Two weeks ago my wife, who is a spreadsheet and numbers whiz sat me down, as only a wife can do, and showed me how “I left $48,255 dollars on the table” by not participating in a MLM program offered by one of my major direct mail marketing suppliers.

I have always had a somewhat vocal, negative attitude about MLM organizations. This was due to my distasteful past experiences with several high profile MLM companies during the late 1980s. A few who nearly hired me as a marketing consultant attempted to barter my services for their products. Trade-outs have never excited me. I cannot feed my family or keep the lights on by bartering my services. Besides, why should I when I have plenty of clients willing to pay me with good old American greenbacks!

After my wife’s lesson, I decided to reconsider MLM since leaving $48,255 dollars on the table disturbed me, to put it mildly.

While the MLM business model has been around for at least 70 years, there are a few new players in the MLM Industry who have very generously skewed their commissions and bonuses in favor of their sales organizations with astonishingly positive results.

One such company www.sendoutcards.com, (SOC) founded in 2004, in Salt Lake City in just 5 years achieved annual revenues of $140 million. This privately-held  company is entirely debt-free and continues to experience double digit growth despite this worsening Recession.

They offer unique, in-demand services in the formerly sleepy $7.5 billion Greeting Cards Industry. Unique because greeting card buyers can (from the convenience of the computers) select a card from an online inventory of over 15,000 postcards, two or three panel glossy stock greeting cards; enter the name and address of the recipient into a contact management system; compose a personalized message online, then transmit that captured information with a single Click on the SEND CARD screen button. It goes to the company’s Salt Lake City Mail Processing Center.

Each night, hundreds of thousands of personalized greeting cards are processed; inserted into envelopes with return and sender addressee direct imprinting on the envelope (no labels) plus a first class stamp is affixed and envelopes are sealed, trayed and delivered to the Salt Lake City Sectional Center for mailing for a mere cost to the sender of between $1.06 – $1.42 each.

While e-mail has negatively impacted US Postal Service profits and a 2 cent First-Class Postage Rate hike is in the works, to offset a $7 billion dollar deficit; the Send Out Cards business is expanding at an exponential growth rate.

I joined SOC in January 2006 and I was issued a 4 digit User ID number. Yesterday, a friend was issued a 6 digit User ID number which is proof of over 106,000 member enrollments in six years.

SOC has built a better MLM Model which has driven this new contender to the forefront of the formerly sleepy $7.5 billion Greeting Cards Industry dominated by Hallmark and American Greeting Cards. SOC, the new kid on the block, is gulping up market share because of their technological innovation and a refreshing simple but effective MLM business model.

In my next blog, I will elaborate on SOC’s success and why I have become a devoted disciple.

Dirty Harry Callahan got it right with this most famous movie one-liner. In the context it was spoken in The Enforcer it was never intended to improve anyone’s day.  Today, in this blog let’s consider a more positive, fresher version.

Sometimes an e-mail or phone call just won’t work to help a friend through their ‘bad day blues’. Especially, in today’s ruthless, roller-coaster economy where lots of people are suffering serious personal and financial challenges, with many ending in tragedy.

When tragedy hits close to home it’s a quick splash of cold water reality in the face. Last week, we heard about two in our church family. One lost his job and house to foreclosure. The other, unemployed for 8 months with lapsed health insurance, discovered his wife had an advanced-stage cancer.

I prefer to send 3 greeting cards over a 3 week period to let people know we really care and we’re here for them, for the long haul. Why 3? It sends a strong signal their friends are in their hearts and prayers and they are not weathering this crisis alone.

Like many, my busy schedule gets in the way of going to the store to pick out the right card to send. Unlike others, I’ve taught time management training so I feel double guilt when I don’t do what I instruct others to do. Shame on me!

Here’s my near-perfect solution for personal and business card-sending. You may recall, I train sales pros and small biz owners how to painlessly get new customers.

In 2006, I discovered a process for opening doors, minds and hearts. It is the single most effective component for ending cold-calling described by some as the scourge of the selling profession. Since then, I have created dozens of greeting card-based direct mailing campaigns that have achieved double-digit sales-buster results.

In 2007, I’m was almost embarrassed to sit opposite a CEO of a $130 million dollar software company to tell him I was replacing his expensive, slick direct mail marketing campaign, which he paid his former advertising agency, big bucks to create and print, with 3 off-the-shelf personalized greeting cards. 

Almost embarrassed, because I snail-mailed him these 3 off-the-shelf greeting cards with the right message. My reward was our first in-person sales appointment because I gave him a live demo. I proved it worked with my in-your-face Mr. CEO Demo!

 I demonstrated exactly what I had in mind for his sales team to use to get the focused attention of starch-collared chemical engineers who made the final decision to buy his expensive software solution or that of his competitors.

His former advertising agency rep thought it was funny until he was instructed not to come back which gave me a great deal of ‘make my day’ satisfaction!

The right greeting card with a matching right message snail-mailed to the right decision-maker at their business address is all it takes to set the stage for a timely phone follow up call. But ‘right’ is the key. Executed properly, this process completely disarms the coldness associated with communicating effectively with a stranger.  

Here’s why. We are people 24/7 underneath our decision-maker, doctor, lawyer, nurse, starch-collared chemical engineer’s skin. Even on the job, when we become our alter work egos, we still laugh, tear and act human when triggered to do so.

In our cut-throat economy with paper-thin margins, tight budgets and longer work days people crave a quickie break from their daily grind. Relieve this tension, for a few seconds, and they will remember and appreciate your tasteful, funny gesture.

You can do it for less than the cost of a cup of 7/11 coffee and in nearly the same time it takes to pour, mix and cap that cup of hot java. I’m still astonished at how few marketing professionals apply this psychology to their positioning advantage. Their oversight has become my competitive advantage.

Personalized, funny, colorful graphic images on off-the-shelf greeting cards can be used very effectively to trigger these human nature tendencies we all share.

I use Sendoutcards.com, an online greeting card processor, headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT to automate this need. What www.sendoutcards.com has so brilliantly done is made the process of sending personalized greeting cards a time-saving, no-brainer anyone can execute from the convenience of their favorite chair and computer.

In minutes, you can select a card from several categories of a constantly refreshed 7,000 card online inventory. Appropriate-to-the occasion glossy, coated cards with eye-popping colors and/or pictures with serious or humorous wording are available.

A very user-friendly online navigational system prompts you to open the electronic image of the card on your computer screen; type a personalized message; add a first name or title (Mr., Ms, Mrs.) last name; colorize the type font and even add your picture and your facsimile signature. Other options include adding denominational gift cards from The Home Depot, Chili’s, Barnes & Noble and other nationwide retailers.

Names and contact info, including a company name are captured in a database which can be imported from an Excel or other common CSV database files, or manually entered.

Merging the selected card(s) with the database addressees takes minutes and your personalized greeting card mailings are ready to go! The entire process of sending a snail-mailed, personalized greeting card (or as many as you choose) takes minutes, online, instead of the hassle of shopping for a card and manually processing it, the old-fashioned way.

Once you proof your message, you CLICK on Send Card and the named addressee, your return address, the selected card with your message are electronically transmitted to SendOutCards’ computer servers in Salt Lake City, for processing within 24 hours.

Best of all, there are no label-addressed envelopes. It’s a direct-imprint on the outside envelope and it even includes an affixed first class stamp for first-class personalization.

FACT: Whether you choose to imitate my success or not, Americans love to receive greeting cards at work or at home. Putting Human Nature to work in the marketplace can be a very rewarding experience for those who demonstrate tasteful creativity to achieve their corporate marketing goals with this innovative and inexpensive process.

I encourage you to investigate www.sendoutcards.com. Should you wish to wander around their website, enter ID # 8265, to gain online access.

My Power Prospecting® ebook for sale for $40 includes my 4 card campaign with the copy if you wish to duplicate my 83% success response while minimizing your risk. Just CLICK on the Power Prospecting ebook button in the right margin. You can download my FREE minibook before you buy at my www.powerprospectingebook.com website.

So, go ahead and make someone’s day and discover what I learned (and, maybe, profit too) about why Americans love to be carded.

While you know me as author of this sales prospecting tips blog, you probably aren’t aware I’m also an eBay enthusiast and eBay Consignment Seller who achieved eBay Power Seller status in 2003-2007 by successfully mining a neglected niche market.

Like many eBay consignment sellers, after selling their miscellaneous household items, I was stumped with where to get inventory to fuel my weekly online auctions. Exhausting and frustrating visits to weekly garage sales and consignment shops annoyed me. My peers told me of their nightmare experiences with Drop Shippers. Nope, not for me!

FACT: Where can I get stuff to sell online? Is one of the most popular questions queried online Search Engines. Many of the unemployed, who once poked fun at eBay, are now giving it a serious second look as their day job, especially with Corporate America’s daily announcements of huge layoffs and hiring freezes.

Never one to let a challenge stump me, answering this question became my battle cry. One 2003 February Sunday, while sitting in church, the answer (answers) came to me.

The answers were sitting all around me. The answers were the retired seniors in my church family. Just suppose, I could figure out how to mine the real antiques and collectibles seniors stored in their attics, cellars and garages?  I bet some of them could even use the cash!

I did it and I was very successful at it! So, I wrote an ebook about my detailed marketing plan with all the fixings. Everything that worked for me, why it worked and, how to duplicate my success including free prospect list URLs and working forms are included in this 4 chapter ebook. I held nothing back!

The title of this week’s blog: Making “Real Money” on eBay is the title of the first reader review given my new ebook. I’m thrilled the reviewer saw fit to grade it 5 of 5 possible stars. Also, he placed it in the must-read category for anyone seeking to earn big bucks on eBay as a Consignment Seller.

This is the subject of this blog for these 3 reasons:

• The ebook is a near-perfect example of the marketing maxim: Find a Need and Fill It!
• My patriotic contribution for getting America’s Unemployed back to work.
• Unashamedly, I’d like to sell some ebooks at $18.95 each.

At hundreds of workshops I conducted around this country for 17 years, I always said: finding a need and filling it was the Number 1 Rule of Successful Marketing. Add the right timing of marketplace introduction, a product which solves a contentious problem; and, make it affordable. This is the secret sauce for a marketing success recipe.

Wouldn’t it be great if eBay once again became an American Success Story by putting Unemployed Americans back to work? Like the mythical, Phoenix bird rising from the ashes! What a hoot, if my little ebook had something to do with this happy ending.

To get your FREE Preview peek, downloadable to your PC, cell phone, smart phone, electronic ebook reader or PDA, go to: www.mobipocket.com and type: Gordie into the Search box at the top of the page.

It’s appropriately titled: How to Get Stuff* to Sell on eBay (*an Endless Supply of Real Antiques and Collectibles, NOT Drop Ship) and I think it does the Number 1 Rule of Marketing proud. Do you agree? 

No, this isn’t the ranting of a nearly over-the-hill sales professional who has finally flipped out! Good Failures are errors I have made which have taught me important life and business lessons.

Not surprisingly, the most expensive financial errors were the most memorable and sometimes painful to my wounded wallet and damaged ego.

While none of us intentionally seek failure, especially in our success-centric, society; I have become a believer in one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous quotation:

“Whatever doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

Am I rationalizing? You bet! I accept my failures as ‘grist for the mill’ in the words of my high school Latin Teacher, John Bell, as long as the price wasn’t too stressful. To me, failure is an acceptable option!

I’m in good company as I look at some of history’s most famous failures. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie, John H. Patterson Walt Disney, and Thomas Watson, Jr. Watson was fired by NCR (National Cash Register Company), my first employer. He moved on to found IBM so, he learned well from his failures. Now, that’s a happy ending!

Good Failures can be wonderful learning landmarks, provided we don’t give up; repeat our failures, or become cynical during our failing process.

While I have lost count of my failures, I have recited several during paid speaking engagements. Audiences love to hear a speaker brandish self-deprecating humor provided it is relevant to the presentation. Humor is an excellent tool for anchoring a message and for bonding the speaker with the audience. WOW, this guy isn’t too big to admit his goofs!

Good Failures’ greatest lessons are dissected and thoroughly analyzed because they reveal what behaviors to avoid and when to avoid them.

Failing forward is the mindset of an optimist, who upon gleaning the lessons of one’s own failure and taking personal responsibility builds upon the lesson and attempts to succeed until success and the ‘aha moment’ are achieved, and with it, the ultimate satisfaction of accomplishment.

In November 1967, after 9 months of cold calling every hotel and motel from South Beach to Golden Beach, and only closing 3 sales while employed as an NCR accounting machine salesman in the Miami Beach sales territory; I learned a formula for systematically gaining access to Hospitality Industry decision makers which I named the: the Power Prospecting™ Formula. Little did I realize the significance of my ‘aha moment’.

Teaching others to apply this formula would one day become the focal point of my life. It would give my life purpose. Between 1967 and 1983, I repeatedly applied improved versions of this Power Prospecting™ formula and I moved from being an employee to an entrepreneur, several times with good failures, successes and compensation to match.

Yes, good failures have become a way of life for me as acceptable options.

The positive learning experiences and the confidence gained from prior failures which lead to successful outcomes have resulted in achieved goals with financial and personal gains beyond my wildest imagination.

Next week, I’ll share my views of the ‘Twitter Fad’. 

They share a common trait of not being pro-active b2b sales prospectors. It’s as though their DNA has been altered to avoid any effort to find either in-person or on-line – sales prospects: people with a qualified need plus the ability to pay for what they sell.

Where do they congregate? At ‘free networking’ luncheons, seminars or social networking mixers where they rub elbows with others, who also share their bone-shaking fear or inability to begin some form of systematic or organized sales prospecting. 

Great talkers! Big fans of indiscriminately handing out business cards or leaving them on tables strategically placed in high traffic zones with the distant hope a serious prospect will conveniently pick up their card and call them to place an order. Voila, rejectionless sales!

In these hard times of high foreclosure rates, failing businesses, Obama’s stimulus programs and tight money, this group is growing very rapidly. Because they refuse to go out and look for new business, they have an abundance of free time in their 8-5 days so they continually rehearse the process of ‘getting ready to sell’, but never really do it.

I liken this delusional group to ‘lifeboat occupants’ who because there are so many of them in such a confined space, their lifeboat has sprung a leak and it is gradually sinking into a Sea of Despair and Quiet Desperation.

Is there any hope for them? Only, if they are forced to confront reality. Not a willing choice, since it may be forced upon them by employees, loved ones or the power company who just turned off their electricity on a 30 degree night. This new reality leads to 3 choices:

1.     Another career because getting new prospects is a fact of life in sales.

2.     Discovery of a less threatening new process of getting new prospects.

3.     Repeated application and fine-tuning this new process until it works.