Say you have made up your circular with a date of Wednesday, May 1st, and want to change it to read Thursday, July 16th. Rather than do the entire thing over, simply write out a new date with your transfer letters on a separate sheet of paper, cut this out to fit in the space occupied by the old date, and paste the new date over the old date. The artwork master is now up to date; the printer does the rest. Incidentally, this is precisely what is meant in mail order and other dealership offers where they furnish you with the basic advertising/promotional material and advise you to "paste over" their name/address with your own.

For paste or glue, drop by just about any stationery store and pick up a tube of "glue stick." This is a small tube of paste, about the size of a tube of lipstick, generally sold for less than one dollar per tube. The tube glue stick works much better than regular glue or paste, and is not as messy as rubber cement.

Your signs have to be effective, but you have to remember to keep them simple. Don't try to cut corners on your signs. Signs announcing and pointing the way to your garage sale should be placed at each intersection within a one mile radius of your sale location. If it takes 50 signs, then make 50 signs. The important thing is to let people know that you're holding a garage sale.

Signs can be made simply by cutting and using the sides of cardboard boxes, and writing on them with a heavy felt tip marking pen. Make it easy for your signs to be seen, and for people to read what's on them. About all you really need is great big block letters reading "GARAGE SALE," with the street address, and an arrow pointing in that direction. Don't think for a minute that people are going to stop and read a lot of "stuff" you've written on your sign when they are driving by; you just want them to see your sign and proceed in the direction necessary to reach the location of the sale. They'll be moving by your sign too fast to see or read anything else you may have written.

The ads you place, the bulletin board announcements you post, and the signs you put up will bring many people to your garage sale location. A lot of people will drive by slowly and just look, but most will stop to browse around.

But you still have to contend with the huge number of people who just drive by without stopping. So, let's talk about the "inside secrets" of drawing people into your sale, and the merchandising gimmicks that will result in the maximum number of sales for you.

You must call attention to your sale. Don't be shy, bashful or self-conscious about let ting everybody for miles around know that you're having a garage sale. If you could afford to get the Goodyear Blimp to "hover" over your garage sale, then by all means, you should do it!

Some sharp operators do the next best thing. They rent miniature blimps, send them up above the housetops, and tether them there on their sale days. Of course, this giant balloon or miniature blimp has some sort of sign on the side of it, inviting people to your garage sale.

This is one of the strongest available advertising ideas for pulling traffic to a sale of any kind. For more details, write Pie-In-The-Sky Company, PO Box 5267, San Mateo, CA 94402, or explore to see if there is a local outlet for this kind of advertising merchandise for rent.

You have to give your sale some flair. Put some posts up across the front of your property and run some twisted crepe paper between them - or better than crepe paper, run brightly colored ribbons. Invest in some colorful pennants and fly them from temporary flag poles. And don't forget the balloons!

Make your garage sale a fun kind of event, with clusters of balloons anchored to your display tables and racks. Be sure to "float" them well above the heads of your customers as they're browsing through your merchandise displays.

Cover your display tables with colorful cloths. Don't hesitate to use bright colors and busy patterns. Regardless of what you sell, effective display (packaging the event) is still absolutely essential to your success.

The secret to outstanding garage sale profits is in having the widest or largest selection of merchandise. And part of the process is taking great care in displaying and labeling your merchandise.

You cannot simply dump items haphazardly on a table, sit down, and expect to realize great profits. The people doing the most business and holding the most sales are the ones with interesting displays, action and color.

Have as wide a selection of colors as possible in your clothing racks, and mix them for "rainbow" effect. Make sure that your jewelry items shine and sparkle. Arrange them in and on jewelry boxes, jewelry ladders and other items sold for the purpose of showing off jewelry while keeping it neatly organized. Some people have even gone so far as hooking up battery operated lazy susans and arranging their jewelry on these. Having the jewelry slowly turn on the lazy susan will not only catch the eye, it will catch the light, making an attractive display even more attractive because it sparkles and gleams.

Think about it, and then study the methods of display used by the "rack jobbers" in the stores in your area. These are wire racks that usually hold card packaged items. Such a rack or kind of display would lend itself beautifully for anchoring a cluster of balloons. Keep these things in mind, and build your individual displays as part of the whole. Make it pleasing to the eye as well as convenient for your customers to browse through and select the items that appeal to them or catch their fancy.

At many garage sales, some of the merchandise (particularly the clothing) is dirty. Notice this when you visit other people's garage sales, and then take it upon yourself to make sure that every item - positively everything you show - is clean and sparkling bright. A bar of soap, a bucket of water, and a few old rags will do wonders for shop tools, garden equipment and bicycles. The same goes for furniture polish on old furniture, and a run through the washing machine for all washable clothing.

It is advisable to determine a price for each item before you set it out for display. Then mark that price on a price tag, and attach a price tag to each item. Your prices should also always be rounded off to more or less even numbers such as: $.25, $.50, $1, $1.50, $2 and so on. In other words, don't ask for $.35, $.95, or $1.98, or any of that sort of pricing. Almost needless to say, you should always mark everything up by 100% of more. In other words, if you have acquired a particular item for $l, set a price of $2, or more on it. It's also a good idea to mark up your asking price from the bottom-line price you're willing to accept. Basically, the price marked on the price tag at most garage sales is taken as the starting price fro m which the buyer and seller negotiate. Most garage sale promoters price their cheaper items at the bottom line price they will accept, and don't deviate from those prices as shown on the price tag. Then on the more expensive items - $2 and over - they mark up their asking prices by 20 to 40 percent and use that margin for negotiating with the customer.

If you're a little bit shy relative to personal selling, here are a few "inside" secrets that will give you an edge: Always radiate an attitude of friendliness, regardless of the circumstances or your first impression of the potential buyer. Always smile and say hello in a voice loud enough to be heard. Speak to everyone stopping or dropping by your sale location. Be helpful, but allow the people to browse on their own until they specifically ask you for help. When you're "keeping an eye on your merchandise," be as unobtrusive as possible; no one likes to feel he is being watched too closely. Whenever a customer appears to have made a selection and asks you what you'll take for it, or what kind of a deal you'll make for it, be ready to enter into "friendly negotiations."

Before you open, of course, you will have done your homework and know the value of each item of merchandise you have for sale. Don't ever take a customer's "claimed" value of an item. By the same token, don't listen to a seller, when you're buying items for your sale, when he claims that he's offering you an antique or price less treasure. Sometimes (rarely enough) you'll be able to pick up fantastic treasures for virtually nothing; so by knowing your merchandise, you'll not let "the flag that Betsy Ross made"

slip through your fingers for a song. Be sure to have all possibly really valuable items appraised by authentic dealers. These people are listed in the yellow pages of your telephone directory.

Some of the "extras" that contribute to the success of a garage sale include: Plenty of change, because without proper change, you'll lose a great many sales. A tape measure, because you'll find people often want to know the exact dimensions of some thing (especially furniture) in order to fit it into a certain space they have in mind. Long extension cord and electrical outlet, because your customers will want to "plug in" and try out the mixers, vacuum cleaners, hand tools, or other electrical appliances.

Back for a moment to drawing in those "cruisers" who aren't quite sure they want to park their cars and come browse: Look for some kind of interesting or unusual item to call attention to your sale - something you can set up or park in front of your home during your sale. Some of the displays we've seen along these lines include a horse-drawn surrey; a restored Model T; an old farm plow. Anything of an unusual or interesting nature will do the trick for you. One couple we know put up a display using a manikin dressed in an old-time farm bonnet, long dress and apron. This display depicted a farm woman of old, washing clothes with a scrub board and two steel wash tubs. It's not hard to believe, this display really drew the crowds, and crowds always mean sales!

Go wherever your imagination takes you; you have to be different and distinctive. You'll get lost in the hundreds of garage sales going on all around you if your sales look like the next half dozen.

If you'll take the time to employ a bit of imagination, and set your sales up with the kind of flair we've been talking about, you will not only draw the crowds; you'll be the one reaping the most profits.

As you think of beginning this garage sale business, remember this: It's almost a compulsion with some women to go shopping - to search for interesting, and sometimes rare and valuable items. This fact alone will keep you as busy as you ever want to be, staging and promoting garage sales. The market is so vast, and the appetite so varied, that anything from a brass bedstead to a used diary of someone's long-forgotten grandmother will sell, and sell fast, at garage sales. Put it all together, use a little imagination, and you'll succeed in a very interesting, challenging endeavor!

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