s pitiful what money-making profits these nuts are actually passing up by continuing with this warped way of thinking. They may be making $100,000 per week, but without working any harder (even less), they could be making $250,000 per week or even 1 million a week. How? By simply being honest!

Remember, there are no set rules to follow that will guarantee you a million dollars by running a few ads. Mail order is not a world of opening your mail, taking money to the bank, and taking exotic vacations. Believe me — I’ve been in the mail order business for 7 years and I haven’t been able to buy a yacht and take a Caribbean cruise yet with servants falling over themselves to appease me. Wake up! This is the real world folks!

Be sure to read Part 2 and Part 3 of this report as we continue following this scam through the stage of creation, actually unfold the scam and finally explain an alternative method that would have made lots more money for the scam artist.

THE LEGITIMATE SCAM

After spending the last 2 months talking to people who don’t know anything about “our” type of mail order, I found it evident that every one of them was introduced to mail order through “The Legitimate Scam!” What is this scam and why can’t it be stopped? Basically, because it IS a legitimate scam!

Now come on Victoria, who ever heard of a legitimate scam?

EXAMPLE 1:  Collect names for us. We pay $20 each. Guaranteed!

The truth is this company WILL pay you $20 for each name you collect for them. What they DON’T tell you is that each person has to spend $100 or more by placing an order before you get your $20.

The beginner is led to believe that all they have to do is get out their phone books and start sending the company names and addresses. In return, the company will send them $20 for each name and address they send them.

When they send away for the details they discover the “Legitimate Scam” and think everybody in mail order is operating this way. Result: Mail order is labeled as a scam and illegal business activity.

Here’s another example:

EXAMPLE 2:  How to flood your mailbox with $1 bills. Just send $1 for information.

To the seasoned pro, he or she can recognize this scam as very obvious — but to the beginner it’s very intriguing. Besides, it only costs $1 to find out.

What the beginner finds out is that they are expected to run the same ad in newspapers and tabloids. Other people will send $1 for information and their mailbox is “supposedly” flooded with $1 bills. This ad is NOT illegal. It asks you to send $1 for information and you DO get the information.

These types of ads are all a bunch of paper-passing — and I classify them under the heading of a “Legitimate Scam.” You can’t complain that your order was not filled. You can’t complain the idea is not possible. You can’t complain the ad promised something it didn’t deliver.

Around 1965 a guy ran an ad in 1,000’s of national magazines that said: “How to make $10,000 a year. Send $1 for the complete answer.” A co-worker I knew responded to the ad and in return received a piece of paper that said: “Get a job.”

So friends, if this type of activity has been going on since 1965 — and I suspect it really started in the Garden of Eden, why do you think we can put an end to it today?

However — don’t confuse the “Legitimate Scam” with “Lead-Generating Ads.” A mail order buddy of mine will run an ad that states: “Want to make a lot of money? Call (his telephone number.)” This is NOT necessarily a scam or rip-off. Since there is no cost involved — it might be worth your time and effort to call the number and see what this dealer has to offer.

Also, some dealers run ads that don’t tell you what the product is because they have an entire package of information they want to send you. It would be too costly to advertise the complete information in a small 1″ or 2″ ad, so they run “Lead-Generating Ads” to bring them inquiries. This is also NOT illegal and is common business practice. You’ll also find that real “Lead-Generating Ads” DON’T ask you for a lot of money up front. They only tell you enough about the product to entice you to send in a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) or $1 for more information. They are unlike the “Example 2″ that basically tell you the scam before you order it! (It may take a little time for you to make the distinction between these fine lines.)

However, our duty as good mail order dealers should be to ban together and inform the public that “normal” mail order is NOT a part of the “Legitimate Scam.” And when we see one — we should cut it out and send to a mail order publisher to expose. So many people overlook the power of the PRINTED WORD. Instead of complaining, people should be writing their mail order publishers when they are ripped-off, providing them with documentation and a 2 or 3 paragraph summary of the “Legitimate Scam.”

Use wisdom. Get your facts straight. Have documentation to back-up your findings and submit them! Wouldn’t it be great if everybody in the world were honest? What a wonderful world this would be!