I’m a marketing consultant, and at one of my client companies, a company that has grown from a $10 million to a $100 million business in less than 10 years, one of the people I frequently work with has taken to herself jokingly named the title, ‘Vice President, Back End’.

While that clearly opens her up to be the butt of a lot of jokes, it very accurately describes her very, very important area of ​​responsibility in direct marketing jargon. At least 80% of the company’s profitability depends on your contributions.

If the term “back-end” is new to you, it means everything you sell to your customers after their initial purchase (that first order is called the “front-end”). For example, let’s say you sell instructional video tapes to golfers on how to play better. It advertises in golf magazines and its main product is a $25 putting strategy video. That’s your “front end” because that’s what people buy first. But then, once people buy that first video, you send them a catalog that offers them over 50 golf videos ranging in price from $50 to $99. Those follow-up videos are your “back end.”

In many companies, there is a relatively short period of time during which there are significant and exciting gains at the beginning, that is, the first sale to a customer.

But that happy situation dissolves over time, as you “cream” the market. And, as you get deeper and deeper into a market, the cost of making the first sale (acquiring a customer) goes up and up. For example, in the golf videos example above, the first time you run an ad in a magazine, you might get 100 orders. But if you continue to run it every month, your order volume will likely drop steadily. Within six months, you will be lucky enough to sell 30 videos of the same ad in the same magazine. At some point, it becomes so high that it is no longer practical to advertise and sell that product in that market.

Nothing is forever. This fact of life is what it takes to be smart to make as much money as you can from the back end.

The good news is that your happy customers are probably willing to buy other things from you, and it doesn’t even have to be your own products/services. You can make deals with other companies to offer their products/services to your customers in exchange for a piece of the action.

For example, let’s go back to our golf video company example. You could do a “joint venture” with a manufacturer of specialty golf clubs that sell for $1,500 a set. You’ll send a letter to your customers telling them how well these clubs will improve their golf game, and you’ll earn $750 for each order placed. If your customers trust you, they are much more likely to respond to your letter than if the golf club manufacturer sent it directly to them.

Of course, you only want to recommend high-quality products and services that are valuable to your customers. But you get the idea. You could make similar deals with other companies that sell what golfers want: golf apparel, tour and golf trip operators, even custom home builders who sell homes near golf courses. Everyone would be happy to pay you a ‘toll’ commission to sell your products to their customers.

No matter what your business is, one of the most valuable assets you have is a list of satisfied customers who are willing to buy from you again. When you control a sizeable list of customers who have bought from you, know their name/company name, are happy with what they bought and the resulting relationship…and are willing to read your mail and buy from you again, it’s like having your own “toll booth”.

A pioneer of direct marketing, Harvey Brody, taught me the power and value of getting into “The Toll Booth Position” and I’ve been teaching it for years. Imagine having your own highway toll booth near your city. Anyone who wants to get to the other side of that toll booth has to go through their gates and pay them money.

As a controller of a responsive client list, that’s exactly where you are; sitting there in your own toll booth and anyone who wants to bring your appropriate product or service to customers you control has to pay you money.

You can collect a toll through joint ventures, as described above, where you do a supported mailing to your customers and get a cut of all resulting sales.

Or, if you build a list of 50,000 or more, through direct list rentals. I have several clients who pay all of their overhead each year with just the checks they receive from the list broker who represents their list to others.

I have often paid others to go through their toll booths, and have done so happily. Others willing to go through my toll booth have also paid me, my clients, with my guarantee.

In the direct marketing business, it is a well-known fact that the majority of profits are derived from final sales to existing customers. However, outside of that business, I rarely find a company that comes close to tapping into the potential of establishing their own “toll booth position.” Start building yours right now and start charging others to follow your lead.