Page 256 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

J.

W. ROBERTS and Son sells its entire production of fine Havana cigars
direct to the smoker by mail and has been selling them this way for over 30
years. The firm, of course, depends upon a carefully compiled mailing list to
secure the right type of customer. This mailing list is made up from
thousands and thousands of rated names every year. New mailing lists are
continually purchased but rated names alone can be used as the company
wants only names to which it can make shipments on open accounts. Many of
the standing-order customers have been on the books for twenty years and a
list of their names reads like pages from Who’s Who.

Experience has proved that it pays to test a mailing list three times before
sending out a mailing to the entire list. In no other way can the probable
returns of a list be estimated; and in no other way can expenses be kept down
to the point where mail selling is profitable. Test mailings on lists are made
as quickly as possible, for if any appreciable time elapses between the test
and the actual mailing entirely different results would be obtained. The men,
whose rated names compose the lists, receive personal letters from J. W.
Roberts and Son by first-class mail, offering to send them, strictly on open
account (no cash and no C.O.D.) a box of Havana cigars. The smoker is
invited to smoke ten or more free. He is billed in the usual manner if he is
pleased with the quality and the price and indicates that he wants to keep the
box.

Given a quality product, one which many people use, a product not too costly
to ship, simple sincere sales letters, and a “quality” mailing list, and you have
an excellent set-up for a fine mail-order business. That it can be done has
been proved by this 30-year-old business, still going strong.

chapter ten
SELLING YOUR SERVICES
T

HE first thing to do is to take an inventory of yourself. What do you like to