The New York Times-20080127-As Seen on TV

Return to: The_New_York_Times-20080127

As Seen on TV

Full Text (713  words)[Author Affiliation] As told to Eve Tahmincioglu.

WHEN I was 10, in the late 1960s, I started to notice mail-order ads in magazines and became intrigued by the Popeil Pocket Fisherman ad I saw on TV. I loved gadgets and begged my mother to get me one, even though I didn't fish.

My mom was very easygoing, and although we were often on a tight budget, she got it for me. It was $19.99. I caught some sunfish and had something to talk to my friends about. It was my first interaction with direct-response television.

I was an extremely shy kid, so when I was in college I took a job doing door-to-door sales, selling knives for Cutco in New Jersey. I knew it would be challenging, but I saw it as a way to overcome my shyness.

I would demonstrate the knives and talk about them. I was most successful in towns like Clifton, which were mostly blue-collar -- much more than in wealthy neighborhoods. The wealthy people seemed much more skeptical.

My father was a great influence on me. He had a business importing pocket radios and tape recorders under his own private label. He had a showroom in New York, and after school we went there. Everything he imported was really cool. He'd go to the Far East once a year and come back with all this cool stuff.

When attending college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I was always thinking about ways to make money. By that time, my dad had expanded his business ventures to include real estate, a restaurant and a car dealership. He had four sons and he said: You could come into any of my businesses. Pick one.

I said I wanted to get involved in the importing business.

My father started me in the accounting department. A few months later, he showed me a mail-order ad for a watch in Parade magazine. He said: Look at this great full-page ad. Maybe you can do something like this.

I came up with the idea to sell AM/FM radios directly to consumers. I wrote an ad myself, then determined that the National Enquirer was a good choice to place the ad because the magazine had lots of mail-order ads at the time, and a big circulation, about five million.

At 23, I bought an ad for $7,000 using a big portion of my life savings. My dad agreed to sell me the radios on credit. They were Walkman-style with headphones.

Walkman radios were just taking off. They were selling for around $40 but I thought if I could sell mine for $10 that would appeal to a lot of people.

I placed the ad and waited for the responses to pour in by mail. This was 1983. I figured that with a five million circulation, if I could get 1 percent that would be 5,000 orders. I was going to be rich.

Unfortunately, I found out that 1 percent was a very difficult response rate to get. I got under 2,000 orders. At least the ad broke even. Subsequent ads for products, including a wrench that fit any size nut or bolt, lost a bit of money. My older brother told me, You should get a job.

I said, I'm going to figure this out.

I was living at home at the time with no big expenses. I figured that once I got older, got married and had kids I'd never get a chance to do this.

I took a course at N.Y.U. in direct marketing at the School of Continuing Education I didn't need to go through the approval process. Anyone could sign up. One professor I had there was excellent. He knew everything about direct marketing and was instrumental in helping me get contacts in the industry.

My next ad, for massage slippers, at the end of 1984, was immediately profitable. I ended up doing $1.5 million in revenue and made about $200,000. I was 25, and that was a lot of money.

My brother didn't encourage me to get a job anymore.

A .J. KHUBANI

Chief executive, Telebrands Corp., a marketer of consumer products

BIRTHDATE Dec. 16, 1959

BIRTHPLACE Weehawken, N.J.

FAVORITE INVENTION Internal combustion engine

LEAST FAVORITE Cellphone

[Illustration]PHOTO: A.J. Khubani