ATTACK BY STRATAGEM

 1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best
  thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact;
  to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is
  better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it,
  to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire
  than to destroy them.

 2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles
  is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists
  in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

 3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to
  balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent
  the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in
  order is to attack the enemy's army in the field;
  and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

 4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it
  can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets,
  movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take
  up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over
  against the walls will take three months more.

Block City

What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I'll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbour as well where my vessels may ride.

Great is the palace with pillar and wall,
A sort of a tower on the top of it all,
And steps coming down in an orderly way
To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.

This one is sailing and that one is moored:
Hark to the song of the sailors aboard!
And see, on the steps of my palace, the kings
Coming and going with presents and things!

Yet as I saw it, I see it again,
The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men,
And as long as I live and where'er I may be,
I'll always remember my town by the sea.

A Good Play

We built a ship upon the stairs
All made of the back-bedroom chairs,
And filled it full of soft pillows
To go a-sailing on the billows.

We took a saw and several nails,
And water in the nursery pails;
And Tom said, "Let us also take
An apple and a slice of cake;"--
Which was enough for Tom and me
To go a-sailing on, till tea.

We sailed along for days and days,
And had the very best of plays;
But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,
So there was no one left but me.

HOW COMMISSION CIRCULARS

Most everyone familar with mail order would be introduced to or involved in 
the promotion of commission circulars. You've seen them before. You place an 
order for them and place your name in the "Order From" box. When orders come 
to you, you keep 50% of the money for your efforts and forward the order plus 
the remaining 50% of the money onto the "Prime Source," who will, in turn, 
dropship the order to the customer.

These work great if everyone does what they should. However, some people have 
found it necessary to even "cheat" with these. They will see a commission 
circular they want to promote. But instead of sending their order to the 
prime source to obtain a legitimate camera-ready copy _ they simply place 
their name and address in the "Order From" box and begin advertising it.

What happens if you order from an individual or company who has done this? 
You probably won't get your order and the guy or gal will pocket your hard-
earned money! What a waste!

Because the "cheater" normally will not know who the prime source is and who 
to forward any orders to (since they didn't respond in the proper manner), 
your order is tossed in the trash. This is bad business for you as well as 
the prime source who often times, does not even know this is happening.
Fortunately, we personally receive a copy of almost everything that is being 
promoted and can usually identify this fraudulent behavior with our own 
commission circulars. However, we are fortunate to be able to keep "on top" 
of this activity. But there are prime source dealers who are being ripped-off 
everyday! Let's put a stop to it! How?

One way to combat this problem is to look the circular over for any major 
changes in the "type." If the circular appears to be tampered with (and 
there is no special membership number assigned) you should question it 
before sending in your money. You might even consider requesting the name 
of the prime source without the address to prove the validity of the circular 
if you want to spend the time.

The Man and the Wooden God

In the old days men used to worship stocks and stones and
idols, and prayed to them to give them luck. It happened that a
Man had often prayed to a wooden idol he had received from his
father, but his luck never seemed to change. He prayed and he
prayed, but still he remained as unlucky as ever. One day in the
greatest rage he went to the Wooden God, and with one blow swept
it down from its pedestal. The idol broke in two, and what did he
see? An immense number of coins flying all over the place.



 

The Bald Man and the Fly

There was once a Bald Man who sat down after work on a hot
summer's day. A Fly came up and kept buzzing about his bald pate,
and stinging him from time to time. The Man aimed a blow at his
little enemy, but acks palm came on his head instead;
again the Fly tormented him, but this time the Man was wiser and
said:

"You will only injure yourself if you
take notice of despicable enemies."

Temporary Help Agency

Minimum Start-Up: $10,000 
Average Start-Up: $100,000
Revenue; $100,000 - $2.5Mil
Profits; $25,000 - $250,000 
One Person Business: Yes

The high cost of maintaining a full-time employee contributes to the growth 
of the temp-help business.
Advancement in computer hardware and software enables companies to staff 
mean and lean, preferring to hire temps during peak seasons rather than lay 
off workers during slower times. On any given day, over 1 million people 
work on temporary assignments. By 1995, trade statistics estimate that 
1.25 million jobs will go by way of "temps", creating an aggregate annual 
payroll of about $10 billion.

These figures suggest that the temporary help business is here to stay. It 
is one to watch through the turn of the century. Unlike the temp boom of 
the late 70s, today's temp-help has gone beyond clerical help, with 37% of 
placements involving professionals.
JOB MATCHMAKER
A temporary-help service acts as a matchmaker between businessses seeking 
temporary help and induviduals who want a job. The temporary agency pays the 
employee on a weekly basis a set rate, and in turn bills the business/client 
a predetermined rate, usually 10% to 15% more than was paid the employee.

START-UP HURDLE

If there is a single hurdle that makes starting a temporary-help agency 
"difficult", it has to do with your ability to cover the payroll up front.
As a temp agency, the demand for cash flow presents a two-sided problem.  
While you are expected to pay your workers on a weekly basis, you are also 
expected to extend your clients 30 to 60 days credit. So while you're 
waiting to get paid, you need to have enough cash to cover your payroll.
For example, if you place 10 workers at 40 hours each for the week, at a 
rate of $8 an hyour, it would require $3,200 cash for the week. That's 
$12,800 in 4 weeks!
To avoid this problem, it is advisable to hire your workers as independent 
contractors. You can act as their agent, and collect your commission when 
they are paid.

press release

Your prices should range between $20 and $25 per hour. Pay for hired help should start at $5 per hour. It's important that you do some homework on the various glass treatments in vogue these days. Many of these coatings or coverings require special
treatment such as the use of soft towels instead of brushes that might scratch the surface of the window coating.

 The professional technique for washing windows cleanly and in the least amount of time is as follows: A few drops of cleaning solution in your bucket of water. Remember, too many soap suds are detrimental to quality work. Wet your brush from the bucket and then scrub the window. Take your squeegee and make one wiping pass across the top of the window. Be sure to keep the end of the squeegee pressed firmly against the molding or top sill of the window frame. Wipe the squeegee, and then do the same thing down each side of the window. From this point on, it's just a matter of wiping the window clean with one continuous stroke. You do this by arching and looping your wiping strokes across the window pane, back and forth, never stopping or lifting the squeegee blade from the glass. With this method, you can wipe even the largest window clean in just a matter of seconds. Practice at home on your own windows and those of your neighbors. You will quickly develop a knack for this method and wonder why you never discovered it before, when you've finished with the squeegee, take a chamois and carefully "blot-wipe" any excess water that may not have been picked up along the sides and bottom of the window frame. In reality, that's all there is to it.

 You'll find the spring and summer months to be your busiest, but because of the increasing popularity of painting holiday scenes and special sale announcements on business windows, be alert for year round opportunities along these lines as well. Keep plugging away and offering your services to businesses throughout your area, particularly along those busy thoroughfares where moving traffic contributes to the build-up of dirt & grime on windows.

 When you're ready to hire helpers or people to do the work for you, a simple ad in your local newspaper's "Help Wanted" column should bring you more applicants than you will ever use. After you have hired the one or the ones you want, keep a record of the ones you liked but did not hire, and check with them when you want to add onto your crew of workers again.

 Bulletin Board notices will also bring in a surprising number of applicants. Another good idea is to spread the word that you're looking for part-time help, amongst your local firemen, policemen and teachers. Depending on your are's pay scales, you
can also do pretty well by contacting the temporary help services in your area.

 About the only regular advertising you'll need to do is a medium to large display ad in the yellow pages. This is a must because once you're established, you'll find at least 50% of your business coming from having seen your ad in the yellow pages. An "insider's" trick to advertising in the yellow pages - Try to name your business with the very first letter of your business name beginning with A-B or X-Y-Z. Statistics and surveys tend to prove that when people look for a service in the yellow pages, they invariably pick from either the top or the bottom of the alphabet.

 Aside from the yellow pages, your next best advertising will be the "reminder" kind, such as note pads with your company name imprinted on them, special calendars or holders, special date or appointment books, and/or sports caps with your company name/emblem on them. However, as this kind of advertising is quite expensive, it's good to keep it in mind, but best to hold off on it until you can well afford it.

 Any radio, television, newspaper and/or direct mail advertising efforts will cost you much more than any business you receive from it, so don't even consider this type of advertising. However, do think about, and submit "press release" material to these media as often as you can, because any publicity coverage they give you will surely be well worthwhile.

 Telephone soliciting for business works very well, but you should have a list of businesses and their telephone numbers, plotted out according to new routes you are trying to build. Time spent travelling between jobs will cost you money, just as time spent looking up telephone numbers along a certain planned route will seemingly take forever. If and when you do decide to drum up new business by phone, you'll have much greater success if you can offer some sort of promotional gimmick to get them to try your service.

 We had great success one time by offering to do the windows for free if they'd let us put a sign in the window - These windows cleaned by AAA Window Cleaning Service - 666-5824... Another time, we did the windows for half price as an introductory offer... And still another time, we joined with our telephone answering service - on a combined promotion... half price on three months of telephone answering service just for trying our
window washing service... The ideas, gimmicks and promotions you can use are limited only by your imagination...

 Later on, we hire some good-looking college girls - on a commission basis - to call on businesses along the new routes we were trying to develop. They just introduced themselves as representatives of our firm, explained our services and offered a half price introductory service. They ended up selling better than 60% of the businesses they called upon.

 During one summer, we even tried a crew of these young ladies as window washers - they weren't the best... We dressed them in snappy red & white suspender-type short-shorts and drew quite a crowd on each job. It was good advertising for us - we got free newspaper and television coverage, and an untold number of new business leads - but the glamour of the whole thing grew old very quickly. But it was a gimmick that brought in new business, caused a lot of people to recognize that we were in the window cleaning business, and made our selling job easier.

 Truly, this is an easy business to start... and with just a little bit of imagination on your part, as well as persistence and quality work man ship, you can easily become as financially secure as you want... All it takes is action on your part, so reach for it and may you always enjoy the fruits of a bountiful success.


OTHER SOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

International Sanitary Supply Association
5330 North Elston Avenue
Chicago, IL 60630

BUILDING SERVICE CONTRACTORS
International Association
301 Tower, Suite 525
Vienna, VA 22180

American Institute of Maintenance
1120 Chevy Chase Drive
Glendale, CA 91205

BUILDING SERVICE CONTRACTING
Economic Development Administrators
Department of Commerce
Washington, DC 20001

Tucker Manufacturing
PO Box 848
Cedar Rapids, IA 52406

UNGAR (Strip-washer Distributor)
254 West Lincoln Avenue
Mt Vernon, NY 10550

Von Schrader Company
9112 Place
Racine, WI 53403

NATIONWIDE LEAD SERVICE
PO Box 2712
Appleton, WI 5493

Barra Chemical Corporation
8851 N. 21st
Phoenix, AZ 85015

SERVICEMASTER INDUSTRIES
2300 Warrenville Road
Downers Grove, IL 60515

ARMTRONG BUILDING MAINTENANCE COMPANY
Franchise Division
5308 Cole, SE
Albuquerque, NM 87108ed, you'll find at least 50% of your business

COVER LETTER

IN RESPONSE TO AN ADVERTISED OPENING
Your recent ad, expressing a need for an experienced stock clerk, has come to my attention. I'd like very much to get together with you at your earliest convenience to discuss my qualifications for this position.

 With hopes for such a meeting in mind, I'm enclosing a copy of my resume for your information and consideration.

 I assure you that I am experienced, learn very quickly, and am adaptable to new methods of operation. I have heard favorable comments about your company as the place for one with ambitions for growth and self-improvement .

 I'm available to come in and meet with you at your convenience and can begin work immediately.

 Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. A call from you will be most welcome and appreciated.

Sincerely yours,




/s/ Your signature
Your Typed Name
(123) 456-7890



 COVER LETTER
FOR THE SHOT-GUN APPROACH WHERE NO KNOWN OPENING EXISTS



 As a salesman, I have ambitions to improve my status in life.

 Your company's reputation as a leader in the publishing of educational materials impresses me, and I would like to explore the possibilities of becoming a part of your sales force.

 I'm currently a top-producing salesman, but feel stymied with my present employment. I think I could do much better with a company receptive to innovative ideas and energetic people such as myself.

 Could we get together and discuss the possibilities of my joining your organization in some capacity that would utilize my abilities to a greater extent, and at the same time benefit your company?

 I will be free from 10 o'clock on, next Tuesday, the 27th. Please give me a call at (123) 456-7890.

 Thank you! I am looking forward to meeting you.