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1995-01-13
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HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH 900#S AND THE
INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.
By M. Mathiesen - President Ligthhouse
Productions
Co-Founder,
the Electronic Publishers Association.
Founder, the NETCENTER.
What you have found is Part One
of the complete manual on how to make money with 900#s
and the Internet.
You can get Part Two by calling 800-664-9042 and have
your credit card number ready to buy the final version at
$49.95
Or you can send a check payable to Lighthouse Productions
for $49.95 to
Lighthouse Productions
P.O. Box 7885 Santa Cruz, CA 95060
PART ONE
You've made a wise choice in selecting us to
learn about how to make money with 900#s and
the Information Superhighway ... Because ...
We are probably the only Publishing company who
has experience with both the Computer Networks
and the 900# Business.
We did it because we needed a way for our books
to make more profits. We distribute our books
over the Bulletin Boards and over InterNet. We
are the publishers of the INTERACTIVE YELLOW
PAGES, THE ROADMAP TO THE INFORMATION
SUPERHIGHWAY, AND THE PENETRATORS, A SCI-FI
NOVEL.
You can find these books in several places on
the Network. If you're a Compuserve client you
can find them in the WINSHARE FORUM, LIBRARY
10, (GEN WIN APPS.). I mention this so that
you can check out our story if you are not
already a customer or know all about us. In
these publications, you will see that we get
very wide distribution over the Nets. Some of
our books have the potential to reach over 50
Million people. And it's all FREE. We don't
spend a dime on advertising, but we sell
advertising in our magazines.
THIS BRINGS US TO RULE #1 OF 900# PROMOTION
Don't waste money on advertising your 900#. It
never pays off more than what you pay out.
Now, you are probably amazed at this rule
because you see 900#s advertised all the time.
And obviously someone must be making money on
this idea. And it's true in a way. The people
making the money are the newspapers, television
& radio stations who advertise the 900#s for
their owners. The owners may make a few
thousand bucks from their ads, but when they
finish paying for their ads, there is little if
anything left over for them.
They almost all go under and you can prove this
to yourself, by going to your local library.
Go to the microfiche room and look for ads that
were in your local newspaper over a year ago.
Then, compare them to the ads you see today.
Virtually none of the ads will be the same.
Why? Because if the people promoting the older
ads were making money from these ads, wouldn't
they continue to run them? Of course they
would. If you spent ten dollars on an ad that
produced $15, you wouldn't cancel it would you?
Of course not, and there's your proof that
advertising doesn't pay with 900#s.
Now, there will always be an exception to the
rule and this is what the ad people are
counting on. They expect that you will hear
about a huge success story and try to duplicate
it by spending money in their paper, TV station
or whatever. In fact, they'll never discourage
you in any way from advertising in their paper
or TV station because that's how they eat.
They don't care about how you eat. But they do
care about how they eat, and so there's a
sucker born every second and they'll be glad to
take the next one.
The exceptions to the rule, by the way are the
Psychic ads you see on TV with the famous
singers or actresses plugging them. These
succeed for a couple reasons. They found the
right 900# for TV. If you're home watching TV
during the day or late at night, chances are
you're the kind of person who would be lonely
or confused, drunk, or just plain stupid enough
to believe that a phone call with a `Psychic'
is going to help get control of your life.
Secondly, they have a celebrity endorser who
tells them that she finds this service useful.
They are not sophisticated enough to realize
that the only reason she is saying these things
and endorsing such a scam is because she is
getting paid alot of money to say these things.
And as long as they can't arrest her for fraud,
she will go on saying these wonderful glowing
things about these psychics. But if they were
as good as they pretend to be, they would never
waste their time with the viewer's trifling
little problems about their wife or lover, they
would be in Las Vegas, or in the Stock Market
making Billions of dollars because they're
psychic.
So, this is an example of a near fraud that
makes money because they are really stretching
the truth and taking the suckers for everything
they have to spend. If you think you're going
to do this too, I don't want you to read any
more. I don't need your business and I hope
you will drop dead. Why? Because the 900#
industry is already blemished by scams and
schemes like this one that I'm pointing to and
you all know who I'm talking about. The fact
is, the 900# industry, if used conscientiously
and properly can be a very valid way of selling
information. I know because I do it every day.
During the time you read the above, I have
earned an average of $390 in commissions to me
from my 900#, the National People's Poll. If
you want to add to my income and see how a real
900# can work, CALL 900-CUT-BAIT, and you will
hear how a real information provider, not a
scam artist, can make money nice and easy.
There are other people claiming to make
thousands of dollars a day with their 900#s and
some of these people aren't stretching the
truth at all. They just aren't telling you the
rest of the story. And that rest of the story
usually is that yes, they take in $5,000 per
day in 900# income, but they are having to pay
out $6,000 per day in Advertising to get it.
Now, how long will it take to go bankrupt?
It's a matter of how much money you had to
start with. But when you use it all up and
it's gone, whether you frittered it away trying
to get a 900# going or whether you just lost it
in a poker game, what difference does it make?
It's gone either way.
Now, some people will intentionally pull a
credit scheme on the advertisers and keep some
profits this way. They'll get an account with
hundreds or thousands of advertisers and just
never pay their bills. If you can stretch them
out for a few months and in the meantime, take
in a few hundred thousand in phone sales, you
might come away a winner, because by the time
they cut you off, you could be in Tahiti
enjoying the profits and your lawyer is
handling your bankruptcy. This happens alot
and if you're one of these scammers, I hope you
won't read any more and I also hope you drop
dead, because you too make it difficult for
clean, honest operators to make a living at
this game.
But if you are not any of the above, please
continue to read. We are going to go into the
basics of advertising on the InterNet. We
don't give you the final information you need.
You have to purchase this from us at $99.00 and
this is the whole purpose of this book. We
want to sell it to you. That's what we do
mainly. We're publishers of electronic
information. We have a proven track record
with making money by NOT SPENDING A DIME ON
ADVERTISING and that's obviously worth a great
deal of money to the right kind of person.
Hopefully, you're that kind of business person
who sees the wisdom of spending $99 bucks right
up front in order to save wasting thousands of
dollars and tons of even more valuable time.
CHAPTER TWO. Advertising Basics.
So, what we will give you in our book that you
have ordered and are reading the Free Portion
of is the all the information you need to be
successful and avoid the pitfalls. The really
good stuff, our contacts, our step-by-step
directions for advertising for free on the
computer networks is locked up inside PART TWO
of this book. You will need a credit card to
unlock it. You will be instructed at the end
of this Part One as to how exactly you do it,
but for now, I need to tell you more about what
it is we do and how I know what we do can make
you money too.
As I mentioned before, we are making hundreds
of dollars on our 900#, while you are reading
this book and we get to keep all of what we
make because we don't advertise. The first
thing people usually do when they get their
900# approved is they get the advertising
going. They talk to the people we've already
mentioned in Chapter One and they plan on
spending X dollars per month. Your budget
might be $100 / month or $10,000 per month or
anywhere in between.
Then, they sit back, run their ads and see if
they are making money. Most of them are very
excited at first because they get a few calls
in the first few days or weeks. But when the
end of the month comes, if you've got more
money in the account from your 900# provider
than you have committed to in advertising,
you're very very lucky. Some do make money the
first month or two because they have something
unique, but do enough people see the value of
calling the second month they see the ad?
Usually not and so the profits if any continue
to dwindle, but the cost of advertising
doesn't. And somewhere along the line, the
900# line is no longer profitable, the guy who
was very excited in the beginning is now very
disappointed and he is out pounding the streets
looking for a job, because his capital is all
gone. And the worst part of this scenario is
that it could have been completely avoided and
reversed for many of you.
What you have to do is find a gimmick you can
put out in the Computer Networks that is self-
sustaining and then, you place ads in there so
that they don't cost you anything. Now, every
phone call you get is pure profit and will
always be profit and they will continue to grow
for you. Our InterActive Yellow Pages is just
such an idea of something that makes money on
its own and the 900# part of our income is
gravy.
Now, this doesn't mean that you have to come up
with something as time-consuming as this
directory is. It's actually one of our main
sources of income but employs several people to
produce each month. You don't want to get into
the publishing or TV business, just to get more
favorable ad prices. It's not a bad idea, it
works, but may not be in the cards for most of
you.
So, what else can you do? You can find little
places on the Information Superhighway that
accept FREE ADS. That's how. I know that was
a long build-up, but you have to see the
importance of doing this and nothing else at
least in the beginning or you are courting
disaster.
What I just told you is the easy part. After
you find a list of places that take Free
Advertising on the Information Superhighway,
and our book has a whole listing of hundreds of
these. You need to take step two.. You have
to have a 900# that people will want to call.
Makes perfect logical sense doesn't it? If you
have a Free way to reach millions of people and
YOU ALSO have something they need or want, you
have to be successful, don't you? And that's
RULE NUMBER TWO.
RULE NUMBER TWO. You will only make money with
900#s if your 900 # is relatively unique and
has some information that is very hard to find
elsewhere. In other words, if you're thinking
you'll start a 900# that talks about sports,
forget it. There are already lots of other
places where a person interested in sports can
get this same information, the newspapers and
TV to be exact. Why should they pay you Ten
Bucks for what they're going to see on their TV
sets that night? That's a key issue and you
have to realize that most people are not
wasteful of their money and they will think
like this before they finish your preamble.
Oh we need to talk about the Preamble. The
phone companies who you must do business with,
either AT&T or MCI or whoever, all require
because it's also an FCC rule that you put a
preamble of 30 seconds or more that warns your
customer that they are about to spend x dollars
per minute and that the total of the call will
average x dollars and that if they wish to
avoid these charges they can hang up now. This
means that unless you have something really
good, you might get a few folks to listen to
the preamble, but you don't make a dime if they
hang up after hearing this warning which by law
you must include. If you don't include it your
service provider will. Or they will cut you
off. There is no getting around it. It's a
shame, but it's there. They don't make you
tell people buying a car that the car could run
out of control and kill the driver and his
family and that this happens to over 40,000
people per year in America, and if he wants to
avoid the risk of death by auto injury he can
cancel the sale. But they do the same thing in
effect in our industry. It might change some
day, after all the hucksters have been run out
of town or thrown in jail, but until then, it
serves a purpose.
So, if you want to make money in the 900#
business, you have to have information that
people need so badly that they will listen to
the government trying to crash your sale and
they will still go ahead and buy it anyway!
It's got to be fabulous, in other words.
Now, what kind of 900#s am I talking about?
Well, the datelines are one example of a good
900# to have because there are millions of
single people in this country looking for a
little action and the datelines provide it in a
way you can't find anywhere else. So, a large
enough portion, will ignore the government
warning and go on to listen to your message.
You get paid for each minute they hang on the
line, so the more girls you offer to the guys
or the more guys you can offer to the gals, the
more money you make. Do you see that? Try to
find a dating service as easy and convenient to
use as this in our society. There just aren't
any. Most of the ones I know of require you to
drive several miles, fill out a ton of
questionnaires, they want hundreds of dollars
and they don't even guarantee you're going to
get laid.
Picking up the phone and talking to someone who
is looking for someone like you is a great use
of the 900# concept and it usually works and
pays even with a little advertising. So, you
may think I've contradicted myself, but I
haven't because even most of these datelines
don't make enough to pay for the advertising,
but if you're very clever about not spending
your money foolishly, it can be done because
this is such a hot idea. In other words, if
you were to publish a 900# dateline in a
magazine like SINGLES NEWSLETTER that reaches
100,000 singles and they only charge say $10
per issue, you're probably going to come out
ahead on that, but if you try to advertise in
the classifieds of your local newspaper, you're
not going to make it.
And EVEN IF YOU'RE IN THE SINGLES NEWSLETTER,
how many others are already in there taking the
market share from you? You see the problem?
Wherever the good advertising opportunities are
for your 900#, chances are they are already
being over-exploited. It's the same thing that
happened to the Herring catch in the Atlantic
ocean. A few fishermen found that Herring were
easy to catch in the Atlantic ocean a few years
ago, so they went out in big boats and caught
billions of pound of them every year. Then,
the guy down the quay from them sees all these
fish and so he gets a big boat and goes out and
catches tons of Herring and so on and so on
until there were suddenly thousands of big
boats out there in the ocean trying to catch
Herring. Pretty soon, most of the Herring has
been caught and it will take years for the few
that are left to procreate enough to get back
to the numbers where it was profitable to fish
for them again. Same thing with advertising.
Once it's discovered where the fish, are the
fishermen come into your pond and take the
lion's share of the market and you're left hold
the mortgage on a big boat
FOR ALL THESE REASONS YOU WANT TO STICK TO RULE
NUMBER THREE.
ONLY ADVERTISE IN FRESH PONDS WHERE THERE'S
LOTS OF FISH.
Now, that's primarily what the Information
Superhighway is all about. It was started by
the government after World War II as a way to
get Defense contractors and research facilities
to communicate with one another and share files
and news. This expanded to a point where
private companies wanted to do the same kinds
of things and now, the Government is completely
out of it. So, advertising has become the
Number One concern of the Information
Superhighway. Everyone is trying to get into
it. How do I know? Because we do that for a
living too. We sell advertising services on
the Nets and it's very easy to sell because
there's nobody doing it right now and that
means there's very little competition for
anything.
But a 900# is perfect for this kind of
advertising for several technical reasons, I'll
tell you about in CHAPTER THREE.
CHAPTER THREE, the Technical basis of what you
need to do.
The Internet is now a very boring place where
people are setting up to do great things, like
us, but not really doing great things yet.
Why? Because the InterNet is still too
difficult to use. Being a government and
scientific tool for many decades, there was
never the intent of making it something easy
and smooth that the consumer could use. That's
all changed today.
Nowadays, everyone is talking about it because
the potential is so great. Just the fact that
you got the ad about this book on your
computer, should convince you of this fact.
It's exactly like the TELEVISION INDUSTRY IN
THE FIFTIES. Very few people could afford a TV
set and it was only Black and White pictures
and very difficult to understand and there was
only one or two Shows on a day. Nowadays most
homes have two or three sets, color, stereo
sound, another one in the kitchen for Mom, one
Big Screen in the Family room. And they spend
average of 7 hours a day in front of the
machine. The Information Superhighway will
someday replace TV as we know it because it's
interactive and not just passive entertainment
although all the passive stuff will be there
too if you want it, so that's why they talk
about 500 or even 1,000 separate channels.
This is coming. And it's coming very fast.
But today, the best way to take advantage of
all these changes is to get something like a
great 900# idea and build your business acumen
slowly with no risk, by putting out feelers in
the Internet. If you do it the way, we
suggest, you'll do fine. But there are some
things you need to know about the technical
aspects of what we're going to give you.
1. You need a computer, we already knew that
but have to state it here.
2. You have to have a modem.
3. You have to know where on the InterNet and
BBS and OnLine Service to go to get free
advertising..
4. You have to make as much of your daily
routine as automated as you can so that you
don't waste your time.
5. You have to have a great 900# that provides
information that people on the InterNet want
enough to pay for and can't find for free
already.
SO, for all these reasons, you will need to
experiment with several ideas that we have for
you in Part Two, yes, that's the part you have
to pay for, until you come up with the right
combination of things that will finally work
for you.
You then, take our list of Electronic Newstands
that will carry your vehicle and you
methodically go about uploading and downloading
files to see how you're doing. So, therefore
number 6.
6. You will spend time learning about the
computer Networks and this means that you will
have to become very familiar with your
computer, some more of the software that's out
there, etc.
7. If you're not already that good, I advise
your postponing this purchase until you or
someone in your organization is good enough
with a computer to do all these things.
Once you have all of these things, in General
here's what you do to make it all come
together.
CHAPTER FIVE - MAKING IT ALL COME TOGETHER.
You need a publication or a vehicle of some
kind to offer to people so that you're not
offering just a 900#. The reason for this is
because too many people will see your messages
on the Net as pure advertising and they don't
like this, and so they will do something to
hurt you. This is something we haven't talked
about, but there are many vindictive and sick
people on the InterNet who don't believe that
you should be allowed to make money on the
InterNet. We don't need to go into why there
are so many of these people out there, but
there are still enough of them out there to
frustrate all your efforts if you are not
clever enough to beat them at their own game.
This is how we evolved our publications. We
put out something very useful to everyone with
a computer and so the Commies can't kill us.
You want to have something like this. It all
has to do with the fact that someone is paying
for your messages to be sent. It's unclear as
to who because when you deal with the InterNet
you literally go through hundreds of different
computer networks to get to the person who
wants to read your message. This computer
message of yours takes a fraction of a second
to transmit and it therefore is costing
somebody a fraction of a second on their
computers. Most people don't bother to tell
you about all this, but I am to help you
understand why there are many people who
consider themselves to be part of the Network
Police and they will send you nasty messages,
like, "I think I'll get the FBI after you."
Now, this could scare you unless you had
knowledge that this is just a threat. There is
nothing illegal about sending messages across
the nets, but it might scare you enough into
giving up on certain things, if we hadn't told
you about it.
There is nothing legally anyone can do to you
for sending advertising over the INTERNET,
because there are no laws written about it YET.
Congress is going to be introducing some
legislation if they can ever quit arguing about
who gets the most women in bed with them, but
that's another story. They will soon have laws
into effect that may make it tighter on
advertising, but at present there are NONE.
So, you just ignore the Net Police for now, but
someday, there probably will be a set of laws
or policies and ways to block your messages on
the nets and this is why you have to learn how
to do things correctly now, so that it doesn't
put you out of business when these changes come
about.
So, you should realize next that the InterNet
is broken up into several major parts. There
are first the Bulletin Boards. There are about
50,000 of these around the country today. They
are run by big companies in support of their
products or they are run by small hobbyists who
just like to be a center of attention and have
thousands of people log onto his computer each
day. Most of these hobbyists try to make money
by selling subscriptions to their Bulletin
Boards, but most of these never make a profit
either. These people don't know how to
advertise their boards for Free either, or else
more of them would be successful too.
But there's about 30 Million people who call up
BBS'es with their modems to find new files.
And this too is growing by millions of people a
month. With the BBS'es you are dealing with
thousands of little collectors of files. So,
you approach these people with Files only.
They must also be useful so that they will put
them on their boards and as soon as they do,
their competitors come in and copy them to
their boards and this is how you get
propagation of your messages without any cost.
If you have a good message, it will travel far
and wide without any more effort from you.
2nd, there's the InterNet itself. This is like
one Huge BBS put up by the Government, which is
based on Unix and therefore very hard to learn,
but not impossible. It's getting easier to
move around in because of some people who
provide Windows Access to the InterNet and
because of other people providing cheaper and
faster modems, and dial up services.
There's about 20 Million people involved with
the INTERNET and you need to know how to send
files to the right places and how to address
the Newsgroups and mailing lists that inhabit
this portion of the Information Superhighway.
Thirdly, there is the OnLine Services like
Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy, Delphi,
and new ones on the way like the one from Apple
Computer called E-world. Soon to be followed
by another one from Microsoft. And there are
others planned from Ziff/Davis and AT&T just to
name a few. These will eventually account for
about 10% of the market or about 5 Million
people and will also continue to grow at
extraordinary rates.
They each have their own character and policies
that you need to know about, but are each very
good places to advertise. Not free, in this
case, because they each charge a monthly fee to
belong to their service, of about $10 - $15/mo.
But they are usually worth it because you're
going to get lots of your business in here.
Whenever you can reach a potential audience of
2 Million people as we do on Compuserve alone,
for only $9 mo., there is a terrific
opportunity to make money and with little risk.
If you placed an ad in a newspaper's classified
section it would cost you at least $9 and you
would only reach a small percentage of readers
who look at classifieds. For the same $9, you
can place several hundred ads or even thousands
and you are potentially reaching all 2 Million
readers. There are ways to do this, that we
teach you, again in Part II.
(Well if we gave it all away for free, it
wouldn't be worth telling you about and you
never would have found about the truth in here,
right?)
Now, some of all three groups overlap each
other. In other words, of the 2 Million people
using Compuserve, probably half at least also
use the Internet, and/or the BBS system and
can't be counted twice, but it's easy to say
that there are at least 50 Million people
around the world connected to either one or the
other kind of phone service. How do I know,
because they sell 50 Million computers per year
and at least ten percent of them are including
modems, so 5 Million computers over ten years
is 50 Million and it's growing at such a rate
today that the next 50 Million people will be
online within a few months! It's all true.
SO, no matter who's numbers you want to
believe, there are enough people involved in
the Info Superhighway that you should be able
to make money. It's certainly bigger than the
New York Times and the LA Times circulation of
about 10 Million and it's certainly growing at
ten times the rate of growth of any print
publication, so there's your starting point.
By the time you really get going, there will be
more potential than you or I or anyone can
handle.
CHAPTER SIX. BASIC 900# CONCEPTS
Now, let's talk some more about the kinds of
900#s that you should be looking for.
No, I don't think I will because that's the
kind of information that I'm trying to get you
to buy. So, we will discuss with you in Part
II how to think of a 900# concept that most
people, when they see it will want to jump all
over. We've already given you two examples.
One is our National People's Poll and the
second is a Dateline. But you need a Dateline
that has thousands of members already, and
these do exist and they are national so you
just plug into one of these.
The basic rule is that YOUR 900# HAS TO HAVE
INFORMATION OR ENTERTAINMENT THAT THE USER
CANNOT GET ANYWHERE ELSE. Now, whether you
know it or not, this is a pretty tall order and
almost impossible when you think of all the
tens of thousands perhaps millions of
publishers of information in this world.
Almost anything is covered by some publication.
Even if you believe in UFO's and want to know
more about them, there are probably 100's of
UFO newsletters, books, magazines, etc. in
existence today. So, what do you do to find an
original information idea?
You don't. There are no completely original
ideas. We got the idea for our National
People's Poll because Prodigy has a poll and
even some TV stations have polls, so we knew
that there was a demand for them and that
people liked to take them. But here's the key.
If you wanted to be in a poll, where would you
go? You can't go to the local neighborhood
polling place and ask them to take your ideas.
They simply don't exist. There aren't very
many books or magazines about them either. But
there are from time to time polls about Gun
Control or the Clinton Health Plan or Sex polls
that you see published in magazines or on TV,
but to look for one most people wouldn't do it.
But if one is thrust in your face and you have
nothing better to do, like a crossword puzzle,
you might doodle around with it.
So, that's how we pick `em. If there aren't
lots and lots of ways to get the same
information, don't do it. You'll lose your
time and money you could have spent developing
a real winner. If there are examples of the
information so it's not completely new and you
can see that people are interested in them,
like the NBC polls we saw, gathered about
20,000 callers in one night, then, you know
that people will call.
If you have a talent or skill start there.
What do you know that most other people don't.
Even if you're a plumber by trade, you know
something about plumbing and most people don't.
Put that information into the National
Plumber's Hotline. Maybe you have a supplier
who will give you a great deal of Duck Tape you
can sell anyone who calls? For as many of you
who read this book, there are good ideas that
have been tapped and that can work. You have
to put your head to work on that one and we
give you more guidance on this in PART II.
CHAPTER SIX. - WHERE DO I GET MY 900#?
Now, we're getting down to the nitty gritty.
There are thousands of services that provide
you with a 900#. But there are only a few you
want to deal with. Here are the basic things
to know. You have to deal with AT&T as the
underlying service. MCI and all others do not
give the service you need. AT & T, is more
difficult to deal with in getting setup and
more expensive, but they report all the income
and that's the most important part. And they
pay an honest check. The others may or may not
depending on who you deal with in the middle.
Don't call AT&T or MCI, they all go through
brokers.
Now, here's where we save you MUCH MORE THAN
THE COST OF THIS REPORT ALONE. If we haven't
save you $99 bucks already, if we don't save
you $99 bucks in the rest of our secrets of
Advertising for Free, this one area will indeed
do that for you. There are only a handful of
brokers who you want to deal with who are
honest and really do a good job in setting you
up and will pay you what you're due. We give
you the list of six who we think are the best
and then you pick the one more suited to your
needs. But of these six, they are ones that we
know are the least expensive and which give you
a great service. This will save you hundreds
of hours of research and thousands of dollars
if you picked the wrong ones.
Now, you must know too that there are two kinds
of 900#s today. There are the automated kind
that you buy for a couple hundred bucks and
they are datelines or sports lines or psychic
or jokes, or whatever. The point is you can
tell what these will do for you because they
are NOT INTERACTIVE. That means they are not
able to take information from the user. They
won't take their voice input and/or they won't
take their input by telephone keypad. They
usually last for five minutes and have a set
fee of about $10 0r $20. You don't want to
participate in these because they are of very
limited value to the user and there will be
millions of them out there if there aren't
already. So, the competition for this kind of
service is fierce. You also have a problem in
collecting what little money you make from the
providers of these numbers because most of them
are dishonest or incompetent.
Another problem is that this kind of number
usually has an EXTENSION after it. In other
words you might have to call 900-999-9999 and
EXT 101. These are the numbers to avoid. We
give you this amount of information for free
and it alone may have already saved you in
thousands of dollars in time and money. They
don't work and if they do, you get cheated
because the provider has this one 900# and he's
farmed it out to 101 other people. He has to
have very expensive equipment to tell where and
when to pay the owner of EXT 101 and he might
even sell this EXT to many people. Then, he
arbitrarily divides up the income that you
produce in that EXTension.
RULE NUMBER FOUR. - NEVER, NEVER BUY A 900#
WITH AN EXTENSION. YOU'RE JUST KIDDING
YOURSELF.
So, let's summarize. You want a 900# that is
completely your own. You want to deal with a
provider who in turn deals with AT&T, not MCI
or anyone else. They are not good enough for
our purposes. You want an IDEA for INFORMATION
that is not provided as easily as the local
phone book or TV news. FINALLY, you want your
900# to be INTERACTIVE.
RULE NUMBER FIVE - YOU WANT AN INTERACTIVE
NUMBER.
This means a number in which the user can key
in some information for you either with the
keypad, his voice, or both.
Now, why do you want him to do that? For
several reasons. If a provider can give you an
InterActive Account separates him from all the
others who try to sell you pre-recorded, pre-
packaged or automated 900#s. Don't fall for
this junk. It's like trying to make money with
baseball cards. They already have a publisher
of baseball cards and all the kids know where
to buy them and the manufacturers name and
everything else they need to buy baseball
cards. They don't need yours. That need is
filled. That niche is taken. So for you to
compete would take millions of dollars in
advertising just to get your first sale. And
after that it would still be a struggle.
Now, if you had baseball cards with pre-
recorded messages from each player on the card,
you would have something very different, and
you wouldn't have to do much but get your cards
into enough hands and let word of mouth take
over. Soon, all the kids on the block would
have to have the new cards where the players
give them batting tips or fielding tips or just
talk about why they spit so much. Something
different is the answer, but not too different.
If you had spacemen who talked on the cards, it
might not work, because space people are not
baseball heroes. Know what I mean?
You can be very different with an INTERACTIVE
900#. You can ask the user to listen to a
recipe for Fat Free Cheesecake, as an example,
then, you ask them to key in on their keypad
how old they are. Or their cholesterol count
or their weight. Then, you lead them to
another message about Fat Free doughnuts as
well. By getting them interactively
participating with your number, you'll make
more money and you'll last a lot longer,
because you'll learn enough about your users to
give them what they want better and better.
So, the best interactive number is like our
poll because we can ask the caller information
about his or her family and his or her likes
and dislikes on many subjects, then, after a
while we have a magnificent mailing list of
thousands of people who all like Cheese Cake.
So, we can send them a mailer someday that is a
special offer on Cheese Cake, whatever we find
out is marketable information. Or we could
start a new 900# that just concentrates on Fat
Free Recipes. You see how it goes? An
InterActive Number is a long term relationship
with your customers and this is the time-tested
and proven way to market any product. Find out
what your customers want and give it to them.
This formula can make you wealthy. And it
applies to all forms of business, not just
900#s, that's how you know it works.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
If you've read all of the above and you still
want to get a 900# going for you and your
family, you need to buy Part II of this book.
To do so now, just call 1-800-SOFTLOCK. Then
be prepared to give them the SOFTLOCK ID you
will find at your DOS prompt when you type
SOFTLOCK. And the product Number. Then, you
will receive a password. Type in this PASSWORD
and Part II of this book will de-code for you
and you may read the rest.
IN PART TWO - WE GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED
1. You will receive the phone number of the
best 900# service providers who can get you
started with an INTERACTIVE 900# FOR the same
as you'd pay for a pre-recorded Non-Interactive
900#.
2. You will receive the list of all our
electronic Newsstands where you must upload a
file to advertise your 900#. Complete
instructions on how to do this.
3. We will give you examples of files that we
use and how we use them. All you have to do is
change the subject to fit your 900# and upload
them the same way we do.
4. We will give you ideas about what we think
would make good 900#s and how to brainstorm for
better ones.
5. We will show you how to use the Internet to
find out what it is that people will pay for.
6. We will give you everything you need to
learn how to use the Information Superhighway
so that you never have to pay for an ad for
your 900#.
What we've told you so far, probably has saved
you more than the cost of this book already.
We do it as a public service and we have
written this First Part, so that if you're not
a 900# type provider, you won't waste your time
and energy on this. If you are serious,
however, we urge you to go on and call the
SOFTLOCK NUMBER TO UNLOCK THE REST OF THIS
REPORT. If you do and if you are serious and
have the time and patience to put into this, it
could mean financial independence for you and
your family. You can make thousands and
thousands of dollars every month, whether you
do anything or not, but simply doing what we
told you to do in Part One and with the tools
we provide for you in Part Two.
THE UPLOADING of files to the Information
Superhighway, is not guaranteed to make you
successful, either. They are a way that we
have used to be successful, but this doesn't
necessarily mean that you will be successful.
It takes a lot of work and creativity to put it
all together. You have to really enjoy working
with computers and finding out what's new every
day. Because the new things that come out will
help you do your job more efficiently.
But just know one thing. If you do everything
we tell you to do and if you have a great idea
for a 900#, it will work and you will make a
small fortune and with less effort than any
other kind of business. When it works it's
just like having a money tree. The money just
falls in out of the sky. It's so thrilling to
get your monthly statement from your service
provider and instead of being a bill, it's a
check for hundreds or even tens of thousands of
dollars, every month!
END OF PART ONE
What you have found is Part One
of the complete manual on how to make money with 900#s
and the Internet.
You can get Part Two by calling 800-664-9042 and have
your credit card number ready to buy the final version at
$49.95
Or you can send a check payable to Lighthouse Productions
for $49.95 to
Lighthouse Productions
P.O. Box 7885 Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Thanks and Good Luck.
The Publishers.
