About Christopher John Payne (detail)

Here is more background information on Chris Payne…

• His business LifeTools became the UK distributor for Learning Strategies, the Minneapolis-based publisher of Paul Scheele’s PhotoReading, Paraliminal Tapes/CDs, plus Spring Forest Qigong. LifeTools spent more than $850,000 promoting PhotoReading. LifeTools has also distributed the Centerpointe meditation programme, and the MindLab series of light and sound relaxation devices from Seattle-based Synetic Systems.

• Chris’ highest value is learning: he owns more than 1,300 books on 11 7-feet high book cases, and has personal and business development tape and CD sets filling 2 bookcases. Chris is an active PhotoReader, digesting as many as 20 books in one day.

 

Business background…

Chris has a Business Studies and French degree from what is now called Leeds Metropolitan University.

He has been a director of the Vegetarian Society UK Ltd. He handled a redesign of its magazine using freelancers. He was chairman of the Young Vegetarians.

He became a director of a vegetarian charity called Reprieve with Peter Cox, author of the best-selling book Why You Don’t Need Meat, Chris Murphy, a manager for the Hare Krishna organisation, and Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders – though his role was a minor one.

As part of his Business Studies degree, Chris had to write a 15,000-word dissertation. He wrote his on the newly developing home computer games market. He interviewed Bob Simpson, Managing Director of Micro Power in Leeds, a publisher of computer games for the BBC Micro and other computers under its brand name Program Power. Bob offered Chris a job as Marketing Assistant. Chris completed his project, writing 26,000 words in total. (For more about Chris’s time at Micro Power, go here.)

After 18 months with Micro Power, Chris left and joined Superior Software, a rival computer games publisher, as marketing manager. He redesigned all packaging and advertising, and helped mastermind the launch of some of its biggest-selling titles. (For more about Chris’s time at Superior Software, go here.)

He set up a record company, Cryptic Records, with Richard Hanson, Managing Director of Superior Software, and launched 2 singles, gained national radio play, but didn’t achieve financial success, so closed it down. More info here.

Chris became Reviews and Promotions Editor for 8 home computer magazines where he learned to write well. More info here.

He was also responsible for the artwork and promotion of software products like Mini Office. More info here.

He created the Mandarin Software brand, and did the marketing for it. More info here.

He was promoted to the post of Managing Director for Europress Software, an offshoot company of the Europress Group, and helped mastermind the launch of the biggest-selling range of educational software for children in the UK, with 150,000 copies of Fun School sold during the time that he was there. The range has gone on to sell a total of more than 1 million units since then. More info about Fun School here.

He was involved with game creation software called STOS and AMOS.

He then set up a mail order business called LifeTools. Go here to read an article about LifeTools, published in a direct mail newspaper.

Under Chris’s guidance, LifeTools became Europe’s largest mail order supplier of light and sound devices; lucid dreaming machines; and other devices, CDs and CDs for exploring and developing your inner mind, relaxing you deeply, helping you sleep better, boosting your energy, improving your memory, lifting confidence, and much more!

More about LifeTools…

• Chris once spent £5,000 (US$7,500) mailing 10,000 letters in the UK and sold £120,000 (US$180,000) of products mostly within 7 days (24 times the marketing spend)

• Chris’s first ad – in a low-circulation New Age-type quarterly magazine – cost US$260 to book – and generated $7,700 in profit (29x the original investment)

• Chris has booked around 400 ads in the press in the UK which generated more than 250,000 enquirers

• LifeTools has sold as many as 599 MindLab relaxation devices in one month (approx $225,000 in revenue)

• A quarter page ad in Viz comic, costing $3,000 brought in 1,037 responses, making $25,000 profit (an 8x return on investment)

• One story which Chris’s team managed to get in a national newspaper brought in more than 600 enquiries, creating $105,000 in sales (30% of the 600 enquirers bought the product mentioned)

• One small story in which Chris was interviewed about the MindLab device on a talk radio station brought in 290 enquiries, resulting in $12,000 profit

If you want to know more about working with Chris to help you in your life or business – helping you to triumph over the challenges you are facing, getting help with marketing, or getting Chris’s team to build you a site like this one – contact him here.