Boron - Chapter 08

Therefore, truth, my good son, can be determined NOT by how people use their mouth but rather how they use their wallet.

I want to burn this message into your mind. Be skeptical of what people say. Be skeptical of surveys. Of questionnaires. Instead, believe in numbers. For example, if everybody you talk with says they like plays more than movies and yet the numbers say that 10,000 times more people buy movie tickets then you believe the numbers!

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck - guess what? It's probably a duck!

So keep reading the "SRDS" book. Keep looking at hot mail order publications and repeat mail order ads. Get yourself on as many mail order lists as possible. (Get a P.O. Box.) Watch the offers you receive. Anything you are going to buy anyway, and you can purchase by mail - do so.

Keep your finger on the pulse of the industry. Stay aware. Keep awake to the possibilities of overlooked marketing opportunities. After a while you will develop a sixth sense.

Here's a true story that illustrates what I am trying to get across. It has long been my belief that a lot of money can be made by making offers to people who are at an emotional turning point in their lives. For example, when they have just had a baby, just gotten married, just lost a loved one, just gotten a raise, just filed bankruptcy, just purchased a new car, and so on.

Well, guess what? For a long time I have been wishing there was a way to get a list of pregnant women. Now there is! While looking through the "SRDS" I discovered that now you can rent 120,000 new names of pregnant mothers every month. Oh boy! Well, I got myself a hold of an M.D. who is very skilled in research in the areas of human and animal intelligence and I have commissioned him to write a report titled "How To Raise Your Child's IQ Before It Is Even Born!"

This is exciting. Let's talk numbers. I plan to sell the report for $19.95 + $2.75 postage and handling. (Total $22.70) My fulfillment costs will probably be (including the 10% I pay the doctor) about $5.00. This means that every sale will yield a $15.00 contribution to overhead. Now, let's assume I'll get a 5% response. This means, of course that out of every 1,000 letters I mail I will be receiving a total of 50 orders at $22.70 or a total gross income of $1,135.00. Now let's deduct $5.00 per order for fulfillment (which is $5.00 x 50 orders or $250) from this $1,135.00 and, as you can see we will have $885.00 left. Now, of course, we must also deduct the cost of the mailing. I figure it will cost (including list rental) about $400 per M (thousand) to mail a promotion like this. Thus, when we deduct this $400 from the $885.00 we have left to play with, you will see that we have a profit of $485.00 for every thousand letters mailed.