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|THE BIGGEST MISTAKE IN MAIL ORDER
|Selling by mail is a goldmine...
|but not if you sell only one product

|by Brian Gilmore, Mail-Order consultant


After you read this article you will clearly understand what is
surely the most important secret to building your fortune in
mail order.  So please take 10 minutes to avoid further loss of
your time and money.

First, let's address the most frequent mistake that mail order
beginners make:  failing to learn how the mathematics of mail
order work.  I'll make it very simple.  consider all the
expenses involved in selling your product:  typesetting and
printing your advertisement; buying (renting) the mailing list; 
and finally, postage.  This to name only the three main expenses.

Now, if you honestly think you're going to get rich by selling a
$10 or $20 product to a few names, you are in the wrong path. 
You certainly could get rich selling a single product.  It has
happened countless times.  But most probably you won't.  Or
let's put it this way:  your success would take several years. 
Anyway, that is not the way mail order works.

The only way you can and will accelerate your growth and soon
make huge amounts of money is if you sell a RELATED LINE OF
PRODUCTS.  Do not hesitate one moment:  the people who are
making it really big in mail order are the ones that understand
and apply this concept. The principle that lies behind this is
that finding a customer is very expensive.

You sold something for $10 or $20 and then what?  Do you forget
about your new customer?  No!!  The true way to make money is,
once you made the sale, to supply that customer with additional
related products.

There is no reason why you shouldn't do this.  Sure, it's extra
work.  It would be easier to make a sale, take the money and
run.  But that's just too good to be true.  Many folks still
think that there are ways to make money the easy way, with no
work at all, making a million in one week and then spending the
rest of their lives in the Caribbean.

Once you get a customer, it is so easy to get extra earnings
from further sales that it's foolish not to offer him more
products.  You'd be letting go of the real bulk of your profit.

I stress the fact that they must be related products.  Here's
why:  If someone buys a book from you on "secret inexpensive
advertising methods", it wouldn't be wise to then send him/her 
an advertisement on "computer software".  That person is now
more likely to be interested in buying a report on "the biggest
mistakes to avoid" or he might be now looking for renting a name
list to mail out his recently published booklet.  Get the
picture?  This is the idea (which you might have heard of
before) of a "Product Line".  You don't need to offer expensive
items and expensive sales brochures to follow this procedure
successfully.  Prepare an informative set of circulars of
reports, or books, on a certain general subject like, for
example, the ever popular "making money in mail order", which is
a safe subject to get into (most people are interested in making
money from their homes).

Mail order is a hot business,  not only for big companies but
also for the little guy who starts from his kitchen table.  But
the only way  the small mail order operator can find his way to
big earnings is to specialize in a certain area.  Your sales
literature should offer  products from a certain category, and
mailed to a specifically targeted group of people.  Therefore, 
you are minimizing expenses and increasing the probabilities of
making more sales per piece mailed.

Think about this:  If you mail 1000 envelopes to a list of names
you just rented, it costs you exactly the same money,  if you
send out a circular offering a book than if you send along 4-5
circulars offering related reports, or books, etc.  OK, you
spent some extra bucks on printing those other circulars, but
you spent the same money on postage and on the names lists.  But
if your potential customer is not interested in that single item
you offered, you just threw  away all that money.  However, if
you mailed out 4, 5 or 10 different offers you have a much
better chance of pulling one... or more orders.

In conclusion:  the odds of making money are against you.  They
will be in your favor only when you have more than one product
to offer, or better yet, 4, 5 or more.  Specialize in one
particular field.  Target to that specific market through
specialized publications or mailing lists.  Conduct a decent
business in order to keep people satisfied and having to buy
more products from you.  If you put all this small extra effort
you will be highly rewarded with a profitable share of this huge
mail order market.