Needless to say, the cost of doing business by mail continues to rise. Our costs for printing, paper, envelopes, artwork and labor all go higher each month. Everything goes up. Nothing goes down. How can you and I, as mail order dealers, combat this? What can we do to lower our costs of doing business or at least "keep our heads above water?"
First, and most important, we must keep our wits about us and not panic or become discouraged. We must remember that mail order has survived and even flourished for more than a hundred years. It has survived through war and peace, at least a dozen postal increases and a score of other lesser problems.
It has survived because it is a basic and proven way of doing business. It has prospered because of persistence and resourcefulness of the men adn women who pursue this noble business. It seems that with each postal increase, hundreds of small mail order dealers "drop out."
They reason, however wrongly, that with this increase in costs they cannot continue. or perhaps they merely use this as an excuse to discontinue their efforts.
But you and I will stay with it.
We have worked too hard for too long to give up now. We have "burned the midnight oil" for too many years to accept defeat. We have labore at this trade, often to the puzzlement and amusement of our friends and family, for too many years to give it up.
How will we do it?
By patience, persistence and resourcefullness.
We will be patient, knowing that many good things come to those who wait quietly and that success happens when we are very well prepared to meet our opportunity (ies).
We will succeed by being persistent. We now know that mail order is not an overnight success story.
We will not be fly-by-night merchants.
I started in this business when I was about nine or ten years old. Only through years of hard work, study and struggle have I been able to build a strong foundation for which to turn my small business into a big business(es).
We both know that persistence is much more important than formal education or a fancy degree from one university. We have learned the hard way,and yet what we have learned is only a very, very small beginning.
The best is still to come.
