I noticed that both Mike and Tom are still dealing with hands on management. Do either of you plan on being away from the office?

My suggestion, go fully automated. All the steps you are currently doing can be done automatically, and for practically nothing in cost.

To start off, you want a download process, not an email. Main reason, is that there is a limit to a lot of email services on the size and kind of attachments. A lot won't forward .exe files (yours might be self extracting, the email service thinks its a virus). Second, I would hate to get a 5 mg file on a 28k connection.

Next, you want to use the email address as a login. You can provide a random password (you can find free scripts around the internet, save the $800-1200 for your marketing campaign), or allow customers to create their own. In either case, it would be rare that people would allow their email/password to be used to get by others to get into a secured location. You can monitor the activity easily by checking the log files. If you find more that 3 IP addresses logging in with one email, you probably have a cheater.

Most merchant services provide the approval code electronically. They then send approved customers to your download page, and declines are stopped. No manual intervention.

Also, I would make sure that you collect name, address, email, etc., and forward that to the card service, rather than just link to them.

Finally, you should set up an auto responder that manages several processes - one for giving away information/newsletters, and one for post sale (and future sale) follow-up.

Once this is all setup, you can go on vacation (and leave the laptop at home).

David McCauley
1WebUSA, LLC
Small Business Web Marketing and Design
http://www.1webusa.com