Here's an interesting biz opp which I picked up as part of a bulk-lot package a while back.

MailWealth is a ten-part subscription based home study course. The subject covered is an old favourite of lots of business opportunity publishers - direct mail and mail order.

Each module is delivered once a month as a printed A4 booklet of betweeen 20 and 50 pages and costs £50 per module. The first module, "The Beginning", is given free as a taster to show what is to come later on in the course. Subsequent modules are paid for by standing order.

This course has been put together by Paul E Watts who is upfront enough to say that he has done it to make money for himself and also to help people to get into the lucrative field of direct mail.

As you read through the course it becomes apparent that Watts has actually made a potentially very lucrative opportunity for himself and also anyone else who has a little get-up-and-go about them.

Any subscriber to the MailWealth course is offered the chance to buy the licence to the course and then sell it on to other people. Licencees can buy ready made sales packs from Watts and also names and addresses of potential customers.

Although I picked up this course only a year or so ago, it seems that the edition of MailWealth that I saw was written in or around the late 90s or early 00s. The copyright notice in each module does not mention any dates but a nudge is given to the age of the course in one part where Watts gives an example of the records he keeps using dates in early 2000.

The basic idea of this course is that you buy the rights to sell it yourself and then mail out the same mailings that Paul Watts mailed to you to sell you the course. Your customers are then offered the rights to the course as well and so on.

Every customer you sign up will pay £50 per month to you via standing order for as long as they decide to stay subscribed. If they wish to cancel, they simply ask their bank to cancel the standing order and they have no more obligation.

Watts ran his company 'Watts Mail Sales' from a PO Box address in Coalville, Leics. However, you may well have been approached by other people offering the same opportunity from all over the country due to the fact that MailWealth was offered with resale rights.

Paul Watts seemed to be the main author of the course but certain modules were written by other contributers. These included Avril Harper who wrote module 6 - "Reaching Out for the Lion's Share" and Michael Farrell who wrote module 5 - "Your Blueprint for Mailshot Millions".

Conclusion:

This opportunity seems to have died out now - I haven't had any sales letters through the post about it and a quick Google search shows only a couple of websites that mention MailWealth - all seemingly run by licencees.

Watts pops up in searches but only about his link with the Virtual World Direct opportunity for which he seems to be one of the top recruiters.

In the modules he does make a point to mention that anybody advertising the MailWealth course must be very careful with the wording in their sales letters.

One licencee did not take this advice and ended up coming to the attention of the Advertising Standards Agency in 2005 when she sent out a letter headed:

"How To Turn 56p Into £1,500+ Per Week!"

You can read more about that here:

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Details.htm?Adjudication_id=39289

(Sorry, URL no longer available)

In conclusion this is a readable course with some good points although in 2007 it does seem a little outdated.

Yet again, however, it does go to show that subscription based courses can be big profit makers for publishers - Streetwise, Andrew Reynolds and Stuart Goldsmith to name just a few have followed this business model successfully for years and continue to do so.

It must be worth it!

In short, if you find this course on eBay for pennies it may well be worth a read but there are better, cheaper and more up-to-date courses on the market now.