Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/business/shbjv1.zip/BUSPOT.DOC

Text File | 1993-06-13 | 14KB | 275 lines

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****** SMALL & HOME BUSINESS JOURNAL ON-DISK -- VOL I NO I ******
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       COPYRIGHT 1993     PAT FLANAGAN PUBLISHING & DESIGN
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BUSINESS POTPOURRI

This column will serve a "catch-all" function.  It will contain my honest
uncompromised opinions of products and services, new product information,
press releases and other information of interest to the small and home
business owner.  I plan on telling it like it is, warts and all!

When writing to addresses mentioned here, please tell them you heard
about them in Small & Home Business Journal On-Disk!!


REVISED VERSION OF "HOMEMADE MONEY" BY BARBARA BRABEC!

I had a conversation with Barbara Brabec, the publisher of the quarterly
"National Home Business Report."  She told me that she is getting a
revised edition of her excellent book "Homemade Money" ready.  If you
haven't read this book yet, now's your chance to get the newest, up-to-date
version.  This is the bible for starting and running a home-based business,
and it belongs on your bookshelf!  It's packed with information on tax,
legal, management, and marketing strategies, as well as extensive start-up
details.  A voluminous resource guide is included in the book.  It's
without a doubt the best business book I've read.  The new version will be
available soon for $21.95 postpaid from Barbara.  Write to Barbara Brabec
Productions, P.O. Box 2137, Naperville, IL  60567.  Also, be sure to read
her column in SHBJ! You'll get an idea of the high-quality of information
found in her book!


WORK FROM HOME ASSOCIATION (WHA)

I had the pleasure of talking the other night to Bob Korngold, who's
starting the "Work From Home Association."  His goal is to form an
association to represent the 25 million people who earn a living from
a home office.  Korngold's association will operate on a "strength in
numbers" principle, and he is hoping to secure discounts on insurance,
office equipment and supplies, credit cards, and more things the home
business owner needs.  A large group will also carry lobbying power to
government leaders.  If enough people join this association, and Bob
carries out on his promises, I don't see why he won't succeed.  Anything
that helps the home business owner deserves our support.

You can become a free charter member or get more info by sending your
name, business name, address, phone number and fax number (if you have
one) to "WHA, 25 Roxbury Road, Scarsdale, NY  10583."

Good luck, Bob!


BOOK REVIEW:  "HOW TO MAKE A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN $1,000,000 WRITING,
  COMMISSIONING, PUBLISHING AND SELLING HOW-TO INFORMATION" BY DR. JEFFREY
  LANT

What a title, eh?  This 552-page tome is THE book to read if you want to
produce how-to publications.  Anyone familiar with Dr. Lant's other books,
such as MONEY MAKING MARKETING, CASH COPY, THE UNABASHED SELF-PROMOTER'S
GUIDE, and THE CONSULTANT'S KIT, among others, will already know that
this prolific author knows what he's talking about.  In this book, he
shares all the knowledge he's used to become successful in his field.

The book takes you from the conceptual stages of your project, guides you
through the writing stage with concise advice on style and approach, holds
your hand through the production stage, with particularly sage advice on
dealing with printers, finally reaching the marketing stage, where he lets
loose a torrent of methods to get your product into the hands of your
paying customers.  Above all, he stresses the fact that you must enter
this field wanting to HELP your customers.  If you go in with greedy
visions, you may be disappointed.  But if your intentions are honest, the
money will come.

If you are thinking of producing a how-to book, manual, booklet or any
of the other forms your information can take (many new ideas are discussed
in the book), get this.  You won't regret it.

    ** FLASH!!! **

I just got off the phone with Jeffrey Lant.  He wanted to let me know
that there is a revised, updated version of "HOW TO MAKE A WHOLE LOT MORE
THAN $1,000,000 WRITING, COMMISSIONING, PUBLISHING AND SELLING HOW-TO
INFORMATION" now available!  I haven't had a chance to see this new
version, but I know the first version is worth it's weight (heavy!!) in
gold.  You can get the new version for $44.95 postpaid from Dr. Jeffrey Lant,
Jeffrey Lant Associates, 50 Follen St., #507, Cambridge, MA  02138.  Be sure
to ask for your copy of Jeffrey's Sure-Fire Business Success Catalog, one of
the best business resources around!  And mention you heard about it from
Small & Home Business Journal On-Disk!


EXCELLENT PACKING MATERIALS SOURCE!

If you need packing materials of any kind, be sure to get a copy of the
NATIONAL BAG COMPANY, INC. catalog.  It contains everything from bags
and bag sealers to plastic containers, mailing supplies to postal scales.
You can get your copy by calling [phone].


HOME OPPORTUNITY ADVISOR

Received a copy of HOME OPPORTUNITY ADVISOR in the mail.  It is a bi-
monthly ad tabloid with a circulation of 5000.  It's not too bad, with
a few articles between the ads.  Camera-ready ad rates are:  1", $8;
2", $14; 3", $20; 4", $26; 1/4 page, $40; 1/2 page, $80; Full page, $110.
I don't know the quality of the mailing lists they use, so I can't say
how well your ad will perform, but the print- and production quality is
excellent, and the rates are reasonable for the circulation.  The address
is:  The Home Opportunity Advisor, PO Box 246, Dousman, WI  53118  (414)
569-8957.


COUPON CONNECTION OF AMERICA

CCA has full-page advertisements in Income Opportunities and Entrepreneur,
among other magazines.  Their business opportunity consists of distributing
grocery coupon certificate books.  The certificates in these books can be
redeemed through CCA for actual manufacturer's coupons.  For example,
the $24.95 Coupon Certificate book contains 10 $15 coupon certificates.
The purchaser of the book would fill out on the back of each certificate
his or her choices of brands for which coupons are requested.  CCA will
then mail the coupons to the customer.  You, the distributor, make your
profit from a markup on the books, which is anywhere from $16.95 to $20.95.

This sounds like a pretty good setup, but I have some misgivings about it.
First, the quality of their marketing materials is quite poor.  They sent
a plastic comb-bound booklet detailing their program, which looked as if
it had been photocopied about two dozen times.  On a few pages, you can
barely read the print.

Second, in their question and answer section, they say their market analysis
has "determined that an area of 25,000 population could support four
distributors with a substantial weekly income."  I don't know about that.
If you divide 25,000 by four, that's 6,250 people per distributor.  If you
sell 5% of your 6,250 customers, you get 312 sales.  At an $18.95 markup,
that would be a profit of $5,912.40.  If you figure that each of your people
uses 1 certificate every two weeks, and that each will buy again from you
(and not one of the other three competing distributors), you stand to sell
your 312 customers 3 books per year, for a yearly profit of $17,737.20.
Not bad, but don't forget to take out for taxes and expenses.  My math
makes no allowance for new customers through the year, but it also assumes
that all customers will return to you, which is also unlikely.

Also, there is an initial investment of $295 to $25,000 (for the $18.95
markup, the investment is $690).  The investment includes an introductory
supply of coupon books, marketing displays, flyers, ads, commercials, and
training.  The contents of the package varies with the investment.

I would have to say that this is a great idea for a program, but if anyone
wants to get into it, be prepared to buy into one of the higher investment
programs ($1,475 and up).  When you get in at that level, you will get
a protected territory.  This will eliminate competition, making your profit
position better.

I say this is probably worth checking into.  I think, though, that CCA
might want to invest a bit into cleaning up their opportunity marketing
manual.  The marketing samples they sent for the coupon book look great,
but the quality of the business info made me wonder about the nature of
the company itself.  If they make their information look more professional,
and use some more realistic figures, it would be more convincing.


FINANCIAL FREEDOM REPORT:  BE WARY OF THESE PEOPLE!

I recently attended a "Home Business and Technology Conference" sponsored
by the Financial Freedom Report and the "Meta Institute."  I had seen this
advertised on a half-hour infomercial which showed different computer-
oriented home businesses people had started.  It sounded like it would
be a trade-show sort of thing, with different companies having booths
and such.  I called the 800 number for free tickets.

The show was a bit different than I had expected.  It turned out to be in a
hotel conference room, with a series of speakers, each speaking on a
different business opportunity.  Many times during each speech, the
audience would be urged to go to the back of the room and sign up for
the opportunity being spoken about, which would, of course, only be
available today (sound familiar?).  When I was there, I heard about a
scholarship location service.  The speaker was very good and very
persuasive, and managed to get, by my count, 22 people to the back of
the room to pay their $495.  Now, 22 people offering this service in
a city the size of Chicago would be close to a glut, not to mention a
city the size of South Bend, IN, where the expo was held.

Other opportunities presented were 900 numbers, a wholesale buying
network where you supposedly would be notified of deep discount bargains
you could buy into and mark up for resale, and others.  All these
programs had a high amount of hype surrounding them.

I attended on the second day of the show, and I had a chance to talk to
some people who had attended the first.  A number of them were returning
the packages they had bought for a refund.  They were all saying the
businesses didn't appear to be all they were cracked up to be (imagine
that).  The well-dressed people working the show were quick to refund
people's money, and tried to hide the fact that they were doing so.

All this made me question the integrity of this organization.  I had never
heard of them before this, and have never heard of them afterwards.
Although, I read an article a few months back in Entrepreneur about a
man who had been taken for a ride by a very similar sounding but unnamed
organization.  He had bought into a discount buying network and discovered
it was nothing but hooey, losing thousands of dollars in the process.

What's the moral of all this?  NEVER, NEVER, NEVER lay out your hard-
earned pesos for a business opportunity unless you have plenty of time
to look into it, think it over, roll figures around in your head, and
check into the company providing the opportunity.  If it's only available
today, take a pass on it.  They must have something to hide.


CHAIN LETTERS...STILL???

If I receive one more letter titled "You are about to make at least $50,000
in less than 90 days in the comfort of your own home" etc. etc., I'm
going to go crazy!  You know the one, where you send $5 to each of the
four people on the list, they each send you a one-page cheaply printed
report with information of questionable nature, then you put your name
on the bottom, send out bazillions of the letter, then, according to the
"testimonials," money will come rolling in barrels to your door.

Then there's the one where you send the people on the list $1 and ask them
to "add me to your mailing list."  Yeah, right.  This one's even going
around the computer bulletin boards, disguised as a program.

When will people realize that these are illegal and, unfortunately,
contain mathematically impossible promises?  Legitimate multi-level
marketing enthusiasts (not including myself, though) get black eyes from
this garbage.



That's it for this issue.  I've vented my spleen, and I feel much better!
Seriously, there are a lot of great resources and opportunities out there.
More of them are good than bad.  Unfortunately, the bad ones cast an ugly
light on the good ones.  Just watch what you're doing, think first, and
use common sense.  And above all, when you find good stuff, share it with
us!

Also, if you have published a book, newsletter or software, I'd love to
review it here (don't worry, I'll be gentle but honest!).  Your good
products and services will get the exposure they deserve.  Send your
product sample or marketing information to:  Pat Flanagan Publishing &
Design, 540 Imus Dr., Mishawaka, IN  46545.

See you next issue!


  RESOURCES
  ---------

BRABEC, BARBARA:  Barbara Brabec Productions, P.O. Box 2137, Naperville,
 IL  60567  [phone].


COUPON CONNECTION OF AMERICA:  4669 S.W. Frwy., Suite 714, P.O. Box 56162,
 Houston, TX  77227-6162.


FINANCIAL FREEDOM REPORT/META INSTITUTE:  2450 Fort Union Blvd., Salt Lake
 City, UT  84121  [phone].


HOME OPPORTUNITY ADVISOR:  P.O. Box 246, Dousman, WI  53118  [phone].


KORNGOLD, BOB:  WHA, 25 Roxbury Road, Scarsdale, NY  10583.


LANT, JEFFREY:  Jeffrey Lant Associates, 50 Follen St., #507, Cambridge,
 MA  02138  [phone].


NATIONAL BAG COMPANY, INC.:  [phone].