Selling products and/or services through the mail is one of the fastest growing methods of doing business in the world today. It's estimated that sales for 1991 will top the 100 billion dollar mark!

Millions of people from all walks of life, and in all parts of the world are "into" mail order, with more coming in every day. Some of them are grossing in the millions, others are chalking up sales figures of several hundred per month, and there are others who only give it a quick try, make a few dollars and drop out.

Mail order selling appeals to almost everybody with a desire to get rich. Generally, it doesn't require complicated equipment, a lot of start-up capital, or an expensive office. Mail order is a kind of business that can be run by anyone from the comfort of his or her own home.

About all that's required for success in mail order selling is an understanding of what you're doing - it's not a game or a kind of thing you want to just give a quick try. It's a way of doing business, and requires a good understanding of what people buy, why the buy, and an operational plan that will lead you to success.

In order to make it big in mail order, you must understand that it's a selling business. Thus, you've got to decide on what you want to sell - who your buyers will be - and know why they buy and the, program your selling efforts in such a way that these people will buy from you.

The best, and the easiest selling product or service - because it has the greatest appeal to the most number of people - is information that gives people knowledge or instructions that will enable then to get rich. The bottom line is simply that everybody in the world wants to know how they can get rich - without putting forth too much of an investment in either money, time or effort.

So, the first thing that you should do is some marketing research: Look in all the publications running mail order advertisements and opportunities - get a good understanding of why they are doing - how they are doing ti - and then formulate a business plan of your own that will allow you to duplicate what they're doing.

With get rich information or instructions - and knowing that to make the really big money you have to be the author or a prime distributor - there are two ways to go. You can become the author with all the involved headaches and demands upon your time, or you can buy the reproduction rights and re-sell or distribute them as your own.

As the author, you'll have to do the research, the writing, the printing, advertising, and order fulfillment.

As a prime source distributor, you can pay a one-time fee for the reproduction rights - then spend your time and money on selling efforts. You still have to handle the printing, the advertising, and order fulfillments - but you have the advantage of -choosing and picking" only what you feel will make money for you. With most writers, only about 10% of what they spend hours, weeks, even months researching and writing, ever sells for them. Writers are just not geared to the profitable marketing or their materials.

Your initial marketing research should give you a good idea of what is selling - what the people are buying - and which titles of any particular author you want to promote, and sell for your own profits.

The next thing is to look through all the publications you can find that carry mail order ads - those that run issue after issue (but not those run as fillers by the publisher) are usually the ones that are making money for the people selling them (or you can bet they wouldn't keep running them)!

Decide which kind of program you want to run, and how you want to make money. The best ad to run is one that offers a free report relative to a money making plan. Your ad might read: FREE REPORT! Insider's Secrets To Your Own Million Dollar Multi-Level Empire. Send SASE to (your name and address).

In reply to each of the responses you get to this ad, you send them a one page report that briefly explains your multi-level secrets, with an invitation at the bottom for those really interested in multi-level marketing, to send in another $15 or $20 for your complete multi-level marketing "how-to" manual. You can then fill up their SASE with other offers, such as the availability of mailing lists for rent, a multi-level program of your own, and a listing of other business success reports you're offering.

At the same time, you compile the names and addresses of all the people sending for either your free report of their own materials, and you have the beginnings of a mailing list of your own that you can rent out over and over again at huge profits to yourself. Clip the stamps off the envelopes as you receive them, and save them in an old shoe box. When you have a box full, you can sell them to any number of stamp collectors, and pocket an easy $10 or $15.

Save all the envelopes with return address, and when you've accumulated a thousand or two of these, you can send them in to list compilers and pocket another $50 to $100.

The other way of advertising is the offering of your report or book for sale from the ad. Such an ad would read about like this: Insider's Secrets To Your Own Million Dollar Multi-Level Empire. Dynamic new report shows the easy way. Send $3 to (your name address).

It's very difficult to sell anything directly from a classified ad because there just isn't space enough in which to do a complete job of selling. Thus, if you do try to sell from a classified ad, be sure to keep your selling price under $5.

A $3 item should pull well with a classified ad - A $5 item will take a least a one inch display ad - A $20 item will take a well written full page ad, and anything more than $40 will require a professionally written sales letter.

When you're just getting started in mail order selling, stick to small classified ads - test the pulling power of your ad, and your product, as well as the publication you ad runs in.

Analyze and practice rewriting some of the ads other people are running - experiment, and run a few ads in only one or two publications - and then build upon your success. In other words, if your first ad costs you $30, and you take in $90 - take that $90 and run the same ad again, not only in the same publication, but in a couple of other publications as well. Use your profits to expand the exposure of your offer - let as many people as possible see it.

It's important to note that you cannot expect to "live off" the income from your beginning business efforts. You have to have "other" money to pay your lights, water, and gas bills.

Mail order success is built upon the wise investment of your advertising dollars. Take $100 and run a classified ad for your reports in one of the big national publications. Figuring that from that first $100, you take in $300, run the same ad again in that publication, and at the same time in two other publications. Thus, your real profits should triple - and if you keep on reinvesting your profits in additional advertising exposure - conceivably within six months or less you should be hauling in several thousand dollars per month in profits.

Note: This article was written to assist online readers. You are invited to use it in your publication or web site. The only requirement is the inclusion of the following resource  at the end of the article...