TEN GREAT WAYS TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY continued...

LIST SELLING

This is one big business proposition that requires an absolute minimum of capital but nevertheless offers extremely high rewards in the process. 'It's not what you know that counts, it's who you know' or so they say. In the business world this is undoubtedly true. Some firms survive very nicely from dealings only with 'passing trade', or with customers drawn as a result of effective local advertising campaigns. Many firms though, and primarily those with no obvious premises for attracting the customer, depend heavily upon postal contacts to sustain an adequate level of trade. In this category we find mail order traders and those dealing in specialised products for particular sections of the public. There are also those firms for whom business premises might by wholly unnecessary, perhaps because they operate in short-term undertakings, as would be the case for someone seeking to rent out sale and promotion spaces at once-off exhibition. What these businesses need above all else are lists - lists of potential customers who might otherwise remain unaware of their existence. Having acquired this list of potential customers they themselves contact the firms and individuals concerned, in contrast to normal business procedures where it is usually the customer who arranges to approach the seller or service industry of his choice.

For firms requiring these contacts, the task of compiling lists for themselves would no doubt be so arduous and time-consuming a task as to leave little or no time for normal business obligations. The specialist list supplier therefore collects or co-ordinates all of the necessary information, and either sells his list outright, or hires the addresses out for once-off use only.

But it's not just potential business customers who can be contacted by means of a suitable list.

Addresses can be similarly provided for:

• Private individuals requiring set services and products
• Specific businesses eg. undertakers, grocers, hotels Schools
• Persons involved in particular sports or hobbies.
• Craftspeople
• Those of a particular profession

I have seen recently the offer to sell or rent lists of persons who take an active interest in consumer competitions, those who collect ephemera and books, stamp collectors, even those interested in being placed in contact with pen pals. The person involved in the Mailing List Business can compile lists from scratch, (a time consuming exercise), or else he or se can act as the middleman or woman for other people's lists, renting the list in at one price and subsequently renting it out at another, obviously higher price. The middle man or broker often buys or rents many very large lists, then splits them for hiring or sale to firms who would not be able to afford, or would simply not be interested in the larger list. Ideally the names and addresses are offered on self-adhesive labels to facilitate easier usage by the ultimate user, and also to lessen the temptation to use a rented list more than once, thereby breaking the conditions upon which it is rented.

Lists should be kept 'clean', that is, free of people no longer living at the stated address, or perhaps no longer an interested member of that group the list represents. This can be done by making frequent mailings yourself, or else by analysing the results of someone else using the list, and removing from the list all letters returned as 'gone away' or whatever. Prices vary greatly for these lists and it is not unusual to sell or rent the same list several times each year at a price ranging from œ25 - œ125 or more each time. Very nice!