small potatos - BIG PROFITS!!

Hi all,

Master marketers are discussed here on Sowpub all the time.

People like Joe Sugarman, Charles Proctor, Joe Vitale, Gary
Halbert, etc., but one master marketer whom I have never seen
mentioned is a guy by the name of E. Joseph Cossman.

He's the author of one of my most cherished marketing books:

"How I Made $1,000,000 in Mail Order (And You Can Too)"

He's also been called:

"The Messiah of the free enterprise system"
--Wall Street Journal

Does anybody remember Ant Farms? Shrunken Heads? Spud Guns? Fly
Cakes?

Cossman was the driving force behind them all.

I'm sure some of you recall these legendary products, or you've
at least heard or read about them.

IMO, Cossman was one of the greats. He had a way of packaging
products with bonuses to create irresistable offers that people
just couldn't refuse.

I'll use the Spud Gun as an example.

It was a little toy gun who's ammo was a little chunk of potato!
You simply dug the barrel of the gun into a potato, wiggled it
a little and the little piece of potato stayed in the barrel.

Among several marketing methods Cossman used were retail stores.
Grocery stores to be exact.

A Spud Gun display was set up in the produce dept. alongside the
potatos. When the women went shopping with their small children,
the kids would want the gun. Sales were good.

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 potatos 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 potatos! What do
you think happened? The sales of Spud Guns - and potatos went
through the roof!

Hmmm, if I buy a bag of potatos, I'll get this cheap annoying
little toy for free.

Or,

If I buy this cheap little toy, I'll get a huge bag of potatos
for FREE!!

Either way, the end result is the same. You pay the same amount
of money for the same two products. But what made the offer
irresistable was the way it was packaged and presented to the
consumer. The percieved value of the toy shot through the roof!

So how can you repackage YOUR offers and turn small potatos
into BIG PROFITS?

Respectfully,

Paul Short
SuccessThink.com



SuccessThink.com

Hi Paul

>"How I Made $1,000,000 in Mail Order"
>by E. Joseph Cossman. He's the author of one of my most
>cherished marketing books:

Your right on Paul, I picked up this hard-cover book in a Thrift Store
for 95 cents it was, copyright © 1963 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Clifts, N.J.
Ninth, Printing . . . . January 1968

I looked up the price of this collectible book in Amazon.com. It's
collectible price is $33.00

The new print price is around $13.00 if you want the new one.

Do you have the new one or the old one?

I like the saying he used on his Billboards to Sell Yourself and Your
Business.

"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."

He has will over 100 sayings the he put on his billboards.
People would go out of their way once a week just to read his
billboard.

Advertisers don't do this much anymore, it seems it has gone the way of
the Burma Shave signs.

I found this works pretty good on sales letters. It sets the customer in
the mood to read the whole sales letter.

On my sales letter, the first question I ask is:
Dear Sir (name)

How many teeth does a snapping turtle have?

I have different questions that I use, then I go on with my sales
letter, that and a SASE will get you a reply just about every time.

By the way! Does the Statue Of Liberty have bangs?

I visited your forum Paul, and signed up for your ezine.

Best Wishes,
D.R.(Don) McArdle

Hi Don,

Haven't seen you around the forums for ages!

> Do you have the new one or the old one?

I have the old, dog eared, coffee stained
paperback. And I love it!

More thoughts below.....

> I like the saying he used on his Billboards
> to Sell Yourself and Your
> Business.

> "One good turn usually get the whole
> blanket."

^^Snip

> Advertisers don't do this much anymore, it
> seems it has gone the way of
> the Burma Shave signs.

> I found this works pretty good on sales
> letters. It sets the customer in
> the mood to read the whole sales letter.

> On my sales letter, the first question I ask
> is:
> Dear Sir (name)

> How many teeth does a snapping turtle have?

> I have different questions that I use, then
> I go on with my sales
> letter, that and a SASE will get you a reply
> just about every time.

> By the way! Does the Statue Of Liberty have
> bangs?

> I visited your forum Paul, and signed up for
> your ezine.

> Best Wishes,
> D.R.(Don) McArdle

I'm a big fan of the psychological aspect of sales
letters. In fact I'm working on a letter right
now for a product/service I'll be offering soon.

The letter basically tells a story about a wannabe
internet marketer who by some streak of luck gets
to sit down and pick the brain of a famous and
extremly successful copywriter.

There is a humor angle in place and also something
that I've never seen used in copywriting before.
That's not to say that it's never been done, just
that I haven't stumbled across it yet.

If my theory is correct it will be something I'll
use in all my letters. Only testing will tell though.

But basically the humor and my other angle serves
to disarm the reader and make them comfortable
with the rest of the letter.

You know when you meet someone for the first time
and you smile pleasantly at them? 99% of the time
they smile back right?

Don, I'd love to have a look at your sales material.

Do you have a site up now?

If so, please email me with the URL at my email
address above.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from
you again soon.

Paul Short
SuccessThink.com


The SuccessThink Forum

Paul ~

After reading your post all I could think of was the Wall Street Journal letter with the most famous Candian Comedian, Tom Green as the Internet Wannabe!!!

You're not stooping THIS low are you???

Success and Regards... Mike


Get Yours Today!

Dear Reader:

On a snowy feburary afternoon, a few years ago, two
young comedians movies bombed in the theatres. They
were very much alike these two young comedians. Both
had been very poor at what they did, both were weird
and had very warped ideas about making people laugh.

Recently, these comedians returned to Moose Jaw
Saskachewan for their Burger King reunion.

They were still very much alike. Both were recently
divorced. Both had several children with different
partners. And both, it turned out, were now working
for the same Midwestern fast food restaurant.

But there was one difference. One of the comedians
was still working the drive thru window. The other
was the store manager.

What made The Difference

Mike...

I just couldn't resist the temptation ;-)

Paul


SuccessThink.com

It was at a seminar in Chicago in the 70's. I will NEVER forget it. He spent 2 days covering how he finagled and got control of some of his unique products and covered, in detail, how he marketed them.

Then, on the 3rd day he asked those who had products or product ideas...to bring them in and he would try and give them some tips on the best ways to market them.

At the time, I had gotten the rights to a plastic baby bib that had a bowl in the bottom to catch the slop. It had a unique name (which I've since forgotten)

So there we were, about 40 people in the first 2 rows of this conference room in McCormick Place.

Joe would go to each person...hold the item (or photo of the item) up for all to see. Explain what it did and then proced to tell the person how HE thought it should be marketed.

He was amazing. He was like a "master swami" guy...like "CARNAK the Magnificent" (one of Johnny Carson's characters)

I learned SO MUCH those 3 days....about Marketing and Selling and Promoting. Joe LOOKED like a multi-millionaire. Beautiful physique. Expensive clothes. Beautiful WHITE teeth. Manicured nails.

I learned something, living in the Aspen area for 12 years; The rich can wear anything on their bodies....(I once saw Leon Uris (wrote Exodus and other great novels) at an Antique Auction. He was wearing a scrungy old pair of Levi's and T-shirt BUT....a $1,000 pair of hiking boots) BUT, they will ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF THEIR FEET AND TEETH!

Jack Nicholson, Don Johnson (Nash Bridges) Buddy Hackett, Bob Conrad (Wild Wild West), Robert Wagner (Hart to Hart)....would come into my wife's Antique Shop....usually wearing real "slouchy-nondescript, almost decrepit" clothes BUT....their feet were clad in the BEST money could buy. Don Johnson came in once, wearing a beat up levi jacket and pants with white paint blotches all over them...sun glasses, a cowboy hat and a $2500 pair of Tony Lama cowboy boots.

My wife first noticed this about the rich and famous. When they're out in public, many of them do NOT dress up....EXCEPT their shoes are the BEST.

Anyway...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.

Thanks ......Don Alm


Make money from Restaurants

About 20 years ago I went to see Joe at his home in Palm Springs. At the time, he was charging $200/hour for consulting. A friend of mine had a product idea, and at my suggestion, we went to seen Joe to get his advice on it. In the end, the project didn't go anywhere (there was a legal angle that shot it down), but Joe was nothing less than charming --- a high-affinity guy, who is gracious and very easy to like. I even liked the friendly way he pointed at my friend at the end of the hour and said, firmly, "You owe me $200!"

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 sleve 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!

--- Hugh