I once made quite a large sum of money by spending just three days delivering telephone books. The phone company had announced that anyone who wanted to participate could deliver books for cash. Yet most people only made about $100 for the day. I made over $5,000. Here's how I did it.

First, the operation was as follows. Early in the morning, all those who wanted to work showed up at a central distribution point. The phone books were stacked on crates. Some crates had white pages, some had yellow. We picked up a street route from a table which would list the number of houses. We then had to take the correct yellow and white pages. On our own, we had to place one set of each in a plastic bag. Then we would drive to the route, distribute the bags and come get another list. Each route paid about $40.

The key to making money is speed. The faster you can pick up the books, bag them, and distribute them, the faster you can get another route. So, the way to make the real money is to recruit a bunch of people to help you. College age students and housewives are great. You don't have to pay them much, and they can work fast. Your role is to organize them. You need one group to stay all the time at the distribution point and bag the books. You have two separate groups who drive up, pick up the books, and distribute them. Your role is simply to pick up the routes and make sure there is no waiting. While one delivery crew is picking up books, the other is out delivering.

Make sure that you don't just grab any routes. Some are much closer to the distribution point than others. Some have fewer houses. Get there early so that you can pick the fifty easiest routes. Make sure that your bagging crew has the correct number of bags sitting out for your distribution crews. Your distribution crews should have two people each, a driver and someone to distribute the bags. The whole key is that most people spend a great amount of time waiting. They wait in line to pick up their route. They spend too much time bagging the books themselves. They drive to each house, get out and leave the books, and get back in and go to the next house. Using my system, there is no waiting at all. It is pure efficiency.