If you're new here, you'll want to be sure to get your free report and subscribe to the monthly e-zine and, perhaps, subscribe to the RSS feed, as well. Thanks for visiting!

Tips Products International Founder and CEO

Paulette Ensign is the Founder and CEO of Tips Products International. Her business title, Chief Visionary, explains why she’s been able to grow her company from being a single information-product operation that she created in the early 1990s to the flourishing enterprise that serves an international audience today.

Paulette has created a vast empire that not only helps people grow their own businesses, but helps them distribute their own products via her website as well. She says she’s in her third career now, but you can tell by her enthusiasm that she won’t be moving on to a fourth anytime soon.

Her story inspires us with its sheer simplicity: She saw an opportunity and went for it, without knowing how or if it would work out. Now that’s what I call an entrepreneuring spirit! This is what she says about her journey:

In the Beginning

Way back in 1991, when my organizing business was already 8 years old, I spotted an offer for a free copy of a booklet called “117 Ideas For Better Business Presentations.”

Well, because I do business presentations, and because the price was right, I sent for it. My first reaction was, “Jeez, I could knock something like this out about organizing tips.” Then I threw it in a drawer.

Six months later I was sitting in my office, bored, baffled and beaten down by the difficulty of selling my consulting services and workshops. I had no money. I mean no money!

Then I remembered that little booklet. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but something hit me, and I knew I had to produce a booklet on organizing tips.

I started dumping all those ideas I ever had about getting organized onto a file on my computer. These were all pearls that came out of my mouth when I was with clients or when I did a speaking engagement or a seminar. I could do one booklet on business organizing tips and another on household organizing tips. Two 16-page tips booklets, each fitting into a #10 envelope. The first one was 110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life and the second one was 111 Ideas for Organizing Your Household.

My first run was 250 copies. That was the most expensive per-unit run I made, but I had to get samples to distribute to start making money. It took a few months to pay the printer only $300.

The only way I could think of selling the booklets was by sending a copy to magazines and newspapers, asking them to use excerpts and put an invitation at the bottom for readers to send $3 plus a self-addressed stamped envelope. I had no money to advertise.

The First Sales

Then the orders started dribbling in, envelopes with $3 checks in them or 3 one-dollar bills. This was great stuff. I remember the day the first one arrived. It was like manna from heaven: $3! Of course, the fact that it took about 6 months from first starting to write the booklet until the first $3 arrived somehow didn’t matter at that moment.

I cast seeds all over the place, hoping that some would sprout. I found directories of publications at the library and started building my list. Finally, in February of 1992, the ‘big one’ hit. A 12-page biweekly newsletter with 1.6 million readers ran nine lines of copy ABOUT my booklet. They didn’t even use excerpts!! That sold 5000 copies of my booklet. I distinctly remember the day I went to my P.O. box and found a little yellow slip in my box. It said, ’see clerk’.

There was a TUB of envelopes that had arrived that day, about 250 envelopes as I recall, all with $3 in them. In April, that same biweekly newsletter ran a similar nine lines about my household booklet, starting all over again. This time I sold 3000 copies.

Round about June, I stopped and assessed what had happened. Was I making any money? By then, I had sold about 15,000 copies of the business and the household organizing tips booklets, one copy at a time, for $3. When I checked my financial records, I realized I had tediously generated not a ton of money.

And some of the lessons I had learned along the way were expensive ones. I didn’t realize my bank was charging me $.12 for each item deposited until I got my first bank statement with a service charge of $191!

Gaining Momentum

Some very wonderful things happened while selling those 15,000 copies though.

A public seminar company ordered a review copy to consider building another product from my booklet. They did, and I recorded an audio program based on the booklet. I can sell that tape to my clients as well and it led to a 20-minute interview on a major airline’s in-flight audio programming during November and December one year.

I was sorting through the envelopes: …$3, $3, ,$1000, $3, ….. wait a minute. Well, a manufacturer’s rep decided to send my booklets to his customers that year instead of an imprinted calendar.

A company asked me to write a booklet that was more specific to their product line.

I got speaking engagements from people who bought the booklet.

I found out that the list of people who bought my booklet was a saleable product.

Things were starting to pick up. So, back to June and taking stock of where I was. You know those advertising card decks in the mail? Well, that day in June I was so bored, I opened one. Glancing through it, I said, “Jeez, here’s a company that oughta see my booklet. And here’s another one, and another one.” I sent booklets to each.

Less than a week later, a woman called. At first, it sounded like a prospecting call. Fortunately, I wasn’t too abrupt with her. She was calling to ask me the cost of 5000 customized copies of my booklet for an upcoming trade show. She wanted to know if I could match a certain price.

I slightly underbid her price, she was thrilled and the sale was a done-deal. I thought, “Oh, this will be easy to sell large quantities now.” Wrong. It was another three to four months until the next large-quantity sale. But, the trade show they were attending was an organization I had contacted about getting my booklet into their catalog. They rejected it because I wasn’t in their industry. So, my buyer had bought 5000 copies of my booklet, with my company information in it, to distribute at that trade show. I loved it!

Still Growing

One day, a guy I know from a major consumer mail-order catalog company said, “Why don’t you license us reprint rights to your booklet. We can buy print cheaper than you, so if you charged us a few cents a unit, you wouldn’t have to do production.”

Well, 18 months later after lots of zigging and zagging, that sale happened: a non-exclusive agreement for them to print 250,000 copies. We exchanged a 10-page contract for a five-digit check. They provided the booklet free with any purchase in one issue of their catalog and made a 13 percent increase in sales in that issue. They were happy. I was happy.

Round about spring 1993, I designed a class on how to write and market booklets and wrote an 80-page manual. The class was small and mostly people I knew. They paid me money, and I had a chance to test-run the class. So now, I had another new product: an 80-page manual, a blueprint of how I had then sold more than 50,000 copies of my booklet without spending a penny on advertising.

I like teaching and now I had a new topic besides the organizing I had been presenting. I also like traveling. So I took the 3-hour class on the road and had great fun doing it. I toured the country for about 2 years, 6-8 classes a year.

Many people have written interesting booklets on all kinds of topics. Some have hired me to write a customized marketing plan for their booklet or to coach them by phone to develop their booklet business.

Today’s Business

Her success proves that with the right blend of motivation, passion, and creative ingenuity, you can achieve your business dreams, without spending a fortune to do it! Check out Paulette’s website for more information: www.TipsBooklets.com.

Paulette Ensign has learned her business by doing it. She has never taken a formal business course in her life. Her company offers a range of products and services to support your success regardless of your budget of time or money.

Paulette Ensign
Founder, CEO and Chief Visionary
Tips Products International
paulette@tipsbooklets.com
13146 Kellam Court, Suite #133
San Diego, CA 92130
Phone: +1 (858) 481-0890