Ambition is half of what it takes to make it in direct-response marketing. Knowledge is the other half. If you are already ambitious, you already have half of what it takes to be successful in direct-response marketing.

The ambition has to be there, though. Nobody just goes out, gets rich, and stays rich totally by accident. If someone does go out and instantly make money, then they usually end up losing it as fast as they make it.

The people who get rich do so for a reason. They start out with ambition, believing that it’s possible. They start out with a fire inside of them.

Since you have this manual in your hands, you have answered for your ambition. If you didn’t have ambition, why would you be holding and reading this manual now? You already have half of what it takes to make your fortune!

Now take your ambition and add it to the other half of the equation - knowledge - and get out there and work at making your fortune!

Sometimes certain things hit you, but for us that is one of the great truths that we’ve learned. So many people are sitting on their chairs waiting for an idea to come to them. We’re sorry, but it just doesn’t work that way. The best ideas come to you when you’re out there moving, and you’re making things happen, and you’re trying to figure things out - when you’re serving your customers and you’re trying to come up things.

It also tends to happen when you’re totally into one project and your head is just so absorbed in one project. That’s often when you get the idea for the next project - while you’re absorbed in a different project.

Great authors often come up with the idea for their next book while they’re writing their first book.

There are three ways you can use ideas from other ads that can make you thousands of dollars! 1. Develop ideas in a new and original form. 2. Improve and expand on the idea. 3. Copy the idea “as is.” Item 3 is not a good idea, at least not to the point of copying someone else’s advertisement word for word.

The companies that are making the most money consistently, though, are not copying. Maybe they’re copying existing ideas, but they are finding ways to use these ideas to make them unique.

Out of these three, item 2 is the method that we recommend more than anything.

These ideas don’t have to be limited to a certain product or service. They can be utilized for any kind of advertising. Stop seeing ads as ads. Stop seeing sales letters as sales letters. See them as ideas!

Some of the people who design ads might have put a great amount of time and effort into them. All you have to do is study their copy and glean the best ideas.

Take, for example, a person who has been writing ads for twenty years. That person has thousands of hours of experience, and when they develop an ad campaign it’s based on a lot of experience.

Then, you can study their copy and use the best of the best of their ideas in a short amount of time. You are able to capitalize on their experience, knowledge, ideas, and method of communication.

Whatever the product you are trying to sell, your goal is to fill a need, or to teach people to do something that they can’t do right now! This is especially true in the opportunity market! You are trying to show people ways to increase their income, etc.

You can put two words at the beginning of the title to your sales material that can instantly increase your response! “HOW TO....” These words are powerful. People everywhere want to learn how to.... Your product’s best benefit goes right after these two powerful words! Here are some examples:

How To Make Up To $100,000 A Year As A Writer!

How To Get Rich Quick!

How To Lose Up To 100 Pounds In The Next 180 Days!

How To Get On The Internet For The First Time!

How To Avoid Paying Taxes Now!

How To Retire Before You Turn 50!

The List Goes On...

These are just a few of the many topics that “how to” reports, books, newsletters, etc., cover! Whatever your product, you can make a “how to” report out of it! Whatever you are selling, your “how to” should be followed by the biggest benefit your product has to offer! The “how to” will catch the reader’s eye and draw them to your copy.

You can use your auction site listings to drive people to your web site. In this case, that’s the only purpose of your Internet Auction site listing. Think about only advertising on these Internet Auctions with your very best items. Those become (like in mail-order we talk about having a front end) many of the most successful mail-order companies.

These companies make millions and millions a year and they only have small ads in these magazines. The purpose of those small ads is not to make money. Because of what they sell out of those small ads, many times they lose money on the first sale. They make their money reselling to those same customers again and again.

You can do the same thing with Internet Auctions. You’re able to get your listings on these Internet Auctions for a fraction of the price of a space advertisement. The only purpose is to drive people to your web site and then, in your web site, you have a ton of different, similar items.

When you’re thinking like a marketer, you realize that anybody that will buy one item is a perfect candidate to buy another item. That very basic marketing idea has made many, many people multi-millionaires and even billionaires. It can make you rich, too, if you’ll just think.

Instead of just thinking about selling different items on these Internet Auctions, think about developing bonds with people. The best way to do that is to drive people right to your web site. Have a lot of other things on your web site that you can sell to them. Stay in touch with your customers and try to resell them over and over again.

Today with Desktop Publishing, I can sit down and design and do the typesetting and do everything I need for all my sales letters. But we’ve chosen to stick with professional typesetters and design people and layout people.

Why, you ask? We could do all of our own advertising if we wanted to spend all of that time and learn the programs. For the reader who really wants to make the most money, though, we really believe your time is way too valuable to learn all of the technical stuff. That’s why we have webmasters and such!

If your time is spent working on the marketing part and somebody else is doing all that technical stuff for you, it’s going to really free you up. The danger is if you spend too much time doing the technical stuff.

Just like if we spent too much time typesetting all of our ads for our Mail Order business, we wouldn’t be nearly as productive as we are now. Because we have somebody else designing all of our ads, all we have to do is just worry about writing them and helping by making suggestions to them. This allows us to get a lot more done and make a lot more money.

And, since they’re professional designers, they’re going to know what layout will be best for your webpage. Let the techs do it for you . . . that’s how to make your website sizzle!

Here’s the trick. When you enter each item in the auction site, clearly mark it in the title of the item, the description of the item, or actually the line where you describe the item the most.

This is what people will search for. You enter, “charity auction for ...”and the name of the charity, be it the church, or the school group, or the fraternal organization, or whomever. Then add “no reserve” which means there is no minimum anyone has to bid and then, under the description, you describe the charity and the fact that this is a charity auction, and there is no reserve on these items.

If somebody donates a really fine old baby carriage, it might sell for $500 or more through an antique dealer. Over the online auctions, though, someone could, literally, start out bidding a $1 for it. This makes the auction really exciting, because if it goes up to $50 or $150, the charity has still got the $150.

There are many reasons some marketers fail in the mail-order business. Here are five proven things to ensure your success!:

1. Their optimism may have been greater than their knowledge.

Don’t get in a rush! Take your time and learn all that you can. Do research. Do your homework. Learn your market. That way, you stand the best chance of success.

2. They may have tried to sell inferior products that led to few orders or many returns.

People want quality. People want products that work. People don’t want gimmicky gadgets. Create or get high-quality, highly-useful products. The better your product, the less chance it will get sent back, and the less chance you’ll lose money.

3. They may have spent too much money on name lists that did not work, or marketed a product they did not have full control of.

Get the good mailing lists from the most reliable list brokers you can find. There are many people out there with lists that are not good, so you always have to be “on your toes.” Also, do not offer a product that you have no control over. The company producing it might withdraw it from your offers, it may be discontinued, or the company might even go out of business. This can cause massive damage to the company selling the product, especially if the product was a real winner!

4. Others may have mislead their prospects with exaggerated claims they could not back up.

Be as believable as you can. Don’t make outrageous claims that read like they just aren’t true. Use testimonials. Use specific numbers. People believe that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You have to make what you offer sound good, but not good beyond the point of reality.

5. Others simply ignored complaints or refund requests.

Customer service is a very important key to continual success. You have to treat those who have bought from you correctly. You have to be gracious and quick with a refund. You have to take complaints to heart and do your best to correct the situation that brought them about. You serve your market; you do not control it with an iron fist. They don’t have to buy from you, and if you show them you don’t care what they think or what their concerns are, they won’t buy from you.

We remember a great entrepreneur, Ben Suarez, in Canton, Ohio. He started to sell personal astrological charts. But instead of just calling it Suarez & Company, which we think was its original name, he created The American Astrological Association.

Business just quadrupled when he did that. After all, Who would you rather buy an astrological chart from? Joe Johnson, Ben Suarez, Russ von Hoelscher, or The American Astrological Association? The answer should be pretty obvious.

Recently two brothers in New Hampshire owned a small coin shop. Business was so-so, but nothing to write home about. Then they decided to sell by mail, (and also now on the Internet) and they gave their little operation a great new name - The U.S.A. Newsmismatic Society.

This name really helped their business quadruple. The concept is so powerful and so valid!

There are opportunities available with almost anything you are selling - products or services - to create this great club concept. We’ve talked in the past about the power of making money on the Internet selling advertising. Well, let’s say that you have a company and your name is C & J Sales. Your name is Charles and your wife’s name is Jenny. Well, that’s okay, that’s your name.

But, what if you were going to put together a group of web sites and you make deals with them so you could then sell advertising on a whole bunch of web sites and sell a package deal?

Wouldn’t it be better to come up with a great name like “The Internet Advertising Society” as opposed to “C & J Sales?” You have to think along these lines. Or “The Internet Advertising Association.” Because these types of names ring a bell and get people far more interested in what you’re doing.

Regardless of what product or service you have, consider the club, society, or association concept. Many times this will double, triple, or quadruple your business!

Recently, we came across an incredible headline. It really stopped us in our tracks. It basically said “Marketing Genius Swears His Latest Promotional Strategy is NOT Illegal!”

That’s a WOWSER of a headline!

It’ll stop prospects in their tracks immediately. Why? Because it pulls out a non-existent controversy - the “illegal” bit - which is EXTREMELY interesting.

Also, the fact that the program might have been thought of as illegal by someone suggests it must bring in much more money than is expected.

Because of this, the headline will grab a lot of attention - and there will be a lot of prospects reading the sales copy, interested in finding out what all the excitement is about!

Now comes the best part - you too can use the principle behind this headline! You see, you can’t copy that headline word-for-word . . . but you can use the concept behind it!

So you could come up with other “NOT Illegal!” headlines of your own! This works like magic! Use this proven headline to sell just about anything! For instance, if you were selling a weight loss product, you could have a headline like, “(City Where you Live) Health Food Provider Claims his/her Latest Weight Loss Program is NOT Illegal!”

. . . Aggressiveness. Why? Success in any business demands that a person be aggressive. You can’t be afraid. You have to remember that your message has to be strong, so don’t be afraid to say what you have to say. You have to take it upon yourself to do what has to been done.

Aggressive marketers do not depend on guesswork to accomplish their goals. Guesswork, hope-it-works attitudes, and a lack of mail-order know-how can lead to complacency. And complacency can eliminate any possibility of creating good ads. Those who expect little will receive exactly that.

You make your money by having sponsors for that contest. On the page where they register, you could sell different size ad spots or you could stick with one universal size ad from the sponsors.

If you had ten sponsors paying $250 each, you would make $2,500 minus the $1,000 you gave away. That would leave you with $1,500 profit. If you add 25 sponsors at $250 each, you’d make $6,250 minus your $1,000 prize - you would have $5,250 in profit left over.

You can make tremendous money with this. There are many different options.

You could have a contest form in the center of the web page where they fill out their registration for the prize. There you’d have the regulations and the rules that they needed to abide by. You could also have the form that they fill out to send the information to you. Along the edges of your computer monitor, you could put all of the various banner ads.

Now you could limit it. You could give people bigger ads. You could do small ads. You could have only text ads and fill the space with dozens and dozens of ads. There’s probably no limit depending on the size you want to go with of the number of ads. You could go fifty sponsors, you could have a hundred sponsors. Maybe you could have a hundred sponsors, and only twenty-five of them were shown at any given time because you put them in a rotation. Maybe you only want to charge $50 for a sponsor. Maybe you want to charge $500. It really doesn’t matter, it’s up to you. And it all depends on the amount of people you have coming to your site to sign up for that contest.

Many of the same people you want to do business with you are the same people that your competition wants. Yes, this does sound like common sense. But, from what we’ve seen other businesses do over the years, we don’t think some businesspeople ever figure this out.

It’s crucial that you understand this principle and how to use this information to your advantage if you are going to attempt to pull business away from your competition.

You are trying to pull business away from your competition. The U.S.P. is a marketing tool you use to set yourself apart in a more favorable light from your competitors. Find the weak spots of your competition, fill that weak spot, and you will be able to pull business away from your competitors.

.... And it’s so simple and easy - you won’t believe it!

In the past we’ve used print advertising in these little card decks or what are also known as card packs. They’re basically a pack of maybe fifty or one hundred different advertisements each on its own little postcard size card. It’s all sealed in a plastic wrap so you can open it up and flip through each of them.

What we’ve done in the past (and it has been very successful in terms of getting free advertising) is offer co-op advertising. Many of the cards in these card decks can be very expensive. For example, if you contact these card deck companies they’ll sell you a card for around $1,500 or $1,600 for just one mailed out one time to 100,000 people. This is probably the lowest amount we have seen. The price goes up from there if you want additional colors on it or if you want it to go out to additional people. It can get up into the $2,000, $3,000, or $4,000 range. It’s very expensive advertising.

At the same time, it’s very effective advertising. What you can do to get your ad free of charge in these card decks is actually sell ads on one of these cards and have the advertisers pay for the entire cost of the card! This is a proven method to get people to pay you tons of money to advertise your own website...and it’s so simple and easy, you won’t believe it! Here’s an example of how you would do it and here’s how we’ve done it in the past.

You would measure the card, and you would figure out how many ads can be placed on each side of a card before you sell any of the places. Let’s say you want to make it pretty simple, so you just split up each side into four different quarters. You can sell a quarter of that card for a certain amount of money. Then, you go out and you can find advertisers out there that would not be able to spend $1,400, $1,500, or $1,600 on their own card in a card deck, but they’d be more than happy to spend $200 or $300 on a smaller ad on your card.

By selling all the spaces on one card, you cannot only break even on the cost of the card but you can actually make a profit on the cost of the card. Let’s say that the cost of your card is $1,400. There are card decks where you can actually get a deal for $1,400. Let’s say you have four ad spaces on one side and four ad spaces on the other side, which is eight spaces total. You sell each of them for $200, which is really a good deal. Now, you’ve got cash in hand in the amount of $1,600.

Now the card is completely paid for by those advertisers and you pocketed $200 in cash. You’re saying to yourself, “Okay, where does the free advertising come in? I mean, if their ads are taking up the card, where does mine come in?” Well, you don’t split up the entire card. What you want to do on your card is give yourself space at the top, middle, or bottom of each side. You can really decide. If you take a look at some of these card decks, you’ll see people using the same message. They’ve got an ad that runs all the way across the top and it advertises their website. On the other side they might have an ad that runs all the way across the bottom.

Basically, it just includes the website address and a little bit more information about it, but it’s free of charge. You’ve sold most of each card side in advertising. Your ad on the top, bottom, or middle basically runs free of charge. In the past, we’ve done this. In one card deck, we had seven different cards running. Each would have cost us $1,500, but we got all of them free because we sold so much advertising that the advertisers were paying for all of the card! Our ads just rode along free at the top and the bottom of each of those cards.

This is something that is not only limited to card decks. You could do it with the cable classified channel. You could also do it in terms of print advertising. A lot of people cannot afford full page ads in magazines. Let’s say instead of going for the full page ad, you break it up into quarters or you break it up into one inch spaces. What you’ll find is if you break it up into one inch spaces and sell off those spaces, you could have more than enough money to pay for the full page ad and give yourself an ad way up at the top or way down at the bottom.

When using this technique of co-op advertising you’re going to find that you can get a lot of advertising free of charge whether it’s in print publications, T.V., or card decks. Whenever you find an advertising medium, you might want to think before you get out your checkbook. You might want to think before you put out a dollar, “How can I turn this into an advertising co-op? How can I get some free advertising from this?”

The Internet is a niche marketer’s dream. So what is the best niche for you? The answer: You do what you love. You sell something you love.

Remember, there are millions of people that are just like you. The easiest way to start is, since you know yourself, you can know these millions of other people. You know their language. You know what they’re interested in. You know what their problems are.

If you have the same hobbies or the same interests as these people, then you’ll know how to reach them to sell them the same kinds of things that interest you. That’s the closest, easiest formula for success. Sell something you love.

That is what we did. Our success was built on a niche market. Before we ever got started in this market, we knew who the customers were. We knew who the competitors were. We knew the problems that our customers faced because we had those same problems. We knew, also, the solutions that those customers wanted.

Remember, all of us are in the business of selling solutions. The customers have lots of problems and they are looking for certain things. They’re not buying the products and services to buy the products and services - it’s what those products and services do for them that warrant their purchase. People want solutions.

We knew the solutions that our market wanted, and we made millions of dollars - and many other people have made millions of dollars.

They’ve done what Russ von Hoelscher has always taught - they’ve turned those niches into riches. They’ve gone for those small markets that big companies couldn’t even begin to think about reaching because there’s not enough profit in these small markets for the big companies.

They’ve turned those small markets into big fortunes. It is the fastest, easiest, and simplest way to make tens of thousands of dollars a month on the Internet.

Don’t be a pioneer. Study the successful businesses that are marketing to these niches. The more of those companies you find, the more you realize there really is a legitimate market there for you.

Sometimes people get the feeling that something totally unique is really going to make them money. The truth is, you want to look for companies that are very successful – companies that are in the same area that you want to be in. You want to get on their customer list. You learn their secrets. You find their strong areas. What are they doing that is good and what are they doing that is bad?

Then you model your company after those companies. Remember, the same marketing systems that are working for other niche marketers will work for you.

One of the key ways to get more of your customers to respond to your offer is to make your product or service stand out over the competition. Here are 11 ways for you to do just that. They are...

1. Offer good quality and service.

Your customers can only judge you by the quality of the product you sell and by the customer service you provide. So, make sure that you provide the highest quality of both so your customers will want to keep coming back to you for more!

2. Sell a product or service that provides a major benefit to your customers.

A lot of businesses spend way too much time focusing on the specific product or service they provide rather than focusing on the benefit it will provide their customers. You should make sure that your product or service has a major benefit to the customer.

3. Try to select a product that is not available through retailers, but is in high demand.

The harder it is for people to find your product, the more likely people are to get it from you. Why would people buy a product from you that they can’t see when they could go to a local retailer and see the same product before they decide to buy it?

4. Market products that are new, but popular.

You should try to find a product that is new enough that it hasn’t run its course, but one that is popular among your target market. Don’t bother trying to find or create the perfect product for everyone and their brother. Stay focused on your target market!

5. Try to obtain exclusive arrangements with your supplier.

If you rely on a supplier for your product or service, try to make an arrangement so that you are the only business that they work with. If no other business can get the supplies from your source, then people will have to rely on you to fill their orders!

6. Choose a product that is readily available to you, but hard to find nationally!

You want a product that not just everyone can get their hands on. This is why creating your own informational product is such a good idea! It can be all yours. Everyone must come to you to get it, because you are the only place they can get it from!

7. Try to market a product or service that allows customers to switch over to your product from the competition.

You want to create a product that will have people running over to you from the competition. You must create a product or service that gives people something that they can’t get from the competition. This way, you can get people to switch to using your product or service. Sometimes, you even create an edge over your competition by creating a new and unique way to market something the competition is already selling!

8. Be flexible with your product.

If you notice that your supplier is getting low on a product, switch products. The last thing you want to do is have orders coming in for a product that you can’t fill. You should always remain flexible. Give yourself an easy out. This way, if you suddenly experience a problem with a supplier, you can easily switch products without seeing a financial strain on your business.

9. You must see an acceptable profit margin.

You must take into account your costs to get the product to your customer before you set a price on your product. This is where many businesses fail, especially in direct-response marketing. Many businesses think that they can survive on 50% profit, and they are dead wrong. Many times in mail order, due to the high costs of printing and mailing, you must have a mark-up of around 3 times your cost. This is a bare minimum. In all actuality, it would be better if you could get around 5 to 7 times the cost.

10. Sell newly introduced items rather than worn-out catalog products.

Everyone wants the latest thing. So, even if your product is really old, you must find a new way to market it. Or, you must add a new twist. Many people in the market are doing this every day! They may have a product that they have been marketing for years. But they are always finding a new way to market it, and the profits keep coming in for them.

11. You must test to find the best price.

Pricing is a very subjective thing. You have to let the market tell you what to sell your product or service for. If you are not careful when pricing your product, you may price yourself right out of the market. If you don’t, you may find yourself in an undesirable situation. First, you may underprice. If that happens, you will not leave enough profit margin for future production cost increases.

It will force you to raise the price, which can anger customers. Or, you could overprice. If this happens, the competition will get more business because they are selling the same thing for less.

These 11 guidelines will help place your product or service above the competition. If you will follow these guidelines, you can prove to your prospects that your product or service is worth spending their hard-earned money on - more-so than the competitions’.

Here’s the power of this: you can focus on anything that interests you, that centers around and helps sell your products or services!

Find a news group that meets or matches that market and ties in nicely with it. Become a participant in that news group, or any news group that is at least related.

You can’t get in there and just send messages that promote your product, or promote your web site. You go in and discuss and provide information and expertise. You picked something of interest to you, so you will naturally know some things other people don’t know.

Here’s the neat thing - you will also learn quite a bit of information you didn’t know. You’ll find it very exciting and educational.

We also want to point out real quickly, if your Internet service provider doesn’t provide access to every news group out there - and some of them don’t because there are so many - you can also go to a web site called www.dejanews.com and literally access every news group available and known to man on the Internet today through your web browser, and participate that way. You set up an account, you pick a name, and you go right in and start participating.

Let’s look at an example here. First, we just want to point out that you should add a tag line to your messages at the bottom that promotes your web site. All it has to say is why it ties into whatever these people are interested in -maybe a special price on an item that you know people reading in that particular news group will be interested in.

Also include your web address, which by the way, becomes clickable in most web browsers. They can just click on that web address after reading your message and going, “Hmm, this person seems to know something about this subject. I think I’ll go check out the web site.”

These messages for months on end can be bringing people back to your web site.

Now, you might say, there are times when you may not find a specific, actual news group for your subject matter.

Let’s say you sell mattresses. You set up an online store selling mattresses. And why not? We’re sure there are some. But, you may look and find there are no news groups for people that just sit around and discuss mattresses.

We would understand that. We wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t find one. We did not research this, admittedly, before writing this.

But, you could go to sleep disorders, or many of the health related discussion groups that surround different matters regarding sleep and sleep deprivation. We don’t want to get too risque here, but you could even go to some of the sex groups. The topics may involve mattresses.

Just use your imagination! And if there isn’t a news group, maybe you might even start thinking about starting one. There is information on dejanews.com about starting your own news group, how to set it up, operate it, and become the moderator. What better way to set yourself up as an expert?