You can start a direct-response business small and slow before you expand. You can learn as you go. You can make money as you go. You don’t have to take big risks or do anything rash.

Starting out you keep it slow, testing things carefully. When you’re doing lead generation, run smaller ads. Remember, all you’re doing is trying to get people to “raise their hands,” not get people to instantly send you money.

Ads that ask for people to send their money typically take up more space. Since the lead-generation ads cost less money, there is also less risk. This is how you can get paid fantastic amounts of money while you are learning and just getting started!

You can start small. You can start part-time. You don’t have to risk much in the beginning. Go slowly. Test as you go. Learn as you go. This is how to test the waters before you jump in!

Direct-Mail and Direct Marketing is an exciting business opportunity because you can get started very small with a small amount of money. You can grow to encompass the national scope. You can run your direct mail pieces against the big businesses and compete with them.

Yes, it’s an exciting opportunity. But you should never forget that there are rules and regulations that have to be followed. Regulatory agencies are always checking on businesses. Specific laws were designed to deal with how a business is to be run.

Many people in direct response get in trouble legally because they don’t follow these rules. Very few people go to jail, though. It’s usually out-and-out crooks who end up going to prison.

Still, fines can reach up into the million dollar range, and there are businesses that get shut down by the government simply because they operated illegally.

Stay out of jail! Pay attention to the following rules to make sure you operate legally!

1. Advertise only products you can deliver. It is illegal to try to sell something you do not have.
2. Deliver anything you advertise, and live up to ALL GUARANTEES MADE IN YOUR ADS.
3. Fill orders within 30 days, or inform customers in writing of the delay. The customer must be given the opportunity for a refund.
4. Pay all state and federal taxes required. You must keep accurate records to prove your figures.
5. Do not start or participate in illegal chain letters.
6. Do not advertise a business opportunity under help wanted. It is illegal to suggest that you will hire someone and pay a salary, unless that’s what you actually intend to do.
7. Do not commit customer mail fraud yourself. It is illegal to order something without paying for it.
8. Do not use copyrighted materials. You must have written permission from the owner of the material before you use it.

Run your business honestly and fairly, using plain old common sense. If you treat customers and suppliers in a way you would like to be treated, you will be successful.

The key is self-interest. It is a powerful motivating factor. People want to know how your product or service will improve their life, and if that improvement is worth your asking price. If they feel that the benefits are worth what you’re asking, they will buy it.

Let your customers know the benefits of your product. This is how to make your customers happy.

You can’t forget this. Many advertisers forget that they need to make the customer see how much better things would be with a certain product or service. If a customer is going to give you their money, they want to be pampered, pleased, and treated like kings and queens.

1. Purchased Lists are sold by brokers who have built the lists according to people’s buying habits. If you choose to go with a list broker, make sure to work with a reputable one.

2. Compiled Lists can be made by you or someone else using names from directories, records, newspapers, or other sources, and can be useful in sales to dealers.

3. Built Lists are made by you, using the names of people who responded to your advertising. These are useful for follow-up or repeat offers. You also may exchange lists with non-competitors.

Many successful mail-order marketers develop winning products based on ideas other companies and businesses are using that are successful. That is how millionaires develop winning products that sell like crazy! They watch, study, and improve upon the advertisements that continue to appear regularly, weekly, and/or monthly, in various publications.

Good mail-order marketers are always on the lookout for things that are working for other people why things are working for other people. They break down the successful ads and look for the common denominators.

They look for the specific parts of the ads that draw in the orders. Then, they find a way to incorporate those ideas into their own ads and improve upon them so they make even more money.

It is vital to have a market to sell to, though. A market is the group of people who spend the most money on a specific type of product or service that fills a need or a want. People who make up a market have a specific interest, want, desire, or need that they follow when they buy a product.

Direct-Response and Mail-Order businesses that are successful are companies that develop products and services that are designed for a very specific market. When they advertise these products and services, they advertise them in the publications that cater to that market.

Let’s say a mail-order company is offering a kit for those who want to start their own business. Their advertisements will appear in publications that are published specifically for the business market, and probably in publications that deal with the small business and entrepreneur areas. Those people are the best prospects for the offer, so the ads are run in those publications.

Once you know what market you are going to sell to, you can find the publications that cater to your market. Then, look through the ads. Look through subsequent publications and notice which ads keep running without cancellation. These ads are successful. Why else would they keep running week after week or month after month?

Then, you can break down that ad. What product is this company selling? Can you develop something similar?... Something better?... Something that offers the prospect more for their money?... Something unique?

This is the “real” secret that the multi-millionaires use to pick products that are almost guaranteed to be money-making winners. They find what’s doing great . . . and they use the information they get from it to develop something either related to or better than that other successful product!

By putting your mailing list on the market and finding a good mailing list manager that understands your market, you can bring in many thousands of dollars! This is how to get people to pay you up to twenty thousand dollars a month or more just to use your mailing list!

This is the only way some companies make their profit. All of their profit comes in the form of a commission check that they get from their list manager. Their list manager rents their list out to other companies that are selling similar products and services - and they get a nice check!

Some of the big mail order companies are actually making several million dollars a year in profit by renting their mailing lists!

You can even work with your competitors! As long as you and your competitors are serving the same market and are offering the same kinds of products and services, you can attempt to strike up a deal with them. They can rent your mailing list, and you rent their mailing list. Both of you can benefit! This is how to join forces with your competitors to make even more money!

This is one of the more unusual aspects of the mail-order business. Many people in other kinds of businesses may have a hard time understanding this concept. To them competitors have always been the enemy. But, in direct mail, both companies are looking for good names - and they can try each other’s!

A List Manager functions much the same as a list broker, with the exception that he/she takes over complete management of your list for rental contacts. This is how to create a “side-line” business that can easily make you an extra $100,000.00 a year or more!

Here are six sure-fire ways a list manager can make you very rich!

1. A list manager usually does his/her own list advertising.

2. He/she solicits his/her own customers via telephone, correspondence, meetings, etc.

3. He/she makes all business contacts with list brokers and assumes the responsibility of processing their orders.

4. He/she submits regular activity reports regarding rentals, commissions, etc., to the list owner.

5. He/she carefully analyzes data from mailings and presents a detailed report, including suggestions and recommendations.

6. He/she maintains all bookkeeping records and is responsible for accounts receivable. Many companies and individuals actually earn more than $100,000.00. Some of them earn up in the millions - just through renting their mailing lists. These companies choose the best list managers they can find that will do the best possible job of representing their lists.

Renting out mailing lists is a great sideline business because there’s very little to do other than generate your names and keep your list’s quality as high as possible. Many people don’t realize how simple it really can be.

To keep your list’s quality up, you sell good products and services and keep your customers happy. If you are able to keep your customers happy, the chances are very, very good that those people will be more trusting to purchase items from other companies that rent your mailing list. And, when this happens, those companies will continue to come back and rent your list over and over again because the list worked so well for them.

Marketing is everything, and many great product ideas are doomed to failure from the word “go” . . . because the companies didn’t know how to market them. It’s not the product that really matters.

We see companies very often that are very protective of every business and product idea that they have. They are afraid of letting anyone else know about their ideas because they are afraid someone else will use them to make millions.

This just isn’t true. It’s difficult to get out there and promote products. It’s hard to get people to send you their money. We are living in a competitive society, and no one knows this better than a good marketer.

A lot of products could have sold if someone had simply taken the time and effort to learn how to market them. This is why you can find “gold mines” of products out there that other people haven’t been able to do anything with - AND CASH IN WITH THEM! It’s a matter of knowing how to market these products that is the most important.

Your success depends on how well you advertise and publicize what you have to offer. All businesses have to get their message out.

Many times businesspeople want to avoid the aspect of advertising. They have a mindset of being in business to make money, not to make advertisements. These people do not see the whole picture. Advertising is the key to getting the message of what you have out to your market.

Some businesses can develop and run a small amount of advertising and make respectable profits. Direct-response marketing is NOT one of these businesses. The direct-response business is one that is highly dependant on advertising.

Direct-response and mail-order are just a form of marketing. Hence, they’re not so much a business in themselves, but simply a way of doing business.

Advertising is the key in direct-response marketing. It’s what attracts people to you and your products and services and keeps them attracted and buying more from you. It is the lifeblood of a direct-response marketing business. This is why your success depends largely on one thing . . . advertising!

You need these 3 elements:

1. Forward motion
2. A defined goal
3. The right application

Now add a fourth element, persistence, and you’ve got a winning combination that can make you millions and millions of dollars! If you will just do these things you can raise yourself up from a failure to a huge success!

Persistence is the embodiment of desire, self-reliance, organized planning, courage, will power, cooperation, dedication, and habit. You can teach yourself to be persistent.

Maybe you have been a quitter in the past. You may have left a trail of half-finished projects behind you. Do not worry about it now. Many of us have been “in the same boat.” Remember, it is what you do about it now that counts. So, what are YOU going to do?

If you refuse to be beat and continue to keep moving forward in the right direction with the right application, nothing is going to beat you. You will be successful. This is how to attract good luck to you like steel is attracted to a magnet!

Luck is when opportunity meets preparation. You prepare yourself by doing the three things mentioned above. Refuse to quit! Keep going!

There is one simple thing you can do to increase your profits. You only have to do it three to four times a year. You can do it more if you want to. What is it? It really is simple. All you have to do is mail to your customer base once every three months or so. Don’t just mail them to say hello. Tell them about another product you have that you know they are interested in!

Back-end sales are vital to your business. So, you must find additional related products. This is one simple way you can make thousands of extra dollars!

Making a promise is how to give your prospects a “reward” for reading your ad or sales letter. What kind of promise? A promise that’s powerful enough to captivate their attention and suck them in.

Make strong promises of benefits. The prospects will be drawn to the ad - into it - and the ad will seem to offer them some kind of reward just for reading it. It will seem to give them something they really, really want.

The more specific the promise is, the better. Give your prospects exact numbers and figures whenever possible. This adds believability to your promise, and it’s a way to show the prospect that the benefit has been delivered before.

What is the reward? The reward is knowing that you have what they want. By reading the ad, they gain the knowledge of where they can get the solutions to their troubles - the benefits that they want.

Newspaper and magazine editors will help you get rich! But to gain their help, you have to give them what they want too. Editors are not in the business of helping you promote your product or service; they are in the business of pleasing their readers. Your whole proposal to them should focus on the fact that you have a product or service that can give their readers something very important to them.

Let’s look at the example you read earlier about the man who wrote the book How to Stretch Your Paycheck. In that particular magazine that book dealt with something very important to the magazine’s readers.

Yes, the man was lucky. But was luck responsible for mailing that news release to the magazine? No, that was his decision. You create your own luck. You get lucky through getting into the market and trying things.

Some people try free publicity by sending out a few news releases. They don’t get very good response from these news releases, though, and they give it up and say it didn’t work for them. Those people fail to realize that even the people who make a lot of money play it as a numbers game. You don’t get into many publications, but the ones you do get in have the potential to make you a lot of money. You have to treat it like a business, not a gamble.

Another thing you should remember is that you can’t just cross your fingers and haphazardly slap together loads of cheap items and mail them off to editors. They won’t take it seriously, for good reason. You have to put together a professional package. When you read through a magazine and read stories about successful products and individuals, almost every single one of those stories was generated by a professional publicity company.

It seems like common sense, but you would be surprised how many people pay little or no attention to it. They see it as a gambling where they just send something cheap to an editor hoping that they will get lucky. Then they end up giving up because no one who gets their mailing takes them seriously.

Let your customers know one thing . . . that you care about them . . . and triple your profits! Studies have been done that asked people why they quit buying from a certain company. The overwhelming number of answers were, “I felt the company didn’t care about me.”

You have to do special things for your customers. Treat them as well as you can. Be personable with them. Write to one person whenever you write a sales piece, be it an ad, a sales letter, or whatever. Give them special bonuses and great guarantees.

If you do these things, not only will you be able to keep the customers you have, but word will also get around about how you treat your customers. More people will want to buy from you, and you can increase your profits with your congeniality - possibly up to as much as triple what you were making before!

Back-end offers are a business-survival insurance. Back-end sales give you all the “Business Survival Insurance” you need to make sure that your business never fails.

When you think of back-end business, think of an insurance policy. What is an insurance policy supposed to do for you? It’s supposed to protect you. It’s something you can count on. Like insurance, when a disaster strikes, you are protected.

Back-end sales work like that. Yes, you always have to replenish your customer base by attracting new customers. There’s no doubt about it. If it’s not an ongoing operation, you are going to end up in trouble. But you also have to attract new customers. Then it’s the back-end that will bring you the most profit.

It is good business to offer a product on the back-end. Having a variety of products to sell is the only way to maximize profits. A hardware store that offered bolts, but not washers and nuts, would be, pardon the pun, Nuts!

Once a person “raises their hand” and shows their interest, you have to try to resell to them again and again and again. You can maximize those profits because you have more products to sell on the back-end. In short, you have more than one hook out there waiting to “catch the fish!”

These are the things that are the most crucial in your advertising. By learning, implementing, and always keeping these twenty-two things as good as possible, many companies have brought in ten times more profits than before. You have the potential to do the same!

1. Capture a reader’s interest.

If you cannot get the interest of the prospect, you will never sell them.

2. Appeal to a prospect’s self-interest.

People only care about themselves, and the more bigger and better benefits your offer can give them that they really want, the better.

3. Write advertisements that motivate people to buy.

Forget about the idea of “creating an awareness of your product,” and focus on selling that product. A person can know your product exists, but that doesn’t put money into your pocket until they buy it.

4. Stir buyer’s emotions.

People buy with their emotions. The ad should cause them to feel an emotion towards your product, and the more the pleasant, happy, excited emotional factor they have towards your product - the more they desire it - the higher the chance that they’ll buy it.

5. Use benefits to attract product desire.

Benefits are all that the prospects really care about. They only want to know what the product or service can do for them that can make their life easier, more enjoyable, and more fulfilling.

6. Make readers “believe” your promises.

If your ad cannot make the reader believe you, the reader is not going to buy from you. Remember, they are buying on the basis of “sight unseen” - they send their money without ever seeing, touching, or trying out the product. Therefore, it’s very crucial to make them believe that you’re not going to rip them off.

7. Write advertising that relates to the average person in your market.

Use the language and terminology that the people in your market use. Know your market. Know what the market likes and doesn’t like. Learn what the problems are that people in your market have. The more you’re able to relate to them, the more you seem to honestly have something for them!

8. Convince the hardened skeptic.

Consider all prospects to be hardened skeptics. If you do so, you will be able to create much better advertising. Write to that skepticism. Do everything you can to assure that prospect of the worth of your offer.

9. Make your offer so attractive that a prospect will say, “Yes, that’s for me!”

Make those prospects want what you have to offer. Get them excited! Show them dramatically what it can do for them!

10. Write copy that agrees with existing attitudes.

Your understanding of the market - not just as the source of your profits, but as a group of people with lives, problems, and ideals of their own - can be used to your advantage. Learn as much about them as you can, and show them that you know what they’re going through. Let them know they can trust you!

11. Write copy that overcomes buyer objections.

Write down a list of all the objections to purchasing your product you can come up with, and then tackle each one. By doing so, you can come up with ways to lessen or destroy those objections. If you can do that, you’re able to develop powerful copy and advertising.

12. Use words and phrases that move people to act.

Writing has its tools, just like any other profession. In writing, those tools are words and phrases. So use the best tools possible! Use words and phrases that will gain the attention, the interest, and the desire of your prospects. Then, give them a very simple, highly motivational call to action!

13. Write copy that reflects how average people talk.

Here is some advice that we go by that has been one factor in our success: If your copy is too complicated for a seventh grader to understand, you need to simplify it. Language can be a barrier as well as a tool. Don’t make it difficult for those prospects to read your advertising. People read advertising in a very passive way, and if your ad requires work, it will most likely end up in the trash.

14. Stay in touch with what people want.

People only buy what they really want.

15. Do not test the obvious.

Anyone can come up with ideas to test, and testing really is one of the secrets to getting rich. However, you must test things that are smart and are actually questionable. Common sense is just as important as scientific actuality. Get too heavy on testing common sense things, and you’re wasting your money.

16. Appeal to emotions and instincts.

People buy with their emotions, and you have to play up to their feelings. Put them in the picture, with themselves enjoying the benefits of your product.

17. Develop facts and present proof.

This is key to believability. Give your prospects facts and proof that what you say about your product can happen for them. Use everything at your disposal, from simple facts and figures to testimonials from satisfied customers. The more you can give them, the more you can tear down the wall of skepticism.

18. Make a prospect justify a purchase.

Make the prospect feel like they are getting a lot for their money.

19. Find a common meeting ground with prospects from the start.

Let those prospects know you can relate to them, and let them know why you can relate to them. This is the benefit of writing to a specific person and a specific market. Let them know that you really know their problems and their wants, and that you have the solution for them.

20. Substantiate incredible product claims.

You have to provide evidence that your claims are true. If your claims are too wild, you have to tone them down. Outrageous product claims can definitely be detrimental.

21. Have back-end offers.

All profits in this business are made through back-end sales, not front end sales. The related products and services you sell on the back-end to customers who have bought from you before will make you the most money. The front end should merely be used to gain initial sales and add more people to the back-end. Once they’ve bought from you, they have showed their trust, and you can go back to them with more offers.

22. Continually develop new offers and advertising ideas.

You will never maintain success and growth with only one product. You have to keep coming out with new products to maintain your profits and keep them growing.

You can get thousands of informational products right now that are published by other companies and individuals. They have produced these products, so all you have to do is work out a favorable arrangement, and you can sell these products.

Many people who publish informational products are actually looking for people who can sell them. This is how other publishers around the country can help you make thousands of extra dollars a week!

There are many publishers around the country who are open to this, so you have to find the products that would interest your market the most. Potentially you can have a catalog full of different publications produced by other people that you can sell to bring both of you money!

And, as an added plus, you’re not just marketing one product at one time. You’re marketing a whole slew of them in a catalog, so the profit potential shoots upwards - and you could potentially make thousands of dollars! The more products you can get in your catalog that your market would be interested in, the better.

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.

Inexpensive ghost writers can easily help you sell thousands and thousands of books. They are able to save you the time of actually writing all of the books yourself. If you have a number of ghost writers working for you, you can have them all working on different projects, which lets you do more simultaneously. That means you can potentially make a lot more money than you would if only you and one other person created your products!

Ghost Writers are able to save you one very important commodity - time. It takes time to write up a product. If you and another writer are the only ones creating and writing up products, then you are limited in profit because of the time it will take to finish the projects.

When you have more ghost writers, though, you are able to have more products written at the same time, in effect increasing the number of products - and raising the optimum potential profit you can make!

When compared with almost every other form of business in existence, it becomes clear that mail-order business is something very different. Many businesses fail because they don’t understand the principles of marketing.

Once, we came across a magazine that is published for those who want to start their own business. In that magazine there was a list of sixteen steps that the reader was supposed to go through in order to start their own business.

But, out of the sixteen steps, not one step had anything to do with the customer. Everything dealt with items like buying a business, obtaining licenses, purchasing fixtures, taxes, and payroll. Not one step had anything to do with the customer. None of them stated anything about serving the customer or giving the customers what they wanted.

We feel that this is a major reason many businesses fail. Businesses need to utilize marketing in their strategies. Basically, marketing is made up of two things:

1. All the things you do to get prospects and customers to buy from you initially, 2. All the things you do to keep those customers coming back to do business with you.

Many businesses don’t utilize marketing correctly, if they do at all. They don’t understand their prospects, customers, and their market. This is why most businesses “really” fail. They don’t understand how to attract customers and keep them.

Running a business - and understanding a business – are two DIFFERENT THINGS! And - the difference can mean M-I-L-L-I-O-N-S in your pocket! Good marketing can put millions of dollars into your pocket.

All millionaires who are in business for themselves have a good knowledge of who their markets are, who the people they’re serving are, how to serve them better than the competition, and how to get that message out to the best prospects.

Many times, these successful business-people actually have others that handle the day-to-day, technical aspects of the business. On the other hand, the business people focus on designing successful marketing that gets the right people to buy initially and then keep buying afterwards.

Everything has to do with making money. You will start seeing money-making oppor-tunities and ideas everywhere. One of the best things you can do is make it a game. This is a method of how you can focus completely on making money - AND GET RICH!

Make it a hobby. Develop your interest in making money. Start thinking about business. See how other companies are making money. Make a game out of it and focus on it. This will help you develop into a better marketer and a better businessperson. Soon you will start seeing evidence of people making money wherever you go!

When you look at a magazine, read all the advertisements. What’s behind those advertisements? Stop and think about all the other companies that are making money by running those ads. Start asking yourself certain questions like, “I wonder how good business is for them?” or “I wonder how they got started?”

The more you think about this over time, the sooner you’ll get rich.

Many people who are new in business do not have good ideas. They don’t have any real experience in business. They don’t really have a handle on what they’re doing yet. It takes several years of being involved in business and operating in business before you really get good at it.

The more you focus in on it and devote a lot of thinking in that one area, your thinking will mature and develop - and you’ll get rich eventually!

Readers want;

1. Interesting,
2. Factual,
3. Useful information.

And that is what you must present to them in your press release. Yes, of course you are selling the main benefits to the prospect. But the whole project should be geared towards helping people.

You have to write press releases that are interesting to the readers, factual in nature, and supply the readers with useful information. This makes the readers want to read it.

The power is in the fact that the reader believes that a story telling about a great new product is just a service to them that the magazine is offering. People don’t realize that whenever the magazine writes stories about products, services, and companies in the marketplace that may interest their readers, the story almost always simply started out as a press release the company sent to the magazine.

Everything centers around your attempts to try to serve people and show people how the product or service will improve or greatly benefit their lives somehow. These are the things that really interest people.

Everybody’s looking - Everybody desires - products and services that are going to improve their life at some level somehow. You should do your homework and find out how it’s done. Then, help the editor and the writers of the magazine to see all of the benefits easily.

Implementing these three things in your press release requires you to do some homework. It never happens by accident. You have to work at it and do the best job of it that you can in order to ensure that you have given yourself the highest chances of success.

FREE PUBLICITY can help you get rich. Newspaper and magazine editors must have new stories for their readers. You can create a powerful story to dramatize your product, service, or company. Send out good publicity packages to these people. Make it easy for them to write about your product or service. The stories they print could work better than any advertising you can buy.

We know of one man who reportedly made $3,000,000 from an article in a national magazine. He simply sent a press release about his book to a big national magazine and they wrote the article. At the end of the article they told their readers where to get his book. (It was a small book on how to stretch your paycheck.) Checks and money-orders for around three million dollars flooded his office!

Successful businesspeople are constantly looking for new ideas to test. They conceptually understand that people buy for a reason, and they search out those reasons and how to fulfill them. They are looking at other successful companies’ techniques in order to find out what they are using successfully. Then they find a way to incorporate the successful techniques into their own campaigns.

Always look for ideas that other people have used. An unsuccessful businessperson or newcomer might say, “That won’t work for my business.” The people who are extremely successful in marketing understand that, when it comes to marketing, all ideas are interchangeable. What works for one company may work for another.

You should look for ways other companies are serving their customers better and are giving their customers more of what they want. Then, you should look for ways to incorporate these ideas into your own business even if you are in an exact opposite sort of business. This is how to make money with proven methods that many rich people have used and are using now!

What is the one thing that all millionaires have in common? Multi-millionaires in business realize that ideas rule their world, and they realize that marketing ideas are inter-changeable. They have a conceptual view of marketing and ideas, so that they don’t lock themselves down into one way of operating.

In sports they teach athletes that there are many, many different strategies and methods to win a game. This same principle applies in all forms of advertising and marketing. There are all sorts of different ways to win the game of business, sales, and profits. Look for all of the different avenues you can use to your advantage. Look for all the ideas that are out there being used.

This is why some really GREAT ideas fail: the company gets wrapped up in thinking about themselves instead of thinking about the customer, be it a catalog or an individual purchaser.

Companies - and yes, even small companies - can get very bureaucratic in their thinking. They forget that they’re only in business to serve other people.

There are people out there that say terrible things about capitalism. They say that capitalists greedily exploit other people. Granted, that may be true when it comes to some “fly-by-night” operations. The companies that make their profits from working with established customers repeatedly, though, can’t get away with cheating and ripping people off over and over again. The bottom line is: they have to provide value.

It’s easier for people to think of themselves before they think of their customers. It’s easy for a company to get locked into its own love for the product it’s offering and not think about how the customer perceives that same product. Remember, it’s the customers and the prospects - the market - that really count in the long run.

Yes, we have to love what we sell. We have to be able to communicate enthusiasm for our products and services. We have to feel strongly about what we have. Then, we have to try to transfer those emotions to the prospects and customers. If you are excited about a product and you are able to convey that excitement to me, I’m going to get excited about the product!

Remember, think about your market, your prospects, and your customers. Think about what they’re really interested in. It should all center around thinking about the customers, not around the business.

For some reason, it is extremely difficult to see the offer from a reader’s point of view. Don’t fail to understand that anything you have to offer is as important to a consumer as it is to you. Millions of dollars are wasted every year because mail-order marketers with great ideas fail to understand that what consumers want to hear is not always what the marketer has to say.

No expert will help you if he/she thinks you are the competition. That is the way it is in any business. If you need help, do not expect the competition to help you, unless there is an incentive. You might be able to get some help, however, if you know how to go about it.

Firms will help you if they feel there is something in it for them. So, you have to convince them that you will help them if they are willing to help you.

If you call some of the bigger names in the mailing-list business, tell them that you are interested in having your list of names managed by them. Tell them your list contains many buyers of mail-order books. They will be more than happy to answer your questions, if they are interested in managing your list. You might say that this method is unethical. But if it is the only way to get knowledge of the mailing-list business, either you use it or get out of the business.

When it comes to experts, remember that a good list broker is an expert on the lists he or she offers. They will tell you everything you want to know, because as long as that list makes money for you it is making money for them. Also, list owners will tell you about their lists. After all, it is free publicity. They want you to know they have something to offer you.

This is how to get the insiders in the business to tell you everything you want to know!

Occasionally, you might even find someone who will be willing to give you some free advice just because he/she knows you are sincere and need it. It never hurts to try.

LEVERAGE is a powerful get rich method that almost all millionaires use in one way or another. This strategy lets them get the biggest result from every dollar they spend and every hour they work. Rich people don’t have any more time or energy than you do. They find many different ways to make up for their limitations. That’s what leverage is.

Many of the secrets in this program let you tap into the powerful get-rich principle of leverage. They let you make the biggest amount of money for the smallest amount of time, work, and effort. Put these methods into action, and you’ll be using the same type of strategy that is used by almost all millionaires.

The safest and most profitable form of advertising is two-step lead-generating ads. This lets you use the secret of follow-up marketing: FIRST, you get new customers to respond to some type of inexpensive ad or sales letter. SECOND, you follow-up with those people by selling them additional products and services. This type of advertising can make you the richest person in your town.

Here’s how simple it can be: You run small inexpensive classified ads, small display ads, or use inexpensive postcards, self-mailers, or cheap Direct-Mail packages. The purpose of this advertising is to bring you qualified prospects. This can build your mailing list, and give you people you can go back to and re-sell.

Creating distinctive ads that are different and stand apart from your competitions’ ads is the one thing you can do to get MAXIMUM INQUIRIES from all of your ads - and end up making seven times more sales! The more it stands out and the better the benefits are, the more potential money you can make!

“Distinctive” means that it must be unique in design, size, and copy, so that a reader is drawn into the copy with a desire to know more. This is accomplished by concentrating on a benefit-packed and different sales proposition.

Remember, your ad should be benefit-packed, but YOU’RE NOT TRYING TO ATTRACT EVERYBODY. One phrase that we like to tell people is that if you’re trying to attract everybody, you don’t have anything to offer anyone.

Since books and informational products have such a high-perceived value, your profit margins will be tremendous. By keeping costs down you can create something that you paid very little to produce and sell it for a great profit.

This is why selling books by mail can be extremely profitable for you! You can write and sell books from your own home. While you are accomplishing this very satisfying occupation, the competition will be asleep.

Many people have already done it. But the market is so broad, and the public’s need is so great, that you, too, can be a fantastic success! People are always interested in reading more about a subject. Your books will be different, as well as up to date.

The truth is, a good attorney will NOT cost you anything - but can help you get RICH! When you are going into a situation you are not sure of, any money that you spend on a good attorney is well-spent and will come back to you. It’s an investment that will pay off in the end. Good attorneys can find pitfalls.

If you have a problem and are wondering if someone is treating you dishonestly, just remember that although hiring an attorney will cost you at the moment, it can keep you from being cheated.

In effect, having a good attorney will keep you aware of the legal issues that you must face. Don’t look at an attorney as an unnecessary cost - look at an attorney as a key to gaining legal information and saving money that you could lose if someone found a way to cheat you and get away with it!

Many times a product you think should sell well doesn’t. A line of products that doesn’t sell can be a major expense and headache. Here are seven quick things we’ve done to turn this expense into big profits. You can use them, too:

1) Use it in your back-end offers. If you are offering a variety of products, switch it from front-end to back-end. This simply means that you sell it to existing customers who have already done business with you.

2) Do price change testing. Is your price too low? Too high? Test your price. Sometimes a price change will increase your sales and profits.

3) Try different media. Is your profit margin too low for direct mail? Try space ads or card decks.

4) Reposition your offer. Look for a niche that is not filled by similar offers. Instead of mass appeals, target a select group.

5) Promote a more appealing benefit. Does your copy promote the primary benefit? Have you included all the benefits? Is your current appeal targeted to the right audience?

6) Take a closer look. Can your product be changed to give it a more competitive edge? Can you add bonuses? Or some type of service after the sale? Think! An original idea could give your sales and profits an immediate boost.

7) Is there a profitable solution? If none of these six strategies increase your profits, save your money and find a product with more money-making potential.

Direct-response marketing is a multi-million-dollar-a-year business that continues to grow steadily. Anyone with average intelligence, desire, and determination can learn it, as long as they are willing to do two things:

1. Learn everything they can about the business.
2. Apply proven mail-order knowledge.

Anyone who is willing to do those two things can get rich.

One thing you should always remember is that this business is a lifelong study. You have to dedicate your life to it. You can be successful if you have the willingness to learn everything you can.

Often you hear the old phrase that, “A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.” You have to be willing to accept the idea that you really don’t know enough, or you might just know enough to get into trouble. You have to be willing to keep learning what has worked and what can work for you.

Sometimes you will think that your ideas are absolutely correct and that you have figured it out on your own. This can be a very dangerous train of thought if you haven’t done any research on proven techniques and implemented them into your plan.

The truth is, you should always be learning something about the business. Knowledge is your guide, and the more good, solid knowledge you have, the better you will be able to find your way to success. Jumping in blindly with ideas that have no facts supporting them takes the guide away from you. And it’s very easy to get lost in unfamiliar territory unless you have a guide.

That is the purpose of these two things. Through correct study and utilization of these two things, ANYONE can get rich!

Learn everything you can about everything. Do your homework. Learn what’s good in this business and what’s bad. Use the best proven principles at your disposal. Always grow, and always allow your stockpile of information to grow!