In the last few letters I sent I told you about my ‘real’ secret to success.

My last one ended with:

“And to tell the truth… you don’t even have to be that good to make sales and make lots of money…”

And…

“Even if your marketing and sales messages stink, you can still make a ton of money if you do just ONE thing… ONE thing that 99% of all business owners NEVER do, or if they do it, they do NOT do it correctly.”

Let me give you a bit of background here because I think you may not understand the full implications of what I will reveal to you without it.

First, when I was getting started in business I tried just about anything (legal) to make money.

Several years ago I tried selling some audio tapes from a famous audio program publisher. The programs were great! I loved them. I was able to get them wholesale if I purchased them in lots of 3 or more and of course, supply them with a valid New York State Resale Certificate.

I put together a catalog and sent them to 500 business professionals in my area.

What happened?

Nothing.

Not a single call. Not a single sale.

Ok… “no problem”, I said, “I’ll try something else”.

I was traveling near New York City and stopped in a little crafts store.

The store had these really cute wooden Alligator toys that had wheels and were on the end of a stick that you could use to ‘walk’ your Alligator.

I thought that was a really cute toy and it was really fun ‘walking’ your Alligator around the store.

I bought one.

I took it home and thought about it for a while and decided to copy the ‘idea’ … but instead of an alligator I made ‘ducks’… they had little ‘flaps’ on the wheels were the feet should be and when you ‘walked’ them they waddled just like a real duck!

I took them to a little crafts and gift store in my area and showed them to the owner.

He loved them!

He placed an order for 50 that same day and he said, if they did well, he would order more. I told him that I appreciated his order and that I would be back in one week with his ducks.

I was thrilled! Wow… an order for 50, my first day!

I was so excited I didn’t go to another store- I went home and, after the excitement had dissipated, I thought about it for a minute and realized how long it would take me to make 50 of these ‘walking’ ducks!

How would I EVER fill this order for 50 ducks in a week!

It took me the better part of a day just to make one!

Now I was only 18 or 19 at the time and quickly went to the only person I knew who was in the least bit handy - my father.

I said, “Dad, the good news is I sold 50 of these! The bad news is - how am I going to make 50 in a week? It took me all day just to make one!”

He thought about it for a while and said, “Well, the first thing you need to do is make ‘templates’ for all the components that make up one ‘duck’. Then, instead of cutting one part at a time, cut 50.”.

Made sense to me… I made the templates, cut out 50 pieces of each part at one time instead of one at a time, and I got the entire order completed on time!

I delivered the ducks to the store and when the store owner saw them he was very happy! As I was unloading them (out of my car) he had sold 2 of them to people in his shop before I finished setting them up!

He came over to talk to me and said, “Listen, I have a store in Cape Cod too. I’d like to place and order for 100. How soon can you get them to me?”

Now that I had a ’system’ in place for making them I said, “One week”. He paid me for the 50 ducks I delivered that day and gave me a 50% ‘deposit’ on the 100 to be delivered in one week.

Man! I made some real money in business! This was great!

I went home excited again… but then it occurred to me, “If it took me a week to do 50, even with my system, how will I possibly make 100?”

Again, I went to my father for advice. He thought about it for a while and said, “I was at this workshop where they employ handicapped people the other day. They had a shop where they have wood-working tools and maybe they could cut the pieces you need in their shop, then all you would have to do is finish them.”

Wow…what a great idea!

I went to the shop and asked if they did any outside ‘contract’ work. They did!

I showed the shop foreman my ‘templates’ and gave him the dimensions of the pieces and he said “no problem”. He quoted me a price and it was very reasonable so I gave him the order.

Within 2 days he delivered all the pieces I needed to assemble 100 complete ducks!

Within 7 days I delivered all 100 ducks to the store.

Again, the owner was thrilled and paid me the balance of the order on the spot.

He said he already sent 30 or so ducks he had from last weeks order down to his Cape Cod store and they sold out within 2 days!

One of the buyers was the Chief Medical Officer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC!

The store owner said the Doctor kept it in his office and walks his ‘duck’ as a way of reducing stress in his job.

Great idea I thought!

Over the course of the next year I sold hundreds, if not thousands, of ducks to people who used them as gifts and ’stress reducers’ in their offices.

What’s my point?

Here I was a 19 year old kid and I had an entire business built because I:

1) Took action on an idea

2) Was bold enough to start sell the product

3) Asked ‘experts’ what to do when I got stuck

And you know what, I didn’t have to write a sales letter and I didn’t know a thing about ‘marketing’.

But I had a ‘hot’ product and a market that was ready to buy it.

So what’s the… “ONE thing that 99% of all business owners NEVER do, or if they do it, they do NOT do it correctly.”?

They don’t sell what the market wants.

They sell stuff that no one wants.

Now you can twist and turn and change your marketing message so that your product is better positioned, but listen up:

If no one WANTS it, it isn’t any good.

The only way to tell if someone wants what you’re selling is to get it in front of as many people as you can WHO ARE LIKELY prospects, for as little money as possible, and see if they buy it…

If they DON’T… then move on and sell something else.

If they DO buy it… then tomorrows message will help you make the maximum amount of money possible easily and automatically.

Stay tuned…