Two things are important to the make up of the membership package you ex change for membership fees:

1. It must be as impressive as you can make it.

2. It must be legal, while serving your needs almost exclusively.

Basically, you should have at least 100 members before you begin concentrating on arranging trades. As stated earlier in this report, the easiest way to recruit new members is to run an ad in your newspapers, and perhaps even on your local radio stations as well.

Follow up on these inquiries with a direct mail package, which would typically consist of a brochure explaining the beauty and benefits of being a member of your bartering club, a sales letter, and a return reply order form. After you've sent out the direct mail piece, be sure to follow up by phone, and if necessary, make a call in person as any other sales person would do.

Another way of recruiting new members is via the Amway Introduction Party Program. Allow a certain number of club credits for each party a club member arranges for you. Insist on at least 10 couples for each party, and then as the "Attraction of the Evening," you or one of your salespeople give a motivation-benefits available recruiting talk. Be sure you get the names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone attending, and be sure that everyone leaves with your literature.

If all those in attendance at these parties do not join, then follow up on them, first by phone and then with personal sales presentations. Once you've got them interested in your club, do not let go or give up on them until you have sign ed them as members. Another thing - take a page from the Party Plan Merchandiser's Handbook, and look for those who would be most likely to want to promote a similar party for you. Offer them an item of merchandise they might be particularly interested in, and club credits if they'll not only join, but also stage a party for you.

A bit more expensive, but just as certain of success are free seminars. Rent a large meeting room, advertise in your local papers, and then put on a hard-sell recruiting show. Such a plan is very similar to the party plan idea, but on a larger scale. An inside tip: Whenever you stage a recruiting party or seminar, always "pad the audience" with your own people, who will of course lead the way for those you're trying to recruit.

As stated earlier, you can start operations out of your home, but working out of your home has a number of growth inhibiting factors. After a certain period of time, the growth of almost any kind of business is retarded when it's operated out of a home. So just as soon as you possibly can afford to, move into an office of some sort. Keep your eyes open and consider the feasibility of sharing an office with an insurance agent or real estate broker. Check your newspaper classifieds for businesses willing to share office space or to rent desk space or other office amenities.

This is the kind of business that demands an image of success. You just can't keep people from "dropping in" when you're operating strictly on a local basis. And when you attempt to hire sales people, a place of business to work out of is just as important to them as how much commission they're going to receive. Image is super important, so don't neglect it!

Ideally, you should have one salesman for every 50,000 people in your area. Run an ad in your local newspaper, and also list your needs with your state's employment service. Hire ONLY commission salespeople. Give them a percentage of the membership fee for each new member they sign, plus a small commission on each trade deal they close.

Assign each of your people specific territories, and insist that they call on potential commercial accounts ranging from the "hole in the wall" rubber stamp shop to magazine publishers and commuter airlines. There's plenty of business available in every city or metro area in the country. Encourage your sales people to be creative and imaginative when calling on prospects. Then, be sure that you keep an open mind and listen to their wild trading proposals (some "wild" proposals have been known to be come "wildly" successful)!

Schedule "open discussion" sales meetings every morning before your salespeople "hit the bricks." Have each of them report on their selling efforts from the day before, and present to you a written list of prospects they plan to call on today. Set up sales motivation workshops to be held at least once a month, and at least once a week schedule a motivational speaker or play one of the widely available success/inspirational tapes as a closing feature of your morning sales meetings. Stock sales success books and en courage your people to borrow them, take them home and read them. Your sales people will make you rich, but only if you turn them on and keep them flying high with personal motivation.

Should you or should you not accept installment payments from new members? Yes, by all means! But only when you've got their signature on a contract drawn up for your benefit and deemed legally binding by your attorney. What about bank cards? Yes indeed! In fact, you'll find that your capability of handling bank cards will double or even triple your sales.

Precisely how much are you going to need in actual start-up costs? We would estimate at least $500 for your printing and legal fees, unless you can trade charter member ships in your club for these services. Time wise, you're going to be putting in 18-hour days, and 7-day weeks, until you get those first 100 people signed up. And there won't be any money for salary or long-deserved vacations from these first 100 members you sign. You'll need it all for advertising, membership packets and office set-up. However, if you can really work at it, you should be home free in six weeks or less. Then you can set up your office, hire a couple of girls to handle the paperwork, and take on a salesperson or two.

Reputation and success in matching offers to wants will be just as important as image, so give it your all. Don't give up; stand behind the implied, as well as the real promises you make to your members.

A couple of final notes: Should you offer a guarantee of satisfaction? Only so long as it makes money for you, and you can back it up. There's not a person in business any where who enjoys refunding a customer's money. But don't forget that the existence of your business depends on service. The more you project an image of a "people pleaser," the greater success you're going to achieve. This is definitely not a business for someone who doesn't enjoy "waiting on" people. You've got to like people, enjoy helping them, and want the inner satisfaction that comes from selling new ideas.

This is definitely a growth business. Bartering Clubs in metropolitan population areas of 300,000 or more are reporting incomes of over a million dollars. The average in cities of 100,000 population is about $150,000 per year.

Actually, no experience or special training is required. The operation of a Bartering Club is equally suited to women or men. Both do equally well as salespeople. It's a business that fills a need, and a kind of membership program people will stand in line to be a part of, once they've been introduced to the benefits.

This is the plan. It's going to take your time and effort to get organized, but after your initial work to establish this business, you can become quite wealthy in a relatively short time.

Read over this plan again; determine if this is "the one" for you, and then go all out. It's up to you, and all it takes now is action on your part.

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