Like anyone who has ever bought a business opportunity in the past, I am now on a lot of mailing lists.

Of course, this means I get loads of sales letters through the post.

I always keep the vast majority of these sales letters because know I’m probably going to need them in the future.

Over the weekend I was sorting through my big “swipe file” and putting all the duplicates to one side.

For example, I am on Streetwise Publications’ mailing list and I must’ve received 8 or 9 mailings for the Pentatrade system. I’m not surprised, the Pentatrade course costs well over £2,000 so it makes sense for Streetwise to spend a great deal of money advertising it.

Anyway, whilst I was going through my swipe file I decided to tot up how many offers Streetwise Publications have sent me since I got on their mailing list.

With my first purchase from them coming in January 2006, I have only been a customer of theirs for around 13 months.

However, in that time Streetwise have sent me sales letters for over 30 different products.

The cheapest?

A tie between John Harrison’s “How to Stop Working and Make a Million Pounds Instead” and the “Drivers Survival Handbook” – both £19.95

The most expensive?

Easy – that accolade was taken by the Insider Signal trading course which cost an eye-watering £2322.

Second most expensive, closely following the Insider Signal, was a similar course – Pentatrade by Hugo Lawrence – at £2287.

Very interesting, especially if you are an information publisher.

Streetwise are basically showing us how to make huge profits – make sure you have plenty of products to sell to customers after their first purchase, the “backend“.

I got another letter today from a racing tipster, this one is called Philip Croshaw.

Philip is representing a firm called “Race Brokers Ltd” who, according to the letter, represent “a small group of highly successful professional racing investors“.

Over the past 2 weeks the tips have apparently won £250, £112.50, £87.50 and £800 based on a £50 bet.

Sounds great but don’t they all!

All Mr Croshaw wants me to do is ring this Wednesday (21st February) between 11.30am and 1pm for full details.

Of course, there is a catch:

“When you get the name of the horse expected to win… all you need to do is place a nominal bet on it for the professionals, together with one for yourself… then sit back and enjoy!”

I assume that if the bet wins you have to send money to Race Brokers Ltd but if it doesn’t, what do you do? Swallow the loss? Or do they take the stake off the next winning bet?

Anyway, the number to call is 01372 460 600. This number is based in the same area as the Race Brokers’ office which is in Esher in Surrey.

I like getting these letters, just to see what is going around and how they try to sell to their prospects. I still want to know who is selling my address though…

Apparently Philip Croshaw’s professionals are “… possibly the most successful in the Country… handling money for “live” horses… horses that the stables are secretly betting”

I won’t be calling though I’m afraid, not for me. If you happen to call, please leave a comment below as to which horse he tipped and whether it won.

Just yesterday I received 2 identical sales letters for Andrew Reynolds’ Cash On Demand monthly subscription course.

I think one was because I am on Vince Stanzione’s mailing list and the other was sent to a different address, obviously from a different mailing list I am on.

If you haven’t got this or you don’t know much about Andrew Reynolds, here is a quick history:

Andrew ran Manhattan Direct for several years but recently wound up the company to sort of “semi-retire”. Over the time he ran this company he built up a massive customer database and was extremely successful.

So, the Cash On Demand system describes what he did and what he learnt from his time running his Manhattan Direct company.

When you sign up you get the 1st module and some extra bonuses absolutely free. Then, should you wish to continue, you pay just less than £30 a month to receive each module.

Each course module is a printed A4 manual which is delivered to your door. Occasionally you also receive extra, unannounced, bonus items which relate to the content of that month’s module.

Andrew mentions 5 people in the sales letter who took the system and made it work. I know who 2 of them are and I know that the claims are true. With one particular “student” that he mentions, I think he may have understated the earnings.

As for “Simon from Kent”, I know who this is and I 100% believe his testimonial.

But, that is all I am saying 🙂

So, the Cash On Demand system is a workable system and practical to apply. Whether you will be successful or not depends on if you follow it and put in the work necessary to make a success of it.

One subscriber asked me this week:

“Do you know anyone that has tried this system?”

So, I would like to throw this one open and ask for information about your experiences with Andrew’s system.

Have you tried to put into action what Andrew teaches?

Have you had any success?

Please leave your comments on the post by clicking the “Comments” link below.

See also:

Andrew Reynolds and the Cash On Demand System

Back in January I received an email from a subscriber to the Biz Opps UK email newsletter asking if there were other people in the same boat as him:

“Hi Ben

Please keep up the good work with the Bizopps site its very informative especially for someone who is ‘new to the trade’ and hasn’t realy got a clue what they are doing.

Internet and marketing are completely new to me and miles apart from my previous 30 year working career, but I decided that the bright lights and unlimited wealth was for me and after ditching my job here I am.

Do all budding internet marketeers find this industry so daunting when they first start out or is it just me ?

No urgency for reply

Regards

Gary”

The following emails show the replies I received after featuring the email in the newsletter:

“Hi Ben

Just like Gary, I am just entering the world of internet marketing and would like to reassure him that he seems to be bog-standard normal in his experience.

I have spent the last week trying to aquire and choose a domain name and to set up hosting for it and I have to say that I have trawled through so much alien information and put so much brain power into trying to understand it that I have had to have a lie-down in a darkened room to recover!

Of course, this is in addition to hours of niche research and days and nights of intensive thought on the subject of product creation.

However, I am loving the challenge and I am 100% sure that the steep learning curve will be worth it when I get the hang of it and actually start making a decent living.

After all, if you were aiming to be a dentist or an engineer, you wouldn’t expect it to be simple and straightforward, or indeed, fast, so persistence and perseverence will see the thing through!

Regards

Jane”

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“Hi Ben

Just a note about the new guy who felt overwhelmed. I knew nothing at all about internet marketing two and a half years ago, but always wanted to work from home. I was forced to leave my job of 27 years through stress and depression and so in desperation started looking online for things I could do at home.

I threw myself completely into it and eventually came across internet marketing and specifically affiliate marketing through pay per click. I must admit I knew zero about computers and the internet when I started, but didn’t think of it as being overwhelming – just incredibly exciting as I realized “Hey I can do this!!”

My advice is don’t ever scrimp on your education – get as much information as possible on your chosen area, and act on it. And invest in yourself, buy ebooks and information. In my experience some stuff is available free but on the whole it’s worth what you pay for it.

And what happened to me? I now work whenever I want to (or don’t want to!) and am earning more than I earned in 27 years in a high street bank.

One of the unexpected benefits of affiliate marketing and ppc (once you’ve got to grips with it) is that when you find a good selling product you can just let the ads run and run – giving a nice residual income. Over a period of time you will build a number of these ads until you have a healthy and ongoing income. Want a pay rise? Put more ads up!

If I can do that with zero starting knowledge – anyone can.

All the best

Gaz”

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“Hi Ben

Wow! What a lovely surprise to read through your email today and find my message reproduced for all to see. That really gave me a buzz! You might like to know that – following an extended period in that darkened room – I have reached the position of getting a test page upon the web.

Now, I know that this is probably like breathing to you, but to me it’s like getting to the summit of Everest. All I have to do now is finish writing my product (the fun bit) and learn everything there is to know about stunning copywriting (the Everest bit).

Exciting, this internet marketing stuff, isn’t it?

Best wishes

Jane”

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“Hi Ben

I know how Jane and Gary felt trying to get started on the Internet.

One thing that always bugged me was the advice “follow your passion” without been given any detailed advice about how to create products.

I finally discovered a great teleseminar CD set which proved to be a EUREKA moment from the fantastic info about creating info products. I’ve put extra information into this package and started my own business selling it.

So my advice to people looking to get started would be to make use of all the FREE advice and tools that are available and just get started in a small way and learn as you go.

As David Vallieres puts it ‘Fail Faster’

Ewan Chai offers a great free book at his site www.ewanchai.com which details the different business models people can adopt.

Also I got an email yesterday with a link to another great freebie @
http://www.keithwellman.com/recommends/vids

You probably already know this but free tools and resources are available @
Webmonkey.com
Bravenet.com.

There’s some great free e-books available and I’m reviewing some for Home Business Choices magazine and offering them free on my site. If you’d like the URL for this there’s great information and advice in here to help people get started quickly and cheaply.

Regards,

Tony”

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Thanks for all the replies, it’s great to see people contributing and helping each other out!

If you would like to add a comment, please just click on the “Comments” link below.

Ben

Recently I received an email from a subscriber asking about Andy Shaw’s property related business opportunity.

It read:

“My interest has been aroused by all the din going on about the subject matter. Just checking what your honourable view is on this chap.. His book on ‘PROPERTY’ is apparently selling for £20.

Will it be DEAL or NO DEAL?”

Like probably a lot of people who have ever subscribed to a biz opps email list, I received several emails about Andy Shaw’s book over the last week.

He managed to get a lot of people to joint venture with him and promote this opportunity

(I have a suspicion that he went to a seminar – could’ve been Steve Foley’s UK Internet Entrepreneur Conference – and mingled with loads of other entrepreneurs. Seminars are an absolutely brilliant place to organise JVs)

The sales letter interested me so I sent off for the book which was priced at a reasonable £20 + P&P.

Now, Andy has very cleverly set up a range of upsells, cross-sells and back-ends to this very reasonably priced book. The first one you are offered is a discount on membership to his website.

Usually £40 + VAT per month, you are offered access for a full year at a considerable discount.

However, with the book you do get 60 days’ free access to the site so you can see whether it is for you.

I’ve only had a quick look around the site but it seems to be quite good, it’s well designed with a lot of information. The forum seems to be quite busy and Andy is also ever-present there answering questions and giving tips on all kinds of subjects.

When you pay for the book, you actually sign up for the membership site too so please be aware of this!

Basically, if you do not want to stay as a member, you must email to say that you want to cancel your membership and you will not be charged. You need to do this within 60 days of ordering.

But what about the book?

Well, I received this quickly and I was very impressed with it. It oozes professionalism with its slick design.

I guess I’m so used to buying eBooks that I am overly happy that Andy has actually had his system published as a “real book”.

And it’s not a quick read. It runs to well over 400 pages so I’m afraid it’s going to be a while before I can give an opinion on the content.

I read the first 40 pages or so on the train this morning. Andy sets the scene by describing just how he started in the property game and how he pretty much went crazy buying up loads of properties in a very short space of time.

Give me a couple of weeks and I will let you know more but first impressions were good and I get the feeling this will be a great read for anyone interested in property investing (that’d be the vast majority of adults then!)