Send Out Cards: About SendOutCardshttp://www.smartnetworkmarketingsolutions.com/about-sendoutcards/en-US2010-07-29T21:28:29ZSquarespace Site Server v5.11.5 (http://www.squarespace.com/)A Breif History of the Greeting Cardshttp://www.smartnetworkmarketingsolutions.com/about-sendoutcards/2009/5/28/a-breif-history-of-the-greeting-cards.htmlJane Goldberg2009-05-28T16:25:24ZIt is believed the early Chinese were the first to send what could be called a greeting card - they exchaned messages of a good will to celebrate a New Year. Evidence also shows that ancient Egyptians wrote greetings on papyrus scrolls.

The next stop on the timeline is around 1400 when the Germans used woodcuts to print New Year's wishes. In the early or mid 1400s Europeans exchanged handmade paper greetings for Valentine's Day. The British Museum has a Valentine from the 1400s that is the oldest known greeting card in existence.

The introduction of the postage stamp in 1840 helped the popularity of the greeting card. What was once relatively expensive, hand made, and personally-delivered gift became an effective and affordable means of personal communication. Another factor promoting advancement was the improvement of printing methods. Mass production didn't mean the end of the elaborate greeting card, however. The Victorian era saw some very ornate and intricate designs.

John Calcott Horsley was commissioned in 1843 to design the first published Christmas card. A young lady from Massachusetts, Esther Howland, was the first regular publisher of valentines in the United States. She started in 1849 with handmade valentines, often using real lace and ribbon, and went on to found a successful publishing company with elaborately decorated cards as a specialty.

The person generally credited with the beginning of America's greeting card industry is Louis Prang, a German immigrant. He started a lithography business near Boston in 1856 and soon his works were known as the best around.

Within ten years of founding his firm, he had perfected the color lithographic process to a point where his reproductions of great paintings surpassed those of other graphic arts craftsmen in both the U.S. and Great Britain. In the early 1870s, Prang began publishing deluxe editions of Christmas cards, which found a ready market in England. In 1875, he introduced the first complete line of Christmas cards to the American public.

Technical developments like color lithography in 1930 propelled the manufactured greeting card industry forward. Humorous greeting cards, known as studio cards, became popular in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Humor in American greeting cards became more prominent in the 1950s with the introduction of the studio card – a long card with a short punch line. Cards for a wide range of events and holidays as well as "non-occasion" cards showed up in the 1980s.

Sending a greeting card is one of those simple gestures that reminds people someone is thinking about them. Making someone else feel special can also have the effect of making the sender feel good also. With all of the stress in people's lives today, that small oasis of contentment is something we need now more than ever.

]]>About Send Out Cardshttp://www.smartnetworkmarketingsolutions.com/about-sendoutcards/2008/10/25/about-send-out-cards.htmlJane Goldberg2008-10-25T22:51:36Zsend out cardsSendOutCards was started by Kody Bateman in 2002. Some people start businesses purely to make money. Others have a goal to solve a problem. Then there are those who do it to make a difference...

Years ago, Kody Bateman, founder of SendOutCards, had a prompting to tell his brother he loved him. He ignored the prompting and a few months later, his brother was killed, leaving behind a wife and three kids. Watch this story.

Kody decided he would never ignore a prompting again. So, creation of SendOutCards.com was Kody's way to allow people to act on promptings by IMMEDIATELY sending a card in the mail, seconds after being inspired to do so.

Below is a Kody's Vision of the Send Out Cards in his own words - nobody can explaing it better than he:

"The vision of SendOutCards is simple. We are out to help millions of people become senders of cards. By doing so, we will help build relationships, express appreciation and touch peoples' lives all over the world.

Making a difference is as simple as sending at least one unexpected card every day. By doing this we not only reach people when they need it, we also connect with something inside of ourselves. The simple habit of acting on promptings will guide a card sender to their true genius within. We believe we all have something unique to contribute to the world.

We believe that at certain times in life, there are people that only you can reach. It is during those times that you will receive a prompting to reach those people and express yourself. SendOutCards not only gives you a daily mechanism to act on those promptings, it also creates an atmosphere that promotes the habit. We have conducted Treat'em Right seminars all over the country. We will soon be crossing the border and conducting them in Canada. It is amazing to hear the card sending stories you all share. The Treat'em Right event truly helps you to see the magic that is hidden in a card. It puts you in a room with likeminded people who are positive, happy and simply want to make a difference.

We believe that we are a billion dollar greeting card enterprise. We believe that we will not only create card senders, we will create millionaires. We believe we have, bar none, the best opportunity in the world today. Why? Because the deepest emotional craving of all human beings is to feel appreciated. We have the system that can deliver the fix for that craving.

Our target audience is everyone from a 12 year old boy that sends a thank you card to his dad; to a 42 year old dad that sends a proud of you card to his son. It covers individuals of all ages that have personal experiences from sending cards who then see the vision of using it in their business. Every person in every type of business has a need for this service. Every family has a need to keep their connections alive and strong. Every friend has a need to stay in touch with those they care about.

We are part of a $7.5 Billion Dollar greeting card industry. That industry has been flat over the past 12 years. Consumers will buy, on average, 10 cards per year. Studies have shown those same consumers have a need for 70 or more cards. There are 3 reasons they don't buy 70 plus cards:

It's inconvenient
They forget
Cards are too expensive

We make it convenient, we never let you forget and you can send a card for less than $1.00, stamp included.

The biggest secret lies in our marketing strategy. The only way to get millions of people to send a printed greeting card from the internet is to personally coach them. It is one person sitting with another person, face to face or over the phone and helping them send their first card out. Through gift accounts, we can create a new card sender. Through seminars and training programs, we can inspire, uplift and encourage people to be the best card senders in the world. We can teach the power of a prompting; we can create a system of self improvement that will help people always send out their very best.

What this tells me is we have a way to truly get consumers to send an average of 70 or more cards per year. We have the ability to single handedly grow the entire greeting card industry.

Now, the interesting part of this is that we have yet to even discuss a compensation plan. We have a plan that rewards the behavior of personal coaching and attendance to seminars. We have a plan that pays personal and downline coaching activity on a weekly check. It also pays for personal and downline greeting card use on a monthly check. This is a plan that shares the wealth and creates unlimited opportunity for those who simply want to help others become senders of cards.

All of our greeting cards are print on demand. What this means is we do not keep any inventory of cards. We do not produce a card until it is paid for and ordered from a user. On a daily basis, we print the ordered cards of the day, stuff them, stamp them and mail them out. This means our overhead is low so we have more to work with to keep our card costs under the competition. It also allows us to create and maintain a lucrative compensation plan.

This also means we can expand into other countries for a fraction of the cost that other companies can. We do not export any product. We simply set up facilities on foreign soil, hire foreign employees, use foreign postal services and create a worldwide network of card sending. There will come a day when you can be in California, send a card to someone in Japan, the card will deliver in a couple of days with a Japanese stamp. We currently have people living in 3rd world countries that send cards to family in the U.S. Their cards deliver within a couple of days with a 0.42 cent stamp.

So there you have it. This is a vision of where we are and a vision of where we are going. Make no doubt about it. We are a billion dollar company in the making. We hope you all stay on for the ride because it's a big one."

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