THE SCARLET LETTER

mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large
on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment
of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence
by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous,
however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as
thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker
stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be
pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive,
though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and
then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness,
we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of
ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this
extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be
autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or
his own. 

From a Railway Carriage

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!

A Thought

It is very nice to think
The world is full of meat and drink,
With little children saying grace
In every Christian kind of place.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR JUNK MAIL

The term "junk mail" is a well-known term. To the common guy or gal on the 
street, "junk mail" to them is advertising flyers from the local grocery 
store and pizza shop that arrive in their mail every day. To the mail order 
dealer, it means something totally opposite because a mail order dealer in 
St Paul MN is not going to get a pizza ad for a shop in Jackson MS.

Therefore, "junk mail" refers to pyramid schemes, chain letters and other 
worthless information that you are inundated with as a newcomer. Often you 
will get so much of it that you will think this is all mail order has to 
offer and quit. THIS IS NOT TRUE. This is only one phase of the mail order 
industry _ and it's too bad that beginners get hit with the bulk of it. 
As you continue to grow in the mail order business, the amount of "junk mail" 
you receive will diminish compared to the legitimate offers and orders. 
This is how you know your business is growing in a successful direction.

Back to the matter at hand. How can you make money with this mail? 
One way is by studying and analyzing the piece of mail from a marketing 
standpoint. Since people obviously are making money with "junk mail" 
(it would have phased out long ago if it didn't) it's up to you to find 
out HOW they are doing it.

Is it the words they use? Normally, "junk mail" offers appeal to a person's 
emotional wants and desires. They claim to offer hidden secrets, untold 
wealth and quick cash. They make false claims by telling people they can now 
send their kids to college, buy their wife a beautiful diamond ring, take a 
well-deserved vacation to an exotic tropic island and pay off all their 
debts.

When the person reads this stuff and forms visions of sugarplums in their 
heads, they will rush right away and send away for the product immediately. 
What made them believe you? How was the "junk mail" written to cause a person 
to immediately react in this manner? These are things you have to study and 
determine. Then, use this new found knowledge to sell your own product.

The problem with "junk mail" is that if a person gets all hyped up and sends 
away for the product they have built it up to be bigger-than-life. And when 
the product or information they ordered arrives, it simply is a sheet of 
paper or another piece of "junk mail" trying to sell them something else. 
The person feels cheated, stupid, and taken advantage of.

People may always exist that will respond to this type of "junk mail." 
But you can use the same marketing concept to provide the people with 
something REAL. This way, they won't feel cheated, stupid and taken 
advantage of. This is where the "junk mail" authors who wrote this stuff 
in the first place overlook the true marketing potential.

More money could be made if the person buying something is satisfied and 
makes a repeat purchase. In fact, newcomers are eager to learn and will 
buy anything to get started learning. By taking advantage of them only 
means that you will make one sale in that person's lifetime. But if the 
product is good and worthwhile _ they will order from you again and again. 
 
Many newcomers today will be big businesses tomorrow. And I'm sure if a 
newcomer found a honest company that really helped them break into the mail 
order field they would continue to do business with them when they really 
did make millions of dollars. See what I mean? The back-end sales for a 
lifetime would be worth the investment.

I'm not saying that you can take a piece of "junk mail" claiming to make the 
person $1 million in 30 days or less and turn it into a valuable and 
worthwhile product. Since this is a downright lie, there is no way to market 
this honestly. However _ you can study the piece of "junk mail" to determine 
what words and phrases were used and how the ad is written so you can 
understand how to present a REAL product that people will be eager to buy.

Then, pass the word and tell every new person you come into contact with 
about these pie-in-the-sky-schemes. You might even want to try writing to 
some of the people listed on the chain letters. Explain how all this "junk 
mail" only appeals to their emotional needs and how the company who 
originally wrote these materials are USING them to only get their money. 
If everyone passed along this information _ it wouldn't take very many years 
before we could put a stop to all this nonsense.

The One-Eyed Doe

A Doe had had the misfortune to lose one of her eyes, and
could not see any one approaching her on that side. So to avoid
any danger she always used to feed on a high cliff near the sea,
with her sound eye looking towards the land. By this means she
could see whenever the hunters approached her on land, and often
escaped by this means. But the hunters found out that she was
blind of one eye, and hiring a boat rowed under the cliff where
she used to feed and shot her from the sea. "Ah," cried she with
her dying voice,

"You cannot escape your fate."

The Lion's Share

The Lion went once a-hunting along with the Fox, the Jackal,
and the Wolf. They hunted and they hunted till at last they
surprised a Stag, and soon took its life. Then came the question
how the spoil should be divided. "Quarter me this Stag," roared
the Lion; so the other animals skinned it and cut it into four
parts. Then the Lion took his stand in front of the carcass and
pronounced judgment: The first quarter is for me in my capacity
as King of Beasts; the second is mine as arbiter; another share
comes to me for my part in the chase; and as for the fourth
quarter, well, as for that, I should like to see which of you will
dare to lay a paw upon it."

"Humph," grumbled the Fox as he walked away with his tail
between his legs; but he spoke in a low growl
 ."You may share the labours of the great,
but you will not share the spoil."

BASICS OF PROMOTION ADVERTISING

Promotion advertising differs significantly from consumer francise-building 
advertising. The latter is long-term in nature and aimed at giving customers 
reasons to buy. Promotion advertising is short-term. It pushes for the order 
by providing incentives, coupons, rebates, premiums and contents.

The usual medium for promotion advertising is print. Some big-budget 
advertisers use broadcast (radio and television) to get consumers to look 
for their promotion advertising in their local newspapers.

As a rule, promotion advertising should be specific and should call only for 
consumer to perform a desired action. Resist including extraneous points in 
the promotional ad. Focus on a simple call to action.
 
For example: Your ad copy may ask the readers to (1) Redeem this coupon 
and save $2, or (2) Buy two packas and get the third one free, or 
(3) Fill out coupon and enter sweepstakes to winn $100,000, or 
(4) Buy two of the products and receive a free gift worth $10. 
Most promotion events are price or added-value oriented campaigns. 
As such, it is imperative that when writing copy, the ad should appeal more 
to the wallet than the emotion.

Final point: Do not make your redemption procedure complicated and confusing. 
Avoid have a more that one time of offer wherein the consumer is forced to 
use math in order to determine which ones make him/her save more money. 
Your task is to make it easy for the consumer. Avoid having to make them 
decide. That's too much work for them.

MAKING MONEY WITH GIVE-AWAYS

MAKING MONEY WITH GIVE-AWAYS

The guy who thought of giving away free rolls of film every time you have 
your films developed at his photo center - is a genius!

You know the rest of the story, and so do thousands other photo centers 
around the world who copy this excellent promotion.


STRETCHING DOLLARS

A budget conscious market is always out looking for a free lunch. For 
this reason, you can build a marketing system that self-liquidates its 
associated cost, distributing gift certificates that offer free this or 
free that - all the customer has to do is pay a minimal shipping and 
handling charge.


FREE SOFTWARE

In Las Vegas, I met a poker player who sells software he put together for 
$29 and higher. To double the volume and reach other markets, he decided to 
repackage his software. He gave it a new name, made a new floppy disk label, 
and offered it at a ridiculous price:
   

  FREE

To receive the software, all you have to do is fill out the gift certificate 
and send it back to him with $8.69.


THEY WENT APE! He was giving the certificates to schools, businesses, and 
stores who give away the certificates as their own promotional gifts to their 
customers. Because the cost to produce and mail this disk is 60 cents, he 
was making $8 with every certificate that was redeemed for the free software.


$800,000 IN 27 WEEKS
   
Take a snapshot of this picture: Say, a total of 1 Million certificates 
were circulated. Let's say you paid half a penny to print and distribute 
these million certificates. Your cost is $5,000. If you generate a 7% 
conversion, you'll earn $560,000.00


NUMBERS GAME

If you give other people permission to make copies of and give away your 
certificates, your cost to circulate 1 Million certificates will go down.  
But your opportunity to make money remains the same.  

  1% response = $80,000

  2% response = $160,000
  3% response = $240,000 
  5% response = $400,000
  10% response = $800,000

printed. Let's say you paid half a penny to print and distribute 
these million certificates.

bad debts

How many "bad debt accounts" do you have? How many of these do you expect to ever finally collect?

 Actually, the reason most "bad debts" are never collected is because the holder of the bad debt eventually forgets about them because of the collection effort, or else simply writes them off as another income tax loss.



 So, if you'd like to collect some of those bad debts you've got stashed away in a special file at the back of your file drawer, the first thing you should do is set up a regular routine for dealing with these customers and follow through on a collection plan. You should definitely investigate each new customer's credit rating before you advance him any credit. Tell him of your credit terms verbally, and print them on your bills, and also state the customers are liable for reasonable collection fees. If you make it a practice to bill your customer promptly, you'll find that your customers are more apt to pay promptly. On the other hand, if you run your business in a slipshod manner, you'll find your customers slipshod in their dealings with you.



 Should a customer fall behind in his payments, you should start with a mild past-due letter to remind him, perhaps alluding that he may have forgotten the due date of his payment. With this letter, you should definitely include a duplicate invoice stamped, past due.



 Then about two weeks later, send a second letter, this one more strongly worded than the first, but at the same time in a dignified and courteous tone. The important thing here is to leave him an opening to voice a legitimate complaint if he has one, but at the same time demanding some sort of communication from him about this matter.



 Should you still not receive payment or any word from your debtor, send still another letter - your third - in which you apply a bit more pressure and appeal to his sense of fair play. Mention his credit rating and let him know that if he doesn't pay, you'll be forced to turn his account over to a collection agency - however, never make threats you don't intend to carry out.



 Finally, two weeks after you've sent out your third letter and you still haven't heard from him, automatically turn his account over to a collection agency.



 No one likes to be on a collection agency's list, and once your customer find out that you will indeed, turn their accounts over to an outside agency for collection, they'll quickly accept the fact that you're running a "tight ship", and not try to use you for a soft touch.



 Be consistent in your collection procedures, and don't allow special favors. Set up a regular routine for collecting from past due accounts, and then stick with that procedure. Something else worth mentioning is the fact that unless you have supporting evidence to show that you have attempted to collect you bad debts, the IRS will disallow you to write them off as a business loss.



 Some of the things to keep in mind... Your collection letters should contain the date, name/address of the debtor, a description of the merchandise involved or the services rendered, and the amount due. It's also a very good idea to include a self-addressed reply envelope in order to make it easy for him to mail his check. Something else to consider is the use of imprinted envelopes with the phrase - Address Correction Requested - so the post office will provide you with a forwarding address in case he has moved.



 In almost all cases, you should address your letter to a specific person, not to either the purchasing department or the company in general. In other words, it should be your endeavor to try to continue your relationship with the person who signed authorization for the purchase in the first place. Your letters should be firm but reasonable, and should leave the debtor an opportunity to set up a schedule of payments or an honorable way out of his financial problems.



 Telephone calls work very well in that they usually catch the "slow payer" off guard, and can result in his promising to pay by or on a certain date. The thing is though, before you start calling on bad debts, be sure that you're thoroughly familiar with his account, and that you have his file in front of you when you make your call. 

 You or one of your agents might make a personal visit to see him and discuss the reasons why he hasn't paid, but if he doesn't want to talk to you and orders you off his property, you must not argue or attempt to reason with him. The only thing you can do in such a situation is to leave without further words.



 When you do visit the debtor and he offers a partial payment, by all means accept it. Start by demanding the whole amount, but be ready to accept whatever he offers, and work out some sort of payment schedule from there. If you can't collect the money, try bartering - in other words, trade the price of your bill for something he has that you can either use, sell or trade. Only as a last resort should you attempt to take back the merchandise you sold him.



 One other thing, if you claims to have mailed you a check more than a few days ago - long enough for the check to have reached you - demand that he stop payment on it and issue a new check. Above all else, keep cool and don't argue or become threatening towards him.



 To get results, collection letters should be distinctive. Some companies use a special letterhead printed in red ink which attracts the eye better than any other color and gets maximum attention. At the same time, a great many of the collection agencies say that smaller than standard sized paper, plus the use of paper that feels and looks expensive, always gets getter results.

FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Product publicity is the "secret pathway" to business success everyone wants. In simple terms, product publicity is a kind of advertising that costs you nothing, yet brings in the orders for you.

 Regardless of what kind of business you are operating, you should want, and strive for, as much publicity for your business and your products or services, as possible. After all, it's "free advertising" that is essential to the growth of your business. However, your publicity efforts should be well thought out, and pre-planned for maximum results.

 The first, and basic form of obtaining publicity is through what is known as the press or news release. This is generally a one page story about your business, your product/service or an event happening related to your business that is about to, or has recently occurred. These publicity stories are generally "shotgunned" to all the various media: local newspapers, radio and TV, and trade publications.

 Problem number one is getting the people to whom you've sent these publicity stories, to use them, publish or broadcast them. And this leads us back to the "right way" of writing them and sending them in.

 In every case, send a short cover letter addressed to the person you want your material to be considered by... This means that you send your story to the city editor of the newspapers' the news directors of the radio & TV stations: and the managing editors of the various trade publications. It will do you no good whatsoever, to send your material to the advertising, circulation or business managers - describing how you're a longtime advertiser, subscriber or listener. The most important thing is that you make contact with the person who has the final say as to what is to be published or; broadcast, and at the bottom line - this person's use of - your material will somehow make him a "hero" to his or her readers, viewers or listeners.

 The cover letter should be a short note. Go to a paper supplier - tell them you want a hundred or so sheets of good bond paper - 8 1/2" by 11" preferably in a pastel color such as blue or ivory - and that you want this paper cut into quarters, giving you a grand total of 400 sheets of note paper "From the desk of..." note sheets are too elaborate until the people you're contacting get to know you - first time around, and until they use your material, don't use these semi-formal note sheets...

 On this note sheet, begin with the date across the top - skip a couple of spaces and then quickly tell the recipient of the note, the attached material is new and should be of real interest to his readers, viewers or listeners. We advise our dealers and distributors of MONEY MAKING MAGIC - our regular publication for serious wealth builders and extra income seekers - to send the following note to the editors and news directors of the media in their areas:

 "Here's something that's new, and for a change, truly helpful, to people trying to cope with inflation - the soaring costs of living - and those engaged in building extra income businesses of their own. Should be of real value - interest - to your readers.
Please take a look - any questions, or if you need more info, give me a call at: (503) 666-5824..." Then, of course, you skip about four spaces, type your name, your business name, and your address - sign your name above where you've typed it, and staple this note
in the upper right hand corner of your news release. This note should be typed and double-spaced.

 So now, you've got a cover letter, and you know who to send it to... We type up one such note, and take it to a nearby quick-print shop. They xerox the note 4 times, paste these 4 copies onto one sheet of paper, print 50 to 100 copies, and cut the paper
into individual notes, all for less than $10... Do not try to save money by photocopying or xeroxing - a photocopy is a photocopy is a photocopy, and will not do the job for you...

 Now you need the actual publicity release, which also must be "properly" written if you expect it to be used by the media. Above all else, there's a proper form or style to use, plus the fact that it must be typed, double-spaced, and short - about a half page in total length.

 About an inch from the top of the paper, with an inch and a half margin on each side of the paper; from the left hand margin, type in all capital letters: PRESS RELEASE: Then, underline these words. Immediately following the colon, but not in all capital letters, put in the date. Always set the date forward by at least one day after the day you intend to mail the release.

A ROOMMATE FINDING SERVICE

The average income for owners of this kind of business in California is $65,000 a year. Best of all, here's a business that you can start with an absolute minimum investment. Practically anyone who lives in a city anywhere in the country can expect to do just about as well, and with a bit of imagination, mixed with some business "moxie", you should be able to do even better!

 Income and market potentials for a service such as this are truly fantastic! Rent increases that have far outpaced wage increase have brought about a tremendous need for a method to alleviate the cost of housing. Also, many apartment complexes are being converted into expensive condominiums. These two factors have created a problem of gigantic proportions for millions of people who are concerned about keeping a roof over their heads.

 You can make big money solving the problem with your own Roommate Finding Service. We're going to tell you how.

 Many of the nation's leading economists are predicting this kind of living arrangement to be the "money-saving answer" for apartment dwellers for the rest of this century. Others are predicting the roommate finding service to become as popular as the employment agency by 1990.

 This is an ideal absentee owner business. Most of those operating on the West Coast have a woman doing the managing - sometimes as just the manager, and some times as the owner - manager. This apparently has something to do with the nature of the business, and how most people seem to naturally trust a woman to find the right roommate for them.

 As to the fee structure, I suggest something similar to the successful employment agencies. Charge everyone a $25 registration fee to start the ball rolling toward finding them a suitable roommate. You take a Polaroid snapshot of each registrant, have them fill out an appropriate application card which will indicate the kind of roommate they'd be happy with, and start searching through your files for people with similar likes and dislikes.

 To get started, you'll want a bank reference; a legal reference, a telephone; a business name, letterhead paper, envelopes and business bards; and office supplies such as a 3 x 5 index cards; typewriter; file cabinet; and a printed questionnaire-application form. You'll also need a responsibility disclaimer, which can be combined with the applicant's agreement- to-pay contract. Once you've found a roommate for your prospective client, you should have it spelled out in your agreement that each of the "matched room mates" will pay you 15% to 20% of the first month's rent. You could charge a bit extra for particular requirements, and perhaps somewhat less for older persons, or for persons with handicaps.

 The approval or disapproval is left up in the parties involved. You simply look through your registration card file, pull out five or six apparently suitable roommates, call each of them on the phone and arrange separate meetings for them with your client. Your client reports back to you, and tells you of his or her decision, and you call the person chosen and finalize the deal.

 Good advertising will play a most important part in getting this business off the ground. Make up a good circular or "flyer" detaining your roommate finding services, and listing your phone number. Get these flyers on as many bulletin boards in your area as possible. Get them in grocery stores, barber shops, community colleges, beauty salons, bowling alleys; the list of places to "billboard" your flyers is endless. Another idea is to set up "take-one" boxes in as many retail places of business as you can. Don't overlook the value of placing your flyers on car windshields - particularly around apartment complexes, and in the parking lots of the colleges in your area. You might even pay the downtown
parking lot attendants to slip one under the windshield wiper of each car he parks on Monday. If you do a good job with the make-up of your flyer, and use your imagination in getting them into the hands of your prospective clients, you'll have no trouble moving your new business into the black quickly.

 Even so, you'll need to run regular ads in your area newspapers. The best headings to run your ads under is the Personals Column. Your ad might read:

 Need A Roommate? We'll find the ideal roommate
 for you! Everything handled on a strictly
 confidential basis.