[ivalnaz]

If you're involved in any type of business where you sell products or services, you should know that you need to sell more than one product to be successful. Of course, there have been exceptions, like the Pet Rock, but those are few and far between. You see, if you only sell one product, you need to find those prospective customers that want that one product. Add a second product, and you've opened the door to customers who want it, but not your first product. Add a third, and you have more prospects, and so on.

You can present your products or services through separate ads or flyers, but it's really more efficient and professional to have a CATALOG. That way, your customer can see all you have to offer in one place, instead of one ad here, another there. Having a catalog will increase the orders you receive, since your customers have more choices and you can show them everything in one mailing.

If you're thinking of putting together even an eight page catalog, call your local printer and ask for a price. Get a quote on 1,000, since you'll want to have enough. My best printer would charge $150, which would be 15 cents per catalog. Then, you have the mailing cost, which would be 52 cents. You're now up to 67 cents per catalog. Add in the cost of getting the name to send the catalog to, and you could be over a dollar per catalog. That means over $1,000 to print and send out all your catalogs!

Worse news to come... you won't get rich from an eight page catalog. If you really intend on making it in your own business, you'd better offer at least 20 related products or services (or a combination). That way, you can hit a specific group of people and have a good chance of getting a decent return. But if an eight page catalog would cost over $1,000 to print and mail, think about a 20 page catalog! Printing alone would be $375 or more!

You can reduce your printing and postage costs significantly by having your catalog printed on a web press on newsprint. The only problem with that is, you need to print a higher quantity to make it worthwhile. Figure on at least 10,000. There's an easier, less expensive way to do this... PUT YOUR CATALOG ON A DISK or CD-ROM.

A 5 1/4" 360K IBM-compatible disk will hold around a 70 page catalog, if you do it right! 70 PAGES!!! The higher storage disks will, of course, hold more! Your customer will receive your disk catalog, put it into their computer, and will be able to view full descriptions of your products and services on their screen. They'll even be able to print out an order form!

Right away, let's look at costs. For a 360K 5 1/4" disk catalog, the disk will cost 10 cents. Look at Computer Shopper for disk sources that run clearance sale on low-density disk. Although with today's computers a 360K 5 1/4" disk may seem like a dinosaur, at 10 Cents, the bargain may still serve its purpose.

One cost that was not figured in is storage. If you have a lot of catalogsprinted (especially if you had 10,000 or more newsprint catalogs), you're going to have to put them somewhere. With a disk catalog, you can copy them as you need them. No need to have 1,000 made up in advance, unless you really want to!

Also, keep in mind the storage capacity of the disk. If you wanted a 68 page printed catalog, whew, it would break you, unless you have pretty deep pockets. A dime will get you one on disk.

Finally, consider this... you have 10,000 of your fantastic catalog printed. You start mailing them. All of a sudden, you discover you have to change the price of one of your products. Or, the source for a product dries up. Or, you want to add a new product or service. TOO BAD! You're stuck with the catalogs the way they are. With a disk catalog, NO PROBLEM! You make the change on your master copy, and all subsequent catalogs are instantly up-to-date.