Everyone dreams of owning a super business that generates money, where other people do all the work and their only duties are sales approval and bank deposit slips. It’s the only way to go as a business owner.

However, the problem is that not many people seem to know how to “put together” such a business. What you’re really talking about is an operation where you supply the product and someone else does the selling: a primary source with a network of distributors or distributors.

Assuming you have the product, you’ll also need a sales kit and plenty of eye-catching, impressive promotional materials. If you don’t provide or offer to provide materials with which your sales force can sell the product, you’ll have a hard time recruiting people to sell for you, and you probably won’t set any sales records for your product either. .

Let’s say you just wrote a book: HOW TO MAKE $100,000 A YEAR AT HOME, WITH YOUR COMPUTER… Well, to sell this book, you need to get the word out to people that you have such a book available. Advertising on your own will cost you money, and unless you have a good understanding of the advertising business, you may never reach your full sales potential; Plus, the time and effort spent finding the “right” place to advertise, placing your ads, tracking your returns, and the frustrations of dealing with curio seekers will wear you out fast. That’s not the way you envisioned your life when you got the idea to write the book, get rich, and enjoy a life of leisure.

So, as soon as you’ve written your book (the book is your product), send out some “offers” to your area ad agencies, freelancers, and the advertising department at your local universities. What you want these people to do is create a publicity circular that promotes and sells your book. Now, in a different type, perhaps smaller, and something of an afterthought, at the end of this circular, you include the phrase: Dealer Inquiries Invited…

Review all the circulars sent and choose the one(s) that you consider best. then print a supply of these at your local print shop, get a mailing list of opportunity seekers, and have them delivered in the mail.

As soon as you have mailed these first circulars, start writing your dealer/distributor letter. This should simply be an explanation outlining how you will ship your customers’ orders, allowing them a certain commission on each sale, and the price per copy that will sell your book to them in wholesale quantity lots. At the same time, this letter must include a copy of your advertising circular and an explanation, assuring these distributors that they can reproduce this circular with their name/address instead of yours on the order coupon. You can even include a short note that you will preprint these circulars with the dealer’s name/address and send it to them for a wholesale printing price. What this all boils down to is you supplying them with whatever it takes to promote and sell copies of their book for you. The bottom line is simply that you can only reach so many people and sell so many books yourself. With 1,000 people helping you, mailing out marketing circulars and placing small ads in hundreds of job seekers’ publications, your costs of running your business will be minimal while your book sales will skyrocket.

Remember, though, that you need a bold, eye-catching advertising circular or mailer package for your sales force to use as their own, and you need clear, easy-to-understand books in wholesale quantity lots, and the availability of materials. advertising for your distributors

Your marketing circular should serve a dual purpose: you send it out to solicit sales of your product, and at the same time recruit distributors who are impressed with your marketing materials and feel they can make some money promoting your product. Again, this doesn’t need to be much more than a simple “throw away” line at the bottom of the circular: Dealer Inquiries Invited…

Now that you’re set up so far, the next thing to do is hire to run as many DEALERS WANTED small ads in as many mail order publications as possible. Such ads can be classified ads or small, but eye-catching, one-inch ads:

DEALERS WANTED! Excellent new book. It sells like wildfire! Everyone wants a copy! Earn $10 profit on every $15 sale! Details for SASE to:

Basically, that’s all your “distributors wanted” ad needs to say, and then, with lots of exposure in every mail order publication over a six to eight month period, you should have hundreds of people across the country. selling your book for you. Simple, easy, almost cut and dry, but it works!

Building my own business from the ground up over the last 10 years, I’ve found that once you’ve established a basic network of dealers/distributors, or a list of people who sell for you, you can add hundreds of related products and the orders just keep coming in. Give it a try and see for yourself how easy and profitable it can be for you!

Copyright 2004 by DeAnna Spencer