BJM Free Press |

Making Money With Giveaways

The guy who thought of giving away free rolls of film every time you have your films developed at his photo center - is a genius!

You know the rest of the story, and so do thousands other photo centers around the world who copy this excellent promotion.

STRETCHING DOLLARS

A budget conscious market is always out looking for a free lunch.  For this reason, you can build a marketing system that self-liquidates its associated cost, distributing gift certificates that offer free this or free that - all the customer has to do is pay a minimal shipping and handling charge.

FREE SOFTWARE

In Las Vegas, I met a poker player who sells software he put together for $29 and higher.

To double the volume and reach other markets, he decided to repackage his software. He gave it a new name, made a new floppy disk label, and offered it at a ridiculous price: FREE

To receive the software, all you have to do is fill out the gift certificate and send it back to him with $8.69.

THEY WENT APE!

He was giving the certificates to schools, businesses, and stores who give away the certificates as their own promotional gifts to their customers. Because the cost to produce and mail this disk is cents, he was making $8 with every certificate that was redeemed for the free software.

$800,000 IN 27 WEEKS

Take a snapshot of this picture: Say, a total of 1 Million certificates were circulated. Let’s say you paid half a penny to print and distribute these million certificates. Your cost is $5,000.

If you generate a 7% conversion, you’ll earn $560,000.00

NUMBERS GAME

If you give other people permission to make copies of and give away your certificates, your cost to circulate 1 Million certificates will go down. But your opportunity to make money remains the same.

1% response = $80,000
2% response = $160,000
3% response = $240,000
5% response = $400,000
10%              =$800,000

Utility Auditing Business

Auditing is not a matter of magic. If you have the patience to sort through regulatory tariff and have a keen eye to spot billing inconsistencies, you can conduct an audit.

Minimum Start-Up: $500
Average Start-Up: 15,000
Revenue: $35,000 - $1 Mil+
Profits: $20,000 - $500,000
One Person Business: Yes

UTILITY BILLS

Auditing utility bills has become one of the most popular areas of concentration for auditors because of the inherent complexity of billing for utilities.

Utility rates are highly confusing because they differ depending on type of service, volume of usage, and promotional packages offered at the time of installation.

GETTING PAID

Utility Auditors earn commissions, usually around 50% of any overcharge they uncover. And this is where you may need to exercise more of your patience.

Although utility companies would gladly settle a verifiable overcharge (relatively quickly out of court), it may ask them up to six months to issue any refund. This is particularly true with larger utility firms.

COMMISSION WORKS

Most clients prefer to pay auditors on commission basis for two reasons: No upfront cash outlay, and no risk if the auditor comes back empty-handed.

For the auditor, working on commission offers distinct advantages: It makes it easier for them to land clients, and it usually enables them to earn more than if they would take a basic fee.

MAKING THE SALE

The biggest challenge facing auditors is to get a potential client to admit that “there is a high probability that they (the client) overpaid for their utilities without knowing it”.

This issue is usually not a problem if the client is a small business where the owner makes all the decisions.

However, the executive committee of a major corporation may feel threatened that they’ll be held accountable for irresponsibly overpaying for utility.

Your job is to convince your potential client that overcharging does happen and that it is the job of an outsider auditor, and not people from within the company, to “fix” the problem.

For Mature Audiences Only

It is not the intention of this publication to proliferate or encourage sexually oriented merchandise. However, as an observer of entrepreneurial activities, this medium would be naive and pretentious to ignore a profitable, legal business that could possibly be of interest to others.

The concept is plain and simple. Renting video tapes is profitable business. Renting adult videos is even more profitable.

Most adults will watch x-rated tapes (adult videos) only occasionally. This attitude does not warrant them to purchase video tapes. They would rather pay a premium to rent the tapes that they want.

BUY WHOLESALE

Sources for adult videos include local distribut6ors, used tape distributors, and catalog houses.

The average adult video costs $40. In volume, you can buy them wholesale for around $15 each.

RENTAL REVENUES

Since adult videos are not sensitive to release schedules, they do not get dated in the same manner as theatrical films. As a result, adult videos generally enjoy a longer shelf life.

Because of this, it can be rented more often and over a longer period of time.

Where the average video can be rented approximately 40 times over a period of 12 months, adult videos can extend well in to 50 or 60 times.

If you rent your videos even at $2 each, you can expect rental revenues of around $100 per tape per year.

If you purchased the video for $15, you have just multiplied your investment 4 times.

Furthermore, you can offer your year-old tapes for sale for around $12 each.

(Note that selling adult videos across state lines is a Federal offense. If you want to sell tapes, sell them to your members in your local area. Likewise, you should check your local zoning regulations regarding this business.)

OTHER CLUB BENEFITS

An adult video & book club can be more attractive and more profitable if the benefits and activities offered to members go beyond books and videos.

You can offer club members special cruises where members of the opposite sex can be paired and offer special discounts available to couples.

You can also organize parties that charge admission, where single people can meet.

5 WAYS TO GENERATE QUICK CASH YOU NEED BY RUNNING A MINI-BUSINESS, PART 5 of 5

Continuing from part four, mini-businesses:

INCREASING YOUR INCOME FROM YOUR PRESENT BUSINESS

The easiest way to bring in more income quickly is to offer a special price or package of your current products or services. Your only upfront expense will be getting the word out about your special. Depending on the type of business you run, this expense could be minimal.

For example, one of the services I offer, in addition to my publishing efforts, is custom typesetting and layout work. I could offer a special price for a limited time, or a quantity discount off my normal per-page pricing. In this case, the most cost effective marketing method I could use would be to prepare a flyer for the special (no cost to myself but time spent creating the flyer and copying costs), and distribute it to my best customers and those prospects I would most like to have as long-term clients.

Besides the quick business I’d get from the special, I may entice a few newcomers into my fold that will bring long-term business my way. Used correctly, this technique can provide the quick income you need, while building your permanent customer base.

CONCLUSION

Every business has hard times at the start. That’s just a fact of life or the self-employed. It doesn’t have to be so bad, though, if you plan ahead and take whatever steps are necessary. Package your products and services for quantity sale. Run a small secondary business. These are the ways to reinforce your main business and keep it afloat in rough water.

This is part four of a five part series. Click to read part one, two, three, or four.

PUT YOUR CATALOG ON A DISK AND MAKE HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY!

If you’re involved in any type of business where you sell products or services, you should know that you need to sell more than one product to be successful. Of course, there have been exceptions, like the Pet Rock, but those are few and far between. You see, if you only sell one product, you need to find those prospective customers that want that one product. Add a second product, and you’ve opened the door to customers who want it, but not your first product. Add a third, and you have more prospects, and so on.

You can present your products or services through separate ads or flyers, but it’s really more efficient and professional to have a CATALOG. That way, your customer can see all you have to offer in one place, instead of one ad here, another there. Having a catalog will increase the orders you receive, since your customers have more choices and you can show them everything in one mailing. There’s just one problem…

Catalogs are expensive.

If you’re thinking of putting together even an eight page catalog, call your local printer and ask for a price. Get a quote on 1,000, since you’ll want to have enough. My best printer would charge $150, which would be 15 cents per catalog. Then, you have the mailing cost, which would be 52 cents. You’re now up to 67 cents per catalog. Add in the cost of getting the name to send the catalog to, and you could be over a dollar per catalog. That means over $1,000 to print and send out all your catalogs!

Worse news to come… you won’t get rich from an eight page catalog. If you really intend on making it in your own business, you’d better offer at least 20 related products or services (or a combination). That way, you can hit a specific group of people and have a good chance of getting a decent return. But if an eight page catalog would cost over $1,000 to print and mail, think about a 20 page catalog! Printing alone would be $375 or more!

You can reduce your printing and postage costs significantly by having your catalog printed on a web press on newsprint. The only problem with that is, you need to print a higher quantity to make it worthwhile. Figure on at least 10,000.

There’s an easier, less expensive way to do this…

PUT YOUR CATALOG ON A DISK!

A CD will hold hundreds of catalog pages, if you do it right! HUNDREDS!!! The higher storage disks will, of course, hold more! Your customer will receive your disk catalog, put it into their computer, and will be able to view full descriptions of your products and services on their screen. They’ll even be able to print out an order form!

Right away, let’s look at costs. For a catalog disk, the disk will cost 10 cents (that’s right, only 10 cents - I’ll reveal the source for this low price later in this report). Next is postage - 52 cents. You’re at 62 cents. Your cost for securing the name to send your catalog to is the same as above.

You might be thinking, great, this saves me a big NICKEL! BIG DEAL! Well, it IS a big deal, and I’ll tell you why.

One cost that I didn’t figure in is storage. If you have a bunch of catalogs printed (especially if you had 10,000 or more newsprint catalogs), you’re going to have to put them somewhere. With a disk catalog, you can copy them as you need them. No need to have 1,000 made up in advance, unless you really want to!

Also, keep in mind the storage capacity of the disk. If you wanted a 68 page printed catalog, whew, it would break you, unless you have pretty deep pockets. A dime will get you one on disk.

Finally, consider this… you have 10,000 of your fantastic catalog printed. You start mailing them. All of a sudden, you discover you have to change the price of one of your products. Or, the source for a product dries up. Or, you want to add a new product or service. TOO BAD! You’re stuck with the catalogs the way they are. With a disk catalog, NO PROBLEM! You make the change on your master copy, and all subsequent catalogs are instantly up-to-date.

See the advantages? You can sell your products just as well with a disk catalog as with a printed one. In fact, people will keep your catalog around longer due to its uniqueness.

So, how can you get your own high-powered order-pulling disk catalog? Well, two ways… you can make one yourself, or you can have an expert put one together for you, saving you the time and effort.

THINK YOU CAN DO THIS?

If not, don’t feel bad. Unless you’re comfortable going beyond just using a program on your computer to actually construct a catalog, you may not want to spend hours upon hours trying to do this by yourself.

If not contact the company below for an estimate:

Northridge Electronic Publishing
522 Northridge Crossing Dr.
Dunwoody, Ga. 30350
404-901-9747