Joseph Sugarman had a major impact on direct marketing & received the highest honors in this field. Having created many businesses in his successful 25-year career, Sugarman has been credited with introducing everything from toll-free order taking to the new wave of consumer electronics. MARKETING SECRETS OF A MAIL ORDER MAVERICK is a compilation of many of the techniques he created & the results he experienced while selling thousands of different products to millions of people. Lessons include how to find a winning product, secrets for a successful layout, how to avoid typefaces that hurt response, how to buy media for less, testing a product's potential & hundreds of other insights that will guide the reader to understanding what works & what doesn't. The lessons are alternated with entertaining & enlightening marketing stories from Sugarman's vast personal experience. Sugarman's insights will be helpful to anybody in business - from the advertising director of a large corporation to the individual starting his or her own business. Cover quotes from Vice President Albert Gore, Jack Canfield, & national magazines.

Recounts the story of one of America's greatest mail-order geniuses, and points out by his example the most valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs. Included here are detailed explanations of his famous success stories, such as the placement of a –44.00 ad in the Wall Street Journal that turned into a –15-million-a-year business and his artificial diamonds direct-mail campaign. Describes the 12 ``hats'' of direct marketing, how to pick products that will sell, and psychological and motivational aspects of the direct mail buyer.

Offers advice on starting a direct marketing campaign, including tips on doubling response rates, writing creative copy, and evaluating mailing lists.

Tom Peters says, Jon Spoelstra knows his stuff. Pat Williams, founder of Orlando Magic says, I consider Jon the top marketer in the world. The Wall Street Journal says, Mr. Spoelstra is one of those guys who thinks 'out of the box'. In this revised edition, Jon provides a real-world game plan for increasing your top line with marketing and promotion ideas that break through the clutter and get your customer's attention. His 17 Ground Rules—tested and proven—in sports and business, show how to differentiate yourself from your competitors. The focus is on measurable results that impact your bottom line—without big marketing and advertising budgets. Going beyond marketing theory his approach encourages you to push the outrageous envelope to gain immediate sales. Not just for sales and marketing folks —this book is for anyone who influences the course and attitude of your company.

With more than 60,000 copies sold, this amazing manual has become aclassic in its field--and rightfully so. Nowhere else will youfind--in one book--so much valuable information on achievingsuccess in the mail order business. Dr. Bill Cohen has drawn on hisdecades of experience testing, researching, and constantly refiningthe mail order techniques described in this invaluable guide.Building a Mail Order Business offers a virtual treasury oftechniques and methods guaranteed to work in the real world ofselling through the mail. You'll get practical advice and learntricks of the trade that will get you started quickly, with thefewest missteps and greatest chances for success. Thorough and completely up-to-date, this authoritative guide coversevery aspect of the mail order business, from the basics of gettingstarted to the details of product selection, preparing a marketingplan, copywriting, designing graphics, printing, protectingyourself from competition, telemarketing, and advertising throughmagazines, radio, and television. In addition, a handy appendixlists hundreds of valuable contacts with complete addresses. In this new Fourth Edition, you'll learn the latest trends in mailorder--what works and what doesn't, the most effective look in adsand mailing pieces, how to put together the most attractive offers,and much more. For entrepreneurs, direct marketers, business owners, and otherseager to get into the mail order business, Building a Mail Order Business has proven itself to be anindispensable resource for the ideas, techniques, and expert advicethat will lead to success. All the success secrets of one of America's best-known and mostrespected experts on mail order and direct marketing--Now in a newedition! BUILDING A MAIL ORDER BUSINESS Fourth Edition Complete, authoritative, and now in a new edition, thisbest-selling guide to mail order success covers everything fromgetting your business started to handling legal issues, preparingcopy and graphics, selecting mailing lists, telemarketing, andadvertising in all types of media--an unbeatable source of directmarketing ideas that really work. Here's what the pros have said about previous editions of BillCohen's Building a Mail Order Business: "Dr. Bill Cohen's book thoroughly explores the many facets, andpitfalls, facing the budding mail order entrepreneur."-- Henry R."Pete" Hoke, Jr., Publisher, Direct Marketing "It took a mail order businessman who is also an educator to putdirect mail and mail order guidelines all in one place--and inlanguage we can all understand."--Freeman F. Gosden, Jr.,President, Smith-Hemmings-Gosden, one of the nation's largestdirect marketing advertising agencies "An outstanding primer for our industry. It gives you the nuts andbolts necessary to carry you through almost every aspect of mailorder from the very rudimentary basics to the same techniques usedby the pros."-- Joe Sugarman, JS&A "One of the best books I've ever read on the subject. Ienthusiastically recommend Building a Mail Order Business to anyman or woman who is serious about getting involved in thisfascinating activity."-- E. Joseph Cossman, President, CossmanInternational, Inc., author of How I Made a Million Dollars in MailOrder "An excellent, informative, comprehensive, illustrative workbookthat will help anyone get started making money in the fascinatingfield of mail order. I highly recommend this professional book."--Melvin Powers, mail order entrepreneur "...must reading for the entrepreneur whose mind is on mailorder."-- Paul Muchnick, Chairman, National Mail OrderAssociation "Its good sense and nuts-and-bolts, bottom-line approach make it adelightful guide through the mail order world."-- DM News

Why work for someone else when you can call your own shots, pursue your dreams, and find success on your terms by starting your own business? So many people end up bored with their jobs, stuck in the corporate grind, never following their true passions. As wildly successful young entrepreneur Cameron Johnson shows, you don't have to live that way. We've entered a new age of entrepreneurship, with the Web making it easier than ever to start and run your own company. As Johnson's remarkable story reveals, the entrepreneurial way of life is a great way to make sure you love what you do -- and it offers the potential to achieve extraordinary success by following your gut instincts and going for what you really want. What about the risks? Don't you need lots of money? Don't most start-ups fail? Johnson shares his essential secrets to entrepreneurial success that show you how he got into the life at very low risk, and, with very little money, took an idea that excited him and ran with it, achieving great success and satisfaction with businesses he loved. He didn't have an MBA; he didn't even have a college degree. But he had learned the simple yet vital secrets he reveals. Cameron Johnson is a seriously happy entrepreneur who started his first business when he was nine with $50 and a home computer. Before he'd turned twenty-one he'd started twelve successful businesses and was offered $10 million in venture capital to grow his hot Web company CertificateSwap.com -- praised by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the Web businesses helping the tech industry get its groove back -- even bigger. He has never taken out a loan or racked up any debt, and every one of his businesses has been highly profitable -- so profitable that he made his first million before graduating from high school, and he's put away enough cash so that he could retire today. But that's the last thing on earth he'd want to do; he's much too happy starting up new companies. Through the story of his own impressive career so far, in You Call the Shots, Johnson takes you behind the scenes of entrepreneurial success and empowers you to hit the ground running with your own great business idea, no matter how young you are or how little money you have to invest.