BJM Free Press |

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.

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.

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.

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.