MAIL ORDER BLUNDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

                    

PART ONE

At the very start of this publication it is necessary to define

exactly what we mean by the term "mail order".  What particular

field of mail order (there are three) we are referring to when we

go into detail about avoiding mistakes.  Mail order in this country

can roughly be divided into three groups.

GROUP ONE:

The big specialist mail order companies, such as Kays, Littlewoods,

Burlingtons etc.....who operate through agents who sell from huge,

glossy, coloured catalogues and who offer a gigantic range of goods

at highly competitive prices.  Because goods are sold on a credit

basis with easy weekly payments, this method of purchasing goods has

proved enormously popular, especially with families in the lower

income groups.  Such companies owe much of their success to their

ethical standards.  Goods are exchanged or refunds made with the

minimum of fuss or quibble.  Service is prompt, efficient, and

quality equals that of the shops and stores.  Public confidence in

this type of service has grown over the years and the trading

practices of these firms has set a standard for all who trade by mail.

GROUP TWO:

The many firms who sell solely by mail order or as an additional

retail outlet.  If you start a t page one of Exchange & Mart and

read right through to the back page, there is nothing but mail order

advertisements.  Literally thousands and thousands of firms selling

every conceivable item by mail.  Press, radio and television

advertising contains a considerable proportion of mail order

advertisements.  Some experts calculate that 30% of all retail

selling in this country is by mail order.  Anything from garden

sheds and exotic pets to hi-fi and lingerie.

GROUP THREE:

This is the group which mainly concerns us in this publication. 

This group consists of the home-based mail order dealers.  These

are numerous and the vast majority are operating on a very small

scale, often part time and usually severely under-capitalised.  It

is amongst this third category that real problems arise, resulting

in a very high failure rate.  Few can afford to advertise extensively

in the national media and apart from the occasional small classified

advertisements, their promotional activity is usually confined to

small mail shots or advertisements in modest circulation mail order

publications.  Often such people come into the mail order field with

no knowledge or experience and a total lack of professionalism.

These small scale mail order dealers are usually confined to certain

activities through a lack of working capital, so they are limited to

activities that do not require much outlay.  Many join multi-level

marketing schemes as the outlay is usually œ25 or less.  Others

sell information by mail, usually in the form of reports, manuals,

guides, money-making plans, etc.  Most are based on the

"earn big money" or "make a fortune" formula.  Promotion is usually

based on small scale direct mail campaigns, often amounting to no

more than a few hundred pieces of mail, or by advertisements in mail

order magazines and ad-sheets which seldom have a circulation of more

than one or two thousand.  Thus the small scale mail order operator

is usually operating in a business world where everything is on a

small scale.

Now we must define exactly what we mean by 'failure' in mail order. 

Most people who enter mail order in this third category do so on a

part time basis but entertain hopes of eventually leaving their

normal occupation and going into business full time.  Few, very few,

ever achieve this objective.  Those who don't can be classified a

failures.  Of course, there are people who come into mail order with

less ambitious ideas.  Such people set their sights a lot lower and

are content to merely supplement their normal income.  They often

do achieve this objective and a clear profit of anything up to

thirty or forty pounds a week in not unknown.  Such people cannot

be classed as failures.

But the majority of those approached in the R.I.S. survey were forced

to admit that their initial hopes were for something much better. 

Perhaps they were influenced by the hyped-up, and often absurd, claims

made by mail order advertisers who are themselves operating on a very

modest small scale basis.  What many beginners in mail order do not

realise is that those advertisers who claim to be able to give you

some fool proof plan to make a fortune, to turn you into a millionaire,

are themselves almost certainly struggling along on a shoestring budget. 

They are very probably already in the category of mail order failures.

Most people get into mail order almost by accident.  They have no real

expertise, no professional experience.  Perhaps they started off by

replying to a mail order advertisement, the consequences of which

will almost certainly be that they are entered on a re-sold mailing

list, to be subsequently bombarded by unsolicited mail.  Perhaps

the most hyped-up advertisements in mail order are those to recruit

people into multi-level marketing schemes or into money-making plans.

Now I want to mention the three letter word which symbolised those

factors which contribute most to failure in mail order.  The three

letter word is GAP. G is for Gullibility, A is for Amateurism and

P is for Poor-image.  Let us start with gullibility.  If one thinks

of all the hyped-up, catch penny schemes which have come and gone

over the past five years, leaving hundreds of people in this field

of mail order much poorer if not wiser, then you can understand why

so many of them must be considered gullible, or to use that cruel

American term - suckers.

The R.I.S. survey, on which this publication is based, revealed that

93% of those approached admit to having been caught by some of the

daft catch penny schemes which have floated around the mail order

field over the past five years.  These include the perennial Edward

L Green chain letter; the even more absurd Nelson Robards chain letter;

the disastrous Property Syndication Network; the even more disastrous

UK Fund Raising Club - disastrous, that is, to everyone except the

man who started it!  Then there is the idiotic Money Network. 

This promises £100,000 to anyone who will invest a mere ten pounds. 

Then there was the doomed culture growing scheme on which scores

of victims lost money they could ill afford.  I won't even try to

list all the  MLM schemes which were short-lived and which totally

failed to live up to their promises.  It is a sad fact that of the

164 MLM schemes launched in this country since 1985, only a handful

have stayed the course.  The average life on most was less than

eighteen months.

So here we have one reason why people fail in mail order - they

are too gullible.  They actually believe the nonsense which makes

up 90% of mail order advertising.  So the first golden rule for

those who don't want to be mail order failures is to be extremely

cynical.  Take all those claims with a large pinch of salt. 

Be reluctant to part with your money.  Let me give you a tip for

sorting out those who claim they are millionaires, or claim they

have already made huge incomes and who offer to let you join them

in the ranks of the immensely rich - at a price.

Just write them a letter.  Say you are very interested in their

wonderful money making offer and will probably join, but you would

first like to visit them at their home so you can at first hand what

this wonderful lifestyle is like and to discuss how you can then

get a similar high standard of living.  Ask for a definite date and

time for you to visit.  Do this even if you have no real intention

of making such a journey.

Now I don't think you will be all that surprised that if you get a

reply it will almost certainly contain one of a variety of ingenious

excuses why it is not possible to offer you such an invitation. 

They are just going away on holiday, or they have relatives visiting

them for a long stay.  It just isn't convenient right now but perhaps

sometime in the future.  Another excuse is, we have the decorators

in at the moment but I could meet you at a nearly hotel.  Anything

to keep you from visiting their actual home.  Of course, I am talking

about the type of advertisers who advertise in mail order magazines

and ad-sheets.  It does not always apply to those who advertise in

national publications.

One gentleman who advertises with a regular display advertisement

in Exchange & Mart for people to join him in selling oil paintings

is very wealthy with a large house in the north of England and a

Rolls-Royce in his garage.  But he has never objected to people

coming to visit him.  Do not think he is an isolated case, there

are other highly successful people who never leave their home to

work and are wealthy.  But they form only a very tiny minority, more

about them later.  So, back to this matter of gullibility.  You must

trust no offer until you have carefully checked it out.  No matter

how well written the literature.  No matter how attractive the offer

may be.  No matter how impressive the company making the offer may

appear to be.  You take nothing on trust.

You can get professional help at very little cost.  Alas, it has only

recently become available to home-based mail order people, otherwise

many of the past cons and scams would not have claimed so many victims.

A well known professional researcher runs a subscriber information

service.  You can just 'phone and get instant information on any offer

currently being made in mail order.  So there is just no excuse in

future for being caught by some dubious proposition.  A subscription

costs peanuts and could save you a lot of money.  By an exclusive

arrangement with this source members of the 'Ethical Mail Order

Traders Association' (E.M.O.T.A.) receive a three year subscription

to this service (worth œ150) free.  Further information on the service,

including the other numerous benefits of membership, can be obtained

from: The Secretary, E.M.O.T.A., 45 Loscoe Grange, Loscoe,

Derbys., DE7 7JY.

We have dealt with one of the main reasons for failure, gullibility,

a touching faith in the promises of 'make a fortune' schemes. 

Now we go on to the second of the main reasons for failure.  A is

for Amateurism.  There is a total lack of professionalism in British

home-based mail order.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in direct mailing campaigns. 

Almost all those I know who have used direct mailing in mail order

and those approached on the R.I.S. survey, admit to having felt some

disappointment at the results of their mail shots.  All too often

the mailing list gets the blame.  I would agree that most of the

mailing lists on offer in mail order are pretty appalling.  They are

usually full of errors because the compilers have little or no

geographical knowledge and thus will often miss a mistake.  They

will not instantly recognise a wrong post code.  A professional

compiler knows them by heart.  They will usually fail to notice

an incomplete address, simply because they don't know it is an

incomplete address.  I know there are still a lot of people who do

not use post codes and for this reason one does have to be careful

to address fully if no post code is used.  If, for instance, an address

is given as 51 Union Street, Newcastle.  Then there is no way that

that letter would be delivered.  Why?  Because there are three towns

called Newcastle in the United Kingdom.  Or if the address was, say,

16 Oak Avenue, Sutton.  There are thirty three places called Sutton

in the UK.  In the old days the Post Office would have sent such a

letter to and fro to each Sutton until it was finally delivered. 

That was before Thatcher, and now the Post Office has to be

competitive and such letters go straight into the dead letter bin.

I previously said that most mailing lists offered by mail order

dealers are appalling.  Apart from the fact that some are long in

the tooth and produce a high proportion of 'gone aways', they are

also inclined to contain a number of duplicates.  That is, the same

name and address repeated more than once.  Add the incomplete and

incorrect addresses and the chances are that only about 70% of a mail

shot will reach its destination.  But even this percentage of wastage

will not account fully for a mail shot being a total slump.  So what

else can be blamed?

Well, if you receive plenty of unsolicited mail, you will know that

if something new comes onto the mail order scene, such as a new  MLM

scheme or a new money-making plan, you will know that you don't just

receive one piece of mail on that offer.  I personally have received

up to half a dozen in one day for the same MLM scheme.  People in MLM

or who promote new money-making schemes all seem to be very busy

spending time and money mailing the offer to people who have already

received it many times.  It would seem that most of them are using

the same mailing list.  The very first dealer to start mailing out

probably gets a few replies from all those who are interested, so

there is little or nothing left for all those who follow.  Beginners

in mail order, and even some who are not beginners, will receive

details of some money-making scheme suitable for those prepared to

promote it through a direct mail shot.  It could be something like

Money Network or the Easy Money Business Formula, which totally and

utterly fail to live up to their promises of riches, and which have

already been worked to death by other doomed-to-disappointment

dealers.  This is the main reason why mail shots flop, much more

than faulty mailing lists.  So many dealers are going over already

worn ground, wasting time and postage.

There is another reason why direct mail shots undertaken by amateurs

fail.  I have previously mentioned an almost total lack of

professionalism amongst mail order dealers.  This become glaringly

obvious when one looks at the way most of these mail shots are carried

out.  Professionals would never dream of undertaking a direct mail

campaign without first undertaking a 'pilot' shot.  This is a test

mailing of only one or two hundred pieces of mail.  Then, one waits

to see the percentage return on the pilot shot.  If it shows 2% or

more, then that is good y mail order standards.  If less, then there

is something wrong with the offer and one needs to make a careful

examination to find out why there has been little or no response to

the offer.  Only after this reasonable return, and when a further

pilot shows a reasonable return, should all the mail be sent out.

I have often been asked why it is that in the USA there are plenty

of people running home-based businesses and making good full time

incomes, sometimes very high incomes.  Yet in this country the number

of people earning a full time income from home-based mail order is

comparatively tiny?  One part of the answer is that the Americans are

inclined, like the Japanese, to be highly competitive and professional

in their approach to business, be it a large scale enterprise or a

one man home-based business, whereas we in Britain are inclined to

undertake a business enterprise in a slap-dash, amateurish way. 

That is the British way.  Mrs Thatcher has done something to try

and change this attitude, but she has an uphill task.  This blundering

amateurism runs right through our society.  Of course, it is great

for the few who do operate on a professional basis.  Many of the

really spectacular successes in home-based mail order were made in

the pre-Thatcher era, in the sixties and seventies, when this

country was a world-wide joke, living on borrowed money and sinking

ever deeper into debt.  It was a good time for those who followed

the American methods of money making because there was little or no

competition.

Let us make a comparison between the American and British mail order

dealer.  The American entrant into home-based mail order is very

unlikely to just drift into it.  America, like Japan, is a highly

competitive profit motivated society.  The amateur does not survive

very long in business.  No American would dream of starting a business

without some prior business experience, knowledge or tuition. 

It should also be remembered that, unlike over here, Business Studies

are included in the curriculum of most American schools.  If the

American starting a home-based mail order business had no previous

experience at all, then he would mot likely start attending a business

college, or take a correspondence course.  As an alternative, he would

probably seek the assistance of a professional business consultant

who specialises in mail order.  There are plenty of such consultants

in the USA.  There are only a tiny handful of professional business

consultants in this country who specialise in mail order.  But British

beginners in mail order would seldom even think of seeking expert

advice.  The British attitude is - anyone can do it.  They do not

think it requires any special skill or knowledge, which is probably

one of the main reasons why the vast majority will never get beyond

the peanut level of trading.

Yet professional help is readily available for all sorts of services. 

I was reminded of our amateur approach only the other day, when one of

the usual unsolicited circulars came through my letterbox.  It is an

impressive circular, beautifully printed on expensive paper, with a

nice logo and altogether an expensive three A4 pages.

It was offering a package deal of self-publishing.  Full Reproduction

Rights, both on the three publications on offer and on the expensive

three-page sales literature.  The total price for the deal was œ75. 

Expensive but still an interesting proposition.......until one began

to examine the text a little more closely.  Then one began to

experience that familiar sinking feeling one gets too often when

reading such literature.  At least, you will get this feeling if

you are experienced in this field and know what to look for.

As with most of this type of literature there was a surprisingly high

number of spelling errors, punctuation was also very bad and it was

very obvious that the writer had little knowledge of the grammatical

rules that apply to written English.  Apart from this it was obvious

that the text had, as usual, been written by an amateur.  It lacked

that pulling power that can only be provided by a successful copywriter. 

They are the people with the deft touch and the flair necessary to

induce people to take up an offer.

So anyone receiving this literature would, at first glance, be

impressed by the expensive, well printed material.  But as they

began to read, that first impression would quickly disappear,

especially if it was being read by a person of reasonable education,

to be replaced by mild amusement and contempt.  In the very first

paragraph of this circular there are several errors and the style

of English is clumsy and contrived.

The point I am making is this.  Whoever compiled this literature and

sent it out has probably had a very low response and has, no doubt,

sent an angry letter to whoever supplied him with the mailing list. 

They always blame the mailing list, often wrongly, when there is a

poor or nil response.  No educated person is going to contemplate

sending off for that package when it is obviously written by an

uneducated person.  The view will be taken that if the circulars are

that bad, one shudders to think what the publications of offer will

be like.

Alas, there will be some who will part with their money for this deal. 

These are people whose own standard of education is on a level with

that of the person who wrote the literature.  They will not even

notice the bad English and the errors.  This observation is based on

one of the conclusions in the R.I.S. survey.  They gave the following

estimate of standards of literacy amongst people engaged in

home-based mail order:

            3%  are illiterate

            8%  are semi-illiterate

            49% are poorly educated

            32% are reasonably educated

            8%   are well educated

So you can see that there are rich pickings or the dream peddlers who

prey on those in the home-based mail order circle.  Those who are

looking for ways to become wealthy.

When mailing lists of people in the mail order circle are sold, they

are nearly always described as a list of 'Business Opportunity

Seekers', which it is as the two terms - home based mail order dealer

and business opportunity seeker - are inter-changeable and mean the

same thing.  That is why some people get angry when they buy a list

of business opportunity seekers and find the same old familiar names

on most of them.  But it could not be otherwise as the world of the

home-based mail order dealer is a relatively small one.

If any of what I have written so far has in any way given the

impression that I have a poor opinion of those involved in home-based

mail order in this country, that would be wrong.  I know many of

those who are in mail order.  In most cases it is not lack of effort

that is to blame.  Some sacrifice a lot of spare time and deny

themselves small luxuries to support and maintain their business

enterprise.  Such people truly deserve to be successful if hard

work is the criteria, but alas, sheer effort is never enough,

though it does help.  An inexperienced swimmer can put in as much,

or more, physical effort as an experienced swimmer, and yet only

cover a fraction of the distance.  While the novice thrashed about

and expends a great deal of energy to little purpose, the experienced

swimmer glides effortlessly through the water.  That really sums up

the difference in this line of business between the amateur and the

professional.

Again, we have come back to professionalism.  I gave an example of

a complete lack of it in that appalling literature for the publishing

package deal.  But that was not an isolated instance of blundering

amateurism in mail order, most such literature is of a similar poor

standard.  The cot of professional assistance of a very high standard

is probably lower than you might imagine.  For instance, professional

proofing of an A4 circular with the guaranteed elimination of all

grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors, plus suggested revision

of any clumsy or unsuitable sentences or phrases.  The cost of this? 

One lousy fiver.  Yes, just five pounds, it is as cheap as that.

Now if that disastrous publishing deal had had their three page

literature professionally proofed it would have cost them fifteen

pounds.  They spent a lot of money on the printing of their good

quality literature, but made one small economy which proved disastrous.

Let me give another example.  In a recent issue of his influential

and widely read newsletter, Ken Walker had a lot of fun poking

ridicule at another appalling circular.  Ken has a sardonic sense

of humour as shown in a recent Mercury editorial when he ridiculed

the Klondike money-making scheme.  Now he has turned his attention

to a circular which obviously caused him much amusement.  It was

offering a package deal on how to run a C.V (curriculum vitae)

consultancy.

Now I am sure you will agree, writing C.V's or offering to show

people how to write C.V.s, indicated a good command of English and

you would expect the people making this offer to be very careful to

ensure the text was perfect.  Or, that if they were not capable of

ensuring this themselves, they would employ professional help.

But no, the circular they put out was riddled with spelling errors,

punctuation was dreadful and the text was grammatically clumsy. 

Hardly likely to inspire confidence in their ability to write good

C.V.s or teach other to do so.  Another prime example of good old

British amateurism.  Professional proofing of that disastrous circular

would have cost them just five pounds.  If there was room in this

publication, I could give numerous other examples of the illiteracy

common to mail order literature.  Suffice to say I strongly recommend

that you seek help in drafting and checking ALL your literature, be

it circular, brochure, manual, guide, report or whatever.  At the

end of this book I will give the address of how to locate a

semi-retired professional writer who is almost certainly the best

freelance available and the only one I would personally recommend

to provide professional help.

Now to go on and discuss some of the other blunders most common in

mail order.  Many people in mail order publish and sell all kinds of

how-to publications.  I suggest you do not make the mistake of

offering a money back guarantee in your advertisements.  Providing

you are ethical and honest you do not have to give such a guarantee

and if you do, you leave yourself wide open to the attentions of what

are known as 'refund rogues'.  There are people who watch for any

advertisement offering a money back guarantee.  They will buy your

publication, read it, perhaps photocopy it, and then send it back

for a refund.

So don't give any money back guarantees.  Then you are not obliged

to make a refund PROVIDED and I do emphasise that work provided, your

advertisements contain accurate information and do not include any

misleading claims.  So leave out those stupid claims about potential

earnings.  Not only does it lay you open to legitimate demands for

refunds if the claims prove to be false, but it is also illegal and

the regulations on misleading advertisements have been tightened up. 

So if you claim a person buying your how-to manual will be able to

earn œ250 a week in their spare time after reading it, you could

find yourself in deep trouble unless you could provide solid proof

in the form of people who had actually earned this amount.  So don't

make silly claims.  The Office of Fair Trading is beginning to crack

down on this.

Another mistake made by many in mail order is to believe the claims

made in the literature of desk top publisher who advertise how-to

manuals and get-rich-quick publications.  The truth is that well over

95% of the authors of such publications are not really qualified to

write on their chosen subject.  Very few manuals are written by

professional writers.  To give some idea of the general standard of

these manuals one needs only look at the comments on this subject in

that marvellous yearly publication 'Recommended & Approved'.  This

publication not only exposes all the current rackets, scams and cons

in mail order, but also helps to pinpoint those in mail order who are

honest and who are not.

'Recommended & Approved' is published by the M.O.D.S organisation and

they commissioned R.I.S. to make a detailed scrutiny of mail order

manuals of all kinds, and to list those they thought worthy of

recommendation.  No attention was paid to format, or to whether

the publication had glossy covers, professional binding or as to

whether the pages were properly printed or just photocopied.  None

of these things were considered important.  The only criteria was

the contents, the actual text.  Judgement was based on the author's

grasp of his subject and the value of the information given.

The astonishing outcome of this scrutiny was that of the 436

publications thus scrutinised, R.I.S. was only able to recommend

a mere twelve as representing true value for money.  The rest were

described as 'over priced rubbish written by amateur, and usually

anonymous, authors who were not really qualified to write on their

chosen subjects'.  I hasten to add that the publication you are now

reading had not been released at that time, and it is a great source

of pride to me that it has been added to the R & A approved list of

value for money publications.

Another mistake make by people in mail order brings us to letter P

in our symbolic GAP.  P is for Poor-image.  Mail order selling differs

from normal retail selling in that your customers are never likely to

see you.  So the only way they can judge you and your business status

is by the image they form of you.  For this they have to rely on the

quality and presentation of the literature you send them.  Yet of

the 600 mail order dealers involved in the R.I.S. survey, less than

one third had properly printed letterheads.  Less than one tenth

gave a telephone number on their letterheads.  Thus is most cases

the image presented by the majority of mail order dealers is very

poor indeed.

Peter Head once wrote "It's not who and what you are that counts,

it's what people THINK you are that's important".  It is worth

spending some time, effort and money on image building.  Image, how

your potential customers perceive you, is vitally important.

Now I want to deal with one of the most common pitfalls which ensnare

the unwary mail order dealer.  You will sometimes see advertisements

offering a print and mail service.  You send a camera ready master

copy of your circular to the advertiser and he, or she, will print

(or more likely photocopy) an agreed number of copies and undertake

to mail them for you to suitable recipients.  Charges are usually

in the range of œ60 to œ80 per 1,000 or œ120 to œ150 for 2,000.  On

the face of it this looks like a good offer.  Postage along on 2,000

at current second class postage rates would cost you œ340.  The print

and mail offer is based on the fact that he will include other (non

conflicting) literature with yours.  As he can probably get up to

nine circulars in the envelope for seventeen pence, he still makes

a good profit.

But here I come back to that familiar feeling of so many home-based

mail order dealers, a touching belief in the claims made in

advertisements.  Just suppose you decide to send off your money

to have 2,000 circulars printed and mailed.  Firstly you have no

way of checking to ensure that 2,000 circulars had in fact been

printed and mailed.  For all you know 50 to 100 circulars had

actually been printed and mailed.  In the case of certain dubious

operators in this field, I strongly suspect that is exactly what

happens.  The shark knows he is unlikely to get a repeat order

from you once you have checked results, so he isn't all that

bothered.  It's a one-off rip-off and perhaps he undertakes only

a token mailing or none at all.

Now I am not suggesting for a moment that all print and mail offers

are phoney or dubious.  There will be some who fully intend to honour

that agreement and who will put out the full 2,000, no matter how

long it takes.  Ah, there we have it, no matter how long it takes. 

I have previously mentioned that most home-based mail order dealers

operate on a very tiny scale.  Outgoing mailings averaging out over

a year will often be thirty or less pieces of mail a week.  Just

think how long we are talking about for the  average small dealer

to clear even a thousand circulars.  So be very careful about taking

up such offers.  There are honest people who offer this service,

but there are others who are not so honest.  One company which I

have found to be particularly good value and which has built up a

well deserved reputation for offering a totally honest and reliable

print and mail service is Ken Walker, Flat 1, 26 Tay Road, Reading,

RG3 4DR.  To obtain a free information pack, including his latest

price list, just send a stamp requesting further details of his

print and mail service.

PART TWO

No publication on the subject of mail order blunders would be

complete without mention of the thorny subject of multi-level

marketing.  I mentioned earlier that we have seen 164 MLM schemes

launched among thick clouds of optimism, hype and hope, over a

short five year period.  Most bit the dust in ignominious and

disastrous fashion.  Mot did not last twelve months.  As I write

this, I have jut heard from a reliable source that one of the

biggest and best known MLM schemes will fold within the next

twelve months.  This does not mean that all MLM schemes collapse. 

Herbalife, Unit-vite and Amway have lasted the course and are

still with us.  But the fact does have to be faced that the vast

majority have a life expectancy only slightly better than that of

an over-enthusiastic kamikaze pilot.  The main appeal of any MLM

scheme is that it is very cheap to join.  Twenty five pounds is

usually enough to get you in as a participant.  It is highly popular

with those who lack the capital for starting any other sort of

business.  So if there is twenty five pounds burning a hole in

your pocket and you are inclined to participate in MLM schemes,

please take note of the following guide lines.  Thus you stand a

better chance of avoiding the many mistakes one can make in

choosing an MLM scheme.

Remember, very few of the 164 MLM schemes active since 1985 are

still in existence.  Most have a very short life.  In fact less that

one in ten is worth any consideration.  The best way to choose one of

those which stands a chance of showing you a modest return on your

investment is to strictly observe these guidelines.

Firstly, you will notice I said a 'modest' return on your investment,

because you should net expect anything more than that.  The more hype,

the more fancy promises about possible earnings, the less that scheme

is worth considering.  Happily, the regulations on running MLM

schemes have recently been tightened up.  This should eliminate a

lot of those silly claims which in the past drew people into MLM

schemes which made absurd promises they couldn't keep.

Hopefully, we have seen the last of such daft claims as: 'Mrs Emily

Sludge of Wapping made over œ7,000 last month and expects to double

that amount next month.'  Many MLM schemes used to make this type of

claim about the earnings of participants.  Seldom, if ever, was it

true.  Under the new regulations an MLM promoter who makes such claims

will not only have to prove these claims right to the hilt, but he

will also be required to provide firm evidence that AT LEAST 50%

of participants were also earning an amount as high as that of the

person named.

Insisting on 50% of participants' earnings being the same as the

case quoted in advertising should stop a trick being used by a number

of MLM schemes in the past and known in the business as the

'image scam'.  This is how it works.  The new MLM spends a lot of

time and effort in building up special down line for someone carefully

chosen.  Someone trusted by the promoter.   This star participant

will be given a specially chosen team with which to form a down

line.  Tremendous efforts would go into ensuring that the chosen

participant had at least one bumper month with very high earnings. 

Then that months earnings would be quoted on the literature as if

it was typical of possible earnings by participants.  So a claim

that Emily Sludge earned œ7,000 last month might be true, but it

would not reflect the real potential earnings of genuine participants

who part with their twenty five pounds.

Another trick was to use what is known as the 'big cheque scam'. 

Sometimes in the literature you would see a photograph of a big,

fat cheque, or even a photograph of someone being handed a big fat

cheque.  But think about it.  There is nothing to stop you or I

taking out a cheque book and writing  cheque for ten thousand, a

hundred thousand, or even a million pounds.  It does not mean a

thing.  A cheque only has any significance when it's actually used

in a financial transaction.

Over three quarters of those approached in the survey were participants,

or had been participants, in one or more MLM schemes.  Almost all

based their decision to join on the claims made in the literature

and nothing else.  This revelation would shock any ordinary business

person, but within the home-based mail order circle it has always

been normal practice to accept the claims made in literature at face

value.  No serious attempt is ever made to check out the validity of

the claims.  No one ever thinks of probing beyond the literature and

finding out just who is behind the company making the offer.  Though

some MLM companies are ethical, others are not above using a variety

of dubious methods to recruit new participants.

I don't know if you have ever attended an MLM seminar?  If you have,

I have no doubt you found it quite an experience.  If you have never

been to an MLM seminar........count yourself lucky.  I have been to

several in the interest of getting an overall picture and I did not

get caught up in the general mood of hysteria and euphoria.  If you

do go to an MLM seminar, by on you guard.  There are two types.  The

recruiting seminars aim to attract new participants, whereas the

other type is meant to recharge existing participants and perhaps

restore their flagging enthusiasm.  People in mail order are prime

targets for MLM recruiters, in fact the overwhelming majority of

MLM participants and drawn from the ranks of the home-based mail

order circle.

At a recruitment seminar, every psychological ploy in the book is used

to create the right, highly charged, atmosphere and engineer the slow

build up to wild enthusiasm and near hysteria.  These techniques are

not new but they can be effective.  They have been used at political

conventions and rallies.  For evangelical crusades and religious

revival meetings.  Japanese industry used some of these techniques

to constantly motivate their workers to incessant high productivity.

Modification of these techniques for use at MLM seminars seems to have

been far more successful in the USA than in this country.  Americans

seem more receptive to mass suggestion techniques than the British. 

Television evangelists who have turned fundamental religion into a

multi-million dollar industry in America would have a thin time over

here.  Most major MLM companies have now dropped the seminar method

of recruiting.  But some still use it and if you do go to one of

these events, prepare yourself for lots of hype, high pressure

salesmanship, and, to quote an immortal phrase, 'a certain economy

with the truth'.

The whole aim and purpose of an MLM recruiting seminar is to get

those attending to sign on the dotted line and part with their

twenty five pounds, and probably commit themselves to monthly

purchases of the product which may, or more possibly may not, be

easy to sell.  So if you do attend one of these seminars do not

get caught up in the cleverly created atmosphere which could cloud

your better judgement.  SIGN NOTHING while at the seminar.  And

if Emily Sludge is there, describing the huge sum of money she makes

every month, keep in mind that she is almost certainly lying through

her teeth.

The home-based mail order dealer who is determined to join an MLM

scheme needs to be very cautious and highly selective.  There are

three of four MLM schemes which seem to have done better than the

rest.  Why have these schemes done better than the others?  It would

seem that these particular MLM schemes which had a considerable

degree of success have urged their participants to operate on a

LOCAL basis, rather than trying to operate through the mail.  These

few successful MLM companies know that their participants will get

far better results when operating in this way.  The MLM companies

which have had the sense to realise this important fact include

two promoting perfumes and one promoting a range of slimming products. 

I have actually talked to participants in these better schemes who

do make a good income.

But excluding these better schemes, the majority of the mail order

circle who, in the past, have been involved in multi-level marketing

schemes and parted with their twenty five pounds or so, maybe more

than once, and who should have learnt the hard way that they are

not going to become extremely wealthy through MLM, these very often

learn nothing from their past experiences.

These are the ones who press on, as one scheme folds or fails to

deliver, they take a fresh dose oh hype, part with another twenty

five pounds and indulge in yet another brief bout of frantic

enthusiasm.  Peter Head coined a tern for these people who get

hooked on MLM in this way and described them as 'MLM junkies'.

Perhaps because most people in the mail order circle lack business

training or experience, they can be almost unbelievably naive.  So

the promise that one is going to make a fortune for a mere outlay

of twenty five pounds in often believed and disastrous experiences

with past MLM schemes do not seem to deter people from having a

fresh fling and parting with yet more money.

My main criticism of MLM has always been that many companies in

this field go well over the top with absurd claims and nonsensical

hype.  Only the other day I was talking to a man who usually has a

realistic down-to-earth attitude towards his operations within the

mail order circle.  He published a very good magazine and obviously

has some talent in operating his small scale business.  Yet he told

me that the man on the level above him in a particular MLM scheme

had made a huge sum of money last month and expected to make even

more in the coming month.  The sum of money mentioned, if multiplied

by twelve, would give a yearly income higher than that enjoyed by

the chairman of I.C.I. and most business tycoons.  If such incomes

were being earned it would be headline news, especially in the

financial press.  Such claims about earnings are so totally absurd

that one would imagine that they could not be taken seriously. 

Yet here was a man who obviously believed this nonsense.

One can generally form some opinion on an MLM scheme by the degree

of emphasis on recruiting.  The better schemes are interested in

promoting the actual product.  The less successful schemes place a

greater emphasis on recruiting further participants.  What about the

vast majority of MLM schemes in this country which have disappointed

their participants?  Many people have joined MLM schemes with high

hopes, who have believed the huge income hype and who thought they

were going to make very high incomes and yet were bitterly disappointed

as one company after another subsided into obscurity or totally

disappeared.

It would seem that as each new MLM scheme came into being it stirred

up a large section of the home-based mail order circle into a bout

of frenzied activity.  The Post Office was the main beneficiary as

mail flew in all directions.  Unfortunately, all too often, none of

the participants had anything to show for their efforts.  The

carefully worked out sum in the literature, which shows as the

level multiplied the participants would join the ranks of the

extremely wealthy, well it didn't work.  But as each company vanished

from the scene it was quickly replaced by another.  The pattern

seems to be that in the first flush of enthusiasm created for the

launch, there is a first wave of enthusiasts who have become

participants but after that there is usually a gradual decline.

But remember I said this happens in most cases, not all.  A few MLM

companies which were launched stayed afloat and kept going and, as

far as I know, are ticking along quite nicely.  So how did they

survive when the majority failed?  Amongst these few I actually

found participants who made money.  How did these companies differ

from the majority?  There are only three or four I know about and

they have certain things in common, I will list them.

Firstly, in their literature they concentrated as much, or more, on

the quality of their products and competitive pricing, as on the

money which could be earned by recruiting others into the scheme.

Secondly, they encouraged their participants to work on a local basis,

that is selling to the local community rather than trying to recruit

people or sell through the mail.

Thirdly, they provided a first class back-up service for their

participants.  Gave prompt replies to incoming mail and gave

continual support and encouragement to active participants.

Fourthly, they strictly adhere to D.T.I. regulations and guidelines.

These three or four companies which stand head and shoulders above

the rest will, I think, still be around four or five years from now,

which in itself is unusual as most MLM ventures are short-lived. 

These few successful MLM companies broke away in their recruitment

and selling from the usual small circle of MLM literature recipients

and reached the general public.  Their products are good and they

are doing well.  But.......I just happen to think they would have

done even better if they had not used the multi-level marketing method.

There are some intrepid souls in the home-based mail order who actually

launch their own MLM scheme.  These are often very small scale and are

usually known as 'paper' MLMs, because the product on offer is

usually some sort of modest publication.  It is amongst these MLM

minnows that the new regulations are most likely to be broken. 

The penalties or doing this are severe and I would strongly urge

anyone running a small MLM scheme or anyone who contemplates starting

such a scheme, to make absolutely sure they are fully aware of the

new regulations.  Participants and prospective participants in MLM

schemes should also carefully study the new regulations and ensure

that the MLM scheme they have joined, or are about to join, fully

complies with all legal requirements.

One interesting point about multi-level marketing.  Both the American

and British governments continue to show a hostile attitude towards

it.  This is reflected in the drafting of the new regulations. 

Representations were made to the D.T.I. by a number of leading MLM

companies who objected to MLM being described as pyramid selling. 

However, the Department of Trade & Industry replied to three

representations in their final report as follows, I quote:

"On the matter of title, the D.T.I. state that there was a considerable

body of opinion in favour of getting away from the term 'pyramid

selling' which many regard as outdated, in favour of 'multi-level

marketing' or 'network marketing'.  But the D.T.I. have been advised

that such changes are unlikely to be accepted to the House of

Commons Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.  And that since

the title of Part XI of the Fair Trading Act under which the

regulations would be made is 'Pyramid Selling and Similar Trading

Schemes', the term 'pyramid selling' gives the best indication what

the regulations are about."

So, the new regulations were named as - 'Pyramid Selling

Regulations 1989'.  They came into force on 1st March 1990.

Reports from those who took part in our survey show that a very high

proportion of people in home-based mail order have participated in at

least one MLM scheme.  Some have participated in several.  Reactions

to their experiences were mixed, but would seem to confirm my opinion

that many of the blunders made by home-based mail order dealers have

been in the field o multi-level marketing.

As over two thirds of participants said they had not even made a

profit in MLM, one needs to examine why this was so.  Almost none

of these losers attempted to operate on a local basis i.e. selling

the product to relatives, friends and neighbours in their own

immediate locality.  Instead, these losers attempted to operate

through the mail, mailing out MLM literature to a mailing list of

other people in mail order i.e. mail order dealers/business opportunity

seekers.  Almost all of those who lost money operated in this way. 

Costs when working this way included the twenty five pounds joining

fee, cost of the mailing lists, plus postage.  The very few who did

not lose money only made a tiny profit.  None made anything like the

money they expected to make.

Those who had a degree of success to report were all people who

operated locally and who concentrated on selling instead of trying

to recruit other participants.  They all seem to have joined a very

small group of MLM companies, no more than four, who have certain

things in common.  These four concentrated on selling their products

rather than recruiting.  They all had good products sold at

reasonable prices.  They encouraged their participants to get out

and sell locally and they gave them a good back-up service.

Most of the good earners with these better-than-average MLM companies

were women.  Hardly surprising as two of the companies sell perfume

and another sells special diets for slimmers.  One of the more

successful 'genuine' earners was a participant in a small country

town.  A single parent with a young child, she worked hard to build

up a round of regular customers and supplement the modest income

she received from maintenance.  She earned over £4,000 during a ten

month period.  This was the highest amount earned by an MLM participant

in the survey, but three others, all women, earned over œ3,000 during

the same period.  All these figures were genuine earnings checked by

R.I.S., unlike some of the earnings claimed in the past in some MLM

literature.

It is necessary to point out that these were the highest earnings

within an MLM scheme and none of these women operated via mail order. 

From the six hundred people involved in the survey the highest

earnings by anyone not working on a local basis and relying purely

on operating through the mail, the highest MLM earner showed a clear

profit of œ223 over a full year.  This is a great deal less than

those leading mail order dealers earned over a year who did not

operate on an MLM basis.  Four of them made a profit which could

be considered unusually high by home-based mail order standards. 

But these four were operating on a full time basis and that is

very rare indeed in home-based mail order.

So what conclusions can we reach regarding multi-level marketing

based on the survey?

1.      The survey clearly shows that MLM is not something suitable

for operating through mail order.

2.      The only people who have done well as MLM participants are

those who concentrated on selling the product in their own locality.

3.      Only a handful of MLM companies have proved profitable for

the majority of their participants.

4.      The top earners in home-based mail order did not make their

money through multi-level marketing.

5.      So called 'paper' MLMs proved extremely disappointing. 

So did a number of schemes to promote water filtration systems, perhaps

due to adverse publicity on television and in the national press.

6.      Home-based mail order dealers who sought to recruit people

into MLM schemes by direct mail shots were invariably disappointed

by the poor response.

7.      None of the handful of high earners in mail order were involved

in MLM.

Now to move on and deal with a number of other areas in home-based

mail order which produced a high casualty rate and considerable

financial loss.  It will show that we keep coming back to the

gullibility factor which, alas, is so prominent in Blunderland i.e.

home-based mail order.  The racket which has claimed most victims

and made most money for the shysters, without doubt, was the

'envelope addressing' scam.  Our survey shows that a considerable

proportion, one hundred and eighty eight out of the six hundred

taking part, have been caught by this nasty scam.

I have to be highly critical of the publishers of some mail order

magazines and ad-sheets who have allowed advertisements for this

racket to appear in their publications.  This is one of the reasons

why I would like to see a much more responsible attitude by some

publishers.  The recent establishment of an organisation called

'The Mail Order Publishers' Association' (M.O.P.A.) should go some

way to curbing the worst of these racketeering advertisements. 

Publishers who are genuinely concerned about the dubious standards

of mail order advertisements are getting together to devise a code

of advertising practice in mail order advertising and hope to possibly

eliminate the worst offenders.

The 'envelope addressing' scam is particularly nasty in that it

often preys on those who can least afford it and on those who are

especially gullible.  The latter would explain why so many of those

in Blunderland have been caught by it.  Amazingly, in spite of

prison sentences of up to four and a half years, and swingeing fines

of up to nine thousand pounds, there are still some people promoting

this scheme, in particular one arch rogue in the Isle of Man who

seems to enjoy some magical immunity from prosecution.

Advertisements for this racket have not only appeared in mail order

magazines and ad-sheets, but also in direct mail literature, local

newspapers and (a favourite method) on postcard advertisements in

shop windows.  The advertisement usually reads something like -

'Earn œœœs per week.  Work from home.  œ10 per 100 addressing

envelopes.'  The wording can vary but it is always along these

lines.  Almost always the advertisement requires you to send a

stamped addressed envelope to receive details.

The reply you receive will usually be on a single sheet of paper with

an offer than APPEARS to be a straightforward job writing addresses

on blank envelopes and being paid thirty pence for each, sometimes

only twenty five pence per envelope offered.  But you are asked to

pay a registration fee.  This can vary between ten pounds and twenty

five pounds, but fifteen pounds is the norm.  So you send off your

fifteen pounds and eventually you receive a very unpleasant surprise

in the form of the starter pack for commencing work.  From this it

turns out that the envelopes for which you receive thirty pence each

are not blank envelopes for you to address.  They are stamped addressed

envelopes sent to you after you have put out advertisements just like

the one you responded to.  So the whole racket operates on a chain

system.  You get caught by responding to that advertisement and the

only way you can recoup  your fifteen pounds is by catching other

people with the same advertisement.  Then they in their turn will

have to do the same.  In practice, most people just bin the starter

pack and accept the loss of their fifteen pounds.  A few will try to

recover their fifteen pounds as most of these offers give a money

back guarantee in their literature.  In the survey, not one person

had been successful in obtaining a refund.

What is so nasty about this scam is that the advertisement does appear,

at first glance, to be an offer of paid homework.  People desperate to

supplement their income - pensioners, one parent families, the disabled

and other under-privileged groups - are likely to become victims. 

As this racket has also been widely advertised in Blunderland (the

mail order circle) it has found many victims amongst home-based mail

order dealers.  The envelope addressing racket is only one of numerous

scams which have circulated within the field of home-based mail order. 

But now we are beginning to see some of the more persistent promoters

of this scam attempting to get around the regulations.  They do this

by dressing up the scam to look more like a genuine homework offer,

by including the selling of some 'product' such as a manual or

holiday guide, or whatever.  I can assure such promoters that this

will not protect them from prosecution.

Perhaps the racket which has enjoyed the widest success in mail

order is the chain letter, which comes in a variety of forms.  Here

the survey revealed that a staggering 82% had been caught by one or

more chain letter schemes.  A few years ago it was the 'Nelson Robards

of Boston' chain letter that was all the rage.  This has, to a

large extent, been replaced by the 'Edward L. Green' chain letter

which, alas, is persistent and will probably be catching out the

great-grandchildren of present day victims.  Both these chain

letters were around in the early 1960s and both are imports from

America.

The origins of both, and many other scams, are fully exposed in the

best selling publication 'Recommended & Approved'.  The Edward L. Green

made famous by the chain letter never existed.  It was the brainchild

of a small scale mail order dealer named Minter.  Those testimonials

were also all his own work.  He never made very much money himself

from the scam and those who took it up and promoted it on both sides

of the Atlantic also did not make much money out of it.

As for those who fell or the phoney literature, well the survey

revealed that no less that three hundred and seventy admitted having

tried the Edward L. Green chain letter at one time or another. 

All had been taken in by the clap-trap literature, but only three

would admit to having actually promoted it (a figure I view with

some suspicion).  However, all three hundred and seventy did admit

that they have not made money from it.  In theory it should work,

so why has it been such a flop?

Let us assume that the literature is correct when it claims that the

number of people responding by the time you reach the fourth stage,

who are then in the first stage, will be ten thousand.  What the

literature does not say is that on the basis of its own calculations,

by the time people who at this point were on the fourth stage have

moved up to the first stage, the number of people responding will

number one and a half thousand billion.  On the basis of Edward's

own calculations that is an accurate figure.

Needless to say, that does not happen.  This chain letter is now so

well known and discredited that the response is very low - one

promoter put it at 0.005%.  Another had two replies to his first

thousand mailing and none at all to his second thousand.  That is

the problem, the chain always has too many broken links.

Another daft import from the States is the idiotic 'Money Network'

scam, and that also seems to have caught a lot of our gallant six

hundred.  It saddened me to find out from the survey how many people

amongst the six hundred have been taken in by this shabby scam. 

It seems almost unbelievable to me that  scheme which says you

will make one hundred thousand pounds for a mere outlay of ten

pounds will be seriously considered by anyone, especially as the

name of the promoter is never given, only the name of a fictitious

lawyer named Brown and the address of the sucker, sorry I mean

agent, who has already parted with his ten pounds and is desperately

hoping that you will send him your ten pounds.

How anyone in their right mind can believe that garbage text in

Money Network is difficult t understand.  But then I have been

told that there are New Yorkers who hang around the Brooklyn Bridge,

waiting for some gullible tourist to come along to whom they can

sell the bridge.  It is an incredible fact which would be confirmed

by the New York Police, that the Brooklyn Bridge has been sold,

complete with an official looking Deed of Ownership, not once, but

literally scores of times.

That great showman, Barnum, is quoted as saying "There is one born

every minute".  Money Network helps to prove he was right.  This

scam is confined almost entirely to operating within the home-based

mail order circle.  This also applies to many other scams which

circulate within that circle.  I hate to beat a word to death, but

that word gullible keeps springing to mind.  On the other hand,

gullible people are usually nice people.  They have certain ethical

standards of their own and, alas, expect others to keep to a similar

level of honesty.  Rogues, crooks and nasty people generally are

seldom gullible.  It would be a bleak, cold world if it was full of

wary, over-suspicious, hard-eyed people.

That having been said, there is an obvious need for a service to

provide protection for people in home-based mail order, or if you

like, the Business Opportunity Seeker.  You must remember that the

opportunity seeker, those looking for a genuine opportunity, are

targets for every shyster - and there are plenty - who prey on the

unwary.

I can assure you that the necessary service already exists,

providing instant information, not only on every scam and racket

in mail order, including new ones as soon as they come out, but

also the good and genuine deals of offer, rare as these may be. 

There is just no excuse now for anyone to get caught by some scam,

or to invest time and money in a business proposition which proves

to be a total waste of time.  Now all you have to do is pick up a

telephone.

The service is as near as your own telephone.  The telephone at the

other end is manned by an expert with over fifty years business

experience.  He keeps an eagle eye on everything that goes on in

mail order.  A highly successful business consultant and writer,

he is now semi-retired and as he has always had a keen interest in

the field of small businesses which can be started from homes, he

has made a detailed study of home based mail-order.  The service

costs very little and could save you a lot of money which you might

waster on no-hope propositions.  If you are interested send a stamp

or S.A.E. to:  Information Advice Line, Mail Order Traders

International Federation, 45 Loscoe Grange, Loscoe, Derbyshire,

DE7 7JY and they will send you further details.

Now I want to tell you a fairy story.  Unlike other fairy stories,

this one is true because it is based on a composite picture of the

experiences most common to those who took part in the survey.  But

like many fairy stories it has a sad beginning and a happy ending. 

Right, are you sitting comfortably?  Then let us begin.

ALICE IN BLUNDERLAND

Once upon a time there was a girl named Alice.  Well, she wasn't a

girl really as she had already passed her fortieth birthday. 

It would be wrong to say that Alice lived entirely alone as she

shared her neat little flat with a beautiful pussy cat named Wally. 

Alice had a steady job as a get-lost clerk at the local D.H.S.S. office. 

It wasn't a very demanding job as all she had to do was say "Get Lost"

to each unfortunate applicant who came to her desk.  The hours were

fairly short but the salary wasn't very good.  So Alice often thought 

about ways and means to supplement her income.  She had no extravagant

tastes and over the years she had saved up several hundred pounds.

One day Alice was sitting in her flat, deep in thought and cat muck. 

Suddenly there was a blinding flash o light and a beautiful fairy

appeared before her.  The fairy spoke in a silvery, tinkling voice. 

"My name is Fairy Foulup and I come from Blunderland.  You may have

one wish and it will be granted."  Alice did not hesitate.  "I want

to be rich," she said, "not just ordinary rich, but filthy rich with

oodles and oodles of lovely money."  Fairy Foulup smiled and waved

her wand as she chanted the magic words:

            Money-making plans for all go-getters,

            MLM schemes and great chain letters,

            Manuals and guides by the score,

            Never again will you be poor.

And lo, a veritable snowstorm of paper began to float down from

the ceiling.  Fairy Foulup vanished but Alice didn't even notice. 

She was too busy sorting through all the exciting offers which

now lay strewn all over the floor.  As she read through the circulars

tears came to her eyes because she began to realise that there must

be an awful of really kind people out there who were desperately

anxious to make her rich.

Alice soon became convinced she was going to become very rich. 

The first thing she did was to 'phone the D.H.S.S. to tell them

she was quitting her job as a get-lost clerk.  Then she reached

for her cheque book and engaged in a bout of frenzied activity. 

Alice wrote out cheque after cheque.  She wrote lots of cheques

for twenty five pounds each and wrote to join every MLM scheme she

could find.  The circular from 'Money Network' made Alice so excited

by the thought of receiving one hundred thousand pounds for a mere

ten pounds that her hand shook as she made out the cheque.

Alice bought mailing lists and spent a lot of money on postage. 

Her nest egg of savings was melting fast.  At the end of the week

she was getting really worried as the promised money just wasn't

coming in.  At the end of the month Alice was beginning to experience

that horrible sinking feeling that comes to so many who plunge

into mail order.  She also began to understand why Fairy Foulup

was so named.

Alice decided to go to the D.H.S.S. office to try to get her old job

back.  She walked up to the manager's desk but before she could speak,

the manager looked up and uttered the words "get lost".  Alice went

home and started again, only this time she was determined to do

everything properly.  She bought a publication called 'Mail Order

Blunders and How to Avoid Them'.  On reading this she began to

understand why it was necessary to have professional help and advice. 

So she sought professional help and from then on began to do things

properly.  She no longer lost money on no-hope business propositions. 

She no longer got caught by the scams, cons and rackets.  She actually

began to show a clear profit and ever increasing prosperity.  So

Alice and her pussy cat lived happily ever after.

PART THREE

The final section of this publication is perhaps the most important

of all.  It is  list of all the golden rules to follow in mail

order.  All these do's and don'ts are based on the experiences of

those involved in the survey.  Not one of these experiences is an

isolated example.  This proves something I touched upon earlier,

that the same mistakes are made over and over again.

The purpose of this publication is to stop those mistakes being made. 

So it is good news for those trying to make a go of things in

home-based mail order and bad news for the shysters who prey on them. 

Read these golden rules, not once but several times, and so commit

them to memory.  If you follow them in your business activities you

should avoid all the worst blunders.

So let us start with the most frequent blunder made by beginners. 

When you read an advertisement in a mail order magazine or ad-sheet,

or receive a circular through the post, never, never accept what it

says at face value.  Nine out of ten such advertisements cannot be

trusted.  Why do the shysters do so well in the field of home-based

mail order?  One reason is that few publishers of mail order magazines

attempt to give proper protection to their readers.  Greed gets the

better part of them, so it is a paid advertisement they will accept

it, even if they suspect (or even know) it is dubious.

Fortunately, not all magazine publishers are unethical.  Home

Business Quarterly, The Profiteer and Home Income News are three

magazines which try very hard to keep to a high ethical standard. 

They cannot guarantee to spot every scam as some shysters are very

cunning, but they will weed out most of them.  They will also

jointly blacklist the worst crooks and expose their activities.

But it must be stressed that these ethical magazine publishers who

scrutinise every advertisement they receive and reject the dubious

advertisement, even though it might mean a loss of revenue, form a

very small minority.  Most magazine publishers are not so ethical. 

They think it clears them of all responsibility if they carry a

paragraph with advertising details.  It usually reads something

like this:

"The publishers are not responsible for the dealings of any advertisers. 

All advertisements are accepted by us in good faith and must be

legal, decent and honest.  No adult or similar adverts will be

accepted and we reserve the right to reject advertisements of a

suspect nature."

This sort of notice in a mail order magazine is just a let-out and

means nothing.  One recent issue of a mail order magazine carried

this type of notice and in the very same issue carried an advert

for the 'Money Network' racket.  The wording of the advert was so

blatant that I will quote it:

"STOP!  LOOK NO FURTHER!  Financial freedom can be yours with Money

Network.  What can you do with œ100,000?  This is not a dream. 

Membership œ10 or 9 x 4 S.A.E.....Membership Limited."

Home Business Quarterly, The Profiteer and Home Income News would

boot out that advertisement without a second glance.  But alas, if

it was a paid advertisement most other mail order publishers would

accpet it without scruples.  So do not expect protection from the

majority of mail order magazine publishers against con advertisements. 

Con advertisements are usually those placed by part time dealers

(the vast majority), making absurd claims about earnings which are

always far more than that advertiser is ever likely to make.

Having said that nine out of ten advertisements are of the type to

be voided, it is necessary to add that such dubious advertisement

need to be divided into two distinct and separate groups.  The first

group includes all advertisements which have been inserted with the

deliberate intention of conning those who respond.  These are

advertisements which are cunningly worded traps to catch victims in

some scam.

The other group consist of advertisers who are not intentional crooks. 

Naive?......Yes.  Crooks?......No.  They are even more numerous than

the first group and cause just as much damage.  Often they unwittingly

act as agents for some scam, totally unaware that what they are doing

is wrong.  Such people will promote things like chain letters, or

'Money Network'.  Often this will have their name and address on the

bottom of some scam circular as the agent.  They are often horrified

and contrite when told they are helping to promote a scam, but that

does not make them any less a danger to beginners in home-based mail

order.

So if the majority of mail order advertisements are suspect, how do

you know which to avoid?  The first ones you eliminate from any

consideration are those which make absurd claims about how much

you can make.  I don't mean the really daft and obvious ones, like

'Money Network' with its one hundred thousand pounds, or the

'Easy Money Business Formula' with its six hundred pounds a week,

but the less obvious ones.  These often seem to offer a proposition

which is plausible and attractive.

Advertising mail order magazines is largely uncontrolled and

advertisers can get away with the most outrageous claims and

statements.  Please remember that 90% of those advertisers making

such absurd promised about the money you will make are very probably

no better off financially than you are.  The vast majority are part

time operators and they will never be anything else.  So now you

can see why I say the first golden rule in home-based mail order

is that you take all these claims with a large pinch of salt.

Before finishing with this subject of intentional and unintentional

conning by mail order advertisers, I would like to give some

examples of 'con' advertisements.  All these are actual advertisements

I have taken from current issues of mail order magazines and ad-sheets. 

All of them would be flatly rejected by truly ethical publishers who

are concerned to protect their readers.  Most would be rejected on

the grounds that the claims made were totally false and make promised

which could never be kept.  The ethical publisher would ask such

advertisers to prove the claims they make.  The publisher of Profiteer

did in the case of twenty two would-be advertisers.  Not one dared

to reply.

In each advertisement I give I will add my own brief comment. 

As I have no doubt that this publication will be read by many

people active in home-based mail order, it is possible that some

people will recognise their own advertisement among the examples

I give so..........

A CHALLENGE:  I invite anyone who sees their own advertisement here

to come forward and dispute my opinion.  Most of the examples I give

were responded to by people taking part in the survey, so I know just

what resulted from those responses.  Take up my challenge and we

will get a top class, professional business consultant to thoroughly

investigate both you and your claims.  Any takers?

So here we go with the sort of fantasy advertisements that are common

in the dream world of home-based mail order.

"Insert a postcard advertisement in your local shop window.  And

just wait by your letterbox as the money comes pouring in S.A.E.

for details."

COMMENT:  Just another dodge to get you to take part in the old

envelope addressing racket.

"Enjoy the benefits of herbal health nutrition yourself and turn an

outlay of 66p per day into a regular five figure monthly income. 

No selling necessary.  Recruit two people - retire in two to three

years.  An S.A.E. secures full details.

COMMENT:  A five figure income monthly?  "Good grief" I hear you say,

that's a minimum of ten thousand pounds per month, one hundred and

twenty thousand pounds a year.  So this advertiser must already be

on the super-wealthy level.  Is he already n the verge of luxury

retirement?  If he can offer one hundred and twenty thousand pounds

a year to others he must be fantastically rich......Surprise, surprise. 

He is still just a small time mail order dealer operating part time

and pedalling a well known MLM scheme.

I must mention the heading on a full page advertisement for an MLM

scheme.  It reads "Losers Hesitate - Winners Act Now."

COMMENT:  Wrong.  Exactly the opposite is true.  Losers plunge headlong

into new schemes without properly checking them out.  Winners are more

cautious and will probably use professional help to carefully check

out the proposition before parting with any money.  Apart from the

daft headline, this particular scheme is more restrained than most

in its advertising text.

"MLM MILLIONS.  Join the top MLM kings in the UK.  I and six others

led the way to untold wealth.  We will show you how to join the winners

in MLM.  S.A.E. for details."

COMMENT:  Several of the people in our survey had sent off for details

of this one.  It turned out to be a special discount offer to join

five different MLM schemes.  A lady who took part in the survey actually

lives two streets away from the advertiser.  She told us he is the

local milkman.  What I would like to know is this, why is an MLM king

who has led the way to untold wealth running around on cold winter

mornings delivering milk?

"HOMEWORK FOR PROFIT.  Work in the comfort of your own home at hours

to suit yourself.  Earn up to œ250 per week.  Everything you need

provided.  Starter kit and easy to understand instructions $10.00.

COMMENT:  A large number of people involved in our survey admitted

to having been caught by so-called homework schemes.  This particular

one was the usual con.  The 'starter pack' merely consisted of several

circulars.  You were required to photocopy them at your own expenses,

buy a mailing list at your own expense and mail out copies of the

circulars at your own expense.  You were promised a commission on

all resultant orders.  But as the orders would not come to you, it

is a matter of trusting the firm to tell you of any orders they

receive as a result of your mailings.  None of the people in our

survey had bothered to send out the circulars, they said only

over-priced junk was being offered, and none were able to obtain

a refund of their ten pounds.  Steer clear of dubious homework

schemes.  The magazine Homeworker's Post does a good job in exposing

dodgy homework schemes.

The foregoing gives some idea of the general standard of mail order

advertising, but not all mail order advertisements are of this nature. 

There are genuine advertisements and there are mail order dealers who

are honest and give value for money.  The problem is to sort out the

minority of genuine advertisements from the dubious majority.  One

guideline is to ignore all advertisements which make specific claims

about the amount of money you will make.  I have yet to find any such

claim which is accurate in the forecast of potential earnings and

most are given to wild exaggeration.

Another type of advertisement to be ignored is the 'mystery

advertisement', so called because they never tell you what exactly

is being offered.  Most mystery advertisements are in the form of

circulars which come as unsolicited mail.  The mystery advert will

tell you all about what a marvellous offer this is.  It will go into

great detail about the amounts of money which can be made and it

will often quote success stories about other people who have taken

up the offer.  But they don't ever say exactly what the offer is. 

They usually excuse this by saying the information they offer is so

valuable that it has to be kept secret.

They will reveal this secret (usually in the form of some manual)

which will make you enormously wealthy, only when you send the money. 

So you part with money for a grossly overpriced and tatty manual,

only to find it to be the usual disappointing rubbish.  One of these

mystery manuals contains a lot of stuff about what people have earned

in the past doing this particular thing.  But all it boiled down to

is the suggestion that you go around with a ladder clearing the guttering

on people's houses.  Hardly worth œ17.50 is it?  So avoid all

mystery advertisements.

Now we come to another common blunder made by beginners in mail

order.  During the initial stages of starting up their business, they

are inclined to spend too much money.  Even later on, many are not

careful about business expenses and are inclined to spend more than

can be justified by the return.  Turnover means nothing.  I know a

business which has a turnover in excess of œ30,000, yet the nett profit

is comparatively tiny.  The whole purpose of going into business, full

time or part time, is to make a profit.  Ask the average home-based

mail order dealer what his nett profit was on the previous year and

he is likely to go a deep shade of red and mumble something to the

effect that the business has not really picked up yet.

What is the point of having fifty pounds coming in during a week

I your outgoing expenses nearly match that amount?  Some shame faced

dealers have told me that experience has to be paid for.  Nonsense,

not any more is that the case.  I will give you precise and detailed

instructions on how to avoid painful (and costly) experiences in

mail order.  But to get back to this matter of profit and loss. 

From now on you must make Ebenezer Scrooge look like a spendthrift.

Newcomers to mail order often buy items that are not really necessary. 

Such items should not be considered until profits justify such a

purchase, and even then may not be essential.  Such things as

computers, fax, telephone answering machines etc.  One of the

surprises of the survey was the large number of people in home-based

mail order who possessed one or more of these items.  It would seem

that some beginners are more concerned with fulfilling their own

image as a person in business.

One man had converted a whole room in his modest sized house into

an office, complete with desk, filing cabinet, typewriter, etc.,

before he had made a single penny in profit.  This must have caused

some inconvenience to the rest of his fairly large family and it was

not necessary.  He must have spent a lot of money which did nothing

except fill the debit side of the ledger and give him a feeling of

self-importance.

Let us take telephone answering machines.  I just cannot see why

such a machine is a priority item for a part time, home-based mail

order dealer.  As I said earlier, few of these people ever give a

'phone number on their letterheads.  Yet the survey showed that over

fifty had telephone answering machines.  Why?  A status symbol? 

A hope that it will be justified in the future?  A telephone answering

machine has distinct disadvantages.  If people ring and leave a

message, they also usually leave a request that you 'phone them

back.  Now if someone 'phones you that is fine, they are paying

for the call.  But if you have to 'phone back, then you are paying

and that is not good.  As someone who spends a lot of time preaching

to people that they must keep down their overheads, I'm very much

against over use of the telephone, never mind the further cost of

having to reply to messages left on an answering machine.

I was surprised when the survey revealed that many people in mail

order had fairly high telephone bills.  Bills of over two hundred

pounds were not uncommon.  Now I know that some people in mail order

love blathering away on the 'phone for hours at a time.  I know

because I have often been on the receiving end.  Often these calls

could have been over in three minutes with everything important

duly said.  But no, they drone on about the weather, gossip about

others in mail order, plans for the future, etc.  Don't think I am

anti-social, I like these chats and the people who 'phone me are

seldom boring.  But as the minutes tick by, I can't help thinking

of the charges mounting up.

Look upon your telephone as being there primarily to receive calls,

not to make them.  Never make a call unless it is absolutely necessary. 

Very few 'phone calls cost 17p or less, but that is all a letter

costs.  Have a little card stuck on the front you your 'phone and

on it the words 'Stop!  Won't a letter do instead?  Try and train

yourself to use the 'phone as little as possible.  If you do have to

make a call, especially if it is a long distance call, stick a clock

or a watch where you can see it as you lift the receiver.  It will

help you make you aware of how much you are spending on that call.

A lot of people in mail order would seem to have desktop computers

or word processors.  In some cases I can understand the reason for

having them, those involved in self-publishing for instance.  But we

found many cases of mail order dealers who did not need a computer or

word processor, an ordinary typewriter would have been sufficient. 

Again it seems that in some cases the computer was an unnecessary

status symbol.

Word processors can serve a useful purpose for some in mail order,

but computers, while useful for some of the larger MLM companies,

serve little purpose in the home of the average home-based mail order

dealer.  I think it is significant that the handful of people who

earn a huge income working from home do not use computers.  One of

these, a prolific writer and business consultant, has a low opinion

of computers and would not have one as a gift.  He records everything

onto audio tape ready for hi secretary to type.  Being extremely

elderly, he belongs to  generation that has a rather contemptuous

attitude towards computers.

Another of the very few fat cats has an old manual typewriter and

no fancy office aids of any kind.  Yet another of them, who has a

very high turnover, has a good manual system (Kalamazoo I believe)

and he won't consider using computers.  Who are these fat cats? 

The people who make astonishingly high incomes from working at home? 

Some of them are incredibly wealthy, but again I would stress they

are very few in number.  This is a publication about how to avoid

mail order mistakes, so there is no room here to give details about

the fat cats.  But if you are interested, there are two publications

that are being prepared.  By the time you read this they may both

be available.

One is a sequel to this publication which I will write on a totally

different theme.  Whereas this publication deals with the negative

side of mail order i.e. mistakes and blunders, the sequel deals

with the positive side and shows in detail how to be a success in

mail order.  It draws heavily on the experiences of those who have

ben very successful in mail order.  It looks closely at the real

successes in mail order and analyses exactly how thee successes

were achieved.  Learn just how the fat cats did it and use their

tecniques to mase a success of your own business.  It will be

published by the same published who produced this book.

The other of the two publications will certainly interest you if

you want to really know about the fat cats in mail order.  It's

called 'Who's Who In Mail Order'.  It's all there in detail for

the very first time.  The people who have made fortunes and yet

operate entirely from home.  The people who operated through the

mail with truly amazing success.  It's all there.  Everything about

the fat cats.  Names, where and how they live, what they do to make

their money, background and much more.  Now is your chance to find

out who the phonies are in mail order.  Those who claim to be big

time and are nothing of the sort.  Because if they are not in this

publication, then they are not in the 'big boys' league.  Deeply

and intensively researched it will almost certainly be a best seller. 

Details of both books are given at the end of this book.

But to get back to the subject of keeping down your overheads and

enlarging the margin of your profits.  One area in which we found

people made unnecessary losses was that of direct mailing. 

I mentioned earlier that one should never undertake a mailshot

without first running a 'pilot' shot.  But there is something I

would like to add to that.  Some people do observe that rule but

start off buying a mailing list of (usually) a thousand names and

addresses.  They use one hundred for their pilot shot and if that

flops they are stuck with the remaining nine hundred.  Perhaps

the mailing list is no good and it is boubtful if they will get

a refund on the nine hundred names still unused.  So here is

another fule.  If you go to a new source for a mailing list, one

you have never used before, NEVER buy more than two hundred names

and addresses the first time.  I gave reasons earlier why mailing

lists which circulate in the mail order circle are often very poor. 

Don't take chances with a new source.  Take the smallest quantity

they will sell you, a hundred for preference, and certainly not

more than two hundred.  If the small list is any good at all, then

stick with that mailing list broker as good ones are rare.

The survey also revealed that several people had burnt their fingers

in publishing a mail order magazine.  The inexperienced dealer can

come unstuck when venturing into this field.  Beginners in mail order

are advised to leave this activity alone, at least until some

experience of home-based mail order has been gained.  It may come

as a surprise to you when I tell you that of the twenty two mail

order magazines which were in existence in 1985, not one survives

today.  In fact, the oldest established mail order magazine in the

UK is Mercury which started in 1986.

So you see, mail order magazines do not usually have a long life,

at least not in recent times.  The British mail order magazine

which lasted the longest was also the very first.  Postal Times

was started in 1918 and laster until 1966.  It ran for nearly fifty

years and only ceased on the death of its publisher, Fred Easton. 

No other mail order magazine in this country has ever come anywhere

near that record.  The average life of a mail order magazine is less

than two years.  Why is this so?  I will explain and perhaps it

might make those who contemplate starting a magazine think twice,

once I have explained the snags.

Most mail order magazines fail because they all into a Catch 22

situation.  The economics of magazine publishing are such that no

mail order magazine can survive for a long period without advertising

revenue.  Trying to recover sosts through the cover price, or

co-publishing, or subscriptions always fails.  It is because mail

order magazines have a poor survival rate and because many fold after

a very short period of time that people are extremely reluctant to

take out a years subscription.  Whereas co-publishing deals were

offered by almost all mail order magazines a few years ago, it is

now confined to a couply today.

The lack of enthusiasm for co-publishing can perhaps be explained

by the fact that the few co-publishing deals on offer today are far

less generous than those offered in the past.  The close links and

interchange which existed between British and American mail order

magazines twenty or thirty years ago seems to have largely disappeared. 

If any mail order magazine publisher with a circulation above one

thousand is being completely honest, he (or she) will admit only a

small percentage of copies are actually paid for.  Most of these

magazines are given away free of charge.

So the mail order magazine publisher has only two real sources of

revenue.  One is that the magazine can act as a vehicle to promote

his own goods and services, and indeed many such publications do

carry a high proportion of the publisher's own advertisements. 

The other, and most important, source of revenue is from paid

advertising.  In some of these mgazines, very often an advertisement

is not paid for in cash and is there on some exchange deal or

'favour for favour' basis.  So what genuine revenue from paid

advertising does trickle in is vital.  In many cases the paid

advertising does not cover all the costs, so the publisher has to

subsidise the magazine out of his own pocket.  In such cases the

publisher, sooner or later (usually sooner) will decide to cease

publication.  This explains why so many of these magazines have a

very short life.

The Catch 22 situation for mail order magazine publishers is this. 

Anyone who pays to have their advertisement in one of these magazines

expects to get a return on his investment, i.e. he expects to get

a response to his advertisement.  He will want to know what this

response is and will key his advertisement (or at least, he should do). 

If he gets a poor response to his advertisement he will not pay for

further advertisements and, just as damaging, he will probably inform

his friends in mail order about the disappointing response.

To ensure that advertisers get a good response the publisher has to

hae a good circulation.  Good by mail order standards that is.  What

is a good circulation by mail order standards?  Here I must mention

an important point.  Outside home-based mail order, in the real world

of magazine and newspaper publishing, it is possible to check on the

true circulation figure.  Most such publications are checked by A.B.C.

(Audit Bureau of Circulation), so we know whatever figure a publication

gives as its true circulation is accurate.

This does not apply in the field of home-based mail order, where no

such checks are made.  So the publisher of a mail order magazine or

ad-sheet can proclaim a circulation figure which can be as high as

his imagination wants it to be.  That is why, in the past, we hae had

some daft claims about circulation figures.  Downright lies by some

magazine publishers.  This is done in the hope of attracting more

one-off paid advertisers.  One-of because the advertisers are unlikely

to advertise again.  But these lies have another harmful effect in

that they encourage others in the mail order circle (those who believe

the figures) to think 'there's gold in them thar hills', i.e. big

profits in magazine publishing.  So we get another mail order blunder

in that people go into publishing their own mail order magazine,

almost always with very disappointing results.

Our survey revealed three people who are currently publishing mail

order magazines and ten publishing ad-sheets.  A further forty six

had published a mail order magazine or ad-sheet in the past.  All

foty six gave the same reason why they had dropped out of publishing. 

They had not found it to be profitable.  But let us come back to this

matter of true circulation figures for this type of publication.  I

have seen totally absurd circulation figures given by some mail

order magazines.  One proclaimed in its advertising that its

circulation was over sixty thousand. I am now going to show you exactly

why such claims are sheer fantasy and just could not be true.

It is estimated that three out of every five people in one-based mail

order are members of M.O.D.S.  (Mail Order Dealers' Syndicate). 

Having recently inspected their full membership list I have no reason

to doubt this.  In 1987 M.O.D.S. decided to try and find out exactly

how many people were involved in home-based mail order in the UK. 

As a base to start this project they have their own membership figure. 

They then started to search for people who were not memebers of the

M.O.D.S.  They carefully checked mailing lists.  They scrutinised

every mail order magazine and ad-sheet for names and addresses of

non-members.  They obtained lists of buyers and enquirers from manual

and guide publishers and searched these for non-members.  Finally they

came up with a total of people operating in mail order who were not

members and added this to this own membership figure.

The final total figure of people in home-based mail order in the UK,

including non-active people who bought items but did not actively

participate, was just over six thousand.  Allowing for the fact that

there might be some names they had missed, though they doubted this,

the very highest estimate would be less than seven thousand.  M.O.D.S.

did make the point that although there is a fairly high casualty rate,

i.e. people dropping out of home-based mail order, this is compensated

by beginners who are coming into mail order.  The entire six thousand

or so form what is known as the 'mail order circle'.

As the circulation of mail order magazines and ad-sheets is confined

almost entirely to the mail order circle, you can see why some ot these

claims about circulation are so absurd.  True circulation is usually

between five hundred and one thousand, though sometimes a published

will push up to two thousand copies, at least temporarily, in an effort

to give advertisers a better response.  So if you get around twenty

replies to a single advertisement in a mail order magazine, then that

publisher is trying hard and is probably up in the two thousand range. 

Stick with him (or her) as twenty replies, especially if these are

firm orders, is very good indeed by mail order standards.

The figures I have given also help to explain why paper MLMs, i.e.

those who recruit and sell via the mail, almost always fail to take

off and usually fold after a short time.  Using their own multiplication

tables (matrix tables) which they are fond of using in their advertising,

it can clearly be seen that they will quickly reach saturation point

long before reacing the final levels in their tables.  Like mail order

magazines, paper MLMs are confined almost exclusively to the mail

order circle.

The people generally defined as 'Business Opportunity Seekers' for

the purpose of selling mailing lists under this heading are not

business opportunity seekers in any sense that the public would

recognise.  They are not people with a few thousands to invest in

some franchise deal.  Nor are they people prepared to put a good

sized sum of money into an existing business, or buy a partnership

in an existing business - they are none of these.  So our definition

of a 'Business Opportunity Seeker' is usually a comparatively poor

person without capital.

Such people are looking for ways of making money without capital. 

Thus they often enter what Dudley Perkins described as "the poor

man's gateway to business activity", multi-level marketing, because

the entry fee is usually a mere twenty-five pounds.  Note that Perkins

said business activity, not business prosperity.  Such people form

likely prospects for manuals and guides and are often steady

buyers of such material.

Now that key price of advice I promised to ensure you cut down on the

type of blunders which will keep you poor.  Firstly, anyone in mail

order should have a copy of a publication called 'Recommended & Approved'

, published by M.O.D.S. and a total exposure of all that is good

(and bad) in mail order.  Details at the back of this publication. 

Secondly, obtain professional help for your enterprise.  The few fat

cats in mail order are either professionals themselves or had

professional help in all their business activities.  There are

professional proof readers, copywriters, ghost writers,marketing

experts, etc.  There are professional business consultants who will

select a business most suitable to you and who will hold your hand

through the first year or two.  All these have charges far less than

people usually expect.

If you genuinely seek professional help (no time wasters please)

write to The Secretary, E.M.O.T.A., 45 Loscoe Grange, Loscoe,

Derbyshire, DE7 7JY and mark your letter, not the envelope, with

the heading 'Professional Help'.  They have a confidential list of

the very best freelance professionals in vaious fields of business

who could help you enormously.  One of these professionals took a

friend of mine as a client.  This friend had been dabbling in

home-based mail order for some years without any real success. 

This consultant studied her background and capabilities.  Then

he plucked her right out of the mail order circle and set her going

in business she ran from home, with incredible success.

Remember, if you want to do well in home-based mail order, believe

nothing you read in advertisements unless that advertiser is already

known to you.  One certain way to ensure you never again make any

kind of mistake in the future is to try and join E.M.O.T.A. (the

Ethical Mail Order Trader's Association).  I say try because there

is no guarantee you would be accepted.

They would carefully check to ensure you had never appeared on any

mail order blacklist, and to ensure that your trading methods have

never given grounds for justified complaints.  However, assuming you

are acceptable as a member, then the advantages of joining are

incredible.  The list of benefits for members have to be seen to be

believed.  Just one of the many benefits is that you have a whole

army of top business professionals to advise and support you.

I won't end up by wishing good luck to readers of this publication. 

Luck does not come into it.  A cautious, slightly cynical approach to

business is what you need.