Prepaid Long Distance

The next money-maker in the long distance telephone business will be focused on the way we buy and pay for long distance service.

PAY PHONES & OTHER STUFF

In the past, technological advancement in telecommunications services has opened doors for entrepreneurs to make money selling services.

Private-Party owned Pay Phones spread like wildfire, and 25c Per-Minute Long Distance Flat Rate Billing was introduced and gobbled up by an excited marketplace.

PAY NOW, CALL LATER

Prepaid Long Distance service is nothing more than a marketing person’s dream of being able to charge for something that need not be delivered right away.

Here’s how it works:

1. You walk into a convenience store and buy a Phone Card for $10, or any denomination it is being sold.
2. When the time comes for you to use the card, simply edial the toll-free 800 number and enter the 14-digit code printed on the card.
3. An automated operator’s voice comes on the line and announces that you have $10 worth of long distance calling available to you.
4. A dial tone comes on and you enter the area code and phone number you want to call.

PLUS & MINUS

Prepaid Long Distance and collecting Phone Cards are now a big craze in Japan. Phone Cards are now being traded like baseball cards, with values in excess of $1,000

Companies giveaway free long distance service as premiums and incentives, and then print their names on the Cards that they giveaway.

But in spite of all thes fads, Prepaid Long Distance has some built-in disadvantages that need to be corrected to guarantee its success.

Here are a few:

• We are a credit-based society. We are not accustomed to paying in advance for services we are not using at the time of purchase.
• The rates marketing companies are charging are relatively higher than basic phone company rates.
• As a business, long distance resellers and marketers will be competing for the same consumer “penny”.

Mixed with something novel or commercially accepted, prepaid phone cards may just make it big in the U.S.

Making Money With Voice Mail

Although this money-making is continuously being marketed as “a way to make money with your answering machine”, new technology has actually rendered this idea obsolete.

With the proliferation of voice mail, fax-back service, and very inexpensive computerized voice processing systems, the answering machine, with its limited one-call-at-a-time capacity, is no longer ideal for making money.

With the advent of this new technology, the concept has also expanded to a variety of processes which you can use to make money.

PEOPLE MUST CALL

With answering machines, the only way you can make money is when people call you up. Since an answering machine is hooked up to a specific phone number, and since it does not advertise on its own, you will have to establish ways to attract people to call your phone number so that people can listen to the message recorded on your answering machine.

THE MESSAGE IS THE KEY

The message recorded on your answering machine is the key to your ability to make money.

The message can instruct people to send money for information about any subject matter, or instruct callers to leave their name and address so you can send them a sales brochure. The information you have recorded on your machine should be encouraging and convincing enough to motivate the caller to do what you have instructed.

THE 1-MINUTE SPIEL

Think of your recording as a radio commercial. Since callers have short attention span, used to hearing radio and TV spots that are not more than 1 minute long it is advisable that you limit the length of your message to about 1 minute, 2 minutes tops!

GETTING THE CALL & COLLECTING PAYMENT

Whatever it is you are selling, and by which you are using your answering machine or service, your primary challenge will be in two areas:

1. How you can advertise and make your telephone number known to as many people as possible.
2. How you are going to collect payment for whatever it is you are selling.

SELLING THE INFORMATION

One of the most popular topics sold on “answering machine schemes” is information about how people can make money with their answering machine.

This is worn out and very unimaginative. More than likely, your caller will feel insulted and not order whatever literature, report or booklet you want them to order.

Remember, if you want to have a recorded sales message over the telephone, use a voice mail service, which may cost you around $8 a month.

There’s Gold Inside Your PC

A friend once asked, “How was your life before Personal Computers came alone?”

Honestly, I can’t really recall. It’s been more than 15 years since I bought my first computer.

It’s very convenient piece of equipment which makes my work a lot easier. Everything I’ve done with it is work related. However, by itself, I’ve never really learned how to make money with my PC until I met this poker player from Las Vegas who earns an average of $15,000a month with his PC.

But best of all, with his idea, you don’t have to know a single thing about operating a computer to get into this business.

SHAREWARE & PDs

A shareware is a “sample” version of software. Individuals who write software usually “give away” copies of shareware so potential customers can “test drive” the product before they purchase the full version.

This “try before you buy” has made the shareware concept extremely acceptable, both by the people who design software as well as tens of millions of computer owners.

Public Domain (PD) software are programs developed without any copyright or patent assignment. Since it is Public Domain, any one can use it without having to pay rights to its designer.

FREE COPIES

The Las Vegas man researched some of the best sharewares and Public Domain software he could locate.

He bundled together 7 to 10 of them into a single floppy disk and started selling them for $20 & up.

He made several disks containing different varieties of sharewares and PD software. He sold the disks individually and as a group. He was making so much money you’d think he was doing something illegal.

One day, competition caught on and he needed a twist. A friend of his introduced him to me and I developed a new plan built around the same product he already has. Since other people started selling similar disks at the same price eh was charging, the competition started eating up his market. He needed something new.

What I did was design a gift certificate offering free software. We gave certificates to stores, libraries, and mail order houses to give away to their customers.

The certificates offered a collection of shareware and PD software – FREE OF CHARGE. Just pay minimal shipping and handling fee of $8.69. Since it cost him 69Cents to reproduce each disk, he makes an $8 profit per certificate.