About 1984 a product called "Photo Business Cards" came out. Someone had developed a processor that would combine a film negative with text and whala...you had a full color PHOTO business card.

A few companies were offering Dealerships in the Biz-Op mags so I bought one thinking that Aspenites would go ga-ga for these. (I was living near Aspen, CO at the time)

I got my sample kit...put together a presentation and went out and tried to sell them and....I flopped!

After 2 weeks of intensive work I had only gotten 2 orders. It was the PRICE of $250 per 1000. I could not convince people that they should pay 10 times what they pay for regular cards...for these FULL COLOR PHOTO beauties.

I tried everything...even giving away a few orders just so I had a few LOCAL samples to show.

I'll never forget it...it was a Sunday night. We were watching a video movie. The video was in the VCR...the plastic case the video came in, was setting on the coffee table in front of me.

Also on the coffee table were some of my sample Photo Cards. Because I wasn't that interested in the movie I started playing with the cards...handing them back and forth between hands...laying them down in front of me...THEN, strictly BY ACCIDENT, I accidently put a card on top of the closed plastic video case. I saw that the card FIT PERFECTLY across the width...I then put 2 more cards on the case and found that 3 cards would fit perfectly on each side of that case.

I could fit SIX cards on the case.

WHALA!!! IT HIT ME LIKE A TON OF BRICKS!!!

Why don't I make up special plastic cases with a full sleeve across the front and back and stick in
the 6 cards?....and get the video stores to hand them out with their videos?

I dropped everything...went into my home office...found my Press-Type (this was in the days before "publishing" programs)...put together some sample cases and a presentation to both video store owners and prospective customers.

The next morning I went to my first video store...showed him my samples and asked if I provided him with FREE plastic cases would he agree to hand out MY Photo Card Cases?

He thought for a minute...rubbed his chin...looked at me...looked at his wife...looked back at me and said..."Sure! Why not! I'll do it!

So...I was off to the races. I wound up getting all 7 video stores in Aspen to participate AND, the really amazing thing...the SAME people who had turned me down for a $250 order of cards were NOW paying me $495 for 3 months exposure on my Video Rental Case program.

With each customer I also gave them 50 cards to hand out and...sure nuff...just as I had expected...once they started using the cards and got a great positive reaction from those they gave them to...they called me and ORDERED MORE CARDS!!!

I was having a BALL! One day I was reading Entrepreneur Magazine and thought, "Hey! I wonder if anyone else in the country is doing THIS?"

So I called their editorial dept and asked to speak with an editor. Someone came on the line and I asked him if he knew of anyone else in the country who was making money placing photo business cards on video rental cases.

He asked me to hold on a minute. Then 2 more people came on line and he asked me to tell them what I was doing. I did and they asked me to send them some samples and a "News Release" and a photo.

I scurried thru my collection of "mail order info" books I had bought over the years...found one on "How To Get Publicity"...turned to the section on How To Write a News Release.

I wrote what I thought was a pretty good Release...about how I had stumbled across this idea on selling Photo Biz Cards. My wife took a picture of me holding a few cases. I sent this with a few samples to the guy at Entrepreneur and WAITED...and WAITED...and WAITED!

I didn't want to call to bug them about whether they were going to run the story...so I just WAITED...and WAITED.

On the 20th I went to my local newstand...flipped thru the pages and to my disappointment...NO ARTICLE!

So...I shrugged my shoulders, went home and pretty much forgot about it when one afternoon the following month (The 18th)...I go into my home office (spare bedrm)...look at the answering machine on my desk and IT WAS BLINKING "40"..."40"..."40".

This meant it had reached it's limit of 40 calls.

So I hit the button to retrieve the first message. I'll NEVER FORGET the excited voice,

"Hey Don! This is Stan King in Omaha! Send me the info on how I can get that Video Thing going here in Omaha!" He left his address and phone and I quickly hit the button for the next call.

SAME THING! Someone else wanting me to RUSH them info on how to start up a similar biz in their town. They were ALL like that.

And...no sooner had I deleted a few messages when the phone rang again. Another inquiry.

So...I spent the next few days trying to figure out a "Biz-Op Starter Kit" I could put together.

I came up with a Sales Letter...sent it to the inquiries and I was off and running.

When the dust cleared on this one i had sold over 800 "Kits" at $495 ea. I eventually wound upo selling close to a thousand of the Kits.

As these things go...a few who bought my Kit...copied it and started advertising it as theirs...which ticked me off BUT, I figured this was part of the "game".

I've had other "AHA" experiences which I won't go into here...but THIS one was my biggest.

I hope you enjoyed reading about it and maybe it offered some inspiration to someone.

Thanks for reading.....Don Alm




Some of my past programs