How then are your "most likely" customers different from general population?

The main reason is that no two businesses are exactly same, so each business has potential to attract different people. Your product or service may have specific features or customer benefits. There could be a difference in pricing, level of service you offer, quality standards, presentation, distribution, brand image, guarantees etc.

With this in mind it is fair to assume that your "most likely" customers, are different from general population. Your customers may be different from customers that your competitors have.

If you can identify how they are different, then it will be much easier (and more cost efficient), to reach them. You'll be able to target these prospects in a way that makes them "sit up and listen."

If you can find out what makes your customers different from rest, then you'll save yourself a lot of money and effort chasing after wrong people.

I slightly underbid her price, she was thrilled and sale was a done-deal. I thought, 'oh, this will be easy to sell large quantities now'. Wrong. It was another three-four months until next large-quantity sale. But, trade show they were attending was an organization I had contacted about getting my booklet into their catalog. They rejected it because I wasn't in their industry. So, my buyer had bought 5000 copies of my booklet, with my company information in it, to distribute at that trade show. I loved it!

One day, a guy I know from a major consumer mail- order catalog company said, 'Why don't you license us reprint rights to your booklet. We can buy print cheaper than you, so if you charged us a few cents a unit, you wouldn't have to do production.'Well, 18 months later after lots of zigging and zagging that sale happened: a non-exclusive agreement for them to print 250,000 copies.We exchanged a ten-page contract for a five-digit check.

They provided booklet free with any purchase in one issue of their catalog and made a 13% increase in sales in that issue.They were happy. I was happy.

I looked for other licensing prospects (even though it took eighteen months for this sale to happen, and five-digit check was low five-digits, not enough to sustain me).

Round about spring 1993, I designed a class on how to write and market booklets and wrote an 80-page manual. The class was small and mostly people I knew. They paid me money, and I had a chance to test-run class. So now, I had another new product, an 80-page manual, a blueprint of how I had then sold more than 50,000 copies of my booklet without spending a penny on advertising.

I like teaching and now I had a new topic besides organizing I had been presenting. I also like traveling. So I took 3-hour class on road and had great fun doing it.

I toured country for about 2 years, 6-8 classes a year. Many people have written interesting booklets on all kinds of topics. Some have hired me to write a customized marketing plan for their booklet or to coach them by phone to develop their booklet business.

Midway through that year (August 1994), I discovered Compuserve. My sole purpose for getting online was to market my business. The third day I was online, I saw a forum message from a guy from Italy who had a marketing company there. He told me his client base was small businesses and companies who served small businesses. I told him I had a booklet he might find useful. I sent it to him, he liked it and we struck a deal. He translated, produced and marketed it, and paid me royalties on all sales. That January he wired several thousand dollars to my checking account from Italy. He made first sale of 105,000 copies to a magazine that bundled a copy of my booklet with one issue of their publication.

That meant I have sold more than 500,000 copies of my booklet, in three languages, without spending a penny on advertising. One slow week, I posted a message on some Compuserve forums about story of Italian booklet as an example of an online success story. Even though blatant selling is not allowed, creating mutually beneficial relationships is. I had received money from someone I had never spoken to and had only communicated with online, by fax, earth mail and EFT.

Folks who read those postings replied that they would be interested in doing same thing with my booklet, but in French and in Japanese. This never even dawned on me.

I've also discovered licensing opportunities for my booklet content in other formats.

* Two different companies who produce laminated guides (one hinged, other spiral bound) licensed my content. They are also interested in other content so I expect to broker content of booklet writers.

* I created a company called Tips Products International.

* I write tips booklets for clients based on their raw print materials.

* I've been writing customized marketing plans for people's booklets for a while now, which fits into menu of services for this company.

* I've developed two home study packages, How To Write and Market Booklets for Ca$h, and How to Promote Your Business With Booklets. Both courses are now being distributed by resellers around world.

* I've been invited to speak nationally and internationally about how to write and market booklets.

I never could have written a business plan for how this has all unfolded. Clients of mine are now surpassing my own sales results, learning from all that has gone on since original organizing booklet was written in 1991.