BJM Free Press |

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.

NAFTA Exporter: Mexico

To draw attention to a vast export promotions arsenal available to individuals and businesses seeking to export to Mexico, a program called EXPORT MEXICO was developed through a partnership between business and government.

Mexico is our fastest-growing export market. With the implementation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), this market is expected to provide even greater opportunities.

Why Mexico?

When your fastest growing export market is right next door, you’ve got to harness it and seize the opportunity.

Exports to Mexico have Increased from $12,.4 billion in 1986 to $40.6 billion in 1992.

Mexico’s 86 million consumers prefer U.S. goods. 70% of every dfollar Mexico spends on foreign products is spent on U.S. goods.

Rising levels of disposable income among Mexican consumers helped increase our exports by 50% since 1991.

THE NAFTA FACTOR

In the last decade, the Mexican market has become more open, instituting unilateral, market-opening reforms.

The North America Free Trade Agreement will help further accelerate the growth of U.S. exports to Mexico, opening new doors to U.S. companies.

NAFTA will create the biggest market in the world right at our doorsteps, over $6 Trillion with 370 million people.

NAFTA will make nearly half of all U.S. exports qualify for ZERO tariffs.

NAFTA will open Mexico to U.S. service exports, including such industries as insurance, banking, accounting, advertising and more.

GETTING STARTED

If you’re seeking to export to Mexico, you can call Flash Facts facsimile service and order Mexico market information sent to you via fax, free of charge. The number to call is (202) 482-4464.

The system includes among its many documents NAFTA updates and upcoming trade events.

You can also call (202) 482-0300 to consult trained desk officers from the Department of Commerce’s Office of Mexico regarding the most cost-effective ways you can enter the Mexican market.

SPECIAL FINANCING

The Commerce Department’s Office of Mexico publishes a comprehensive manual called “A Guide To Financing Exports To Mexico”, which you can obtain free of charge by calling the Flash Facts line and requesting document number 0420.

Producing How-to-Videos

A Florida videographer produced a How-to Wedding Planner tape and sold over $250,000 worth of videos in just 12 months. Think about it: If you sell your video for $25, all you need to do is sell around 80 videos a week, or 325 videos a month to gross $100,000 a year.

A typical “small” production can sell as much as 1,500 videos a month, or 18,000 units a year, at $25 each.

It’s the Topic

If there is one single factor that makes or breaks a How to video, it’s the choice of topic. Another factor to consider is the length of the material. To remain interesting the average how-to video must be fast paced and relatively short not exceeding 45 minutes. More successful videos are no more than 30 minutes long as this is a tolerable length by which a video can effectively cover a topic and remain interesting.

Duplication Cost

The length of your video also affects your duplication cost. Following is a rate structure for duplication charges based on set quantities for a factory load VHS tape:

The Shoot

Who’s going to do the shooting? If you decide to do it yourself, where will you get the camera? What format are you going to shoot it in?

The average cost of renting a 3/4 inch U-Matic camera, with wireless mics, and standard lighting equipment is around $495 a day. A camera person with an assistant will cost an extra $250.

The Editing

Once you’ve shot all the footage you need, you edit the work, assembling the footage in an orderly and coherent fashion that will effectively deliver the thought.

Depending on how you shot your footage, editing can take 20 to 50 times the estimated finished length of your video. This means a 10 minute video may take 4 to 5 hours to edit, and so on.

Studio time ranges from $40 to as much as $100 an hour, depending on the special effects you want to have available for your editing project.

Packaging

Full color printed sleeves start at around 40 cents a piece if you order 1,000 or more. You also need face labels on your tapes, as well as shrink wrapping for protection.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE A MODEM, YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON FREE PROGRAMS AND A SECRET LOW-COST MARKETING SYSTEM YOU NEED TO USE!

The computer is now viewed as the most essential business tool available. The only problem is, many businesses buy a computer just for the sake of having one, with no plans as to how the computer will be used. Sure, they start to type letters on it, maybe a few marketing documents, and the customer list goes on it, but that’s the extent of computer use for many businesses. Some don’t even get THAT far. Well, those businesses are missing out on a valuable low-cost marketing opportunity open ONLY to computer users. To take advantage of this opportunity, you need to have a MODEM. First, I’ll tell you what a modem is, and an overview of how to use it. Then, I’ll let you in on some valuable marketing secrets.

WHAT IS A MODEM AND WHAT CAN I USE IT FOR?

MODEM stands for MOdulator DEModulator, and it’s just a fancy name for a telephone hookup for your computer. Modems can either be a card that is easily installed into your computer, or it can be an external unit. Basically, the only difference from modem to modem that the average user needs to worry about is the speed. Modem speed is indicated by a BAUD rate, which indicates how many “data bits” are transferred per second. The most common baud rates for modems are 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, and 14,400. Don’t get a 300 or 1200 baud modem, as they are outdated and too slow. A 2400 baud modem is sufficient for most people and is very economical (usually $50 or so).

With a modem and a special computer program called a terminal program (one is usually included with the modem), you can call up other computers and communicate with them, including transferring programs and files. You can communicate with individual computer users, or through BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS, or BBS’s, which are services run primarily by private individuals.

When you call a BBS, you are instructed to type your name and a password of your choice. If it’s your first time calling the BBS, you will usually go through a short registration process, similar to filling out a form. This is all done on your computer. The information you type on your end is sent through the phone line to the system operator’s, or SYSOP’s, computer, which is running the BBS. Once you are registered, there may or may not be a membership fee, depending on the individual SYSOP, though most will allow free use of their BBS by non-members for a short period of time each day. This will be all the time you’ll need, though, to use the methods I’ll describe in this report. There are also large ON-LINE (accessible by modem) services you can call, such as Compu-Serve, Genie, America On-Line, and others. These are basically the same as BBS’s, but on a much larger scale, and all have monthly membership fees, with most charging by the hour.

WHY SHOULD I CALL A BBS?

That’s an easy question to answer. The two main features of the average BBS are FILES and MESSAGES. Files are computer programs that you can DOWNLOAD (or transfer) to your computer. Here’s a simplified explanation of how you do it: First, you select the file you want from a list on the BBS. Then, you tell the BBS to send the file to you. The file is sent through the phone line to your computer. Then, after you LOG OFF (leave) the BBS, you can use the program just like any other computer program.

This process can also work in reverse. You can send a program you have written or acquired to the BBS, so other users can download it and use it. This is called UPLOADING a file.

Keep in mind that copyrighted programs, like the ones you buy in a store, CAN NOT be uploaded to a BBS. This violates copyright laws. The programs you find on a BBS will be either public domain (anyone can copy them and distribute them), or shareware (free for you to copy and try out, but there is a registration fee if you use the program regularly). Also, if you find a BBS that has commercial, copyrighted programs available for downloading, DON’T CALL IT AGAIN! You can get in BIG trouble if you mess around with copyrighted programs, including fines, jail terms, and confiscation of your computer. You won’t need to worry about this, though, if you stick to legitimate BBS’s.

BESIDES FREE PROGRAMS, WHAT OTHER BENEFITS CAN I GET FROM A BBS?

The other function of a BBS is messages. On almost any BBS, you can leave a message, either to a specific user of the BBS, or to everyone. You tell the BBS who the message is for, a short description of what the message is about, and then type the message, or upload a previously typed message. Then, when the person you’ve left the message for accesses the BBS, he or she will see a note on their screen telling them they have mail. Or, if you left the message for everyone, anyone who enters the message area of the BBS can read the note you left.

Many BBS’s participate in NETWORKS, which allow you to leave messages for people who don’t call that particular BBS, but call another BBS that is a member of the same network. There are many different networks, some dedicated to special interests or hobbies, others more general. Here’s how they work: You leave a message to either a specific person who can access the network on a BBS they call, or the message can be for everyone. The SYSOP of the BBS you call then collects all the messages in that particular network and transfers them by modem to the network headquarters, which could be in an entirely different state. At the same time, the SYSOP receives a packet of new messages from the network headquarters, these having come from the other member BBS’s. This distribution method means you can leave a message on your local BBS to, for example, your friend in Hawaii, who calls a BBS that belongs to the same network. In a few days, your friend will see a “mail waiting” note when he or she accesses the BBS. Many times, this will happen faster than if you sent a letter through the mail!

Hopefully, this will give you a basic understanding of what BBS can do for you. The programs alone will be exciting enough for anyone who hasn’t been exposed to this before. For example, the BBS I frequent, Radio Daze, has over 65,000 programs that can be downloaded! But what about the marketing secrets I promised earlier?

HOW TO USE YOUR MODEM TO MARKET YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES AT LOW- (OR NO-) COST

The networks are the key to effective marketing with your modem. Remember that I said you can leave a message that everyone can read. Why can’t this message be an ad? Ah ha! I have used network ads extensively to publicize my newsletter, Small & Home Business Journal, and it has been very successful. I’ll use my marketing methods as an example.

One of the advantages of the way Small & Home Business Journal is published (on disk, instead of printed) is that, for all intents and purposes, it is a computer program. I made the first issue a sample issue that is copyright free. I then uploaded the sample issue to Radio Daze BBS, as well as CompuServe, one of the huge national on-line services mentioned earlier. Thus, people could download the sample issue into their computer and use it, the same as if I handed them a copy on a disk. This vastly reduced my marketing expenses, as I could get a sample issue to someone without the expense of the disk and mailing.

Here’s where the crafty part is. I then composed an ad on my word processor explaining the benefits of reading SHBJ. At the end of the ad, I noted that there are two ways the reader could get a sample issue. Either they could send two first-class stamps to me, and I would send a sample on disk, or they could download a sample by calling Radio Daze BBS or CompuServe. I saved this ad as a text file, then called up Radio Daze, which participates in a number of networks. I went into either the small business area or the classified ad area of each network (networks are usually composed of a number of message areas, making targeting easy) and uploaded the previously typed ad as a message readable by all. For the message description, I tried a number of different descriptions, with the most successful being “Make more $$ now!!!”.

My ads then were sent throughout the networks, and were seen by others across the country as early as the next day. Soon, my sample issue was being downloaded or requested by people who sent postage. Around once a week, I repost the ads, and get new requests and downloads. SYSOPs of other BBS’s have made the sample issue available on their BBS’s, increasing my exposure. As a result, hundreds of people have gotten a sample issue of SHBJ. How much has this cost me? NOTHING. ZIP. Well, actually, I paid a yearly membership fee of $40 to belong to Radio Daze. But, when figured in with all the programs I’ve gotten from Radio Daze along the way, the expense has been incredibly low. Also, I’ve had to provide a disk to anyone who’s sent in 2 stamps. But, you know what? When people see that they can make one phone call with their modem and IMMEDIATELY have a sample issue, instead of having to wait for the mail, almost all will use that method. Wouldn’t you? I know I would.

How can you use this method to promote your products and services? On a local level, you can post an ad on your local BBS(s) telling the BBS users how they could benefit from what you have. Give BBS users a special discount if they tell you which BBS they saw your ad on. This way, you can gauge the effectiveness of each BBS. If you sell a product or service by mail, use the networks. I’ve had users in almost every state get a copy of my newsletter. Don’t try to sell your product or service directly from the ad, unless it’s inexpensive. Rather, use the ad to generate inquiries, and follow up with a complete sales package through the mail.

TIPS TO REMEMBER WHEN USING THIS POWERFUL MARKETING METHOD

In your ad, as with any ad, don’t ramble on and on about the features of your products/services. Instead, hit hard and early with the direct benefits the consumer will experience. Tell them “what’s in it for them.” This will generate interest, rather than boredom.

Be sure you put your ads in the right network areas. For example, I limit my advertising to the small business areas and classified ad areas. I don’t think many people in the genealogy areas or gaming areas would be interested in my newsletter. It would waste my time.

Don’t over-advertise. I limit my ads to once a week. If you post your ads daily or even multiple times per day (I’ve seen it happen), it clogs up the message area and turns everyone off to what you have to say. You will be advised by whoever’s in charge of the network to either cut back on your ads or, if you continue, to cease and desist. Remember, you aren’t the only one using these message areas. The message areas were designed with discussion in mind, but advertising is permitted if you don’t overdo it.

Make sure your ads are appropriate and in good taste. BBS users come in all ages, so if your product or service is for adults only, confine your advertising to “adults only” BBS’s and networks. Use the same common sense you’d use if you were advertising in a magazine.

Every BBS will have rules stated regarding usage of the BBS. Follow these rules. You’ll find yourself barred from using the BBS if you don’t.

CONCLUSION

Used properly, this marketing method can inform large numbers of prospects quickly (no real lead-time, other than message transfer) and cheaply (no cost, other than membership fees, though non-members are almost always allowed to use message areas and networks - it can be totally free!). If you don’t have a modem, by all means go out and get one! You can get a modem card for your computer for as cheap as $50. You can even get one that can also function as a fax for around $100 or less. That’s peanuts, considering the benefits you’ll get from having one! If you already have a modem, but never put it to use, now you know what to do. Now go do it!

RESOURCES

Here’s a short list of computer services and BBS’s you should try with your modem. You should be able to get phone numbers of BBS’s in your area by consulting computer user groups.

America OnLine - Call (703) 893-6288 for information on membership and phone numbers.

CompuServe - Call (800) 848-8990 for membership information, and (800) 635-
6225 to get a local access phone number.

Delphi - Call (800) 695-4005 for questions or call (800) 365-4636 with your modem, press return, at password type BW34 for a free trial!

Radio Daze BBS - Call (219) 256-2255 with your modem and follow the registration process. Information about membership and non-member use is provided.

5 WAYS TO GENERATE QUICK CASH YOU NEED BY RUNNING A MINI-BUSINESS, PART 4 of 5

Continuing from part three, mini-businesses:

INVENTORY VIDEO TAPING

This is an excellent secondary business to run. You can easily control how much time you spend on this, and it has great profit potential!

You only need one camera, decent video skills, little expenses and supplies, and, if done right, very low marketing expenses. Besides our Video camera, you’ll need an instant camera and an engraving tool, which together should be able to be found for under $100.

Here’s the business in a nutshell: You videotape household and business inventory and valuables for insurance purposes. Then, if a robbery occurs, the owner has a video documentation of the missing valuables for law enforcement and insurance agents. Your primary prospects for this service will be upper-income families and businesses that specialize in high-ticket items or have a high investment in equipment.

The first step you should take to run a property inventory taping service is to meet with your area law enforcement agencies to find out what regulations, if any, they have. Remember, you will be going into other people’s houses and will have full knowledge of their valuables. If you have endorsement from the law, your customers can feel comfortable that you won’t use this knowledge for the wrong purposes. The person you want to meet with would be the one in charge of neighborhood watches or community services. Normally, police agencies are enthusiastic supporters of services like this, as it makes their job easier. Others to meet with include insurance agents, private detectives, fire officials and attorneys. Not only will you gain valuable information from them, you will be building up a network for referrals. Be sure to keep a good record of who you meet with so you can send them business cards, brochures and periodic reminders of your services.

While meeting with insurance agents, take care of your insurance requirements. You should carry liability insurance, and you should also get bonded. The extra expense is worth it, as it will both help to get business and will protect you and your customer.

Your service will be ripe for publicity, so prepare a good press release. You should be able to find a good book or two on publicity releases at your library. Get these releases to every daily and weekly newspaper in your area, as well as local business magazines and television stations. When your service gets written up in the papers, keep a clipping of each article to use in your marketing materials. Send a copy to all the insurance agents, attorneys, private detectives and law enforcement agencies in your area. You WILL get referrals from this!

Another idea for publicity is to set up a booth at local home and garden shows, preferably in the home protection areas (alarms, etc.). This will establish your name in the minds of consumers. If you don’t mind public speaking, offer to give a short seminar on home inventory protection and how your service can help prevent theft. You can prepare one presentation that can be given numerous times at different community-related functions and locations, such as country clubs.

Now for the meat of the service; when you set up an appointment with a customer, make sure they know you will be charging by the hour, so it will be to their advantage to have things such as jewelry, china or antiques laid out and ready to be taped. Take your camcorder with extra tape and batteries, an instant camera with plenty of film, your engraver, forms for listing valuables, and a three-ring binder for the forms.

When taping valuables, be sure to get a clear picture of them, including any distinguishing characteristics. Be sure to fill out your forms completely, listing special features or characteristics, such as type and weight of gems, etc. Jewelry is probably best photographed with your instant camera, as is any small valuables. Large antiques and other primary household items are easily videoed. Be sure to get any brand names and model numbers clearly taped.

After taping the individual items, walk through the house. Be sure to get any computer and video equipment, phones, TVs, art and other items that would be tempting to thieves. Engrave the client’s social security or driver’s license number on the back or bottom of items that won’t be damaged by doing so and record this on the forms, including the location of the engraving and all serial numbers. If the home is burglarized and police recover the stolen goods, this will help the client get his or her valuables back quickly and easily.

Don’t forget to tape the outside of the house, including patios, walkways and landscaping. This can help the client establish value in case of vandalism.

In businesses, videotape the office equipment, as well as the offices themselves, inside and out. In specialized businesses, be sure to tape any special equipment.

A good idea is to provide window stickers for your clients that tell potential thieves that items in the house have been marked and recorded. These stickers can be purchased or printed. Your local law enforcement agencies may even be able to provide these to you at a low cost.

When through taping, give the tape a quick run-through to be sure everything’s ok, then give it to your client, along with the binder. Encourage them to store these in a safe deposit box, in case of fire.

How much should you charge? A typical mid-sized to large home should take two hours, at most, to tape, if the owner has prepared everything ahead of time. You can charge anywhere from $50 to $150 per hour, depending upon what your local market will bear, with $75 per hour a good figure to start with. You should be able to see how this business can add up!

In your marketing materials, stress the fact that your charge is a small price to pay, considering it is a crime deterrent and will result in far less stress and time on the customer’s part if a mishap does occur. You can feel good that you are providing a service which will help people in bad times. Remember to be professional while in the client’s home, don’t make any comments which could be construed in bad ways, and be assuring about the safety and reliability of yourself and your service.

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