The Business Gospel Of Joe Cossman. Collective Tribute From the Hearts Of SowPub Forum.

The Business Gospel Of Joe Cossman

(thanks to Mr/Mrs Ross, Rice, Reynolds, Gaugler, Alm, McArdle, Short and others for contributions over the years)

PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS WITH A BILLBOARD
"Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal"
"Love is a friendship set to music"
"Middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist begin to change places"
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity"
"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness"
"One good turn usually get the whole blanket."
"Have patience: in time the grass becomes milk."
"Don't criticize your wife's judgments:look who she married."
"A halo has to slip only a few inches to become a noose."

People would go out of their way once a week just to read Joe's
billboard.

FIND YOUR BONSAI TREE
Many of you I hope know about the Government Consumer Information Books available from the Government. Many of those books are copyright free. You can revamp any of the Consumer Information books and sell them! Joe Cossman found a booklet on how to grow a bonsai tree. Joe reprinted it and sold it along with a planter pot and called it a “bonsai tree kit.” He made a small fortune with it. Why can’t you do this? You can. So go to your library, get a couple products, then go to work and make your small or even large fortune. I wish you all the power and riches this world can offer you. But you must do the work.

BE A COMMISSION SALESMAN WITH A TWIST
Cossman (correct me if I am wrong) sold railway parts without buying in stock. They took the orders and then had others supply what they needed. In effect, he was a commission salesman.

SEEK AN OPEN SECRET
...practically all successful people have used this principle - often without realizing it! When you read their stories of how they got their first big success, you will see that underlying their story, this principle is practically ALWAYS there....
For example, you can identify it in the stories of entrepreneurs like Ted Nicholas, Bill Myers, Richard Branson, and Aristotle Onassis (Michael gives these examples in his report).... I can also identify it in the lives of several others too (like E. Joseph Cossman).

USE THE WORKS OF THE MASTERS AS INSPIRATION.
Whenever I need rejuvenating....I pick up "Scientific Advertising"...or anything put out by Joe Cossman or Joe Sugarman.
When I need "inspiration" or to "digest" and get into deep areas of my subconscious...I read about these guys and read their copy and ideas and try to get onto THEIR mindset.

BE IN UPDATER-BUSINESS
The same holds for scooters (today's scooters have those little wheels, not the big fat tires of the scooters of my youth!). Joe Cossman updated the ant-farm when he brought it back -- he had it made out of plastic, instead of glass....
What's ripe for updating?

WALK AWAY FROM NOT BEING EXCLUSIVE
One thing Joe Cossman stresses a LOT with being an agent, though, is to get some kind of exclusive.... He says he'll walk away from anything which doesn't give him any kind of exclusive.
It could be a country-wide exclusive, where there exists an exclusive agreement that if someone wants to purchase a product in a certain country, that person must go through the designated distributor.

DON'T GIVE UP
Here's what Joe Cossman himself says....
I cannot give you any more conclusive proof and evidence of success than this two-year study. These successful people absolutely did not quit; THEY HUNG ON! Sure they had disappointments! They had dead ends! Sure they had losses, but they always bounced back. In fact, the average successful graduate reported that he was able to increase his income by 40 percent or more after taking the course. This proved conclusively that money-making is a skill you can learn.
(From How I made $1,000,000 in Mail Order by E. Joseph Cossman, p. 216.)

A CONTACT BUSINESS IS A PERFECT BUSINESS.
I'll let Joe Cossman tell the story.... He says....
When I came out of the U.S. Army after World War II, I looked for a job like thousands of other GI's. I was fortunate to land a job with an export firm in my hometown for $35 a week. They put me in charge of two countries, Venezuela and Argentina, and I corresponded with the company's agents in these two countries. The company I worked for sold railroad equipment. I would write a letter to the agent in Venezuela, introduce myself and in a couple of weeks he would send me an inquiry asking for a quote on my maybe 60 miles of railroad track, 3 million railroad ties, maybe 10 million spikes, possibly 10 locomotives, 20 passenger cars, or 200 freight cars. This was a direct-mail inquiry and I never saw the agent. When I received this inquiry, I would make a phone call to the company who made the locomotives, a phone call to the steel company, a phone call to the company that made railroad ties, etc.
The company I worked for owned nothing but contacts, and when I got the prices in my office I would add an 18-percent profit margin, send my quotation to the foreign agent, and in many cases a letter of credit would come back for four, five, or six million dollars. This, to me, was inconceivable at the time. Here I was corresponding with a man 2,000 miles away and I never even saw him! Our only contact was a letter, a postage stamp, and an envelope. In it's most simple form, that is direct mail.
I copied this system to earn my first big success with the laundry soap and continued to use it....
(From Making It, by E. Joseph Cossman and William A. Cohen, p. 207-8.)

TIME-MACHINE BUSINESS. FAD RESURRECTION BUSINESS.
Back in the 50's and 60's many cars had a small "plastic Jesus" sitting on their dashboard as a sort of "guardian". I remember one of the companies making these statuettes were making MILLIONS of them. They were for sale in every drug and dept store.
The same with "rabbit's feet". Millions of these were sold in the 60's as "good luck charms" and "key chains".
Joe said something in one of the seminars I attended that I think still holds true;
He said, Fads seem to repeat every 17 yrs.
Hula Hoop, Frisbee, the Yo-Yo.
He said take a look at 17 yr old magazines and see what was selling then and see if you can
"resurrect" one of them by "testing" the market first...then roll it out.

BEHOLD, MOTHER-IN-LAW PRODUCTS
Someone brought an unusual product to Joe Cossman which they couldn't sell. It was a pair of earrings with little bells on them! No matter what they did, they weren't selling....
Why wouldn't their product work?
Was there any way to sell it?
Could it still succeed?
They were pulling their hair out with frustration!
Joe Cossman took the product, and gave it a little "twist". He called the earrings "mother-in-law earrings" (this way, you could hear your mother-in-law coming) -- and turned a failed product into a successful one!
You can find this story (and many others) in either the book "Making It!" by E. Joseph Cossman and William A. Cohen, or in "How I Made $1,000,000 in Mail Order (and you can too)" by E. Joseph Cossman (I've forgotten which one).

ORDER COUNTS.
But Cossman wanted more sales (who doesn't). So he convinced the
grocery store owners to buy the Spud Guns in much larger
quantities to give away as a free bonus when someone bought a
bag of potatoes for XX cents. Well, the guns weren't moving and
the store owners were not pleased, so Cossman tried this:
He sweetened the offer by reversing it. If someone bought a Spud
Gun for XX cents they would get a free bag of potatoes! What do
you think happened? The sales of Spud Guns - and potatoes went
through the roof!

CREATE AND PROMOTE UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT
..Joe Cossman, that weekend, changed my life forever. I KNEW THEN that I would always enjoy creating or promoting the UNIQUE and Different. The "excitement" in life, for me, is to come up with a New Product or way of doing something and run with it.
Sure beats "working" for a living.
I think I read that Joe now has some sort of seminar program he sells. I think he's still living in So Cal. Get everything you can that Joe sells. He's a master.
Joe Cossman did the same thing with soap, in his first deal when he struck out on his own. It was after WWII, and in his spare time at home, he was sending away letters, trying to get buyers for soap. He managed to get a very big buyer who sent him a letter of credit, then he worked like crazy to fulfil the order! (And made a ton of money for the time in the process.)
Prior to this, Joe had advised someone else I know on another idea --- this was during the days when "Star Wars" was just out and extremely popular. The idea was to attach a golf tube (the plastic sleave that goes inside a golf bag) on the end of a flashlight and sell it as a "laser sword" (if you saw the movie, you'll never forget those humming laser swords!) Joe's advice got the product financed quickly, and he helped the inventor get connected up with a heavy-duty national toy rep. The product, which was made mainly from off-the-shelf items, sold hundreds and hundreds of thousands of units. The factory where they were putting together the swords couldn't hire enough people to keep up with the orders! The inventor made TONS of money, and I doubt that he would have been able to do it without Joe's advice. The man knows how to package and market products!

AVOID THE STINKING STUFF
Joe Cossman tells a story of how once, a guy came into his office carrying a few buckets of some foul-smelling stuff. When the guy told his story, it turned out to be mountain lion manure! He said it was great for farmers, to scare away animals who might feed on their crops.... Spread some around, and the other animals stay away. Apparently, there was plenty of this that could be collected from zoos all over the country. However, Joe Cossman turned this opportunity down.

BE ENERGETIC, ARTICULATE ENTERTAINER
Mr. Cossman conducted seminars and sold to participants thick binders containing all his notes and copies of actual letters he used successfully. As I recall, included in the price (about $500) was a "license" to mimic his wording in our own direct mail campaigns.
When he was my client -- I generated media and press coverage (local and national) to promote his seminar -- he gave me a free copy of his binder and his book, How I Made $1,000,000 in Mail Order... which I still have. He was not only on time for every interview, but he charmed every crew, wowed every audience, out-finessed the most antagonistic talk show host, and was the most energetic, articulate entertainer I've ever seen. A real showman... but no hype... he actually did everything he taught

HITCH YOUR WAGON TO THE PROMINENT PRESS
Joe Cossman tells some great stories about how he's come up with new "twists" for both his publicity and his products.
One story concerns a product he was exclusively promoting, called "Fly Cake." It was a block of substance that attracted flies, and killed them once they landed on it.
Just after he started to promote Fly Cake, Joe Cossman read a feature article in the Wall Street Journal. The article described how the US Army was getting rid of flies -- by de-sexing them so they couldn't breed.
After reading that, Joe Cossman wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to the Wall Street Journal. It was very indignant. Part of what Joe Cossman wrote said,
"Why take away the flies' last pleasure? Let them eat cake, Fly Cake, before they die!"
His letter appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal -- a great piece of free publicity for his product!

REMEMBER, IT'S THE NUMBERS GAME
E. Joseph Cossman spent $50 on a portable typewriter and money on lots of postage stamps, and spent many many hours pounding out letters on that typewriter.
(He was also working for $35 a week during that time too -- he'd work 8 hours at his job at an export company, then he'd work 8 more hours at his kitchen table at home.)
After about a *year* of his own effort, he got his first deal, selling $180,000 worth of soap from the USA to Europe in 1946. His profit from that deal was $30,000 -- and that was in 1946. And he really was NOT rich to do this -- he was clever, hard-working, and had a lot of guts too!

OTHER PEOPLE IS YOUR REAL ASSET
Here's one thing Joe Cossman writes about this.....
During this, my first encounter with "big business," I was to learn that success requires more than work, study, imagination, and faith; it requires OTHER PEOPLE. And it requires every single percentage point of brain power you can squeeze out of your cranium. ["Making It!" pages 8-9.]