Page 240 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

of the distinctive qualities of the product in your sales literature.

distinCtive ConfeCtions:

A young couple in New Mexico made considerable money selling “cactus
candies” by mail. A wide-awake advertising man in San Francisco, who
knew his way around the Chinese quarter of the city, built up a tidy business
on rice candies, which he had made by the Chinese. A retired printing
salesman in Florida took several hundred dollars out of the North every year
selling candied citrus peel in glassine packages. In each of these instances the
undertaking succeeded largely because the idea of having candy that was
“different” appealed to certain types of people. Here again success depends
upon the mailing list. Only a few out of every hundred people are prospects
for mail-order candies. But once a list of buyers has been built up, a steady
income is assured.

indian reLishes:

It is also possible to make money by importing food delicacies from abroad
and selling them by mail. In this case the secret of success is finding things
which cannot be bought in food stores. An enterprising Englishman, who
once lived in India, made a lot of money and established what is now a
profitable business, by arranging with a manufacturer in Bombay, India, to
ship him on consignment curries, relishes, and similar delicacies. He prepared
an attractive catalog, illustrated to give it an East Indian atmosphere, which
featured these novelties and explained how they were used in India. The
appeal here was to natural human curiosity. People like to try things which
they have never tasted, just so they can say they have tasted them. The
catalog was advertised in magazines going to wealthy people, and from those
inquiries he built up a good list of customers. By constantly changing his line,
and adding food specialties from other countries, he got the needed volume of
repeat business to make the undertaking profitable.

Making Your Letters Pull

There are few factors more important in building a mail-order business than
the ability to write business-getting, good-will-building letters. Fortunately