Placing your eggs in one basket. Many catalogs ask for an "exclusive." This agreement guarantees that catalog will be only one carrying your product for length of exclusive. Generally this is not a good deal for your company. Naturally an exclusive with one company locks you out of rest of market. If you do grant an exclusive, keep it as short as possible. Six months is plenty of time for an exclusive.

Doing business with deadbeats. Let's face it, main reason you do business with a catalog is so they will pay you for your product. How frustrating it is then when they don't live up to their end of deal. And it happens. Like all businesses that are strapped for cash, when a catalog is experiencing lean times, they will delay payment to their vendors. So keep a close eye on when an invoice is due, and don't let them slide too far past. Any invoice more than a month past due could indicate trouble. Your best recourse is to hold up shipments to that catalog until you get paid. You can even ask for payment up front on new orders.

Jim Tilberry is President of Tilberry Direct Marketing. His business specializes in helping inventors and small companies sell their consumer products through mail order catalogs. www.catalogrep.com / tilberrydm@aol.com / 800-413-0679

4. Create a folder and name it "Answer" or Take Care Today" or whatever works for you. This is for email that needs your attention but not immediately but don't have time to take action upon arrival. Move it to that folder. When you return to email box, you don't have to wade through a ton of email to find it.

5. Use a spam filter like Mailwasher, that gives you control over which email to receive. This software lets you preview messages while they are still on server. It also marks potential spam and blacklisted email. Just by looking at email addresses you can determine friend or foe and delete from server without ever downloading it.

I discovered this was a great way to preview friendly mail before downloading it. Many times I was able to obtain information needed without downloading and opening it in my email box. This is has been a big time saver and helps keep email down in inbox. http://www.mailwasher.net

These are just a few of tips and techniques that have been shared on those calls. What strategies work for you? Why not share them. I'll print them in a future issue giving credit where credit is due.

Good news is that there is hope in becoming a reformed junkie...start out by making your coffee first before checking your email. Make toast while it's downloading, that way you can have breakfast while your reading.