ARTICLES
 

Below are some of the articles that have appeared in the various home business publications in the UK.  They were written by either Kinger! or Martyn Brown but with the occasional guest writer for Working Hours Magazine.  We have included some 'fun' articles that look at the lighter side of home business life as well as some that are useful 'how to's' or offering sound advice.

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Home Business Mobile Disco - Kinger!

I was roadie for Martyn Brown on one of his mobile disco shows last week.  As you may know, one of Martyn’s home businesses is running a mobile disco agency where he is self employed as a disc jockey. 

I don’t normally roadie for him but his usual guy couldn’t make the venue so he asked me.  I always like a laugh so decided to go along, after all he was paying me £10.00 in cash, so I couldn’t refuse.

I use the term ‘venue’ loosely because he was actually performing at an old people’s home in front of 25 ‘over 75’s’ age group.

We eventually found ‘Undertakers lodge’ which was an unusual name for an old folks home, but still.

My job as a roadie was to help carry the DJ’s equipment into the hall, the hall turned out to be no bigger than my living room at home and it was a struggle to fit his equipment into the corner.

We started setting up the gear…speakers, amplifiers, lights, CD players, MD players, DAT players, crickey, was Martyn going to USE all this stuff. 

I squeezed his CD collection into the corner of the room and had to overspill onto the piano stool as we’d run out of the space allocated to the DJ. 

The lounge was entered via walking past several of the residents doors.  There was a terrible smell of pudding and poo coming from number 9 and I found myself holding my breath each time I passed it. 

I nearly knocked one old lady for six with a speaker as she leaped out in front of me to say ‘Hello dear’.  Why they insist on giving you a cuddle as well, I don’t know. 

We were constantly held up from old folk telling us about the weather and asking us how long the front door would be open for.  ‘It’s not normally open after six o’clock’, they would say.  We were reminded of the six o’clock rule by several of the inmates, sorry, elderly residents, while walking in and out collecting the next piece of disco gear. 

The smell from number 9 cell, sorry, flat, was getting stronger, I was sure.  Shouldn’t one of the caretakers pay it a visit and clean someone or something up?.

Martyn made the mistake of asking for another table to put some discs on.  Five of the old folk carried it in for us from the hall.  It took the poor people a quarter of an hour but they wouldn’t let us help….so independent these oldies aren’t they?.

I noticed that the party ravers were queuing outside of the room we were in and somebody let them come in early so that they could sit down for a rest. 

Martyn had a complaint from one old lady, ‘Turn it down!, it’s too loud’, she called.  Martyn wouldn’t have minded but he hadn’t started yet.

On switching on the gear a sudden thud was heard as the amplifier became live.  This made all 25 guests jump six inches into the air as they weren’t expecting that.

It was Joan’s birthday and Mabel’s too.  Both were around 90 but didn’t look it, I expect they did once, though.

A ‘test’ piece of music was put on before we actually started.

The DJ didn’t set all the lights up as he didn’t want to give any of the old folk a turn.  One lady was sat starting at the main light show...a box which looked like a kaleidoscope with it’s varying flashing coloured lights and we found that she had been hypnotised, so had to give her one of her tablets to enable her to enjoy the rest of the show.

I was surprised to learn that they were all on alcohol and we too were offered a beer.  I picked up a glass and commented to Martyn that it was all smeared inside.  ‘Probably had someone’s teeth in it last night’, Martyn quipped, which I didn’t’ think was funny as there wasn’t another clean one on the table. 

It was 7.30 and a final walk past smelly room number 9, we were back into the disco room where all the oldies were waiting for us to perform.  The music was so quiet it didn’t even drive some of the sound to light effects but we dare not turn it up in case of more complaints.  Martyn had me manually turning the lights off and on instead, to give a similar effect but I soon got bored with that.

One of the women burped after a few sips of her drink which made me jump.  I couldn’t see her at first as she looked like a cushion on the sofa.  Her cardigan had the same pattern and she was camouflaged.  Martyn pointed her out to me and then she came into focus as she burped a couple more times, which was being drowned out only by another old lady coughing her guts up in the corner, strewth I thought she was going to die!.

Panic over after a few sips of brandy and some smelling salts….for me that was, the old lady just blew her nose.

A woman came up and asked us for ‘Whoosh’, ‘er, what’s Whoosh’, Martyn asked.  ‘I don’t know’, she replied and made a windmill motion with her arm as she said again, ‘Whoosh’.  ‘Perhaps she wants The Who’, I suggested….’or the loo’, Martyn added, Whoosh, she asked with a frown appearing on her face.

Anyway, it ended up she wanted, Hands Up Give Me Your Heart, an old song by a group called, Ottowan.  Though quite where, Whoosh, came into it we couldn’t figure out.

One of the guests asked for a quiet waltz, so the DJ obliged.  During this smoochie dance with most of the Senior Citizens on the floor dancing with each other, one of the guests broke wind.  It was what can only be described as a huge volley of sound which drowned out Engelburt Humberdinck totally.  So much for The Last Waltz.

Everybody ignored this outburst of wind, either just to be polite or because they knew that Mrs. Damien had a problem and so were just used to it.  Martyn and myself were in pain trying not to laugh, like a couple of naughty schoolboys, we were.  Judging by the smell, the person from number 9 had just come in too. 

During the break for tea somebody gave the Mrs. Burp on the sofa, (the one looking like a cushion) a huge piece of Dundee cake with icing and marzipan on top.  Martyn and I looked at each other…isn’t that a little dangerous we thought.  Burrrrrrrpppp!, yes it was. 

Albert meanwhile had polished off a whole bottle of whiskey during the first half of the disco and insisted on dancing to the background music.  He looked silly doing the Highland Fling to ‘Puppy love’ by S Club Juniors.

The Max Bygraves singalong was a highlight, they all knew the words.  ‘If it’s too loud’, Martyn said, ‘please do….just turn down your hearing aids’.  That went down like a lead balloon.

‘If I play a song you like, just wave and I’ll play it again’….same reaction.  ‘Stick to playing the music and shut up’, I suggested. 

Happy Birthday was played for the two birthday girls.  ‘Who’s singing this’ a man asked.  ‘You’re meant to be’, Martyn replied.  By the third playing of the song they’d gotten the hang of it and all joined in and all was jolly. 

Play a square tango, Mr. Whiskey man called.  Martyn found a tango and the man staggered around the dance floor. ‘Play the square dance’, country style, he called out, again.  ‘Play a nice Waltz’, he shouted out even louder…’A square one?’, Martyn asked.

The party went with a swing and all danced.  Well, most did.  It was a struggle for some, obviously not as young as they once were?, not at all, they were all drunk!.

I thought it would be a good idea to play, Vera Lynn, as she was a great oldie.  But Martyn criticised my request because three people burst out crying.  ‘A nightingale sang in Berkley square’ was a good choice, especially for, Mr. Whiskey as it mentioned the word, Square, again.

We had to end at 10pm, an early night for Martyn as he normally works pub or club hours.  ‘You can all have a lay in, in the morning’, Martyn announced.  That went down like the Titanic.  The ‘clubbers’ looked like death warmed up after all that activity…come to think of it, they looked that way when they walked in earlier in the evening.

On clearing up, Daisy had lost here glasses, Mr. Whiskey had lost his whiskey bottle and the lady who kept coughing had lost her teeth. All was found under the sofa though.  Well, the teeth were in a plant pot but nobody got too worried, after all, it was bedtime.

While packing up the disco gear, Martyn and I were approached by a tall gentleman who was the regimental type.  ‘I’m in my nineties you know!’, ‘Are you really, marvellous’, Martyn replied.  ‘Let me give you some advice, young man’, the tall man went on, ‘When you talk over the microphone, SHOUT, tell them who’s boss, you’re in control, SHOUT at them to dance, sing a long, give them HELL over that microphone, they’re hard of hearing and can’t hear you if you don’t SHOUT!’.  ‘Takes me back to my army days!’, he continued.

‘That was a great show boys, you and I will join ranks, make no mistake!’.

The badges on his blazer told the story of his past life.  ‘Do you know’, he shouted, ‘I once prayed that Guy Fawlkes would come back and finish the bloody job, bloody government!’.  We knew that it was time to move on.

It was the first time that Martyn had performed a disco at an old people’s home and they wanted to book him for more dates in the future.  Whether he will go back or not I don’t know.  I won’t be the roadie that’s for sure.  It was an experience I won’t ever forget…the Home Business Roadshow, I called it.

An old gent asked if we wanted a hand lifting some of the equipment out.  We said, no, but he really did want to help so lifted a double CD player.  Martyn looked incredibly worried as the old timer was struggling with two thousand pounds worth of gear.

We took some other stuff out to the van only to return finding four other oldies helping the kind old timer out with his CD player.  I’m not sure whether they were helping him lift ‘it’ or helping keep him upright while he lifted it.

About 10.55 all was packed up and ready to go.  A short chat with the organiser (who was moaning about some of the residents), and a man with no shoes or socks on, ended our visit to, Undertakers Lodge.  Bookings are now being taken.  Not for the disco but for Kinger! and me to live in the Lodge, we’re booking in early…there’s a waiting list you know, and the entertainment’s wonderful.

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HOME BUSINESS - RUNNING A MOBILE DISCO -  MARTYN BROWN

I am employed during the daytime as a manager in a family entertainment centre (FEC) or amusement arcade as it was once known. I live in Poole, Dorset which is classed as a holiday resort by our governing body. We have a few clubs and many pubs and entertainment venues which brings me to my own business of running a mobile discotheque.

This may put a lot of people off from wanting to do something like this as it sounds costly what with all the equipment, lights and music etc.. However, I started with pretty well nothing. I’ve only built up to what I have now by investing money earned by running the disco, so no real savings were required.

I started back in 1977 standing in for a resident DJ of a night club, one of two clubs in Poole, Dorset. The stand ins were only until this DJ arrived back from performing a private wedding disco. In those days the club hours were 10pm until 2am while private discos were usually 7.30pm until 11pm. This meant that I had two hours or so of playing my choice of records until he arrived.

I’d never performed a disco before this but liked the thought of actually doing it. So when he told me of his problems in getting somebody to start off the club disco for him I told him that I’d give it a go.

All I had was a few old singles which I’d started collecting as a hobby. The collection consisted of 7 inch vinyl 45’s, remember them?. They were from the 1950’s and 1960’s and some from the 1970’s. I purchased some new music to ‘keep up with the times’.

It wasn’t long before I got my own night…playing music from the 1950’s and 60’s as I specialised in this genre of music. I visited record fairs and purchased ‘Golden Oldies’ for around 40p each to build my collection and play to my audience.

I was given two extra nights, those nights being Friday and Saturday, meaning that I captured the busiest times of the week. I played downstairs in our Cellar Bar while the resident DJ played upstairs in the Disco Bar.

After a few months the Cellar Bar with it’s golden oldies music became busier than the main disco bar and that’s the way it was on most weeks.

I believe it was because the resident DJ didn’t have the enthusiasm that I had and he kept playing the same records every week, week in week out and he became boring.
Someone said that you could almost set your watch by what he played and when he played it. I would always play a customers favourite oldie but varied every thing else to keep it fresh. In those days you didn’t have the radio stations playing non stop golden oldies music, so my show was the only place to hear those classics on a regular basis. I must admit, it was very popular.

I copied the resident DJ’s style, right down to his voice pattern and phrases. I sounded like a cross between Emperor Rosko and Tony Blackburn, I suppose
(They were early Radio 1 presenters, by the way).

Each week my record collection grew, I was using around three hundred vinyl singles (no CD’s back then, of course) and tracking from several LP’s (now even I’m feeling old).

The resident DJ then offered me one of his disco nights at the beginning of the week. I loved this as it made a nice change from playing all those oldies. The thing was, I had to buy more new records and they were full price. At about 75p each this was proving costly as one had to keep up with the pop charts so I began to wonder if it was worth it for one disco a week.

Then the resident DJ left to go to a pub and work and I was given seven nights and Sunday lunchtime to run my very own disco. Monday to Thursday was disco, Friday Saturday and Sunday were Golden Oldies sessions. I loved it.

The problem was that I then couldn’t get up for work in the morning. It would have to be one job or the other. I chose to go full time, self employed, as a Disc Jockey.

I purchased an old second hand disco consol and speakers. Some cheap lights and more records. Yes, I was on the road. By this time I had developed my own style. My voice was my voice and my ‘voice overs’ were all original.

I took bookings from customers for private functions, which was where the big money was. The pubs and clubs paid around £15 a night while one could charge up to £50 for a private do. Whenever I was on the road I would get a stand in to fill in the whole night for me at the club.

I had an accountant, a driver with a car and I was away.

I worked with many top DJ’s who would be the main attraction while I backed them up with my own disco. I felt like a star working with them. To name drop a few ‘names’ of the time, I worked with, Alan Freeman, Paul Burnette, Mike Read, Simon Bates, Peter Powell, Steve Wright, Gary Davis and a few more. Even local radio 2CR took me on, reviewing new records for their afternoon show.

I even entered the Coca Cola DJ of the year show. I didn’t win though. I did however win Pop Brain 1981 for the Southern area and collected hundreds of records as a prize. I still don’t know how I did it because I’m not so hot at pop trivia now.

I was the first DJ in our area to purchase a CD player and actually play Compact Discs to an audience. This was helped because, in the mid 1980’s, I went part time as a DJ and full time working in the music section of our local Boots store. I was earning a steady income and was able to buy music hot off the press and also equipment though our ordering system. As soon as CD players became commercially available, I bought one. It was my dream come true…cueing in a song and just touching a button and all that amazing sound quality…perfect.

In the early 1990’s I read, while in America, that a thing called Minidiscs were going to become available from Sony. Guess what, yes, I bought the very first Minidisc recorder on the market. I could now record, in digital quality, everything I needed for each show. I had stopped buying vinyl some time ago and would only buy CD. I recorded my entire record collection onto DAT (Digital Audio Tape), it took three and a half years to do, so that I could stop taking all those boxes of records out with me and just use CD’s and Minidisc.

So now I have downsized the disco (all the equipment is smaller these days…and cheaper) and can fit everything I need into an estate car.

Being a DJ takes a few quid to start you off and a little personality on your part. Why not give it a try?.

Don’t be put off by all this ‘rapping’ stuff and jungle music, that’s not what you play at weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. People always ask while booking…”you don’t play all that rapping, noisy rubbish, do you?”..I tell them not if they don’t want it. They still enjoy the party songs from all decades, the ‘nice’ songs in the pop charts, the rock ‘n’ roll and sing-a-longs. You really don’t need masses of music, just a variety of popular hits and some current tunes.

Home business can still be a mobile disco. I give out my home telephone number and people call me for bookings. That’s working from home.

You can start by hiring a full simple set up from any disco shop (there’s one in most bigger towns) where they can supply two CD players, lights and microphone and speakers. Begin with functions for family and friends to build up your confidence.

You’ll be surprised at how quickly you build a record collection. If you have a PC you can download MP3 music files from the Internet until you can afford to pay full price for CD albums etc. from the earnings of each show you perform.

Set the music going, turn on the lights and simply tell the audience what you just played and what’s coming up…artist and song title and maybe the year that it was released.

You can elaborate on your statements and announcements as you get more confident. Soon you’ll be coming out with jokey one liners and then you won’t want to stop.

If you’ve never thought of such a thing before, try it. Don’t think that you can’t do it, because I have given the same ideas to around five people in recent years and all have got their own set up and are getting regular bookings around the area. I even use them as stand in DJ’s when I can’t make a venue…they are that good.

Having your own mobile DJ set up is handy for that extra income. I charge around £150 per evening. Do it along with your daytime job (which is what I currently do) or as a part time venture. If you gain a residency (a permanent booking in a pub or club) then you’re laughing. No travelling with disco gear as, residency’s normally provide the equipment … just bring your music and you can even train up another DJ to become your stand in for when you feel like a night off.

I did this and have five DJ’s that I can call on if ever I gain too many bookings to handle. I take a cut of their payment, of course. This is business sense.

So, it’s talkin’ time and fifty three degrees past the big boss hour and this is Maryn, your local DJ, signing off for tonight and I hope that you’ll always be diggin’ those thoroughly terrific top ten tunes as the hits just keep on coming!. No, I don’t really sound like that…..do I?.

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The Lazy Way To Earn Money On The Internet by Martyn Brown

Advertisements that ask for lazy people don’t know what they are letting themselves in for. It sounds attractive as you are bound to create interest because those looking to earn money by working from home would love to do it without any real effort.

What you end up with are REAL lazy people asking for information, finding that a little effort IS required and not taking up your offer. Plenty of enquiries but no take up’s, as they say.

Any home business advertised requires some kind of effort, a cash input and a thing called WORK. And all this takes TIME.

I have, however, occasionally come across a part of a business opportunity that usually takes hard work, time and effort where someone has come up with a bright idea that cuts all the aforementioned hard work out altogether. So all you need to do is set up the system and then leave it on autopilot.

One such ‘part’ was the part where I leave a page up on an Internet web site which gives the customer the opportunity to request more information on a particular product. Fine as far as it goes. I then have to respond to that request by sending the info to that person email address.

They then request the product, a business report, to be sent to them.

I then respond to that request by uploading and sending the product.

I then have to send out a follow up email thanking them for requesting the product and ask, ‘Would they like to take up my next offer?’. This goes on throughout the sales process of each individual customer. Not much wrong with that, and it’s good that one gains customers to respond to and follow up sales with.

The procedure is fine until one gets more than just a handful of requests for information. Then the ‘work’ piles up and you spend all of your valuable time just responding to requests, uploading products, replying to email queries and so on…all day long.

So enter the ‘Lazy way to earn money’. This is a small program called and ‘auto responder’ and will, in it’s own unique way, respond automatically to every message you are sent via email.

All you do is add your ‘information pack’ to the auto responder’s list. Supposing you are selling fishing information, embroidery information and woodcraft information.

You add the three different categories to your auto responder. On your Internet web site advertising the three products you simply ask them to reply with either, ‘Fishing’, ‘Embroidery’ or ‘Woodcraft’ in the subject header. This will allow your auto responder to differentiate between the info requested.

Once the email from your customer is sent to your email address, it will be collected then ‘read’ automatically and the correct info pack will be sent out to the customer. The software only needs to read ‘Fishing’ for example and it will send the fishing info pack and so on.

Now that the auto responder ‘knows’ the customers email address, it can be set to send out regular emails to your customer about whatever new product you have to sell or maybe a newsletter or similar.

The customer can ‘opt out’ of receiving anymore from you by simply clicking on a link which tells the auto responder to remove them from the list and hence they won’t be ‘spammed’ (sent unsolicited emails).

All this saves me literally hours of work by me not having to personally reply to every single enquiry each day. The customer is happy because they’ve been given fast and efficient service and so are you because you can now get on with running your home business without constantly having to check email every few minutes.

You can find an auto responder to use in your business by simply typing ‘autoresponder’ into any decent search engine on the Internet. There are many that are totally free to use.

To get you going, try: www.GetResponse.com this carries adverts but you can get an ad-free auto responder by paying a small fee. The various auto responders contain different levels of features, simply choose one that helps you most. The one I use is the most complex but does the most, so it cost a lot of pennies, however you will probably find that the free one from ‘GetResponse’ will suffice.

Meanwhile, I must go. I’ve got to reply to all those customers who have replied to my ordinary mail shot via ‘snail mail’, oh well, can’t win ‘em all I suppose.

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When a Man Loves a Woman - Kinger!

A colleague of mine is really getting it from his missus. Grief, I mean.

He’s one of these people who really tries hard in his network marketing plan but, the harder he tries, the more he gets nagged from ‘er indoors.

I feel sorry for him because, if she’d just give him some slack, he’s be quite successful, I’m sure.

His name is Brett (the nett, ‘cos he’s always net-working) and on occasions he invites us all round for a drink and a chat about working from home.

I have to smile to myself when I hear the little digs that he gets from his wife throughout the evening. She seems to be the entertainment as she constantly interrupts his flow with a few ‘home truths’ about the business he’s involved in.

He recently spent thirty minutes explaining to us all about his latest venture and when he’d finished and thought he’d receive our questions, his wife took just thirty seconds telling us why it was crap and a waste of time because ‘he’s never made any money out of home business and he’s not doing any good at this one either’, she firmly scolded.

His son entered the room and switched on the football which reminded me that it was on and I wished I’d have stayed home after all, but then again, I do always support our Brett.

Brett told off his boy, Mrs Wife told off Brett for telling off boy. I always wonder why couples argue in front of guests, you’d think that they would keep their differences to themselves until we all went home.

We got back into the swing of things though, with Brett giving us each a printout of how a downline would look if we all brought in just five people … and they brought in five each and those five brought in … you know the score, or I would have done if the football hadn’t been switched off. Anyway, Brett asked if we all had a sheet and, after about five minutes, we decided that we had in fact got one each and we then settled down to talk about it.

Now Brett is a little behind with technology and he had printed out his examples on a dot matrix printer with tractor feed holes on the side of the paper (apparently, his wife wouldn’t allow a budget for a new inkjet printer) and this gave us the temptation to peel off the little holes down each side of the paper while he was talking, which seemed to annoy him. It annoyed me though, when I was halfway down my first side and the paper ripped, it annoyed Brett even more when the person sat opposite me couldn’t resist telling me that he had removed both sides of his tractor feed holes without ripping either of them. Sorry, he called as Brett looked daggers at him.

Brett’s boy returned to record the rest of the football on TV and started moaning because he couldn’t find a tape to do it on. Brett’s wife stormed in with a spare tape … why wasn’t I surprised to see that it was a Betamax format?. I looked around the room for a hi-fi, half expecting to see an eight track cartridge player and some of those huge tapes that the machines used to take but I didn’t. It was, however, one of those wooden units with the glass doors, remember them?. They’d recently traded in their radiogram, Brett informed me as he noticed me looking at the unit in the corner.

We got back into deep discussion about ‘dealing with ‘no’ from would be customers’, which was very interesting until Brett’s budgie suddenly took to having a fit in it’s cage. Water, feathers and seed went everywhere, it was screeching like mad for ages until Brett’s owner came in and gave the cage a wallop to quieten it down but it seemed to just frighten it stiff.

Somebody knocked over their cup of tea next, which was all sorted after a few ‘never minds’ and ‘don’t worry’s’ from Brett and a few ‘when are you lot going home’ and ‘can’t you hold your business bloody briefings elsewhere in future’ from his wife.

A number of us were amazed at the number of items Brett could fit into his briefcase when it got to about 11 o’clock that evening. He was now showing us how to advertise with yet another hand out. The usual check to make sure that we all had a copy was made and, after a few minutes, we decided that Jim and Sheila had to share a copy as we were one short. Brett went upstairs to his office or rather, their bedroom … he uses one of those, trays on wheels to keep his papers on and simply wheels it to where he wants it during office hours. Brett wanted to find the copy that he was missing as he was sure that he had printed enough.

The only problem was, he let the dog in. In came a huge black thing which started sniffing all the guests crotches and sticking it’s nose up their bottoms which embarrassed even Big Tommy who always laughed at that sort of thing down at the pub. I grabbed the dogs nose and tried to push it to one side but he was too strong for me and it felt like a vacuum cleaner as the front of my trousers were sucked up it’s nose which he suddenly sneezed out covering me with wet stuff.

We waited ages for Brett to return, he must have been frightened to come down as his wife was very angry about the dog making it to the lounge and giving the budgie his second fit of the night. Water, feathers and seed again and the sound of the flush pulling upstairs, yes, it was time to go, the business briefing was over.

It hasn’t put me off though, Brett the Nett’s business briefings are always interesting and, at times, we all have a giggle behind his back. I don’t think that you should take your business too seriously because otherwise you’d go mad, wouldn’t you?.

Brett stood in the hall doorway, seeing us off, ‘Never give up, think positive, keep smiling at all times’ he called. GET IN HERE!!, Came a voice from the kitchen. Yes dear, I’m on my way,’, replies Brett. I think that he may love her regardless of what we see each visit. We all get into our cars with someone singing in the background … When a ma-an loves a woman…

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Video Conferencing – A Quick Flash! - Kinger!

Regular readers will know that I do a lot of research via the Internet about the Internet, often coming across new ideas, great web sites, interesting facts and even ways to earn an income for a home business.

Recently I decided to take a look at video conferencing. I know that this isn’t a new phenomenon but the software to do it is now readily available and the price of the hardware has come right down, so it’s well worth this little look into. Video conferencing is where you can actually SEE and HEAR the person that you are talking to about your business or whatever. You do need a computer to do this. Now, when working from home you may well find this useful, I can’t think how useful at the moment but I thought that I’d give it a try, just in case we can find a use for it.

Firstly you need to buy a web cam. This is a cheap and cheerful camera that sends pictures of you across the Internet to be received by the person who you choose to talk to. If your business partner has a web cam too, you can be linked up by using software especially made to make the whole thing work.

The reason that these web cams are cheap and cheerful is because they don’t need to film an epic, all they need to do is send an image of you, a person sat fairly still, across a, normally, slow Internet connection to the other person(s).

Web cams are not as expensive as they once were…you can purchase one for around fifty pounds that will do the job. If you want better quality you may have to spend a little more.

You won’t have to pay anything at all if you already have a camcorder. Just so long as you don’t mind using your £1000 camcorder for the Internet it will send amazing quality images across the Internet while video conferencing. You do need to have the correct connections though. A web cam will plug directly into an existing socket on the back of your computer which would be the USB port or serial port etc.. But your camcorder needs a TV or video capture card to plug into. If you have a TV card you would simply plug the camcorder into the aerial socket, tune in the software to the signal and then plug in a microphone so as the person receiving your image can hear you as well. You can elect to type text rather than speak if you don’t have a microphone handy.

A little setting up is required before anything will happen. Once you have tuned in your sound and vision you will need to install the software that actually allows you to connect to like-minded people and hence start chatting and watching. This software should come with the web cam that you purchase but you can download the software from the Internet for free if you haven’t purchased it.

I decided to go for ‘Microsoft NetMeeting’ as it was recommended by a number of established companies as being reliable, stable and, well, free.

After installing NetMeeting you are presented with one of those helpful Wizards that guide you along a procedure as though you are a six year old. This was ideal for Kinger!. Firstly your sound is checked. Once the level is set you can then tune in your video. I didn’t know what I was doing so pressed a number of options until I could see my face on the screen…boy was I looking good.

You can not only see the person you are talking to, you can see what they are seeing too, this is an ideal way to make sure that the camera is positioned correctly and that the other guy isn’t looking at the wallpaper instead of your face. You do have to enter some personal details first, your email address etc. but this won’t be displayed to the public unless you choose to do so, you can type in your screen name, not necessarily your real name and a comment for people to view as well. For example you could type, “looking to chat to business person interested in working from home”. This will let readers know why you are here and so attract that person interested in your subject. Once you are ‘live’ on line these details will be displayed to anyone who wishes to read them.

So how do you find a person to talk to if you don’t know anyone who’s got a web cam rigged up to NetMeeting?. Simple, you visit a web site that lists all the ‘directories’ that are available to visit. Directories are groups of people belonging to one Internet server…for example, Demon are a well know Internet service provider (ISP), so you can visit their video conferencing server by typing in the appropriate address. After a few seconds delay, a list of all the people there is presented on your screen. BT also have a directory and a number of the other ISP’s also support video conferencing.

You don’t have to visit just UK sites, you can go abroad to America, Germany, Japan, you name it.

Your computer screen will have the NetMeeting applet in one corner and a screen to view the people you might like to chat to in another while a separate screen to type text in can be positioned too or a ‘White board’ to draw diagrams for your business partner to see your new idea. You can get quite clever with the White board after a little practice.

The NetMeeting applet allows you to configure your software to suit both your equipment and your needs while also making available the telephone dialler, if required, the volume control, video on or off, Chat remote etc.etc. It sounds complicated but really, the default settings will suit most people.

You can send files of sound, pictures, programs, emails, attachments, etc. over the NetMeeting system, it’s fast too.
Everything you need for a business conference is supplied, for free, it’s incredible.

So, to try out video conferencing I logged into a directory from a list that was supplied via a VC web site.

Before my very eyes a complete list of other users were displayed for me to choose who to talk to and, indeed look at. Not all users had a microphone, if they didn’t, the software will tell me, so I would know to type text in the box in order to ‘talk’ to them. In the same token, not all users had a web cam, hence I could talk to them with using a microphone but wouldn’t be able to see them on the screen. Some users have neither a microphone or a web cam, in which case I’d have to use the text screen to chat to them, they could see me but I couldn’t see or hear them. Quite why they are here without a web cam or a microphone became apparent later….read on!.

I can switch off at my end if I please so as they can’t see me by simply clicking on a ‘send’ button under the Video heading in the NetMeeting software.

So, here we are, I’m in business and would like to chat or chat and view another person who is interested in working from home. I filled in the appropriate boxes in the software program. My email address, the ‘comments’ box to attract a business user with interests similar to mine and my name, Kinger!.

Nobody called me. To call me, they simply click on my name that appears on the screen and, using the menu that appears, they click on ‘Call’. The sound of a telephone ringing comes out of my speakers and a flashing name appears at the bottom of my screen. “Do you want to accept this call” appears. Yes or no. I would click yes, and in a few seconds I would see and hear the other person who is calling me. If no sound is heard, I would just click on ‘chat’ and type in some text, the person reads the text I’ve just typed in once I have pressed ‘return’ or ‘enter’ on the keyboard after completing each sentence. Clever or what?.

I decided to ‘Call’ somebody. Looking down the list it was difficult to find any business users. They all seemed to be names like, Horney Jack, Fat Lil, 12 inch Dick, Big breasted Babe and the like. What on earth was going on?. I found one that said “66 year old man testing new system”, though why I needed to know his age, I couldn’t work out. I was testing my system too, so this was an ideal opportunity to see if it all worked properly and was configured correctly.

Hi!, he called in a brash American accent, where are you?. Clearing my throat and feeling a little nervous I replied, England. “What, New England?”, he enquired. No, United Kingdom, England. We chatted for a minute or two, our systems working well and I was beginning to get confident about the whole concept, very clever, a good clear picture and amazing quality sound. He said that the picture from my end was perfect, the best he’d seen. I knew that it was because other callers must have been using a web cam instead of a super quality camcorder and was pleased to hear the comment.
“What do you think of this?”, he squealed, as he jumped up from his seat, pulled down his shorts and revealed his squashed up manhood and started waving it around…I couldn’t believe it, I just stared in shock. This acorn nestled in a birds nest proved too much to take in, I ‘hung up’ and went and told my wife.

On my return I decided to give it another try, only this time with a different person…all in the course of my research you understand, I wouldn’t have done it had I not been writing for this publication.

This time I spoke to ‘Dave from UK’. This seemed innocent enough, I wondered if he ran his own business.
“Where are you”, he asked, I said UK, again and he asked me whereabouts but I just replied, South East, just in case it was another ‘character’ and he might find out exactly where I lived.
After chatting for a while I discovered why his web cam didn’t point at his face, it was just below his chin and I thought that it had just been accidentally knocked or something, while in reality, he didn’t want his identity known. “Anyway…gonna give us a flash”, he asked. And with that he stood up and showed his marriage licence on full screen, he chose to wave it about too. I hung up again and ran to my wife.

This was getting beyond a joke, just how does one get to talk to someone in a normal manner, which is what the whole thing was created for. I scanned down the list of people who were active in the directory and began to make sense of the abbreviations. In the ‘comments’ section of the display each person could mention what they were on line for. Some said, Couples with cam on only, while others, something similar to, No men, and others still, Lookin’ for a good time…the comments varied but I gathered that this was all just a free peep show for anyone who wanted to join in. Some participants must have suffered the same fate as me because they specifically mentioned, Family and friends only or Business calls only…No pervs.

I tried calling the latter type of person to talk about home business but they wouldn’t take my call as they were busy…talking to somebody else, no doubt about working from home also.

I then tried calling a couple who requested ‘Couples only’ to see if they would chat about home business but, as soon as they replied, they would hang up. I figured out that they must have seen little old me sat in front of the camera ALONE, so didn’t want to chat to a single person but couples only, as they had stated in their personal comments field on screen.

So off to my wife again, to explain that I am researching for a publication and needed her to sit in with me for a session on the computer to talk to another couple about home business.

I tried calling several other couples but they were either busy or just didn’t answer the call. After a little more patience and some more attempts I got a reply. An American couple were sat opposite my wife and I in glorious well, it wasn’t exactly colour but sort of a fuzzy black and white but it would do for my first live chat to a proper couple. The sound quality was very good though.

Hi, the female drawled in her local accent, I’m Candy and this is Troy, my husband. Hi, I’m Kinger and this is my wife Lilly (well they started it). Where are you?, she continued, this seemed to be the most popular question of the night. UK, England, I replied. We ‘small talked’ for a while. Does your wife Lilly talk much? (I was tempted to come in with a good old English one liner at that point but thought better of it). Yes but she is new on here, I called. ‘Lilly’ said, Hi. How about lifting your night dress for me, honey. This surprised Mrs. Wife quite a bit…What’s lifting my night dress got to do with home business she whispered to me. Not sure but maybe they sell them over the Internet and she needs to see the quality, I quipped. Troy looked long and hard at his screen, I can’t tell you what comments followed, suffice to say that my wife only lifted herself from her seat and went back downstairs to watch the rest of, A touch of frost on TV. Candy and Troy didn’t want to continue with this without her…I pretended to be annoyed and agreed we should hang up.

So there you have it readers, if you haven’t yet tried Video Conferencing, the equipment is now very affordable and the software to run it is free. I wouldn’t try talking about home business though because it hasn’t caught on just yet.

Some directories to try, if you’d like to train up on it, are:http://ils.btinternet.com, ils.demon.co.uk and ils.bytebeam.com. There are hundreds of other directories on the Internet for all interests, even adult I’m informed but, it seemed to me, they ALL end up talking about the basics in life…sex, sex, sex.

You show me yours and I’ll show you mine, ‘til next time. KINGER!.

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The importance of presentation – Martyn Brown

I work with mail order every day of my life and I really enjoy every minute of it.
The odd cheque or two each morning, requests for information on a business opportunity that I may have advertised or an order for a manual, whatever it is, it’s always received with gratitude.

However, along with the aforementioned correspondence I also receive the occasional offer of an amazing plan to earn pounds and pounds without leaving my kitchen table or whatever. Now, I may actually be interested in the offer but I get put off by the presentation of the opportunity.

By presentation I mean the look, feel, smell and attitude of whatever is being promoted by the sender. Take the one that I have just received at the time of writing…An envelope with my address squashed up in the top left hand corner and misspelled. On opening the letter it stank of cigarette smoke. The offer, for an ad sheet, was folded into tiny squares and wasn’t printed squarely on the paper either.

There were numerous spelling mistakes throughout the ‘introduction’ and the print faded as it went down the page. The headline read, ‘Its now or nevre’ and went on to explain about making money today or not at all. The grammar was appalling throughout and they asked for payment upfront…not a crime in itself but who would want to part with their money to a person who cared little about his or her promotion methods. What would the ad sheet be like for goodness sake.

All in all the presentation alone put me off, and no doubt put anyone else off who received it. What a waste of the senders 19p stamp each time.

I receive so many flyers and promotions that have absolutely no chance of bringing in a sale simply because they are presented in such a bad way.

I have, in the past, received a request for an information pack and it was written on the back of a Wheetabix breakfast cereal box. I remember thinking, is this person going to do well with the business if this is anything to go by?.

A folded out cardboard toilet roll insert, an old used envelope, a paper tissue and a cooking fat wrapper have all been received with similar requests for info packs etched onto them. Unbelievable but true, I promise you.

If I design a flyer to promote a business I make sure that there are no spelling mistakes in the headline for a start. ‘Its’ and ‘It’s’ are the most common error. ‘Ads’ and ‘Ad’s’ another. ‘There’ and ‘Their’ always crops up and ‘Computition’ instead of Competition has been received this week.

When I ask for ‘two second class stamps’ to be enclosed why does at least one person insist on sticking them to the blooming paper instead of enclosing them loose.

The other common presentation error is a beautifully received flyer printed on 100 gram paper in a delicate font compete with graphics and a fancy signature, only to be ruined by the rest of the pack by a complete massacre of photocopying with black spots, fuzzy typeface and photographs that look like they were faxed to the sender before being photocopied for several generations. This always looks bad and puts me off ordering from them or even sending out an info pack if that is what is being asked for.

Audio tapes is another favourite from up and coming home business entrepreneurs because they don’t need to spend time photocopying. It’s nice and easy to just plonk a tape into a padded bag (or an envelope, which you receive with the cassette tape poking out of the side, only held in by sticky tape) and a compliment slip with the date on it. The audio quality is usually appalling and sounds like they produced it themselves while cooking a barbecue at a steam rally. If the tape quality is naff, then how do they expect their offer to get replies, now I ask you.

I often open my mail and see this sort of thing and I just feel sad, if only they would present it in a more professional manner then maybe, just maybe, they would get a reply or two. On the other hand, one could treat the presentation as a warning that doing business with this person, who clearly doesn’t care about such things, would be a bad move and should be avoided. Just a thought.

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One Handed Typist - Martyn Brown

I put a screwdriver through my hand a couple of days ago, not on purpose you understand but, when I was working on one of those crane machines that you win cuddly toys on. I work in an amusement centre for a proper job but I didn’t find that encounter very amusing at all.

Holding the grab with my left hand and pressing really hard with my screwdriver in my right hand I suddenly slipped and through it went, blood?, you’ve never seen so much. I didn’t cry though so I was quite pleased about my bravery. Although It was hurting lots, I put on a brave face. I decided to pull the driver out of my hand as I felt silly standing there with it protruding out like that.

I thought I’d better visit the Accident and Emergency dept. of my local hospital as the ‘first aiders’ in my place of work left a lot to be desired and, isn’t it strange, how one member of staff always tries to get a laugh out of somebody else’s suffering. All the jokes and one liners were flying while I was being bandaged up ready for my taxi trip to the hospital. A fountain of blood was gushing from my hand while somebody held the mop out to me as though I should mop up the mess on the forecourt of our premises myself. Don’t make such a fuss, Martyn, another said, you’re just trying to get attention. Don’t get blood on your trousers, those stubborn stains just won’t come out, said one local customer in an advertising type of voice. He went on to offer me his dirty, snotty handkerchief to cover the wound.

A local lout who is banned from our premises tried to sneak in while I was being attended to but the security guy caught him..oh, I thought I’d get away with it while you were dealing with Martyn, he called. No sympathy eh?.

I knew that my work from home activities would have to wait until I was recovered from the ordeal. It’s difficult to do anything with just one hand, luckily enough it was my left and not my right.

I got to the hospital where my wife was waiting for me, I don’t think that she would have visited but she works there so it was only a case of popping down stairs to say hello. After waiting a few minutes I finally got to see the receptionist, the receptionist who was obviously having a bad day. What’s wrong with you?, she snapped. My wife was standing behind the desk and announced that I was her husband, to which the receptionist just looked at her as thought to say, so what?. Obviously being related to a member of staff wouldn’t allow me to see the doctor any quicker, then,

There was a hand written notice on the wall displaying, Waiting time to see a doctor - 2 Hours. I must have read it a thousand times in the four hours that I had to wait to see one.

Before anyone could see the doctor they had to be seen by a nursey type person (you know the ones, not a nurse or a doctor but wear the uniform) to take down your credentials. I was called in after what seemed like an age and I’d gotten to know every face in the waiting lounge.

Now, I may have looked a little stupid and pathetic holding my badly bandaged up hand but why did the nursey person talk to me like I was four years old?.

Hello (silly smile on her face) and what daft little thing have you gone and done, have you had an accident, whoopsey, oh dear, oohhh, deary, deary me. I’ve put a screwdriver though my hand, I informed her. Which hand?, I held it up as far as I dare…this one?, I suggested. Oh, that was silly, wasn’t it. Does it hurt? She asked, in an infant school teacher type voice. Can you form a fist?, she enquired, I thought that if I could, I’d have punched her with it. Have you got pins and needles?, yes I said, but don’t worry, they’re in my bottom as I’ve been sat waiting for two hours.

After taking my details she allowed me to go and sit back down in the waiting lounge until the doctor had time to see me. It’s around about this time that I noticed people were being called in before me, people who actually came in after me. Why is HE before me, my injury is surely more serious than his, I thought.

Then a man complained about something and started getting all upset with the receptionist, the receptionist who was having a bad day. She was having none of it and gave as good as she got. The man started pacing quickly up and down the lounge with a pair of those squeaky trainers that you sometimes get. Squeak, squeak, squeak they went as he walked from one side of the room to the other and back again. It was getting on my bloody nerves. He had another complain about something, which was a relief as it stopped the squeaking for the duration of his complaint to the receptionist. She still refused his request, whatever it was, and off he went again, squeak, squeak, squeak all around the lounge.

Then in came a very well spoken guy with his two children. He demanded to see his wife but, Mrs Angry, the receptionist, refused him permission so he had to wait, like the rest of us. Now this guy was obviously not used to looking after, Nicky and Fabian as they both ran riot around the hospital. Fabian found great delight in following the pattern on the floor. He looked about five years old and his sister about three. While running around the lines and jumping on the circles Fabian bumped into me and trod on my foot. Somebody in wheel chair got sent on an unscheduled journey after a push from behind. A lady in her seventies kept having to move her walking stick as young Fabian played high jump with it. Another accident was on the way if he wasn’t kept under control. A teenager in a wheel chair had his leg stuck out and Fabian found it. Aaaahhh, said the teenager but Fabian just ran around in circles, following the patterns on the floor again. Suddenly, after what seemed like an age, his father called out loudly to him…FABIAN, stop running around like that….or you’ll get dizzy. Now I was thinking of what father might have said but it certainly wasn’t that his little brat of a son might get DIZZY. Meanwhile sister Nicky was on a runner, screaming and being generally like children get when you just want them to sit quietly. After around thirty minutes of unrest from this family, a couple of the nurses arrested the children and locked them in the playroom. Father stormed out.

Next to me was a girl from Tesco who seemed to have a broken neck, the other side were mother and daughter who had been in a car crash, some rugby players were across the way, not in the mood to sing, it seemed and another member of staff was trying to convince Mrs Angry the receptionist, that her daughter was the most important case and needed to be seen next as she personally had been working for the National health for twenty one years. However she had as much luck as me with the ‘my guardian works here’ routine, it wasn’t going to work.

After four hours, dozens of complaints and plenty of arguments (casualty on TV is quite accurate after all) I was called in. Martyn Brown?, up I got and in I went. More silly voices from trainee doctor about what I did, how it happened, what I should do next. I waited for, Beryl, Beryl was going to clean me up and bandage me properly, I’d be given some antibiotics and would be off home. But where was Beryl?, no sign of her as I waited in a cubical to have aforementioned done to me.

I waited for a further half an hour. Another nursey type woman came in, paused, and walked out again, why couldn’t she do me, I wondered. A nursey type guy came in, looked through some files, hmmmed a little and walked out again. Why couldn’t he do me, I wondered again.

Trainee doctor reappeared but just turned and walked away. What was he doing, my mind was drifting in and out of things. Had everyone forgotten me?, no, they had been to coffee break. The area started buzzing again and, after listening to the woman in the next cubical belching and squelching a few times, Beryl’s stand in appeared and started messing about with packets of things to clean me up and bandage me, hurrah, it was my turn to be done and then go home.

Sure enough, after paying my six pounds for the tablets, I was allowed to leave. I couldn’t help but notice that the woman in her seventies laying flat on her face on the waiting lounge floor, the teenager from the wheel chair hopping on his good foot and the girl from Tesco with the broken neck holding her stomach. I could only guess that the man with Nicky and Fabian had come back to collect his children. Squeak, squeak, squeak, I was off.

So that’s it … four hours of my experience at A & E in one short article and what’s more, from a one handed typist too. What do you mean, it must be all the practice I get?.

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Shot Mail - Kinger!

Many people wonder what is best, advertising in a publication or advertising via a mail shot by buying mailing lists from various sources.
I must admit that I can't always make up my mind which to choose. Originally, I just placed a small ad in a newspaper and hoped for the best. I then went on to advertise in specialist magazines, such as this one.

I tend to find that if you stick to the same publication all the time that, eventually, interest in your promotion, whatever it is, starts to thin down, until you receive no replies at all. When this happens I tend to look in the magazine to check whether or not its actually gone in and, on seeing that it has, feel disappointed about the lack of response.

There are hundreds of manuals explaining the 'ins and outs' of advertising but, in the end, its whatever works for you. I've tried, 'sure fire', techniques over and over but it seems that success only comes as a matter of chance and when it does, it soon dries up again.
Time to turn to the aforementioned Mail shots, then.

Now, list brokers seem to promise the earth of their lists, don't they?. Each one spends lots of their promotional page on telling you why you should choose their 'Names and addresses', and not the lists from other companies.

Recently, I received a letter from a certain company suggesting that I become a customer immediately. I didn't, as I was busy with a small time operator, still getting through their list supplied to me on laser printed labels. The result was poor, it put me off mail shots for a while, I'd stick to publications instead.

A second letter from the company that suggested I join them arrived, it asked why they hadn't heard from me yet.

Reading through the bumph they'd sent was very interesting, their lists seemed perfect for me ... laser printed on sticky labels, 10 names to replace any, 'Gone-a-ways' you may get returned to you, supplied especially for your type of business, why, I couldn't go wrong.

Anyway, I still didn't commit myself, as it would only be worth me purchasing, 1000 labels worth and, at the time, funds were low.

A third letter from the same company asking, Why haven't you sent for a list yet, we simply can't understand it, we have mailed you twice before, surely you can find a use for us, remember we are the best, we give you 10 new names for every, 'Gone-a-way' you may get returned to you, please send for your labels today!.

Well, ten out of ten for effort, I thought. Keep sending the letters and, eventually, your targeted customer will bite. So THAT'S what I've been doing wrong, I was supposed to mail to each person three times before expecting a reply ... what fool would do that?.

I took them up on their offer and requested 1000 labels for people interested in, 'Working from home', you know the type, gullible, easily led, believe anything they're told, skint, lazy, tight, want something for nothing, liars, always moaning, keep going on about their latest scam, that type of person. 'All our lists are for that type', they replied.

On receiving their sticky labels, sorry, their, laser printed, sticky labels, I set to work on ordering the envelopes from, Viking Direct, as they are cheaper than most, I was informed.

I never realised that there were so many different types to choose from, goodness me, I was confused.

Anyway, I settled for DL standard, white, recycled, self seal, open along the length, ready stamped, no, they weren't ready stamped but I wished that they were. It was about £30.00 for the thousand, there may have been a special offer and they were, £9.99 for the thousand, I can't quite remember.
I was about to put my trust in, 'The best mailing list available', so I couldn't go wrong, could I?.

Now, I know that I should have been just a little suspicious after I'd stuck a label to an envelope with , Mr. E. Quals, or, James Bond, printed on it, but I thought, well, perhaps there are some people with these names, so I continued sticking label to envelope.

Even, 'Y. Fronts', didn't click as, back a few years, while frequenting a night club, I witnessed a commotion when a guy had signed in as a guest under the name of, 'D. Duck', the bouncers surrounded him and the head doorman asked firmly, 'What does the 'D' stand for, Donald, I suppose?'. 'Yes', replied the terrified customer, and showed his driving licence and credit card, to reveal, 'Mr. Donald Duck', his mother, apparently, hadn't heard of the cartoon character of the same name, obviously she wasn't a Disney fan.

So, for me to become suspicious of my new list was out of the question at that time.

My third, 'Cliff Richard', however, did raise an eyebrow.

As I worked my way through the labels, I started thinking of all the work I had to do, what with stuffing them, licking the stamps and sticking return address labels on the back ... was it really worth posting this lot with so many, Mickey Mouse names, so to speak?.

Well, I did send them all off, the people in the queue behind me at the pillar box didn't find it at all amusing when I announced that I was sending Christmas cards, early, to all my friends. They just had to wait while I stuffed 1000 letters into it.

I can remember getting annoyed with the larger envelopes that had to be folded in half, in order for them to fit through the opening of the post box, but they kept springing back flat and jamming just inside it. I felt silly pushing my hand inside the slit while, painfully, trying to push them further down to make room for the rest, I just couldn't get in far enough to do it properly (passer by's gave a strange look, wondering if I was trying to take somebody else's letter out).

After I'd finished, the thought of somebody being able to reach inside and touch, or even grab hold of and steal my letters was worrying, I felt I ought to stand on guard all day until the postman came to empty it. Quite often, on seeing a pillar box full up, I've had to move a package on top so as I could fit mine more comfortably inside leaving the 'moved' item to fall out instead of mine.

Anyway, the list wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought. Apart from a few, 'Gone-a-ways', which I didn't get 10 names back for because it was, 'past 30 days of, usage, whatever that meant, I had gained a few new agents for my home business, the secretary of the Walt Disney fan club UK, had signed up along with, F. Sam, P. Pat, P.B. Bear, B. Ears and a guy called, Cliff Richard.

Well, Okay, but I did get one sign up, honestly, with my, Shot Mail.

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QUITE FRANKLY IT’S A MESS - Martyn Brown

I must confess to having a right old moany start to the new year this year both about my own efficiency and about the tools I use to run my businesses from home.

I’ve written time and time again about keeping ones office tidy to enable you to run your home business efficiently only to find that my little converted small bedroom that I use for an office is a total mess.

I’m very lucky to have a room available to work from, I know of people who also work from home but have to be content with a temporary space like a kitchen table or a table in the lounge or dining room.

I promised myself that I would never get to the stage where tidying the office would mean a few days extra work but, alas, here it is again with papers everywhere and shelves that once were tidy after my last clear out but now overflowing with odds and ends like paperwork, communications that I planned to look at more thoroughly one day and power adaptors/rechargers, magazines, forms, elastic bands…you name it, it was placed on top of the pile.

Just how many times do I say to myself, I’ll tidy that office after the weekend yet never actually do it, something always crops up so that you can’t fit it in to your schedule.

Anyway it MUST be done now as each item that I attempt to place on my desk simply slips off back into my hands and when the telephone rings and I need to write a message down, there is no place to rest the paper to write on. It drives you nuts but it’s all my own fault.

The other quibble I had the other day was my franking machine. It costs £25.00 a month to have and just causes more stress that it’s worth. The ink cartridges don’t seem to last very long even though you pay £27.50 each for them, they don’t print properly so you have to constantly clean the print head which wastes ink and that makes sure that the ink cartridge runs dry before you frank too many envelopes.

How many times am I going to forget to advance the date for the next days date after franking 500 envelopes (you must have the current days date for them to be accepted) when working the night before posting. How many times does the machine have to inform you that you need to ‘phone the central processing office for the system to be checked and when you do the computer at the other end won’t answer the flippin’ telephone because it’s “not during working hours”. And I’ve lost count of the times that I insert an envelope to be franked and nothing happens, so I re-insert it again and again meaning that it would have been quicker for me to stick a stamp on instead and go to the ‘Consignia’ box myself to post it.

Franking machines have a mind of their own. As I said, I work in a converted bedroom which is next to my actual bedroom where I sleep. My wife and I are rudely awakened by ‘Frankie’ revving up its little motor and giving itself a routine self check to make sure the ink doesn’t block its nozzle. I don’t mind this sort of thing, it’s amazing technology but it does get to you when it performs the maintenance at two and three a.m. each day. When I first installed the thing it made the whole family jump in fright as it roared out from my office pretending to be a burglar.

If you don’t use it for a while, you can’t use it the next time you need to…not without telephoning the central office to get the ‘internal information’ updated over the ‘phone line. So if you decide to prepare your 1000 mail shot the night before you post it all, you can’t, because the office is closed until 8.30am each weekday meaning that you just have to wait.

Error messages are a plenty during franking and always when you have that 1000 mail shot to frank. “Envelope not detected”, “Print head blocked”, “Date not set”, “Call central office”, “Incorrect pass word” (even though you do actually enter it correctly), “Replace cartridge”, “Do you want to perform printer maintenance”, “Ink low-order new cartridge soon” (that one comes up in such short intervals, I wonder if they actually fill the things more that half way up the container), “Jam??” and one final message “?!!???/////<<<>>>M,,…@???”, yes I’ve even had that one. I just unplugged the machine from the wall and plugged it back in again which simply meant that I had to call the central office to update the memory or whatever and then I could continue to read more messages from the display and, who knows, even get to frank an envelope.
Not surprisingly, this is the final month that I am going to use my franking machine, I did try to end the contract after one year but I was politely informed that I should have given three months notice and therefore had to “put up with it” until that time. Seventy five quid wasted, if you ask me but still…when it goes at least I will have some space to put something else until I get around to tidying up the office.

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Golden Mail - Martyn Brown

Gerry, the editor, calls Junk Mail "Golden Mail", probably because it gives him another name and address or info about another bus op. I must admit that I don't call it junk mail either, well I do actually, I describe it as junk mail to people when talking about mail in general but I don't think of it as junk mail, I always read the things I receive through the post just in case I may learn something.

"Junk mail" is a multi-million pound industry so it's not junk mail to everyone, obviously.

Other people might be promoting their latest bus op which could be on a flyer that has been photocopied using a machine that is running out of toner or is badly set up causing streaks or smudges to form on the paper, which makes me think, "Golly, I wouldn't send out anything in that state", or words to that effect.

Let's see what I received this morning ….. Another offer from the "Readers' Digest", I've been getting correspondence from them since 1981, or so they tell me. But I don’t really want Roger Whittaker's greatest hits, or The Best of Barbara Dixon on a six pack CD set. Fine artistes they may be but to own a huge chunk of their back catalogue is a no-no, even if I may already have won £125,000 which is waiting for me in a Barclays Bank account somewhere. I thought I'd won one of the Reader's Digest Prize Draws last month but it was only "nearly" won as I'd only come through the first two stages, the same as the month before and the month before that. I wish they'd give me a prize for getting to the third stage because I seem to keep on achieving it.

Next, Julia Walker, the cow bag - no I mean it, she really is. I received a lovely letter (although, on checking, she'd given an incorrect post code and her name is "Julie" on the official register - but who cares) from her explaining that she'd seen an advertisement by me in one of the business op mags (she couldn't name it?) and wondered if I'd keep in touch and let her know what I was doing and send all info on to her. She was available, interested, and couldn't wait to get started. Utter bollocks, but I fell for it at first although I was a little suspicious.

I wrote a three-page letter explaining each of my businesses and what may or may not work for her. I promised to keep in touch and send on some info immediately followed by some other stuff which had had to explicitly asked for due to the nature of the op (Club UK). Julia did indeed write to the Club UK address requesting info (the same standard mail out) but would have done so anyway as anyone advertising anywhere got the letter from Julia (or Julie). Once you'd replied you'd get the "Lee Heritage" letter referring you to the mailing list business he's running. What a way to run a business, eh? Anyway that wasted lots of resources and was totally unnecessary on their part so this was a kind of junk mail, but you learn by your mistakes.

My accountant's fees were in with this morning's post too, that was pleasant.

CIS Insurance say, "How we can help you and your loved ones if you become critically ill" - this was a little late for me as I was so last July.

"Opening this could change your outlook on life", it states on the CIS envelope. Well I did and it didn't. I even replaced the booklet and papers back into the envelope and removed them again, but it still didn't change my outlook on life. Seriously though, this made

me think of what I can write on my mail-outs to make people open them up quickly, or open them up at all, more to the point. I'm putting the SyberShopper offer on all mine soon (0800 … if you're serious about making money, etc) via printing it with my franking machine as I've always thought it a bit of a waste if you don't advertise on the OUTSIDE of your envelope. Who knows, I could have a downline full of postmen!

A couple of cheques are found in this morning's post too (my wife leans over table, suddenly taking an interest in my home businesses): one from PMI Gold the dating agency op, and the other from Club UK, so that's nice to see.

Sally Bro(o)ker sends me her love, or rather her chain letter again today. My wife and I have bets on what the next one will say, Sally Brooker, Broker or David Rhodes - so thanks, you two for our entertainment at breakfast each morning.

Streetwise Marketing always keep me informed about what they are up to, although I haven't ordered anything from them for some time now. The last time I ordered something was for one of those business opportunities that advertise themselves by telling you what it ISN'T rather than what it IS! I sent off £50.00 for the manual after reading the bumph - which was very convincing, even though I had absolutely no idea of what this op could be. It turned out to be a manual of "How to run your own dating agency" which, at the time, didn't interest me at all and I can remember being so disappointed because the op wasn't anything that I thought it might be (I'd just had several fantasies of earning thousands of pounds a month without lifting a finger to earn it) but there was, however, a refund offer if you weren't entirely delighted with the manual, so I sent it back and, eventually, got a refund.

Innovations Report is another of my regular deliveries: you know, the one that has "different" products that do unusual things, like the battery operated nasal hair remover which also shaves the hair out of your ears - but you have to concentrate on which order you perform the feat or it could be rather unpleasant. This report can never be accused of being junk mail as it's far too entertaining seeing what other people actually buy. OK, OK, I admit it: I purchased the hair remover - well, it was two for the price of one at the time!

The latest issue of "Computer Shopper" arrived too. I could tell it had been delivered as, when walking through the hallway, I noticed that the letter box flap was broken again. If that magazine gets much fatter it'll become illegal - I already mistake it for the Yellow Pages.

Several companies are asking if my staff would like to attend a seminar or two. It's funny that, just because you give your home business a name on forms you fill out, you give these people the impression that you're running a massive multi-national empire of a company when it's simply me, at home, with my wife and son!

Looking further through today's post Cable & Wireless suggest that I move my custom over to them as "You don't pay for anything." Well, I'm with them already but the quality mail keeps on coming from the TV and Telecommunications company. It must cost them a fortune, sending out all that thick yellow card with simple messages: if they're not careful, they'll have to start charging people after all, to pay for it.

Computer software update notification, loads 'n' loads of new (or even very old) business ops, product catalogues, some bills and the odd commission cheque (they often pay them straight into your credit card account) all go to make up my Golden Mail each day. What's in your mail box - is it junk?

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Please Hold The Line - Kinger!

Has anyone ever got that feeling, that nice feeling, when you dial in to your voicemail system and are informed that you have "5 new messages waiting", only to find that the first one is a "put the phone down" job, another is a bad line and you can't hear what they're saying, another still is a person only giving their name and road (with no post code) which they don't spell out so you can't post anything to them, and the other two are foreigners who you can't understand because they mumble and speak far too quickly, not spelling or repeating anything?

Well, I've had no less than three sessions like that this week alone, for goodness sake, surely people reading ads from this mag must know how to leave a message on an answering machine.

My outgoing message tells them, in simple terms, "spell out any unusual names and words, give your name, house name or number, then post code, and then simply give your name address and postcode in full and please tell us where you saw our advert, please speak after the tone …" Is that too complicated?

Seriously though, when I get, "Hello, my name is Smith and I'm at Lenan Road, please send me some info, bye," it makes me wonder if they've dialled the right number.

Another is, "Hello, it's Rualach, Temble, 119 Chowden Crescent, Colchmuz, Devish, ??##][lkkjgv ji." Now what am I supposed to send him? It certainly wouldn't be an info pack because I don't know where he or she lives - how do they even get any mail from people who advertise if they leave a message like that?

One gentleman gave his name. "I'm Peter Jones, J-o-n-e-s, I live at 28, that's two, eight, Shummand Court Creeshdie, Twemlos, Lamyat." In other world, they spell out the word that are clear anyway but fail to spell out the address, which would have been so much more helpful. The gentleman I'm referring to actually called back and said, "Oh, sorry, I forget to tell you where I saw the ad." It was a shame that he didn't repeat the whole thing again.

I tend to record the messages if I have more than a couple as, by the time you've listened to them over and over, it's cost you a small fortune being on the line all that time. I them play back the messages on my recorder and that allows me to rewind, pause or fast forward without spending all that frustrating time trying to decipher what they are saying.

I would never have believed the trouble I've had with post codes. Why do they give you a post code that is incorrect? Are people frightened that you'll find out who they are? No, honest,, it's true, I've had post codes given, clearly and spelled out to me, but when I check them on the database CD ROM they don't exist, so I enter the details that I have got and find our that one or more of the digits given were, in fact, wrong. No wonder some of my mailing list addresses from various companies are "No such address" etc. They might just as well be for Noddy's Toy Town for what use they are.

Obviously people can't be blamed for "D", can they, it sounds like "E" over a telephone line sometimes, or maybe "C". Numbers are just as bad on occasions. I always try a "No such address" again, when on the CD ROM

database, especially, for example, BH15 5EE which could be 5EC or 5DE or any combination of rhyming letters, I eventually get the correct post code.

On gaining mailing lists from the various companies I normally go through them before I send them out and am surprised to find so many incorrect addresses on the sticky labels. Some companies are worse than others for this but offer ten new names for an one "gone away" so it's not too worrying after all. Until you find that the ten replacements have all gone away too. Some of the lists must be years old but I'll write to you about those another time. Watch this space. Oh, another call is coming in: I think I'll answer it "live" and frighten the poor caller to death.

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Introduction To Online Auctions - Avril Harper

About eBay

Go to http://www.ebay.com and enjoy page after page of advice and information about the range of auctions available online, together with frequently asked questions by new and established auction enthusiasts, as well as up-to-date advice on the best type of products to buy and sell by a variety of high-profit marketing methods, including auctions, but also encompassing dozens of other profitable media. Staying now with online auctions, among the many categories of products bought and sold on eBay you will find:

Antiques and Art

Books

Business (Office and Industrial)

Cars, Trucks and Parts

Clothing and Accessories

Coins

Collectibles

Computers

Consumer Electronics

Dolls and Bears

Hobbies and Crafts

Home and Garden

Jewellery, Gems, Watches

Motorcycles

Movies

Music

Networking and I.T.

Photographic

Pottery and Glass

Real Estate

Sporting Goods

Sports Memorabilia

Stamps

Tickets

Toys

Travel

Everything Else

New Categories.

With all those to work with, you’re unlikely ever to run out of things to buy on eBay to sell at other online auctions, or to sell offline instead at boot sales, auction, flea markets, collectors’ fairs, and soon.

And vice versa, too, for many of those other places mentioned in this package from which to purchase goods cheaply, you’ll invariably be able to sell quickly and profitably at eBay and other online auctions.

eBay Auctions

Many people consider auctions a roughly similar affair whatever their type or location, regardless of whether they are held in the high street or by post, irrespective of whether they specialise in costly antiques and collectibles or sell all manner of goods. In fact, this isn’t so, there are many differences, some significant, others minor, between the various types of auction, as eBay so well points out in this listing of the types of auction eBay itself operates.

“Reserve" Price Auctions

• A reserve price is set by a seller who will not sell below a certain price.

• Bidders know there’s a reserve price, but they do not know what it is.

• In order to win the auction, a bidder must meet or exceed the reserve price and have the highest bid.

• If no bidders meet the reserve price, neither the seller nor the highest bidder are under any further obligation.

• You can’t use reserve prices for Dutch Auctions.

Buy It Now Auction

• This is an exciting optional enhancement to the traditional auction format. See an item you want? Win it instantly!

• Sellers name a price at which they would be willing to sell their item to any buyer who is willing to pay that price.

• The listing will be run as a normal auction, but will also feature a Buy It Now price.

• Buyers will have the option to buy the item instantly without waiting for the listing to end.

• Buy It Now will only be available before the first bid is placed on the item. As soon as a bid
is placed, the Buy It Now price will no longer be available and the item will sell through
the normal process.

eBay Store

• These are Buy It Now Fixed Price listings presented in collections of stores designed to
showcase merchandise from eBay storefront sellers. Many of these fixed price items can
only be purchased in these stores!

• eBay Store sellers create Store Buy It Now listings to display in their store.

• Store Buy It Now listings have a convenient 30-day duration.

• Buyers find items quickly with customized categories or built-in store search engines.

• No bidding or waiting for an auction to end! There’s only one set price so buyers can
buy immediately!

Private Auctions

• Bidders’ email addresses won’t show up on the item or bidding-history screens.

• When the auction is over, only the seller will know who bought the item.

• This option can’t be used with Dutch Auctions.

Dutch Auctions

• This fast-paced, free-for-all format is perfect if you have multiple, identical items to sell.

• Sellers start by listing a minimum price, or starting bid, and the number of items for sale.

• Bidders specify both a bid price and the quantity they want to buy.

• All winning bidders pay the same price which is the lowest successful bid. That might be
less than what you bid!

• If there are more buyers than items, the earliest successful bids get the goods.

• Higher bidders get the quantities they’ve asked for.

• Bidders can refuse partial quantities.

Restricted-Access Auctions

• This separate category makes it easy for you to find or avoid adult-only merchandise.

• To view and bid on adult-only items, buyers need to have a credit card on file with eBay.
Your card will not be charged.

• Sellers must also have credit card verification.

• Items listed in the Adult-Only category are not included in the New Items page or the
Hot Items section, and currently, are not available by any title search.

• Please list adult items in the correct area. Otherwise, your auction may be relocated or
ended. You could even be suspended from the site.

• Notice to Sellers of Adult Items. Various legal statutes regulate the sale and distribution of
adult materials. As stated in the User Agreement, your breach of these laws is a breach of
the User Agreement.

• Notice to Bidders and Buyers of Adult Items. Various legal statutes regulate the sale
and distribution of adult materials. Please exercise caution and obey all applicable laws
when dealing with buyers and sellers in this category. Please do not visit the Adult-Only
category if you do not want to see explicit materials.

Tips for Trading At Online Auctions

• Learn how individual auctions work. Some are less comprehensive than others and list items people
want to sell if the price is right. Those people may indeed withdraw items even without using a
reserve price if they consider the price is derisory. That is not fair play, in any type of auction, except
reserve price auctions. In cases like this, you can end up very disappointed and feeling used,
having simply helped the ‘seller’ arrive at a selling price via other marketing methods.

• Be warned against fantastic testimonials placed for various sellers and products.
These testimonials might be fake and placed by sellers or their agents purely to induce confidence in
their products which may not actually deserve the glowing accolade.

• Bear in mind the larger auction companies offer some means of protection to buyers which small
companies may be unable to do. For example, individuals and companies who consistently offer
mis-described goods, either criminally or innocently, will be barred from selling on major auction
sites. Smaller companies may be unable to offer such a service due to size or costs involved.

• Be cautious when dealing with buyers and sellers in other countries as their consumer laws may be
prohibitive to you. We believe no trader in Britain is safe against the ravages of British consumer
authorities whose main role is to protect the individual, not traders. Quite obviously, other countries
care far more about their business population, they realise these are the people upon which the well-
being of their country depends, so it may be possible that buying and selling to some overseas
locations will be easier and less complicated for you than dealing with buyers and sellers in Britain.

• Check out sellers before you spend time researching items that interest you. Some sites
include a feedback section which allows you to view previous identifiable transactions and comments
from buyers.

• Note that private individuals are protected to a greater extent than business entrepreneurs, certainly
in Britain, the quintessential nanny state. The private individual offering you goods is protected
sometimes to the fullest extent of the law. He may even be protected against you, the honest trader,
as happens so often in Britain.

• Always obtain name, address and trading details of all buyers and sellers with whom you do business.
Refuse to get involved, regardless of how much you want to buy or sell a particular item, if those
personal and business details are unavailable to you.

• Enquire always about delivery times, descriptions of products for purchase or sale, as well as what
warranties and after-sales assistance is available. If those details are not available do not trade.

• Avoid cash payments. Cash goes undetected and if sent to a bogus mail box in Britain or overseas
that may be the last you will see of your money or whatever product you send to conmen operating
behind such guises. Cheques and payment by card provide independent evidence to help solve
problems and disputes emerging after the buying or selling transaction.

• Choose an auction company offering insurance and other protections against dishonest sellers, both
private and commercial.

• Note that some auction companies suggest links to independent sites offering information and advisory
services to protect against dishonest sellers, both private and commercial.

• Report suspected fraud or underhand dealing immediately to the authorities. But don’t expect
them always to help. We have on occasion reported cheque bouncers and other criminals to their
own banks and building societies, and we have yet to find any means of being compensated for
the dishonest actions of others in Britain. In other parts of the world, you are protected to a
greater extent and it may indeed be better and less complicated to buy and sell from overseas
individuals and businesses. Note, for example, in the United States it is a criminal offence to offer
a cheque for money you do not have.

• Always let the auction company itself know about whatever problems you experience. By doing
so you will rid the company of conmen and undesirables and help protect other honest
people against their wrongdoings.

• Research the market value of products you are buying and selling and stick as closely to these
prices as possible. Bear in mind prices can be inflated or deflated by outside and undetermined
factors, such as panic buying, the existence of one major and avid buyer or seller for a particular
product, an unusually high number of bidders, recent shortages in particular items, and so on.

• Visit as many online and offline auctions as possible to compare prices and realisations for
specific goods, even identical items.

• Keep records of auction houses regularly achieving record prices.

• Keep records of auction houses achieving higher prices than others for similar or identical
products.

• Note which houses seem to attract interest in specific items, say teddy bears, or computers, books,
collectibles. Focus on those that achieve the biggest audience for buying and selling and which
also focus high in the best prices achieved listings.

• Keep records of opening and closing times of particular auctions in order to follow progress for
your potential buys and sales.

• Note that some online auctions extend over several days, even weeks, while others last just a few
hours.

• If you want something badly enough, make an early declaration to buy. Place a bid asap!

• Alternatively, if you are not certain about wanting something, but you feel bidding is low and you
could profit from buying, make a last minute bid.

• Place an early bid on items you really want to have. This, psychologically, lets other bidders
know you are serious about buying a particular item, and may well deter all but your
most hardened and avid competitors.

• If the pace is moving too slowly and you feel certain a product is worth more than the current bid,
not to mention the fact you want that particular item, then increase the bid price significantly,
again to deter all but your most robust competitors.

• If a description is unclear, be sure to check with the seller or risk buying something you do
not really want. For example, ‘old’ postcards can in some people’s eyes mean souvenirs of
last year’s holiday, while in purist collector’s eyes the term really means pre-1939 only.

• Sellers make known their preferred method of payment which buyers are expected to comply
with. If you want an item but the payment method is not to your liking, then contact the seller
first before bidding for the item. Have whatever arrangement recorded in writing.

• Take heed of what eBay says about bidding, this being one of the most crucial steps of all in
the purchasing process and one that could leave you in trouble, or merely embarrassed
and financially disadvantaged if you get it wrong.

“Use a proxy. The amount is kept secret and is your proxy bid.
All bids at or above $15,000 require verification (credit card or alternative ID) prior to placing
a bid. Learn More.The system will bid for you as the auction proceeds, bidding only enough
to outbid other bidders. If someone outbids you, the system immediately ups your bid.
This continues until someone exceeds your maximum bid, or the auction ends, or you
win the auction! Plus your proxy will never exceed what you’re willing to pay for the item.
Proxy bidding is not available for Dutch Auctions or Store BIN fixed price items.”

• Learn something about sellers and buyers especially the kind of reputation they have in
business and whether anyone else has had problems dealing with them. The best way is to
phone the seller, ask a few simple questions and note how well he handles them. If he
knows very little about the product he is selling, it could be he is a Jack of all Trades, someone
who knows very little about a lot of things, and may indeed be just as inexperienced at listing
and describing items for sale. Ask for information about other customers you might contact for
an independent review. If he or she has nothing to hide, that information should be readily
available.

• Be careful. Ensure you are doing things legally and professionally. Some things can not
legally be sold in some parts of the world. Some countries have stricter trading and
consumer laws than others. Spend time browsing sections of eBay and other auction sites
which provide information on various legal rules and regulations pertaining to most
items sold through them.

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Why Today’s £3 Boot Sale Find CAN Be Worth £10,000 Tomorrow - Avril Harper

Bargains abound at boot sales, for private use, for resale, or as alternative investments and auction room best-sellers. Witness Laura Kieff whose £1 bundle of books hid a Betty Boop cel worth £25,000, or a cup costing £3 in Edinburgh which Phillips valued at £10,000. Or a colleague who buys small collectable items for a pittance at boot sales and sells at immense prices at specialist collectors’ fairs. Another buys cast-off clothing in bulk for pennies, does cleaning and repairs, and sells at weekday markets for high profit.

Will yours be the next Antiques Roadshow exclusive? Will you buy stock inexpensively and sell as massive mark-ups? Does the family needs something special, but money is tight? This is how to achieve your aims:

• Arrive early, return home late - beat resident and visiting dealers to the biggest early morning bargains. How: say you’re ‘trade’, enter and move around freely before the public arrives. Inspect stalls, ready to trade or still unpacking.

• Focus on families and inexperienced sellers. Why: most want to sell fast and leave early, lack inside knowledge on ‘miracle’ finds, dislike haggling and give biggest discounts.

• At the end of day offer low prices for perishables - vegetables, fruits, flowers, plants, mushrooms - or bulky items which are hard to transport. Pay last-minute visit to dealers who refused your previous offers - some may be less reticent now!

• Dig and delve, leave no stone unturned - most ‘miracle’ finds (cost pennies, fetch fantastic prices at auction), are concealed by larger, more obvious items. Example: postcards in pages of books, medals mixed with common coins, priceless cups and plates with cast-off household crockery, quality gems in batches of broken beads.

• Look in boxes, flick through books, search beneath stalls. Buy popular resaleable items needing cleaning or repairs, do work and re-sell at higher prices.

• Avoid defective goods, recognise valuable items, guard against fake and stolen goods, investigate best buying venues. Check electricals carefully (look for loose wires, dirty leads, heavy wear and tear); enquire about warranties; ask for guarantee goods are in working order; look closely at designer label and branded goods where fakes abound (check logo is accurate, watch for defective or faulty printing).

• Check for damage, broken parts, missing pieces - and attempts to conceal; take spare batteries; ask to inspect inside sealed boxes. Most common fakes: videos and software, designer clothing, brand-name cosmetics and perfumes. And: read about collectable and other valuable items, study collectors’ magazines, watch televised antiques programmes, visit collectors’ and antiques fairs.

• Visit regular boot sales, check for best bargains, get friendly with regular traders - expect higher discounts. Generally risky buys - difficult to inspect before buying - computers, household electrical goods, battery-operated toys with batteries missing. Rarely intact: jigsaws, multi-piece games. Remember: purchasers at boot sales are covered by same consumer protection laws as buyers in high street shops. Get receipts and sellers’ names for costly items and consult Trading
Standards if you suspect goods are stolen, counterfeit, contrary to trading laws.

• Pay the lowest price possible - learn to haggle and ask for trade discounts, offer cash not cheque. Why: haggling cuts costs significantly and is expected at boot sales, by trade and private sellers. Cash more attractive to moonlighting traders! Start by offering between one-half and two- thirds the asking price. Typically, sellers suggest more, closer to their original price. You increase your offer slightly, they ask a little less, until a midway price emerges that satisfies both parties.

• Ask for trade discount - before the public arrives or if you are selling at the event - ten per cent is common. Ask bigger discounts on goods purchased in bulk, for example, children’s videos, toys, boxes of collectibles. Expect the highest discounts when bad weather or major televised event - Wimbledon, World Cup - keeping visitor attendance low.


• Stay cool - don’t give the game away when you’ve found a bargain - by shouting excitedly, gloating and parading your acquisition. Why: the sale isn’t binding until money changes hands. Sellers can alter prices or withdraw items from sale without giving reason. ‘Camouflage’ bargain buys to avoid last-minute detection by seller. For example: hand over several postcards, gem included; buy cups, saucers to hide antique plate; offer money for book with valuable insert but do not hand over book itself - things hidden for decades can reveal themselves fast!

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Making Money at Car Boot Sales - Avril Harper

No longer a Sunday-only affair, car boot sales operate every day, indoors and out, all over the country. They’re favoured by families turning cast-offs into cash and a growing band of professional traders - ‘booters’ - selling everything from auction finds and bankrupt stocks, to antiques, bric-a-brac, designer clothing and more.

Profits can be spectacular. ‘Booting’ requires no special skills or qualifications and almost insignificant starting capital. If you’re tempted - as private seller or trader - this is how to proceed:

• Plan a range of profitable options - profit ‘every which way’ - for example:

Clear the attic, sell the proceeds, reinvest income in stock.

Sell to ‘trade’ (offer a discount, commonly ten per cent).
Target fellow booters and trade visitors (they arrive early and buy in bulk).

Sell other people’s belongings on commission, usually twenty per cent.

Look for ‘miracle’ finds on other people’s stalls - notably one-off and inexperienced
sellers - the kind of ‘Antiques Roadshow’ specials which, costing pennies, can fetch
record sums at auction.

• Choose venues wisely - some are highly profitable, others a waste of space. The best are regular events - same place, same time, same organiser - being well-advertised and signposted en route.

• Avoid one-off events unless linked to major crowd-pulling attractions, the likes of air shows, county fairs, agricultural shows. Study local newspapers - normally Friday and Saturday - for coming events.

• Select products carefully - some items sell fast, at fantastic mark-ups, attracting regular buyers. Others linger, waste space and limit profit potential.

• Normally banned: livestock, some foodstuffs, pornographic/offensive materials, counterfeit/ dangerous goods. Increasingly organisers prohibit new items from sale. Controversy: ‘new’ has various meanings according to organiser - unused, direct from the manufacturer, no previous owner? Always check, never assume.

• Best sellers: books, records, refreshments (normally one licensed supplier), household cast-offs, garden ornaments, tools, electrical appliances, clothing, toys, vehicle parts, bric-a-brac, collectibles.

• Don’t take the likes of chipped crockery, damaged glassware, modern cast-off clothing, dodgy electrical goods, old shoes, broken toys.

• Buy from: fellow booters - private and trade, charity shops, jumble sales, church fairs, school fetes, second-hand shops, auctions, newspaper ads, collectors’ fairs, flea markets, friends, neighbours, wholesalers, trade warehouses.

• Plan for Success - Learn as a visitor before starting to trade. Study: advertising for the event, roadsigns (AA/RAC, rough and ready, non-existent?), facilities for public and trade, allowable against banned goods, popular products, most successful traders (just follow the crowd).

• When it’s time to trade:

Contact organisers from advertisements or enquire at sales. Subscribe to ‘Car Boot Calendar’, details later. Some organisers have a calendar of events these are the ones to consider first.

Book a pitch and start planning your first big day. The night before the sale: select
goods - ready cleaned and priced, check petrol, load and park your vehicle somewhere
safe, plan your route. Next day: leave early, park as instructed, unload and display
your stock. Grab a quick cuppa. Enjoy your day!

• Study the Experts - Let their experience and knowledge prevent costly mistakes and help your business grow faster.

Arrive at least two hours before normal opening time (8 - 9am) and beat early birds
to bargains on other people’s stalls.

Clear dead stock ‘everything 50p’ or ‘three for the price of one’.

Abide by rules concerning quality and description of goods as laid down in the Sale
and Supply of Goods Act, 1994 (Details from Trading Standards at local town halls).

Adopt a realistic pricing structure. Learn from other people’s stalls, check prices
for similar goods in catalogues and press advertisements. Or add a specific mark-up,
say 30 per cent, to prices you paid.

Gather essentials before you start trading: reliable vehicle, folding table, stall
cloth (wallpaper tables are ideal. Avoid gaudy covers which detract from stock),
staging (adds height and prominence to selected items), glass-topped showcase
for valuables (locked), small safe or money belt with cash float (minimum £20
small change), pitch fee (£3 upwards), wrapping materials (newspapers, carrier
bags, bubble wrap), pen, notepad, cash book, refreshments unless provided,
warm clothing, waterproofing for stock and stall. Add ambition and have a good day!

Useful Contact:

Peter Allwright, P O Box 30, Twyford, Reading, Berkshire, RG10 8DQ
Publishes ‘Car Boot Calendar’ and ‘Antiques Diary

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Buy and Sell Collectibles - General Tips - Avril Harper

• Read collectors’ magazines - Antiques & Collectables, Collectables, Collect it! - they all feature
collectors’ clubs for antique and modern collectibles. They’re among the best and cheapest
places to turn for specialist advice on identifying and valuing finds. Most are organised by
collectors for collectors - they issue newsletters and hold collectors’ meetings where knowledge
is shared between expert and novice enthusiasts.

• Get a copy of The Lyle Price Guide to Collectibles (by Tony Curtis, published by Lyle). It lists
more than 20 collecting categories with lavish illustrations and guidance on identifying and
valuing finds. Check out Miller’s Collectables Price Guide.

• Most collecting fields have specialist books and price guides - find the biggest selection in
collectors’ magazines.

• At flea markets and collectors’ fairs sell to the trade first, collectors second. Reason: Mark-
ups are lower, but repeat multi-sales much more likely, not to mention the trade is easier to
reach (phone, fax, post details) and is always requiring new stock.

• Compile a regular list of offers, with prices. Mail to UK, US and worldwide dealers. We’ve
done it, it works, it’s hugely profitable.

• Fast-growing demand for most collectibles - vintage and modern - has spawned an
explosion of fakes on the market, principally of dishes, vases and other ceramics and
glassware. Some are so good even the experts are fooled, with several London auction
houses already recruiting staff as detectives to counter the problem.

• How to spot good from bad? Colour is rarely perfect, for example, Carlton Ware’s
hydrangea pattern was forged, but the colours were wrong, as was the case for Sylvac’s
Rabbit Jug fakes.

• The best way to avoid fakes is to join a collectors’ club for your special interest. At the first
hint of fakes appearing on the market, most clubs act fast, informing members and press,
auction houses and antiques and collectors’ magazines.

• Find collectors’ clubs through advertisements in ‘Collectables’, ‘Collect it!’, ‘Antiques &
Collectables Magazine’.

Tips for Trading at Flea Markets and Collectors’ Fairs

• At two-day fairs wait for people with goods to sell to approach you the first day to check you out
and return the following day to give you first pick of their valuables. People like to talk to
potential buyers, to determine what their goods are likely to be worth, and to decide who to sell
to. Few people carry larger or more valuable items with them to fairs, often because they fear
they’ll be coaxed into selling and regretting it soon afterwards. So be fair, gain their trust, offer a
decent price and who knows, these may be people with countless goods to sell - and you’re their
chosen buyer.

• Follow a handful of fairs organisers - book regular sites and obtain cut-price deals on multi-
bookings, get a prime pitch where customers congregate most: at the entrance, bar, loos. Get first
chance of spare stalls when other dealers fail to appear.

• Take a stall at fairs with 60 plus stallholders and expect 1000 per cent more visitors. Advertising
is more extensive for larger fairs - and most are held on a regular basis - so high numbers of new
customers will appear alongside thousands of regular buyers.

• Cut your operating costs - If you’ve only a handful of goods to sell, attend as a visitor, trade with
dealers: it may not be worthwhile paying for a stall at the event. Look for visitors carrying bags
of goods for sale - these are probably part-time traders - they buy at auction during the week and
sell at fairs at the weekend - notice what type of goods they sell and how much is paid. Don’t be
short-changed - take several trips around the room, spot people selling items similar to those you
want to sell, and look to see if any traders are attracting more sellers.

• Work every inch of stall space - small high-profit collectibles - stamps, postcards, coins, model
soldiers - hog less space, sell faster than expensive bulky antiques. Keep back-up stock and
replenish fast. Build space upwards - with staging, shelves, boxes.

• Profit between sales - keep customers’ names and addresses, issue a regular sales list, charge new
customers up front. Send approval selections to trusted customers, set date for return of
unwanted items with payment for goods retained. Don’t forget to list fairs you’ll be attending
soon. Note buyers’ interests - and concentrate inter-sale buying on them.

• Become well-known, display a ‘stock wanted’ list - develop a clientele of buyers and sellers at
every event.

• Keep start-up costs low - follow the best fairs organisers - new traders pay stall fees up-front, old-
hands pay when the sale ends and their pockets are bulging with cash.

• Determine your most profitable venues - and book well in advance. Investigate new venues -
reach fresh buyers and breathe life into unsaleable stock at other venues. Choose one high-profit
over several modestly profitable fairs - earn more money, faster, and leave plenty of time for
buying at auction.

• Specialise for top profits - monopolise general events, be sole supplier of high profit items. For
example: stamps, old telephones, local prints coloured and framed, street jewellery (enamel
advertising signs), militaria. Trade at specialist events - watches and clocks, art deco, postcards
and ephemera - competition is intense but expect ONE HUNDRED per cent of people to be ONE
HUNDRED per cent interested in everything you sell.

• Record dealers’ special needs, buy for them between sales. Be safe, not sorry -always phone to
check dealers’ interest on high-ticket items before buying.

• Choose Saturday venues in the centre of town ... THE recipe for success! Expect non-stop
browsers and curiosity seekers and take money hand-over-fist all day, leave tired but expect
500% higher takings than Sunday and out-of-town sales.

Popular Buying Sources for Collectibles, Antiques, Art, etc.

Though collectibles can be obtained from dozens of different sources, generally speaking it’s the person with the keenest eye who gets the best bargains.

Most importantly, real gems can be found virtually anywhere, even from highly-knowledgeable dealers in collectors’ items and antiques. The question is, who knows most about a particular item, who spots the tell-tale signs another person overlooked!

Arguably, however, your best finds are likely to come from less experienced sellers, say car boot dealers (especially families and one-time sellers), smaller less specialised auction companies, visitors to your stall at car boot sales, flea markets, collectors’ fairs. Here’s just a general introduction to your most likely source of miracle and bargain finds:

Auctions - general and specialist.

• Contact general auction rooms in your area for an update on forthcoming lots. Few small auction companies advertise in the specialist press, say antiques traders’ guides, specialist collectors’ magazines, so there’s a good chance you’ll be one of very few specialist bidders on the day.

• Specialist auctions often carry bulk lots of collectibles, say north eastern topographical postcards, boxfuls of doggy ephemera, etc., which few collectors want in bulk and many bigger dealers don’t want anyway. Buy whatever offers profit potential and split items into, say, rubbish (only for binning), items for your own collection, items for known collectors (e.g. customers are collectors’ fairs, approvals clientele), items to be re-auctioned (perhaps combined with other items from earlier sales and bundled as a job lot). Plan a marketing strategy based on sorted items.

• Dig deep in every lot which might conceivably hide something. Look for bookmarks in books, collectors’ dolls in piles of modern toys, commemorative china in house clearance lots.

Collectors

Collectors often dispose of surplus collectibles, sometimes at auction, more frequently at antiques fairs, collectors’ fairs, or responding via ‘wanted’ ads. in general and specialist papers.

• At fairs, keep a pile of business cards on your stall, indicating what items you require and providing contact details for people who don’t have goods with them or prefer to speak to you later in private.

• Place your own ‘wanted’ ads. in local papers and places you’re prepared to travel to buy. Include specialist magazines and newsletters, such as those read by teddy bear collectors, steam train enthusiasts, postcard and stamp collectors. Ask your local reference librarian for media guides listing specialist and niche magazines.

Car Boot Sales (source of the best miracle finds featured in the press and ‘Antiques Roadshow’),

Collectors’ Fairs, Flea Markets, Antiques Fairs

• Inspect other sellers’ stalls, mainly inexperienced sellers at boot sales and flea markets, as well as specialist sellers of other collectors’ items with little or no outside interest. For example, at flea markets my biggest supplier were fellow dealers in bric-a-brac and wide-ranging antiques, often high-ticket items, who thought postcards a waste of time. Sadly for them!

• Be prepared to travel outside your selling area. For example, as specialist in postcards of Durham, Northumberland and Northern Yorkshire, I often travelled to Scotland and London to sell items outside my selling field and to buy stock from dealers not wanting to travel further afield to sell their own acquisitions.

Valuing and Disposing of Miracle Finds

You’ve got your treasure - now what? If you don’t know what it’s worth who does? And how do you avoid getting ripped off and sell your precious find at a pittance?

• First and foremost be very careful who you get to value your goods and always get more than one
valuation, preferably several, and only from known reputable professionals in the appropriate
collecting field.

• Don’t be afraid of selling items, either direct to the public at flea markets, car boot sales,
collectors’ and antiques fairs, by re-auctioning through general or specialist auction houses, or
even by post, via an approvals service, your own small auction listing, through advertisements in
general and special interest collectors’ magazines. It’s very easy, a great way to make money fast
and, even better, customers and fellow dealers are themselves a great source of valuable bargains
and miracle finds.

• Most importantly, have goods valued properly first, before disposing of them!

Seven Foolproof Ways to Value Your Finds

Have your finds - however doubtful - valued several times before parting with them. Consider starting your own business and using other firms’ valuations to guide you.

• Consult catalogues, yearbooks and magazines for the appropriate collectors’ field.

• Approach specialist auction houses, or leading auctioneers with staff experienced in specific
areas. For example, Phillips and Southeby’s sell most collectable and antique items, both having
valuers in wide-ranging items alongside experts in various specialist fields.

• Note that auction is often the best way to dispose of valuable collectibles, in practice allowing
you to reach a wide audience for the goods - dealers and private buyers - while allowing market
forces to determine the value of your goods.

• Keep price lists and advertisements from dealers selling similar items. Study these for average
prices, trends, and such.

• Always get a receipt for items valued or sold. This serves to protect you if foul play is discovered
later.

• It’s not a good idea to send items to be valued by post. Items can be lost or ‘mislaid’ -
synonymous with stolen - or the valuer may be looking for goods to buy, not merely to value, in
which case he is at liberty to keep and send money for your goods before you realise your
mistake. For example, in the postcard trade it’s very common for dealers to receive several
packets of cards each day for valuation. An invitation to value usually comes with first chance to
buy. Some traders will return unwanted cards with cash for items they wish to purchase,
sometimes specifying a period during which you can refuse the offer. Sometimes not, however,
and you are expected to accept what they offer. Phone to check, never assume!

• Keep a listing of specialist buyers and collectors in particular fields and compile your own ‘auction’ catalogue, listing items, describing condition, inviting offers.

• If several experts agree on a value, they’re probably right, but don’t think they’re always
right. They’re not as I’ve learned from bitter experience when items I’ve had valued by the professionals at twenty, thirty, forty pounds, have later fetched several hundred times the amount at auction. For someone else!

Three Things You Must Never Do Or Risk Being the Loser

• Never, ever, ever, ask general traders at flea markets and collectors’ fairs to value your finds.
Many do not have the appropriate knowledge and most will quote the price they want to pay, well
below market value.

• Never sell to the first person who offers an attractive price. That person might be under-valuing
with the intention of disposing of the item later at a vastly inflated price.

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More Buying and Selling Tips - Avril Harper

Buying

• Always haggle with sellers, even for low value, high resale items. A caudle cup, priced at £5, haggled to £3, resold in Edinburgh recently for many thousands of pounds.

• At fairs, in shops, as a trader or not (but don’t get caught out telling lies), say ‘Trade’ and expect a ten per cent discount or more.

• Arrive early at fairs, swapmeets, markets, before other dealers get first pick of bargain goods and miracle finds. Again, say you’re trade, even if you’re not, and gain admission long before the doors open to the public.

• Look for items now sold individually which were originally issued in sets: some postcards, cigarette cards, some books. Find one and chances are the remainder are lurking alongside. For example, our researcher Peter Allan tells how, at a northern flea market he spotted a postcard showing what looked like part of Christ’s face, followed soon by cards depicting other body parts - feet, hands, legs. Eventually finding 12 cards he realised they fitted together, in jigsaw fashion, to form Christ’s body, with each card focusing on important events in the life of the Messiah. The cards, costing 20p each, were part of a ‘composite set’, sometimes worth hundreds of pounds at auction.

• Look for No. 1 issues of most magazines, comics, newspapers. Recently first copies of Batman, Superman and Beatles comics have fetched staggering sums at auction.

• Look for items which are poor sellers in one area with high potential demand in another. Santa Claus postcards, for example, are hugely popular in America but just another postcard theme in Britain.

• Learn about most desirable and high price collectable makes and makers in your chosen field. Steiff for teddy bears, artists such as Kirchner and Mucha for glamour postcards and prints, Sutcliffe for early topographical photographs, Corgi for toys, etc.

• While searching other people’s attics for miracle finds, don’t overlook your own. My business selling postcards and paper ephemera started with seventeen cards sent by my grandfather during the First World War. You never know what you have until you look!

• Look for goods to buy in bulk which can be dismantled and sold individually. Though still presenting competition from fellow dealers at auction or other selling venue, most collectors avoid buying in bulk when just a few items interest them.

• Postcards and stamps frequently come in bulk, in albums, as do boxes of books, toys, ephemera, and such. Likewise job lots, unwanted collections, and so on. For a recent example, the sale of items belonging to the late Catherine Cookson featured hundreds of individual pieces, alongside trays and boxes packed with smaller less valuable goods, the likes of books, cutlery, small ornaments. For a few pounds per lot northern dealers acquired boxloads of items belonging to the north’s most famous and best-loved daughter which were quickly cleaned, priced, and sold individually at flea markets, boot sales and from ads. in regional newspapers.

Selling

• Decide whether to trade direct to the public, say at flea markets, collectors’ fairs, car boot sales, or to trade by post via auction resellers, on approval to known trusted past customers, through advertisements in specialist magazines, or by inviting buyers to call to view items on your premises.

• Write a book or articles, get interviewed on television and radio, about your special interest. Establish yourself as an expert and wait for your letterbox to be flooded with offers from buyers and sellers.

• Be fair, and hospitable to everyone. Develop a reputation for reliability and fair-dealing and be the one buyers and sellers turn to first.

• Have business cards printed giving your name, address and telephone number (remember to have the premises burglar-alarmed when giving precise details) and your chosen buying and selling speciality. Hand cards out to buyers and sellers, and leave plenty on your stall at flea markets and collectors’ fairs. Most people like to spend time thinking before inviting you to inspect, value and buy their goods. Others, often first-time visitors, are unaware that some items are collectable and rarely carry such items around, preferring potential buyers to call to view.

• Advertise in general and special interest collectibles magazines, such as general ‘Collectables’ and ‘Collect it!’, ‘Picture Postcard Monthly’ and ‘Stamps’ for special interest.

• Compile a valuable mailing list - free of charge - from sellers and collectors listed in magazines, newsletters and club membership lists.

• Most successful collectors and dealers know there’s a right time to sell their goods, and it can take years. A good example is vintage postcards (pre-1914) which, until the mid-eighties, could be purchased for pennies and sold for pounds at collectors’ fairs and specialist auctions. Come the nineties’ recession, spending on luxuries diminished, the bottom fell from the postcard market, and traders were hard-pushed to make ends meet. But, as the economy strengthens, luxury spending is back, and those who held onto their cards should soon see their patience rewarded.

• Consider various methods of marketing your goods, both direct to buyers at flea markets and collectors’ fairs, and by mail order, direct mail, on approval, by special invitation to view, through agents, at auction, and so on.

• Make items appealing to collectors and non-collectors. For example, advertisements and prints from magazines can be mounted, framed, and sold from stalls at collectors’ fair or flea market, or direct to hoteliers, shops, restaurants, and other potential bulk-buyers of decorative items.

• Look for less-obvious ways to market your goods to people with potential to buy. Dog cards and memorabilia, for instance, can be sold at dog shows; similarly cat-related products at cat shows, motoring memorabilia at car shows and motoring swapmeets.

• Keep similar items together on your stall or in catalogue and sales lists. Extensive stocks of similar items, say teddies, advertising postcards, can be sold separately through advertisements or catalogues, cost less to target than wide-ranging offers to general collectors, and make it likely people will purchase in bulk.

• Start a newsletter or club for enthusiasts of your specialist area. A small fee you charge to attract thousands of potential subscribers is a pittance to sales you’ll achieve later to your own highly targetable niche audience. For example, Brian Wood Ceramics, specialist in hand-decorated collectable pottery pieces, recently launched its own collectors’ club, costing around £15 a year for a regular newsletter, a set of Art Deco salt and pepper pots, a special one-off gift, and, most importantly, priority to limited editions. Likewise, the Cherished Teddy Club issues newsletters, gifts, membership (actually membearship) lapel pins, and first chance to buy four limited designs issued each year.

• Hawk goods around specialist fairs, such as fairs focusing on stamps and postcards, dolls and toys, railwayana, etc., etc., etc. You don’t have to take a stall to profit fast. Offer goods to all appropriate dealers in the room, compare offers and consider selling to the highest bidder. Special interest - shocked faces, dealers’ eyes following you round the room - should be treated with caution and goods valued by outside experts with a view to selling at specialist auction.

Security

• Be on your guard against customers and sellers at fairs and other selling venues and, sadly, I have to say ‘trust no-one’. At a fair in Newcastle I left my pile of newly acquired cards with a collector and dealer who was also one of the most trusted individuals on the northern postcard circuit. One or two real gems in a pile of two hundred or so north eastern topographical cards were present before I visited the loo, and missing when I checked two or three hours later. At that time, my ‘friend’ was the last person I suspected until, a few weeks later another dealer warned, ‘Watch out for XY ... we suspect he’s not as honest as he once appeared to be!”

• Keep secrets secret. When I revealed a hidden source of inexpensive postcards in a Durham City antique shop it wasn’t long before the hoard was bought in bulk by someone I once called ‘Friend’.

• Photograph valuable items to make detection easier if items are stolen or lost.

• Herewith: A warning designed to protect you and your stock against life’s more unfortunate individuals, thieves and burglars. BUT PLEASE NOTE WELL - danger is avoidable and, even better, having spent many years dealing at fairs and other outside venues, the author has NEVER encountered danger of any sort! Do not be alarmed! But! Avoid inviting prospects to your home to inspect goods, except sometimes in daylight when others are present. Try not to travel alone to fairs and flea markets where goods can be stolen as you move between stall and vehicle at unloading and reloading times, or when you are distracted or pre-occupied during the day. Worse still, I know several colleagues who were followed home from a fair, not just on darker evenings, who have been intercepted and robbed on route or burgled and assaulted later in their own homes. Moral: Try not to travel alone or unload your vehicle late at night. Flood lights are a good idea for anyone living in isolated areas. Have a burglar alarm installed in your home or business premises, and a safe for smaller, more valuable items.

Legal Aspects

• Stay within the law or risk fines, imprisonment or a possible end to your business for passing off modern goods as antique, intentionally mis-describing goods, trading in stolen items. ‘Ignorance of the law’ is no excuse. In most cases stolen items can be reclaimed by their real owners, while Trading Standards has wide-ranging powers to confiscate or withdraw ‘iffy’ items from sale.

Help from Other People

• Make friends with fellow dealers at car boot sales and flea markets, whether they are selling similar things, or not. Direct competition is not always a bad thing, especially if one party travels more extensively than another, or targets a slightly different audience. For example, I specialised in north eastern topographical cards. Nationwide fairs, supported by dealers all over Britain, comprise some following the entire circuit, and others attending local events only. I chose the latter course and was always the first person to whom nationwide traders chose to offload long-standing north eastern topographical cards at high discounts. They were also my best buyers, in bulk, for more distant topographicals - useless to me, priceless to them.

• Start a ‘swipe’ file of other firms’ advertisements, listings, catalogues, for products you are selling, especially in the early days when you stand to gain well from their experience in selecting, describing and pricing stock. Follow trends. Say, for example, you plan to sell advertising memorabilia gather information on all competing firms selling similar products. Notice what products seem to sell fastest (namely those which never appear a second time, discounting duplicates), study price trends, descriptions, and so on. Information can be gathered by contacting firms from advertisements in general and specialist collectors’ magazines, by asking to be placed on the firm’s mailing list for future offers, by careful study at fairs or other selling venue.

• Join a club or society for your chosen collectors’ theme or themes. Members share valuable information and advice and can be your best customers. Plus you get the chance to build a valuable mailing list for free.

Presentation

• Don’t price directly and indelibly onto delicate items. For example, write in ink on a postcard or book, or append a price label and value drops drastically. If indeed anybody wants it once you have mutilated a previously priceless item! Sticky labels damage most delicate items, including china. Where possible cover the item in see-through plastic - stamp mounts, postcard covers - and stick the label on top. For china and ornamental items, use a price tag fixed with string.

• Keep items as close to original state as possible. For example, leave toys in boxes, book with dustcovers, sets of postcards in original envelopes. Virtually any collectible is worth more complete.

• Repair what you can without spoiling the item or reducing its value. Paintings can be cleaned and restored - only by experts, French polishing improves appearance and value of furniture (only when carried out by professionals).

• Think whether something can be done to an item to increase perceived value and price and interest a wider audience? Prints from early magazines can be removed, cleaned, coloured and framed, for example, early paper collectibles can be packed in sets or bundled like-with-like. Stamps are a good example of items often worth little on their own, but sorted into themes, say space travel, Disney, Elvis Presley, bagged and priced low - they’ll sell like hot cakes at collectors’ fairs, or even through newsagents and toy shops

Pricing

• There is no such thing as the ‘right price’. No-one knows how much an item is really worth, even at auction. Price is what someone is prepared to pay at any point in time: at the right auction an item might go for many times its catalogue value, or for a pittance if the auction is poorly advertised or bad weather keeps bidders away!

• Deciding how much to pay is a major problem for beginners and old hands alike. Obvious good buys - huge catalogue value, pittance of a price tag - should be bagged while the going’s good. If you’re not sure, either take a chance on affordable items or keep a catalogue close by. Deciding how much to charge, say at flea markets or auction (you can set a reserve) or through ads., is a relatively easy task. Either have items valued professionally. Get several valuations - or consult your swipe file of prices from other people’s promotions. Alternatively, sell the item via a specialist auction house - with a reserve - and let market forces decide. For less desirable items, aim for a specific percentage mark-up when selling direct to the public, including trading costs and overheads and profit for you.

• Don’t think age is the only indication of value. Consider more recent items, too, say from the 40s, 50s and 60s; fad products such as Rubik’s Cube and Star Wars models, even modern limited edition items, the likes of teddy bears, designer jewellery, dinosaurs (courtesy ‘Jurassic Park’), Disney figurines.

• Look for anniversaries or other events which might inflate the price of goods significantly, sometimes short-term only. For example, Bonzo dog items might have sold for far more a few years ago exactly fifty years after the death of creator George Studdy. The film of the Titanic and media interest in finding and searching the wreck increased interest and prices of items originally sold to commemorate or raise funds for victims’ dependents

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Forget Me Not Maintenance – Martyn Brown

Most people who work from home work from a computer, either a desktop system or one of those handy little notebook computers that you can carry around with you.

Either way, I have found that I’m not the only one suffering from ‘Forget me not Maintenance’ syndrome.

This is when you switch on your computer with the aim of doing something productive but get side tracked along the way.

For example, I needed to write a couple of articles, try out some new software and start on a design for a new web site that I’m building.

But, on booting up the notebook computer, I wondered why it was a little ‘slow’ and leaving me sat there just waiting to make a start. So I decided to check out what was loading into memory at the start and taking all my valuable time. I checked out the start-up configuration file to see what needed removing. This took more time than I thought and I had to re-boot the computer twice, as well.

Then I noticed that I’d left one of those ‘demo’ programs on the system and so decided to remove that while I was in computer maintenance mood.

A virus scan followed as I remembered that I hadn’t performed a full check on my C Drive for quite some time. This took ages as my hard drive is huge.

Relieved that I’d finished I went on to close down the computer and put it away.

A few minutes later I thought, hang on … where’s my articles?, what happened to my new web site layout?, the new software CD is still on the table…untouched.
I had literally forgotten to do ANY of it due to the ‘importance’ of the routine maintenance I was involved with.

This sort of thing kept on happening, again and again. I now make a written list of each item that I need to perform in number order. Number one would be the most important project followed by anything else that needed to be completed on the computer.

I found that exactly the same thing would happen while surfing the Internet. I’d get side tracked by visiting a link from one site to the next. Or a pop up as would have me follow it to the owners product page. Emails would take an age to read, save and delete.

So, again, I now list exactly what I am going to do each session on the Internet and won’t ‘stray’ away from the project in hand.

Now, on completion of each list where each item has been ticked off one by one, I find I have been productive and have still got time to take a look around the Internet and perform any routine maintenance without disrupting my schedule.

I find it also gives a great feeling of satisfaction when I look down the list I’ve generated find most things, or everything, completed. I then discard the list until another few projects are requiring attention when I simply get out a scrap of paper once more and start a new one knowing that nothing will be forgotten and delayed.

The above may sound a little obvious but you’d be surprised at how many people suffer from the ‘forget me not maintenance’ syndrome….make that list.
 

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Watch out on your next evaluation at work:

These individual quotes were reportedly (allegedly?) taken from actual
employee performance evaluations in a large US Corporation.

(1) "Since my last report, this employee has reached rock
bottom.....and has started to dig."

(2) "His men would follow him anywhere.......but only out of
morbid curiosity."

(3) "I would not allow this employee to breed."

(4) "This employee is really not so much of a 'has-been', but more
of a definite 'won't be'."

(5) "Works well when under constant supervision and when cornered
like a rat in a trap."

(6) "When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change
feet."

(7) "He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle."

(8) "This young lady has delusions of adequacy."

(9) "He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to
achieve them."

(10) "This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."

(11) "This employee should go far......and the sooner he starts,
the better."

(12) "Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all
together."

(13) "A gross ignoramus - 144 times worse than an ordinary
ignoramus."

(14) "He certainly takes a long time to make his pointless."

(15) "He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier."

(16) "I would like to go hunting with him sometime."

(17) "She's been working with glue too much."

(18) "He would argue with a signpost."

(19) "He has a knack for making strangers immediately."

(20) "He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room."

(21) "When her IQ reaches 50, she should sell."

(22) "If you see two people talking and one looks bored... he's the
other one."

(23) "A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on."

(24) "A prime candidate for natural de-selection."

(25) "Donated his brain to science before he was done using it."

(26) "Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't
coming."

(27) "Has two brains: one is lost and the other is out looking for
it."

(28) "If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a
week."

(29) "If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change."

(30) "If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the oceans."

(31) "It's hard to believe that he beat 1,000,000 other sperm to
the egg."

(32) "One neurone short of a synapse."

(33) "Some drink from the fountain of knowledge......she only
gargled."

(34) "Takes him 2 hours to watch 60 minutes."

(35) "The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead."

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I hear what you say but I know what you mean - Kinger!

I’ve just purchased one of those pieces of software that you talk to and it types what you say, to save you typing it all in.

I actually tried a demo version of an earlier incarnation of this voice recognition software a few years ago and it was absolutely hopeless. To get a decent output you needed to buy the top of the range package which cost around £795 for the office version.

Today though it costs around £200 for a very good package which includes a digital recorder for when you are out and about. You simply record your thoughts and messages, plug the device into your computer when you get back to your home or office and it types out what you recorded earlier.

To begin with you have to tell the computer a story, once you’ve set up the microphone which you wear around your head like headphones, but the mic is on a stem to one side of your mouth.

I chose Alice in wonderland or looking glass or something. You have to repeat this process for the digital recorder file as the sound quality is different from that. Nobody else can use your voice file as their voice patterns will be totally different from yours but you can, however, move your own files from one computer to the other, this saves you having to go through the whole training process again.

It takes quite some time to train the software to recognise all your vocabulary so you have to train it up over several sessions. It listens to the way you say the words written on the screen, stopping if you stumble over a word or you can ask it to go back if you totally mess it up.

When you have completed a few hours of story telling (aren’t there some big words in that Alice story) you can elect to drag and drop some of your document files into the package which helps it learn your way of putting things and how you lay out your work. So any letters you’ve written to people … the bank manager, Auntie Lilly, Cousin Peter or whoever will be useful to help teach it your habits. So instead of querying a point during a dictation session, it will automatically know what or how you would write something judging by past experience, so to speak. The more letters that you’ve written and you can give it, the more accurate it’ll be. Clever or what.

I was amazed at how quickly I was able to speak and it still type in exactly what I said. Commands are separated by a certain word and even by the way you say things. ‘Correct that’ in a louder voice will go back and alter a misspelled word. ‘Correct that’ in your ‘normal’ speaking voice will actually type the words. Numbers are clever too, it will know when you want figures and when you want letters. This is handy if you are doing columns of figures and don’t actually want them to be words, so ‘five’ can be just that or simply, ‘5’. Once you learn the few commands required you will race through a letter in no time.

There is an even newer version of the software out now which, they claim, only requires a ten minute training session. That’s what I could have done with, I think.

The software will proof read it for you too by a person speaking back what has been ‘typed’ in. You can choose what type of voice reads it back to you, male, female, slow, fast, deep, squeaky, whatever you prefer. Once you get the grip of it, you can control functions of your computer too, so no more messing with the mouse or short cut keys on the keyboard, your voice can do most things.

While on the Internet you can announce which window you want open or which file to save or copy or print. I found it great fun after I’d given it a few days training to my voice.

It slips up on the occasional word but, once you correct it, it won’t fall over the same word again. Some letters cause it no end of problems while others you just sail through. On one occasion my microphone was on too low a setting, this was making the software misunderstand me all the time, I turned up the input and all was fine again.

So if you’re one of those people who have been waiting for this type of product to actually work and do what it says on the box then, it’s most certainly here and, by all accounts, getting better each release. The current, Dragon dictate pro is the best on offer and I highly recommend it.

Let’s give it a try….Deer cir, thanc u 4 yur lotta, dayted forteenff of thebuary … ok, ok I need to give it another training session but you do get my drift, it’s very clever stuff.

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Seedy errors - Martyn Brown

During this article I won’t mention any names or product names but just use it as an example of how easy it is to make a new kind of mistake that could only have been made using the latest technology available to us today.

It has now become, oh so easy, to copy reports and manuals from one source to another.

Photo copying and scanning can all be done from your spare bedroom via your computer.

In fact, copying of all kinds can be done and this means CD’s and CDROM’s for data.

The amount of information one can copy is huge, in fact there is so much of it, it just isn’t justifiable in matters of time and effort to look at it all, rather, just copy it and hope for the best.

Let me give you an example. A well known person in home business land asked me if I’d image his original CDROM and make 5 new copies. I started to do this but found that it was riddled with virus software and my Norton anti-virus software had detected it.

The person I was copying for informed me that several copies of the disc had been sold after being duplicated by another person first. Why didn’t they check the disc?. Why didn’t my home business colleague check the disc. They simply looked at the titles (or some of them) and thought, yes, I can make a buck or two on selling these titles. And so it was…duplicated over and over. Nobody really knew what they were selling or, indeed, purchasing.

I spent days weeding out the titles and transferring all the ‘good’ ones to a new disc. The final version was a very solid and value for money package.

That was some time ago. Just before Christmas, however, and look what I was sent. A CDROM with manuals, reports, software, e-books, ‘How to’s’ galore, Internet stuff and PDF files, in fact, you name it and it was on the disc. Not thinking that the same type of mistake would be made by the person who sent me the disc….a super home business guru, to say the least, I started to look through it.

The material was innocent looking enough…all seemed ‘home business’, so no problems. But on looking deeper down the files and folders I discovered a whole archive of material that just couldn’t have been checked by, Mr. Guru, the home business entrepreneur.

The software hadn’t been spell checked and Dollars instead of Pounds appeared throughout but this was easy to rectify by search and replace in my word processor program. What astonished me was the titles in amongst these ‘innocent’ files.

How to make a bomb, How to create anarchy in your town, How to destroy things, Chemical warfare, Underground newsletter files to corrupt computers, Virus making kits, Illegal ham radio, Occult…anything for the bad guy…was this home business?. I was shocked at the title that showed you, ‘How to rape a girl’. The details, in filthy language, explained each stage of each rape in America. From the guy storking his victims to his technique during and his procedures afterwards, to avoid being detected by the police. It was all here in every detail.

Quite how this wasn’t spotted before it went to press is unbelievable. The disc has now been withdrawn after I brought it to someone’s attention but how many have been sent to customers, I wonder.

The message here is, Don’t be greedy and try to make money by sending out piles and piles of software that you’ve managed to download or gotten hold of. READ IT FIRST!. There is so much American stuff on discs containing manuals and reports which aren’t worth the floppy disc they are available on. Most are out of date, misspelled, contain symbols instead of characters, dollars instead of pounds, formatted incorrectly, incomplete, adverts from the 1980’s, e-books that you can’t read off-line and software containing viruses or programs that are not built to work on modern operating systems and so keep crashing your computer.

I’ve nothing against CDROM’s and floppy discs containing reports, manuals etc.(‘though floppy discs are a bit of old hat now) so long as they’ve been checked, re-checked and packaged and presented in a way that the customer can actually find them USEFUL. Every disc I’ve ever received is unusable due to the crap that has been put on it. If it really IS good stuff, it won’t be free for a start and 650MB normally means it’s been stuffed full of rubbish that the seller has collected over the months which are normally from the early 1980’s onwards.

Avril Harper has written some classic reports but to include the ones that mention type writers instead of computers is surely a sign that they’re to be updated or thrown away. Buy her new stuff instead.

Rant over.

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On The Buses - Kinger!

I found myself having to catch a bus last week, the second week of the children’s school summer holiday. I was instructed to take my son to his Grandma’s house and with my wife having the car it left me with no choice but to do something that I hadn’t done for over twenty years…take the bus.

The 188 from Weymouth to Poole. I was to get on from the stop at the end of my road which wasn’t too far away from the town but a little too far to walk.

My son and I reached the stop ten minutes before aforementioned bus was due. Forty minutes later it still hadn’t turned up so I got on the number 92 which stated, Poole. On we jumped…I asked if he went all the way to Poole. No, he said, I don’t. Well it says “Poole” on the destination board, I stated. It says India on the tyres, he replied, but I’m buggered if I’m going there (Okay, the old ones are the best)…yes, of course I’m going to Poole. £1.35 for you, half fare for the boy.

It was just 14 pence the last time I went on a bus, shows how I’d lost touch.

I think I started to enjoy the ride more than my seven year old son, who always got excited during the odd bus trip, especially if it was an open top bus and he would be ‘allowed upstairs’.

Then my enjoyment started to fade as we had to actually stop to let some people get on. After using my own transport for so many years this was a nuisance. They fumbled with their change and took ages to sort out a ticket. The time, the time, what are they doing?.
Off we went, when a kind driver eventually let us pull out. Ah yes the memories of busses was coming back to me.
I read the same few adverts over a few times and moved from a draughty vent. I couldn’t help but listen to a stupid conversation that some teenage girls were having in front of my new seat. Boyfriends, who’d have them, eh?.

My boy was grinning from ear to ear, obviously enjoying seeing something from the bus window, everything seemed to please him but here was I getting totally fed up with the slow, noisy and frustrating bus ride into, Poole. Going to Grandma’s in the car took seven minutes but here on the bus, only half way there, had taken an hour already.

We stopped at a bus lay by but there weren’t any passengers to pick up, so why stop?. Ah, yes, I remember now…the driver has to ‘do his books’. He clicked a number of coins from his cash dispenser and wrote a few notes in his book, messed about with some tickets and timetables and put the engine in gear. Not wanting to hurry, he wasn’t fussed that nobody would let him pull out onto the highway again, choosing to wait instead until there was a huge gap in the traffic before he even attempted to pull away.

Sadly, in Poole, we have a thing called a lifting bridge. It is for the boats in the harbour. The main road in and out of Poole is built over, Poole harbour, and the road has to lift up in order for shipping to go through to the other side of the lifting bridge. Now the bridge lifts up at certain times…called the ‘rush hour’ and ‘when anyone’s in a hurry to get to Poole’. It is the biggest black mark in the history of Poole. All traffic comes to a stand still once the lifting bridge is up and allowing the boats to sail through.

Judging by the queue of traffic that the bus joined after we left the last stop, we had hit such a time. Off goes the engine and silence falls on the neighbourhood…it’s quite eerie really and also bloody annoying.
Anyway, after around an hour (fifteen minutes actually but it felt longer) off we went again, very, very slowly as the bridge isn’t very wide and certain vehicles can only go through single file, meaning one driver has to wait for the other. If we are lucky it won’t go up again before we get our chance to cross to the other side.
It didn’t and the bus station, our destination, was getting nearer. But wait, the driver was turning off the main road and going a different way than I expected.

Oh yes, another ‘bus thing’, it may have to pick up passengers from that bus stop about two miles up that odd road that nobody ever goes along but ‘just in case’, buses must go that way. Nobody was at the stop…the driver waited there anyway (just to annoy people like me, of course) and then off we went again….”Look daddy, a train is at the station”, be quiet, I replied.

The queue into the bus station was long as cars were in the bus lane, cars who’s drivers didn’t realise that the lane for the multi-storey car park was the other lane, not this one, this one was for buses.

At last we were at the bus station and parked up. Now, had we have caught the 188, or rather had it turned up, we would have been dropped outside of Grandma’s but, as this was the 92, it took us to the station and we had to catch another bus to go to a road near Grandma’s.

Stand by for Mr. Grumpy. Yes the 101 to Bournemouth was late. If a driver is late he is very grumpy and snaps at all passengers along the way….that’s if he actually stops to pick them up. Many ‘would be’ passengers are left stranded with their hand sticking out to stop the bus only to see it sail on by…in Poole that means you’ve got a late, grumpy driver.

After queuing for a while I stated where I’d like to go. Seventy two pence, the driver snapped. Why the odd two?, I thought. Anyway I thought it would be good to give him the correct change as they always seem to not be able to change a fifty pence coin if my memory served me correctly, so to cheer him up I placed some coins on his counter and looked in my pockets for the odd two pence coin. He tutted and groaned and looked at his watch in annoyance followed by a look over my shoulder at the queue. He tore off my ticket and told me that I should tear my own ticket off. I said, “well, the other driver tore it off for me”, but he didn’t seem to care. This was all new to me.

My son was getting fed up by now….all his playtime would be used up on the bus trips. Past the first two stops without stopping (I told you, didn’t I?) and picking up a few other passengers then on to our stop.

Off we jumped and walked the rest of the way to Grandma’s. Grandma was pleased to see us. My boy played with some toys and then we were invited to stay to tea. Mummy came to Grandma’s from work and we all had a lovely time….apart from the bus trip….

I’m having the car next week, no, I said, I AM having the car next week!!.

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How to write a business letter (UK) - Martyn Brown

We, involved in home business, will always find a time when we need to write a business letter, but just how do you write one correctly?.

Firstly, keep them clear, simple and direct and do not use words that you are unfamiliar with. Create a tone that is courteous and business like without being pompous. Avoid slang and use your spell checker on your computer or check in a dictionary with any spellings that you are unsure of.

If possible type the letter rather than write it freehand.
Leave wide balanced margins with a line of space between each paragraph. Do not try to cram everything onto one sheet of paper.

Unless you have headed paper, set out your address and telephone number at the top right hand of the page with the date underneath. On the left and slightly lower than your address, put the formal name of the person to whom you are writing, his position or job title and the name and address of his organisation (the same information should be written on the envelope). Underneath, add any reference number from previous correspondence.

If you know the persons surname but not the first name or initials, put the company name and address first, with For the personal attention of Mr. Smith, underneath.

Use the same formula if you want to write to the holder of a particular position but do not know his name, for example, the head of a company against which you have a complaint: For the personal attention of the managing director.

Make sure that your name, in the style by which you prefer to be addressed formally, appears somewhere in the letter. Type or write it in block capitols above your address or under your signature if it is not on a printed letterhead.

Start & Finish: When writing to someone whose name you know, it is usual to include the name in the greeting at the beginning of the letter: Dear Mr. Black or Dear Mrs. Black. All business letters that have a name in the greeting should close Yours sincerely , on a line by itself in the right hand half of the page, above the signature.

In letters where you do not know the persons name, use an appropriate impersonal greeting, for example: Dear Sir or Dear Madam. Letters with any impersonal greeting should end with the phrase Yours faithfully, before the signature.

If you are not sure of the correct title or professional qualification a person has, check with their letterhead or business card or even call their secretary to ask the correct way to address the person.

If you are writing to a company or organisation but not to a particular individual within it, begin your letter Dear Sirs unless it is obvious that it is an all female group, of course such as the WI, in which case Dear Ladies should be used.

If writing to the holder of a particular position, such as the managing director of a company, whose name and sex you do not know, begin Dear Sir or Madam.

If you are not sure whether a woman should be greeted as Mrs or Miss the style Ms is accepted by most people or use Dear Madam, which is correct for a women of any age.

Where the name does not give any clue to the sex of a person, for example: Pat Smith or M.A. Kingsley and you know nothing about the person, use the name without any prefix for the address and at the top of the letter. A greeting repeating the name in full, Dear Pat Smith is best to avoid giving offence.

When writing to a man, put Mr before his full name in the address or Esq after, but not both. Use Mr in the greeting.
As a courtesy, you should include your name in the way that you prefer to be addressed formally, but it is considered incorrect for a man to style himself Esq or for people to put Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms before their own names.
Show which is appropriate after your surname, in brackets.

There we are, our first ‘How To…’, another one next issue. I thought that one could write a letter exactly how you wanted to, which you can but, this is how to ‘officially’ write it. Yours faithfully, Martyn Brown (Mr)

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I'll Help Where I Can - Kinger!

Being a bit of an Internet buff, or that’s how friends see me anyhow, I always attract the people who are just starting out in life with the computer and, of course, the Internet.

I find it amazing how every caller falls into the same category when I try and explain over the telephone how to complete a certain procedure.

A guy ‘phoned me last week who keeps trying to get me into his down line. It’s amusing how he tells me how good his latest networking scheme is and why I should be in it only to find that, on contacting him at a later date, he’s stopped doing it. The reasons he gives for the failures are so ‘genuine’ it’s entertaining to listen to them.

He couldn’t get on the Internet because he’d signed up to one of those free service providers and couldn’t uninstall the software so that he was able to use his latest ‘We pay you to use us’ service providers.

Chopping and changing Internet service providers or ISP’s can cause problems as each company insists that you use their software to connect to the Net and it always customises your browser so that their advertisements shine through, no matter where you go.

It also stops other providers taking over your spot too easily, so the customer stays faithful to the ‘Free’, buy shares as you go, We give you cash, We’ll pay your ‘phone bill, Stay on-line all day, One payment a year, Penny-a-day bullshit providers.

People don’t seem to realise that these, so called, free offers mean you get a lesser service than the ones that you have to pay for each month.

I only pay £5.99 a month but I don’t get cut off while downloading a large file, I connect at full speed every time I log on, I get no annoying adverts splashed across my screen, I don’t get junk emails from the ISP’s advert system, I don’t have to recruit ‘friends’ to keep my bill low, I get a free help line service and I don’t have to stay on-line to get my free benefits. So it’s worth paying for it in the end, believe me. All the ‘free’ services cost you in other ways.

Anyway, back to the guy with the problem. He swapped from ‘FreeCost-a-lot’ to ‘FreeCost-even-more but covered up better’, service providers.

All he needed to do was go into his Dial up Connection applet from his desktop and click on ‘Make new connection’. I explained it to him, step by step but, as always, you have to talk these people through how to use the blasted computer at the same time.

Double click on ‘Make new connection’, I instructed. With the left mouse button or the right mouse button he panicked. The LEFT, I replied.

I kept finding myself left in silence with the occasional faint mumble, ‘hang on’, ‘um’, ‘oh dammed it’, ‘I’ve just got to..’, as the guy found his feet using his PC. Quite how they run a business with it is beyond be. He couldn’t even re-size a window.

The ‘phone went dead twice and I had to call him back each time. This is typical of the type of calls I get from acquaintances requiring assistance with the Internet or computers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind helping but when they don’t even know the basics it turns a would be five minute call into a couple of hours. I’ve often ended up going round to their house and doing it for them. You can’t really ask for petrol money can you?.

Now, I continue with him, click in the email field and type in your email account name. ‘How do I find out what my account name is?’. They supply you with it, I say. ‘I can’t find it’. Call them, I suggest. ‘What’s their number?’. You get my drift, don’t you.

I might start up my own PC help line and charge 50p per minute. No, on second thoughts, I’ll give it all up and get a job at C & A’s.

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Back In Time For A Business Briefing - Kinger!

I went to my first business briefing in years the other day, it brought back lots of memories, some happy, some not so happy.

The thing that hit me first was the presentation, almost word for word what I used to hear, many years ago, promoting a different business. There must be a standard script for doing presentations, I thought.

I smiled at the, “Let me tell you a little bit about my background”, and the ‘story’ that followed, from the initial presenter.

The room was ‘full’ with every seat taken. Well, it was a small room with twelve chairs, meaning that the thirteenth person to enter the room would bring a comment from one of the organisers, “Sorry we’ve run out of chairs, we didn’t think it would be so busy this evening, let me go and get some extra chairs in”. This sounds very impressive to the waiting, invited audience. Well it must be good, we all think to ourselves.

After the introduction, we were treated to a PC presentation featuring the ‘products and services’ that the company offered customers. It was one of those that come on a computer floppy disk with tinny synthesized music, in other words, terrible … I spent the entire performance trying to, name that tune, they all sounded so familiar.

As always with this type of presentation … you know the type, no speaking, just animated images of letters of the alphabet and lots of arrows, numbers and graphs … they overdo it, to make up for the lack of real people and, no narration from the ex-newscaster from the BBC, they make certain words like, FREE, dance around the screen for ages, after you’ve read the paragraph on screen for the fifth time. Special effects get boring when overused and overuse them they did, and with that bloody wah wah music as well, it was a relief to see it end.

In steps the guy who is going to take the actual business briefing, always confident and cool, with a ‘joke’ to put us, or him, at ease.

The scenario is set to allow the listener to form a picture of how it is for, Mr. Take the mickey out of guy in networking and how it is for, Mr. I’m in networking, and everyone takes the mickey out of me.

This is followed by how much, Mr. Take the mickey, is earning at time of taking the mickey for the first time, and how much, Mr. Networking, is earning while being ridiculed by Mr. Take the mickey.

Now then, after month one, Mr. Take the mickey, is bound to ‘look justified’ when taking the mickey out of, Mr. Networking because, Mr. Networking’s earnings are so small, obviously, as he’s only just started in the business.

Even by month two, when, Mr. Networking’s earnings are up to around £500 per month, Mr. Take the mickey, is still looking justified to take aforementioned mickey because his earnings are still bigger and better than, Mr. Networking’s.

But, by month three the networking earnings are up to £1000 per month and, Mr. Take the mickey, is beginning to ask questions of interest. By month four it’s £2500 per month for networking and, Mr. Take the mickey, is getting left behind a little.

And so the amounts rise, the presenter of the briefing reads every word that is displayed on the screen, which is so annoying, as the members of the audience can read it without someone else reading it to us. Why not elaborate a little, but no, they must read every word, exactly as it is printed on screen.

By month twelve, Mr. Networking, is earning £139,500.00 each month and so, Mr. Take the mickey, is totally pissed off and so doesn’t look so justified in taking the mickey after all, there we are, a lovely story, eh?.

Anyway, wait for it, £139,500.00 is too good to believe, isn’t it?, of course it is, non the less, it is true, “there are people in the business doing just that, and more”, we’re told by the presenter. So, to make It more realistic, the presenter builds in to the scenario a ‘failure rate’ (sounds awfully familiar) “So what failure rate shall we build into it”, he says…”10%, 20%, 30%, NO!, let’s build in a 90% failure rate, now what business do you know that will allow for such a high rate?”.

Anyway, it worked out that one could still earn thousands of pounds per month with a 90% failure rate, which made you want to join the company immediately, Not!. Nobody was going to fall for that old chestnut.

One or two of us started to lose faith after the presenter showed us an ‘amazing’ hair restoring product. He mentioned the way that the DTI tried to stop them selling it (the failure rate, mentioning the DTI, it really was formulae stuff this evening) but, on checking, they found it was super magic stuff and even advised it be sold worldwide, incredible. The only thing was, it was hard to believe in the presenter as he was almost totally bald himself, hmmmm.

At the start of the presentation, the experienced one, from the top of the network, stated that he had to keep an eye on his watch as he knew that we didn’t want to stay all night and that he would be quick and not keep us too long. Quite why he had to take his watch off of his wrist and lay it on the table next to him, I didn’t know as I simply lift up my arm to look at the time on my watch. But all became clear when he picked it up, later on in the briefing, in an exaggerated pose, to see the time and he mentioned that he was awarded the watch for good sales and reaching, Sergeant Major Colonel area co-ordinator, and that it was presented instead of a badge or pin, like the other networking companies did. We in the audience, knowing that we weren’t interested in this business by now, couldn’t give a monkeys and wondered why he kept going on about it for so long, there was no way this could sell his networking idea.

The questions at the end, from those already in his networking business, simply ‘dropped him in it’ as, he had to admit to them, the shortcomings of certain aspects of some products and services.

“Why does the, Free ‘phone 0800 number keep stopping on my mobile telephone, every couple of weeks?”, was one question, asked by a disgruntled member of his team.

“Well, mine doesn’t” the, top man, presenter replied, “only about once in six months”, he went on. Realising that this fact didn’t do his image any good, he tried to cover up the fact that, Free ‘phone 0800 numbers DO get cut off, quite regularly, on mobile telephones when put through the, Orange network, as they don’t like you misusing the system, they do it as often as they can to all the companies trying the ‘cheap calls’ trick. Why the presenters mobile didn’t get cut off when he used the same number as his downline used, we couldn’t work out. He wasn’t telling porky pies was he?.

A further question, “can we sell abroad?”, brought a simultaneous reply of, “No” from the presenter and “Yes” from an ‘expert’ in the audience who was earning £1500.00 per month, probably because they were the only one to realise you could sell abroad while the others in the team were stuck with their measly earnings from the UK only sales. Interesting.

“Can users abroad, then, use our software to access the Internet?”, came a question from, a rather confused team member. The reply was yes, but they wouldn’t get the discounts or free access that UK users got. Perhaps the person on £1500.00 per month didn’t earn their big bucks from sales abroad after all.

This business briefing was a, nostalgic meeting, for me as I used to both attend and, on the odd occasion, nervously take a briefing, week after week, as it was all the rage to hold meetings of this kind in the eighties and early nineties by networking or multi level marketing companies.

I was surprised that they still used the same ‘techniques’ to pull people in (“If you join, fair enough, if you don’t, well, that’s fair enough as well, at least, if you hear our company mentioned, you can say you’ve seen us” – this is the exact script that I used to use, around ten years ago, always with a smile on my face, how sincere).

I’m not knocking this presentation really, I know what it’s like to be stood in front of an audience who don’t believe you but, if you do your job correctly, you can still gain a downline. It’s just that I am so surprised, as I said earlier, that they haven’t changed the method of recruiting people yet. I haven’t been to a business briefing of this type for so long, yet people still seem to fall for the patter from the presenter.

Perhaps it ought to make a comeback. I seem to miss the barracking from the back of the room from a couple of guys who only came for the beer and the awkward questions that you just could not answer or the times when you ‘dry up’ and completely forget where you are, no …on second thoughts, I’ll just stick an ad in, Home Business World.

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Refund?, You must be joking! - Kinger!

Is it me, or is it harder to get a refund now-a-days when applying on the Internet?

On no less than three occasions recently I’ve needed to ask for money back or to stop a regular payment for one reason or another.

I won’t name names because I’m still fighting to get my refunds and If they read this I’ll never get them, that’s for sure.

One company is just launching a new business. I signed up but didn’t need to pay until just before they launched. It was five hundred US dollars for the business along with use of a facility to market your own home business. Two weeks after paying I realised that the way the company were promoting the business wasn’t totally legal for United Kingdom law and I also wasn’t 100% happy with the product presentation.

After a lot of thought I decided to ask for a refund via email (there was no address or telephone contact available). No reply. I emailed several times and finally got a reply that my message would be ‘passed on’ whatever that meant.

Several emails from me to them later, another reply. This time they suggested that I should fax my request for a refund to them instead of emailing it and make sure that I sign it. I did this but received no acknowledgement that they’d received it.

Several emails later they sent me a reply entitled ‘Refund confirmation’. “We have passed your refund request on to Level Three” (whatever that is) “You should hear from them in 72 hours”, was the message.

I never did, of course. I then called my Freshco credit card customer support who, unfortunately, can’t do anything about it yet unless the company in question supply a refund slip. Why, isn’t that strange, the one thing that I can’t get from them is required by the Credit card people in order to process my disputed refund. No help there then.

If, after 30 days, I don’t receive the refund slip, Freshco credit card customer service tell me that they can ‘look into it’. I’ll wait until then, then.

Meanwhile I thought that I’d try to ‘legally’ download some music albums from the Internet instead of using Kazaa or BearShare etc.. It’s been on my conscience for a long time, so I thought I’d try ‘My Cola Music’. www.mycolamusic.com is where you go to buy and download your favourite music tracks without breaking the law.

You do this by paying £40.00 and getting 5000 ‘credits’ in your account. If you download one song, it’s 99 credits, if you download the whole albums worth of tracks, it’s 999 credits or similar. About ten pounds an album then or sometimes around twelve pounds if it’s got lots of tracks or is brand new.

I went for ‘S Club 8’ (don’t laugh, it was only a test download for my young family) and besides I had tried getting S Club 8 from Kazaa and BearShare (so called illegal music download sites, ie, you don’t pay for them) and couldn’t find them. Or, I could but they were the ‘duff’ tracks that music companies and record labels put on there to ‘get back’ at us law breakers. Duff tracks are either blank files or looped songs where one section of the song is played over and over instead of the proper version.

Anyway, back to the storyline. There I was attempting to download S Club 8 from My Cola Music when the screen froze right at the point where I should have started to receive my download. I couldn’t get the album down even though I’d just been charged ten quid. I tried again and it charged me another ten quid. I’d lost two times 999 credits in five minutes and, as yet, didn’t have the product.

I decided to try a single song instead of a whole album. I logged in with my username and pass word. It took me to the download page and then back to the home page to log in again. I logged in again. I was taken back to the log in page again, then again. What was going on?

The system had my £40 and I was locked out!

I finally managed to get in and actually get the song downloaded on to my computer. I loaded it into my music player but, oh dear, it wouldn’t play.
I found out that this was because, although I’d paid for the song, it was ‘coded’ and ‘protected’ to stop me copying it. I could only play it on Microsoft Media Player. That’s what I call value for money…not.

I decided to write to customer services. This was no good to me at all, I asked for a refund. They couldn’t refund my Freshco credit card (no change there, then) but could give me back my credits for the non downloaded music. Try again they said. I did, it didn’t. So I’m still without S Club 8 album tracks.

I then decided to try each individual file instead of the whole album at once. I got three files down but it charged me for every track on album…individually, which is more expensive than doing the whole thing at once. I wrote to customer service again. Sorry about that, they said, your credits are back in your account.

Great. This time I chose an entirely different album. The ‘myColamusic’ site was running very, very slow. Pages took an age to load, even though I use fast broadband connections. Back to the log in page even though I had already logged in six times … all over again.

I chose a reggae album, I’d never hear of it but thought that I’d better get something for my money before it lost everything I’d put in. It took two hours to download to my computer. On trying to play the songs from it, I found that it had downloaded just one very large file which Microsoft Media Player simply refused to play with an ‘Unknown error’ alert. Thanks, another ten pounds gone and no product.

I wrote to customer services again….after logging in twelve times (you think I’m joking?).

This time an email came back with details of nothing more than frequently asked questions, nothing what-so-ever regarding MY problem. I have asked for a full and complete refund but yes, you guessed it, no reply at all.

The music industry are crying out for people to not download music, so called, ‘illegally’ (it’s still a grey area). They supply legal sites but, legal sites like myColamusic.com?, they are abysmal, a shambles and didn’t ought to be operated in this condition, I’m appalled at the whole thing and the customer service.

I’ve just got one thing to say to the people behind the greedy record companies … Kazzaa!

Finally, I tried to stop a very well know Internet Service Provider from taking £59.00 out of my credit card for renewal to their email service. It was free for the first year but, to my surprise, a huge fee charged each year from now on.

I couldn’t remove my card details from their server (no way to do this, it was fixed) and although I sent and email asking them to cancel my subscription I received no confirmation of it. I wrote again but still no word from them. And yes, you guessed again, out came the £59.00 from my Freshco credit card. Nothing can be done as I had supplied them with my card details and I shouldn’t have done.

So now I’m going to alter the credit card on my account to one that I closed down years ago (they wouldn’t give me refunds either) and THEN fight for my refund from this service provider. If they try to take another £59.00 it simply won’t work (ha).

I’m logging into ‘Deal Player Plus’ now…they keep taking £16.00 out of my Freshco credit card each month and I’m not even signed up for their music and video club.

Seriously though, never give your CC details unless you KNOW exactly what’s involved. These companies seem to rely on the fact that you can only email them and hide behind their anonymity. They’re great for quickly starting and opening your account but try and close it, ask for a refund or for credit and they seem to disappear without trace.

My emails are automatically logged to see when they are opened. I know the exact time when they are opened and read. Yes, they do receive them but tend to ignore requests for refunds. And they expect to survive on the Internet. I don’t think they will.

I’m off to Woolworth’s to see if, S Club 8 are in the sales

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Spelling Mistakes You Can Count On (To Earn You Money)

Have you ever gained by somebody else’s mistake?

Perhaps you’ve been shopping and been charged twice for the same item and, on taking the receipt back to prove it, have not only been given a refund but some ‘extra’ on top by way of an apology from the supermarket.  Tesco refunded twice the difference if you suffered this inconvenience at one time.  Or they give you the extra item charged for plus your money back.

Mistakes do happen and it’s good that most businesses will help sort them to an acceptable degree rather than have the customer get upset and lose out.

On the Internet there is one fairly common mistake that you can cash in on to the level that you can use it as part of a regular business.

It happens on eBay, the Internet auction site.  A person might list an item for sale but, unintentionally, misspell the name of the article or important part of the description. This reduces the chances of selling their item big time. 

This is because, when a potential buyer searches for an item to buy, they will type in say, Wedgwood table.  But the seller has typed in ‘Wedgewood’.  So the buyer won’t have it listed in the search results and hence never find or be able to bid on the item.

This happens on all sorts of things.  Authors names, book titles, item descriptions, they can all be misspelled very easily. 

I found a bargain autograph that should have sold for over £30.00 judging by past results for this type of item, but I picked it up for £14.00 as I was the only bidder.  I searched for Robbie Williams and found hundreds of autographed pictures etc., all going for top dollar.  I then searched for Robby Williams and found just two items of which nobody was bidding because ‘Robbie’ had been misspelled and therefore not found by those not expecting it to be spelled incorrectly.  I had to win the auction at my price.

Looking for GameBoy electronic games machines, I searched for Gameboy Advance and then the misspelled Game boy Advanced.  The difference was apparent.  Also, it was a good idea to search Gameboy as one word and put the letter ‘D’ on the end of ‘Advance’.  You’d be surprised at how many different ways it can be incorrectly listed … all to my profit.

To find out the best prices paid for certain lots, go to search on eBay and click ‘Advanced search’ and select the box ‘Completed auctions only’.  This will list your search with the ending price paid.  Now you know what this item generally sells for, which is good to know.

When you find these bargains, you don’t keep them, no, I didn’t expect you to keep a Gameboy Advance that you don’t want anyway, you simply RE-LIST the item with the CORRECT spelling and description where, after buyers have searched for your item, you’ll get the top price.  The difference between your buying price and your selling price is your profit.

Don’t have items you buy sent to your address, rather, re-list them and, once sold, get the original seller to send it directly to YOUR customer, which saves you having to post the item again after you receive it.  Obviously you don’t tell the original seller what you’re doing, otherwise he’ll start doing it too and you’ll lose the chance to bring in so much profit.

When you pick items to re-list, always pick on things that WILL sell and not an obscure non descript item that nobody wants anyway.  By checking the ‘completed auctions’ lists on the search engine in eBay, you’ll know what is a hot selling item and what is not.  You need to know, within reason, what you’re going to get before listing.

Find names of items or brand names that are easy to misspell.  Sony isn’t often misspelled but Philips is, they’ll put two letter ‘L’s’ in it.  These sell for less than listing Philips correctly.  Look for it and you’ll see.

Less common misspellings will give you a much bigger difference between what you buy for and what you can sell for, so keep searching, you’re bound to find several per day.  Simply re-list and sell on straight away.

Another thing to watch for is badly described items.  Someone could list an item that you know is good value for money but the seller is hopeless as describing it.  In this situation you would buy the item and re-list it but with a new, much better, description.

When people search for your item, they normally search over title and description by default.  This will list your better wording in your new description.  The more people that bid on your item, the more you’re likely to get for it.

When your auctions ends you’ll find that you’ve made more than what you paid for it.  Simply get it delivered to your new customer.

Always pay for the item quickly and then ask the seller to hold it for you until you give them your address for delivery.  No more than 10 days later you’ll be in profit.

If you’d rather not get the item sent directly to your customer, just have it delivered to you but put the postage fee in your listing so that you don’t lose out.  This way you’ll be in total control … the item will already be packed, you just re-address it to your new customer.

This system works great as a part of your eBay tactics for earning an extra income part time.

 Do get involved in eBay, where there’s more than one way to earn a living.

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