Are You A Copy Cat? If So - You’re In For A Short Life!

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Yes! That’s true! More and more, every day, new dealers are entering mail order and copying the work of others. Some of them are not even aware they are doing anything wrong. Besides - they are trying to learn from others so why not copy them?

You have to make a distinction here between “copying” in order to improve upon someone else’s idea OR “copying” in order to make a lot of money for yourself. Let me give you an example.

A business associate of mine created a rotating-type adsheet. You know the kind. A person pays $10 to be placed in Position No. 1. All other ads are rotated to the right until they move off the sheet. If done properly - the person who paid $10 to be on the rotating adsheet should NEVER come off. However, people take this idea - try to copy it - and turn it into a scam. They intentionally take a good concept and make it into a rip-off where all the profit is made by the prime source. How unfortunate!

In fact - this is exactly HOW rotating adsheets got a bad name. Here’s how it REALLY is supposed to work (before the copycat did it):

Dorothy pays Jim $10 to have her 2” C/R ad placed in Position No. 1. She receives a camera-ready copy of the rotating adsheet back in the mail with her ad in Position No. 1 and 8 other 2” ads from other dealers. Dorothy is responsible for printing and mailing copies of her particular rotating adsheet to generate advertising for 9 people (including herself).

Dorothy mails Ernie a copy of her rotating adsheet. Ernie wants to take part in the promotion so he sends Jim $10 with his 2” ad and a copy of Dorothy’s rotating adsheet. Jim places Ernie’s 2” ad in Position No. 1 and moves Dorothy’s 2” ad to Position No. 2. This way - Ernie is mailing copies of Dorothy’s ad along with his own.

Now Ernie mails a copy of his rotating adsheet to Gary. Gary wants to get involved so he sends Jim $10 along with his 2” C/R ad and a copy of the rotating adsheet Ernie mailed him. Jim places Gary’s 2” ad in Position No. 1, Ernie’s 2” ad gets moved to Position No. 2 and Dorothy’s 2” ad is now in Position No. 3.

Technically, Dorothy will NEVER reach Position No. 9 because the chance of this generation actually happening is 1 in a million. So essentially - Dorothy’s ad should NEVER go off the sheet.

Unfortunately, though, some people have taken the concept of helping people like Dorothy and turned it into a money-hungry game for themselves. Instead of moving the ads in the proper positions, they might place Gary’s ad in Position No. 1 and Dorothy’s in Position No. 9 (instead of 3 where she actually belongs.) And then maybe Ernie won’t be on Gary’s rotating adsheet at all. The rip-off artist doesn’t realize that Gary might be personal friends with Ernie and they might compare adsheets. The scam artist is only interested in their gain and in not paying commissions due their hard-working people. Eventually NOBODY ends up making any money and the idea goes down the tubes!

What happens is that these unaware “copy cats” eventually mail their ad or booklet to the mail order dealer who originally designed the material; or, even worse - mail to someone who knows the dealer personally that has been conveniently “left off”. There’s no way around it.

And when your “copy cat” material is discovered you can be in for some BIG TROUBLE! When you commit perjury of prime source-designed materials your name will be mud within a matter of weeks. Your act will be reported in almost every tabloid and adsheet and you will be exposed through rip-off columns circulated to 1,000’s of people.

But not only that! A good mail order attorney can sue you and repossess any assets you may have. Most small businesses start out as sole proprietorships (not incorporated). Because of this, your personal assets can become the possession of the attorney filing suit.

The best way to avoid all this hassle is NOT to copy the materials of other people. Sure, you can look at the work of other designers and get an idea as to how you would like to present your materials; but, taking the actual copy, cutting out pieces of it and inserting your own info is downright criminal and uncalled for! The word “design” means to create from scratch!

Good mail order dealers work very hard and put in a lot of hours for a meager salary. When they have put all their efforts into designing a program or an advertisement it’s very demeaning to our industry as a whole if someone was selfish enough to “steal” and “forge” it only to destroy its original intent!