Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
"ByfarTfteillostlmmrtantMarleting
"I gat to knou this gug. I{e's from Neut Jerseg, as street smart as
theg come, and he has the energg of a shituteasel on amphetamines.
He created o business that generated $lOO,OOA,OOOin 23-sltort
montLvs. vincent did thi,s with just o.pen, a pad, and a simpre id.ea. I
belieue lhis is bg far the most important marketing product euer put
together. In it, he reueals alot of secrets that euen I haue neuer
before reuealed to anyone (except a few clients and mg closesl
friends)- If you dare sag the information gou get from this product
uas already knoun to Aou or it usasn't uorththe moneg, gou are
much more than a shifitseasel. You are o stone-cold., unethical lior.
Belieue it or not, much of this infonnation is so electrifying; it was
unknown euenta me. And I am naut using these secrels uhen I
create aduertising for mysetf or for mg clients. you are beyond" all
hope if gou do not order "The 12-Month Miltioneire', as soon as gou
finish reading thfs message. Your hand shourd be reaching for your
checkbook or the telephone thi"s uery second.,
#* CeH^t
YC-
"l lflailG
TheDecisionHotIo Hllitelnothel
Wonil0l Go[yUntilI lleuou]cdvout800["
"It is so blazing hot!!! It's so hot- that in bgtwesnfricnds from Germany
and LA
visiting,2 hangingdeadlines(14 daysaway),four pagesinto The l2 Month
Millionaire I madethe decisionnot to write anotherword of copy until l
devourcdyour book-which I did in four daysflat and I still haven'thad time to
go over the pagesof notes- but it's in the double digits for sure.So I love the
book! It hasinspiredmy soul and sparkeda coupreof killer ideasI'ncgeari,g to
test.with the back-endas the appleof my cye! I will let you know how much
moneyI makc and get to keep over the next year applying thc secrets,facts and
hard-nosed insiderknowledgeyour book so easilydeiails."
lntroduction
Chapter One:
The Best Business In the World
Chapter Two: 22
Products and Arithrnetic
Chapter Three: 36
What lt's Like Wheri One
Of These Things Explodes
Chapter Four: 47
All About lvlailing Lists
Chapter Five: 56
A11About Magazine Advertising
Chapter Six: 66
Creating Your Swipe File
Chapter Seven: 6B
The Back End
Chapter Eight: 75
Auto ship
Chapter Nine: B1
Lifetime Customer Value {LCV)
Chapter Ten: B5
The Two Step
Chapter Eleven: 9s
An irresistible Offer
Chapter Tweive: i03
GuaranteeEverything
C h a p t e rT h i r t e e n : 109
Premiums
Chapter:Fourteen: 113
Testimonialsand Endorsements
Chapter Seventeen:
The Mail piece
o2.o
Chapter ThirtY Two:
What I Know About Websites
Television Advertising
Epilogue: 300
The Millionaire's Library
lf you think being educated about a new profession from a guy who
pllad guilty to Fraud and Money Laundering is a bad idea". this is
not your book.
If you think discovering how to live the "good life" from a guy who
was facing 1O years in prison is a bad idea.." again... this is not
your book.
But if you are looking for the real... the genuine... the no bulishit
way to become filthy rich- and at the same time- avoid any of the
pitfalis massive success comes with-.- this will be the rnost
rewarding book youll ever read.
You see, I've made over $1OO Million in fewer than 1O years using
the very sarne techniques I'11reveal to you in this book. I've also
nearly lost all of my fortune being stupid with my success' I'm
going to teach you how to make tons of money- and just as
importantly... I'm going to show you how to keep your millions in
your bank by not being stupid like I was.
But there are paragraphs in this book- ideas in this book- whole
chapters in this book that I han'e never had the balis to put down
on paper before! And they will open doors to you- maybe as soon
as tomorrow- that otherwise might have taken a lifetime of waiting
for you to walk through.
Right now... I'm sure you're skeptical as hell. You may even be
t"hinking to yourself that you have bought the diary of a madman.
But 1et me make you a small promise:
Once you learn what I have to teach you... unless you somehow
lose your entire memory..^ it would be impossible for you to ever be
"ordinary'again- It would be impossible for you to not knorv how to
make tons of money- starting with virtually nothing as I did iO
short years ago.
Anyway, before we jump into this thing with both feet... lets get
acquainted. Maybe I should tell you a little about myself, hor,v I
grew Lrp and where I came from.
because I had a passion for the finer things. I wanted the gold
Roiex. the sporty Mercedes, and the Million-Dollar Mega Mansionl
But when I 100ked in the mirror, i didn't iike what I saw. I rvas
convinced the good life I wanted was just a dream'
But that was all about to change. seriousiy- by the time I was 19, I
had a brand-new corvette. At20,l had 2 brand-new Mercedes
Benz automobiles. And at 2I, I was the proud owner of a Roils
Royce Silver Spur!
By the time I turned 28.-. I made over $loo Million in gross sales. I
profited over $5o Million. I owned fwo homes- one of them was
14.000 squa-re feet and had a seven-car garage, a billiards room
and a resort-st5rle pool with a.n underwater bar! And I paid cash for
the home!
In the year 2OO2, I rnade more money than the CEOs of Federal
Express... eBay... Ama'on.com... Time Warner... Apple Computer..'
McDonalds... Microsoft... Nike... Yahoo... Ford Motor Company...
General Motors... and Goodyear Tire- COMBINED!
Yes-COMBINBD.
In the May l2th, 2OO3 issue, Forbes Magazine listed their top paid
500 CEOs in America. Of their prominent and prestigious list of
the 5OO CEOs, I made more money than 483 of them.
Now, this may all seem like I'm some rich asshole bragging about
how rich I am.-. and you're partly correct. I am bragging! But more
importantly, the reason why I'm telling you abor.rt all this is that
this book is about getting rich very quickly. If the talk of obscene
money rnakes you feel uncornfortable, or even angers you, maybe
you do not really want to be rich.
The reason why I'm telling you about all the toys I had when I was
just 28, is toprove toyou that if an guylike me.-. with alearning
disability... a bad childhood... and no formal education can get
filthy rich by the time I was 28... you can absolutely follow in my
footsteps and build yourself your very own empire of wealth!
Some preppy geek got out of the car with his sweater wrapped
around his neck and went to her front door. He was picking her up
for a weekend trip I presumed because she made him carry a small
duffel bag to the trunk of his shiny red Mercedes.
Things were sure difrerent from when we were both in High school
together. Where that girl may have had no problem going out with
me back then... nowadays her boyfriends had to be frnancially
accomplished- When I saw that freaking red Mercedes pull away
and drive past me, I remernber saying to myself, "I\re got to get my
shit together!" And I did. About a year later- I had the very sarne
model and color Mercedes Benz SL5O0 in rny garage.
How did I get the car? I didn't steal it. I didnt win the lottery. I
sure didn't receive an inheritance from some long lost relative who
just kicked the bucket. I made the money on my own. I started
from scratch with nothing but a pen, a pad, and a crazy idea_ I,m
now going to teach you how to do the same.
12
total
why would 1 teach these incredible wealth secrets to
don't know' Iuaybe
strangers for the small fee this book seiis for? I
Maybe I
I like Io teach people sruff. Maybe I want to be immortal'
want to leave *o*ithing behind on this Earth after I die that will
last forever. Whatever the reason- you're in for a treat'
stop laughing. I'm being serious. And I'm going to guarantee it' If
thii book fails to rnake you a millionaire within the next 12
months... seriously,.I want you to send rne a letter explaining what
you did in an attempt to get rich... and I1l send you every dime you
paid for this book.
It's just as hard to turn one dollar into three dollars one hundred
times as it is to do it one million times, so why not do it to it's
fullest? I sure do.
So anyway, lets get this thing started right away- I'm so excited for
you. I remember when I was lirst learning these secrets, piece-by-
piece over 1O years ago- It rvas like a menta-l orgasm. I couldn't
stop devouring this stuff from every source I could squeeze it out
of... whether it was spending $tO,OOO on books dating as far back
as the early 19OO's... or spending $5,0O0 to go to a single weekend
seminar... or giving uP my entire personal life from age 19 until
24... including women..- jrrst because I was so excited with what I
was discovering.
li
In my head, this book has been begging me to write it for the past
five years. I finally gave in and did it. Am i happy with the end
result? You bet I am. The very book you hold in your hands is not
just a bunch of paper, ink and glue... it,s litera]ly a roadmap... a
blueprint-.. a formula for getting rich in America today.
These secrets are used equally by the single Mother trying to put
her child in a good private school, to the srnall businessperson
making a great living... a1l the way to guys who ar. running oNE
BILLION DOLLAR Publicly-Traded corporations such as The
sharper Image. These techniques are not Mickey Mouse. They are
powerful. They are life altering. They can even be dangerous if they
are not used properly.
so, I'd like to welcome you to the uBest" of your life. I hope after
you make your millions you still remernber this book and tell
everyone you know how it helped you.
ChapterOne:
TheBestBusinessIn TheWorld
Before you read this chapter, get a pen and a piece of paper'
These are the two main tools you need for this busines-q'
When you add together the pen... the paper--- this book"' and a
simple idea for a prodr-rct or service... it could literally be worth
hundreds of millions of dollars.
And still worse, these traditional businesses cannot offer yor: the
rapid forced growth and wild prolits of the wonderful business this
book teaches about.
The business this book speaks of allows ynu to start small, and
only after you have scientific proof and a valid and profitable idea,
would you then gradually invest more and more of your money. in
most cases, you'll be reinvesting profits.
The business I speak of in this book allows you to get rich even
when 99 out of 1OOprospects don't want your product.
Another plus is that your "offering" is what gets judged... not you_
Let me expiain,,.
You can be a high-school drop out, like I was, and with the right
idea you can rrrn circles around the Harvard MBA with the *io.rg
idea..,
You do not need any specific expertise in the product you plan to
seil. I've manufactured and sold golf clubs while I never played
a
round of goif once. I've manufactured and sold vitamins, where i
am not any kind of scientist or Doctor. That's the beauty of this
business.
And guess what is best about this business? you can be sitting
in
your one beclroom, roach infested basement apartment
right rro*...
but as soon as you craft the right letter, selling the right product,
to the right people, for the right price, and at the right time
in his
or her iife... you can be in possession of some inteGcruar property
worth over $1oo Million! And itll take you just 7 to 1o aays jter "
you mail your letters to know what you have. Seriously.
$600 tomail looo letters and I got$36O0 back, of rvhich ail rvas
profit, once I subtracted the $600 mailing cost.
Now, what I then knew was that the amount of narnes I could mail
the letter to allowed me to seil 40,00O new people every month fo:
$i80. That means I'd make $7.2 lvlillion in gross sales every 3O
days. Itwould cost me $t.Z a month to advertise. So rvhen
everything was said and done, I was iooking at $6 Million profit
every month.
Right now, we're going to focus just on mailing sales me ssages for
a product to a qualified mailing list. Later, well talk more about
magazine advertisements and TV and radio commercials.
No need for research. No need for clinical studies {if the other
company aireaciy sponsored one or there is one in the rnany
medical journals). You can have your very own brald name dietary
supplement for a few dollars a bottle.
I was quite arnetzed when I saw these pills advertised and sold for
$60 when i could make them for $2... and even less in larger
quantities!
So, I crafted a sales letter for this product and located a few
mailing lists to mail the sales letters to. sometimes it's easier to
come up with a product by looking at the different types of mailing
lists on the market. For example, instead of thinking of a new
product to sell, look at all the different t5,pes of mailing lists on the
market and their sizes, and then fit a product to the list.
I'll talk more in great detail about mailing lists later in this book.
Anyway, the pills sold for $60 in my retter, and remember, I made
them for $2. It cost $1.5O to ship them to t].e customer including
the bubbie bag. I charged $6.95 for shipping and handling, so tliis
fee covered the i-Boo phone bill, tl.e order taker's paycheck, the
shipping fee, the credit card processing charge-.. hell it even
covered the cost to make the damn pills themselves!
It's totally legal to do this. That's why it's called a shipping and
handling fee. You can charge whatever you wa'tt for Jhandling"...
t8
even if your customer knows it costs just $2 to send his order and
you charged hirn $5... the difference is the handling fee
so, basically, when a customer would call me and order these piils
for $6o, plus $6"95 for the shipping and handling... a-11$60 of the
selling price was pure cTo. cTo is short for contribution Tcr
Overhead.
cTo is what your business will net after you pay for goods sold.
Out of this CTO, you still have to pay for advertising, postage,
employees, etc.
Most people are ama?,edwhen I tell them that 5o% to 100% of your
cTo may go to the advertising expense to bring in the customer!
Who pays 5oo/ofor advertising? In this business, you'd be lucky if
you can pay just SOYoof your initial purchase CTO on advertising,
At the current time I tested this product, postage cost $gZ0 for
every t"housand stamps.
It would cost $1OO per thousand for names to rnail the sales letters
to.
It would cost about $1OO per thousand to print and sfuff the sales
letter we sent to the names on these lists.
When we're all finished, it's safe to assume it's going to cost $eOO
to mail 1OOOsales letters to qualified groups of prospects.
Being my product sold for $6O... I got to keep al1 $6O of it, as the
cost to manufacfure the product is covered in the shipping and
handling fee.
Common sense would tell you that when I mail 10O0 ietters for
$OOO...I need at least 1O orders to break even and get my
advertising dollars back.
19
Lets say my product was a new diet pill. Not just any diet pill, but
one that acfually enlarges in size once it reaches vour stomach so
it feeis like you are full all the time.
Now, let's say the mailing lists wete mailing our sa_lesletters to are
made r"rpof people who have bought diet pills in the past, so we
know they are prirne prospects.
OK- we're mailing our hot, new diet pill to lOOO people who
actually bought someone else's diet pill in the mail recently. Of the
1OO0, how many do you think would order our pill? Some would
say 25O of the IOOO. I'd say that they're crazy- Some would say
1OO. Again, they're crary. Let's say that 987o of the people we mail
our letters to, throw.our sa-lesmessage right in the trash... Let's
say just 2o/oof our prospects decide to purchase our new, super
diet pill. Let's do some math.
when it was all said and done, each customer was worth $tso ln
cro. Lets go back to the 2a/o w],'a bought from my sales message.
weve got 20 0rders at $18o. That's $3600 in cro for every 1000
sales letters I mail. It costs $ooo to mail looo letters, so we can
safeiy say; I1l profit $3OOO for every 1OOOletters I ma.il. That,s $3 a
ietter on a1'era[Ie. what are you going to do when you get a diet pill
or a wrinkle serum to pull numbers like this when you test the
Victoria's Secret mailing list that has gOO,OOOFRESH names a
1ll
Andthat.examplewasformailingsalesletterstojustonemailing
Response- You
iistl There are many ways to sell products via Direct
direct mail
can sell products tirrougrr magazine advertisements...
just spoke about)"' radio spots"' teievision
sales letiers (like we
spots..'longformatinfomercia]s'''internetsearchterms...
book'
telemarketing'.. and many more well go over in this
work
I used them a11...but only a handful are the ones that really
wel1. We'll talk all about magazine ads.., direct mail... radio."
These
television spots... and some Internet promotion in this book.
are the best ways Iae discovered to make money in this business.
Are you having a hard time believing you can really strike it rich in
this business? Let me give you some examples of what people have
done in the past, and how their iives changed'
Carlton has been on TV for over 10 years and I'd bet he's made 1O0
times more money telling others how to buy real estate for no
money down than he has from actually using his own techniques...
which is fine.
Remember the California gold rrsh? I'm sure the men selling the
picks, shovels, and overalls rrade more money than the men who
acfually were in the mines trying to find the gold- Levis is still
making jeans... but all the miners and their forfunes (if they ever
found any) are all long gone.
Tae-Bo Videos;
Billy Blanks was a struggling California exercise instn-rctoi-, as
most exercise instructors are. But what happens when you
videotape your amazing exercise routine and sell it via direct
response? If you were Billy, yor.r'd be looking at selling 5 MILLION
copies of your video and more! l'm sure over $1OO Miliion lvas
grossed with this amazing product. But did you know this: Billy
was teaching this unique Karate and boxing inspired fltness
techniques for years in Southern California glms... it took
'Hay,
someone with direct.response smarts to say, let's get a
camera and film this guy. People a-ll over the World would love to
do this in their own homeslo
Can you come up with a rnillion-dollar idea? I hope so. What I'm
here to do is tell you what type of products you need to make for
this business to work for you. And once yor.r have that winning
idea... there is no better set of tools you can get than this book to
show you how to suck every ounce of money from your idea.
l3
Chapter
Two:
Productsand Arithmetic
In this chapter, we're going to talk about the types of products and
services that are best to promote through direct response,
I realiy do not care what I'm selling,.. ais long as it sells at a prolit.
To me, the product I'm offering is just a means to an end. I,m in
this business to make a profit- hopefully a large one. I,m not
married to any "type' of product or service. If I test a sales letter
or
an advertisement for a product and if it fails... I11 abandon the idea
like a red headed stepchild, and I advise you do the same.
of course, the best products to seli are your own products. you
need big margins in this business, and selling someone else's
product is never going to ailow you to make the large
margins
needed to cover your advertising expenses.
My friend and mentor Gary Halbert says if he were given just one
thing when he is creating a product for sale through direct
response, he'd want a starving crowd.
Also, I've learned that people will not pay a cent for a
preventative... but they'd give their lives for the cure.
Now, of cou.rse, there is no cure for cancer... especially one yolr can
manufacture. I'm just using this as an example.
Luclly for me, the product I u'as making $2.a Miilion a nronth with
led to $4.8 Million more in back end sales as they reorrlered every
month.
Here's a quick way you can see if your idea has any chance of
success before you spend ar1 ounce of your time and a cent of vour
money testing: .
Your product has to sell for more than $5O. Nowadays, it,s so hard
to make a profit with a unit sale of under $5O. Even if you were
selling a video for $19.95 and you got to keeo all $19.95. Let,s do
some math.
say you're selling this video for g t9.9s through direct response
sales letters. You need $6O0 in orders for every IOOO letters you
mail. In order to breakeven, you're going to need 3o/oof your
prospects to buy. In order for you to make some serious money,
you need 60/oto buy. Six percent is not likely to respond.
Now, maybe if you can get 3o/oto buy the video and this video vou
are selling is a rnonthly video, meaning your customers will
automatically receive a new video every month and youL1 rebill
their credit cards. Maybe you can get this to work... but again, 3yo
to buy is a high nr.rmber.
Here's some great numbers I try to shoot for with any project I,m
looking to test- Let's say I've got a pill that I can seil ioi
$sg.gs ana
ar $59.95 is pure cro- All I need io get in response (orders)
is 1%.
That's realistic. Now, let's say that each customer buys an
average
of 4 bottles from you over the next months. Let,s say the three
additional bottles they buy will cost $3q.g5 on an altornatic
shipment. Your customer life value would be approximately
$tgo.
If you got 1% to buy, you,re looking at spending $60 to ,.buy,
the
customer in advertising expenses. when the customer is
worth
t6
How can you discover the magic product to sell? I like to make a
list. On one side, I like to write down people's desires. On the other
side, I write dorvn problerns people have.
This book is the Bible in the direct response business. what this
book is a book that cornes out every 6O days and it lists the
mailing lists that are.on the market for rent.
This book is the only legitimate place mailing list owners advertise
their lists for use by marketers iike you and I.
This book will have lists that are from other companies... magazine
subscriber lists.-. compiled iists... etc.
In this book, youll-find the rnailing lists of Adam and Eve catalog
Buyers, Victoria's Secret Catalog Buyers, Subscriber Lists to
almost any magazine, etc.
what you can do is sit yourself down with this giant book and just
go through it. Look at the different types of lists that are available.
It may be easier for you as a beginner to fit a product to a mailing
Iist or group of mailing lists.
Here's an example. Let's say there's a rist of the men who buy frorn
the Richlee shoe company. This is a cornpany that sells Elevator
Shoes. These shoes have a hidden *lift'in them so the men who
wear them appear to be ln -.. 2"-.. even three inches taLler.
Now, it's safe to assume, the men who buy these shoes through
this catalog are short... or at least they crave to be taller. rhef
crave to be ta-ller so much; theyll actually buy special shoes
io do
so!
l8
Now, I don't know if this company has their customer list on the
market, so let's just use this as an example' l,et's say the,v have
20,0O0 peopie buying from their catalog every month. That's a
decent number of fresh prospects each and every month-
Why don't you come up with some sort of product that you think
can make these guys taller? I know there are stretching manuals
out there on the lnternet that show men how to stretch their
cartilage and thus, grow taller.
Let's say that there are special amino acids that you can take to
keep your cartilage healthy and dense. What about if you get your
hands on the exercise manual and bring it to a personal trainer
and have hirn perform the exercise and you have it filmed.
You can burn the video onto a DVD. You can also then make a
dietary supplernent that would aid in keeping the cartilage healthy
and dense. You can then create a "system" where for $59-95, the
customer can get the DVD of exercises... and a bottle of the
"supplement" they need to keep the cartilage healthv.
Now, your sales ietter can automatically enroll your cr.rstomers into
a preferred customer club where they will receive a fresh supply of
pills every month for $39.95.
Let's say each customer lets you ship him or her on average 6
months worth of pills. The first bottle wiii get you $59.95 and the
remaining 5 will get you $39.95 each. This all comes to $259.7O.
Now, when you sell this product, youll charge a $6.95 shipping
and handling fee. This fee will cover the cost to manufacfure the
DVD and the cost to manufacfure the bottle of pi11s... plus it will
'
a-lso cover the cost to actually ship the product to them- It should
cost you no more than $2 in postage to get the DVD and the bottle
of piils to the customer's front door. Being you are doing this, the
$59.95 for tJle DVD and the first bottle of pills is pure CTO. Then
for the additional 5 bottles theyll let you send them, youll again
charge the $6.95 shipping and handling fee... so the entire $39.95
for the additional monthly bottles will also be lOO7o pure CTO.
l9
Now, lets say you create a great sa1es ietter with the tips you're
going to master later in this book. It's going to cost you $6OO to
mail 1O00 sales letters. Being that you are getting $259.7O... how
many orders do you need to breakeven?
You need just 2.32 orders per lOOO letters to breakeven- Let,s say
you get 2o/oof your prospects to order... that's $259.70 multiplied
by 2A orders. This comes to $5194 in CTO.
When you divide this figure by the $600 it cost you to get those
orders, you're looking at a promotion that yields 8.2 times it's cost!
That's a great mrmber!
Now $5194 in cro minus the $600 to solicit the prospects reaves
you with $4594 in profit for every IOOO ietters yolr mail.
Remember, the mailing list gets 2O,OOOfresh prospects each and
every month- There's 2o thorrsands in 2o,ooo, so that means you1l
make 2o times the $4594 you prolit per looo letters, Do the math.
You'll earn $91,88O each and every month mailing just 2O,0OO
names.
And don't forget, this was just one mailing list. Maybe there are
ot.her mailing lists for "short'people. I know IVe seen a few
clothing catalogs out there for men s-foot-z and under. If a man is
compelled to actually buy clothing from a catalog like this... being
short angers him... and when you offer him a sorution to his
problem... and if it really works... you're going to get filthy rich.
I know some of the people reading this book will say that diet pi11s
are huge. It seems like everyone is fat nowadays. But, on the flip
side of this-.. every other direct rnarketer also knows of this and
even though diet pills are one hell of a powerful product... there are
only so many slices of tj:e pie... and when there are 1oo people
mailing to the diet lists offering their products... your offering for
this type of product is greatly diluted.
massive success. We're all competing for the magic t\Mo percent to
bu)'.
Now, as for the CDs... what you can do is order a few different
courses on this subject and simply make notes of the important
issues in each of the courses-.. and when you are all done.'. just
assemble all the stuff you put together into one super package you
can call your own!
oexperts'in Tax Deed Sales and
Heck, you can even locate a few
call them and see if they1l let you buy an hour of their time over
the phone. You'll ask them all the questions you would have if you
were going into this business. Tape record them and simply turn
those cassette tapes into yor-rr CDs. Are you providing an expert's
information to your customers? Of course you are- Where the
expert may say he wants $2OO for an hour of his tirne.-. and if you
figure you need 4 hours of his time... for $BOO you can create an
excellent product you can then sell to thousands of people for $ 180
or so.
The $9.95 will cover the cost to manufacfure the CDs, the
directory, the case, and of course- the actual shipping charges
to
get the thing delivered to your customer.
This Real Estate course did not have a back end to resell... but you
can look at the installn'rent payments as your back end.-. because
your prospects will not think they are paying $179.85 for the
course... their mind tells them they are paying $59.95... three
tirnes.
But that shouldn't stop you from sti11trying back end products.
You can put together a newsletter... videotapes of a seminar... etc.
Another issue you have to take into consideration lvhen looking for
a product is how many ways are out there for you to rnake money
from. If there is just one mailing list and it has just 25OO fresh
names added to it a month, this product is probabiy not worth
your time. If there are no lists that have even the slightest chance
of working for you, there's probably good reason for it- nobody
wants to buy that type of product. if there are no publications, or
publications that are smaller than 5O,OOOpaid circulation every
month or every other month, consider another prodr-rct.
A friend of mine was telling me about his friend who makes these
"really cool" clocks. He told his friend about me and his friend was
wondering if he could se1l his clocks via direct response sales
letters. Let's do the math:
Even if there were, these clocks would have a hard time selling for
more than g5O. We have to subtract $1S to make the clocks from
the $5O selling price and we're left with 935. Let's say we can
_i -J
charge $10 for shipping and handling, and iet's assume it would
really cost $5 to send the clock... so \r'e can add another s5 to the
S35 CTO for a grard total of $4O CTO.
when we mail looo sales letters as a test, well need l5 orders just
to breakeven. So, lets say we need to do double over... which
means we need to make back double what we spent on mailing the
sales letters. That means well need 3o orders for this clock.
THREB PERCENT to buy.
Do you really think he's going to get three percent of his prospects
(if there were any) to buy his stupid clock, which he could never
make in large quantities anjrway? Are you craz',1? Of course not. So,
I had to offend him and tell him "what time it was." Bad product.
Bad, Bad, Bad.
what I would tell you to do is keep your eyes open for products you
have purchased in the past that fit the patameters explained in
this chapter. see if you can create yor-rr own version oiit. you
don,t
have to be an expert or have any'qualifications" that you may
have thought you needed. when i first got into the dietary
supplements business, I thought you needed some sort of expertise
in this field... boy was I wrong- Most vitamin manufacrurers
have
"house blends" of certain t54pesof products that you can
simply
"private label'.
All vitamin companies have their own diet pill blends... their
own
arthritis blends.-. etc. All it takes is a brand name and
a label and
you're in the supplements business.
J4|
If you really feel you have a great product and itll cost you $zs to
make, and you think you can sell it for $30O, plus 925 shipping
and handling- even though it goes against the principles I teach of
in this cha.pter.-- if you feel strongly about it* rnaybe go for it.
You1l still make $225-$24o in cro for every order... and guess
what? If you get 1o/oto buy... you'd earn 92250 to g24OO in CTO
per looo letters mailed. when you subtract the $600 for the sales
letters..r you're still left with $16s0 - glBoo per every io00 letters.
I know a lot of people who wouldn't cry about these numbers. And
we're not even going into talking about the back end this product
may or may not have.
or how about if you create a product you feer is not to your high
standards... I wouldn't worry too much either, but let me clarify a
little. You should ahvays shoot to seil and/or create the absolute
best product you can make, but sornetimes this iust cannot
happen.
Reasons may be, in order to hit a certain price point, you have to
skimp on a few key farts.-. or use a lower grade. There's only one
person who has the right to tell you your product is crap... and
that's your customer"
If you're getting more t-l-al 1ooloof your customers asking for their
money back, maybe you should look into what thev are
cornplaining about and see if you can fix it... but eiren if you
cannot, later in this book, i1l teil you how to retain as manv
customers as possible.
by aJ1fiIeans'
misleading your customers in your advertisements..-
seli, sell, selll
Chapter
Three:
What lts Like WhenOne Of
TheseThingsExplodes
In the last two chapters and in the introduction of this book, I have
been "peppering" you with my past successes. And before we go
any further, I think I should take you inside one of my largest
successes... step-by-step... and show you only what a few people
on the "inside" experienced.
Over the years, I,ve had people try to persuade me to get into
dietary supplements... but I could never realry get excited about
this type of product- unless it was something radically different.
within a few weeks we both noticed the product did in fact just
what it claimed to do... and it did just as well as their clinica-l Ffudy
said it would. This product was getting rne rnore and more excited'
But I would still say the best part about this discovery was that
these piils... the entire one month supply'.. in a bottle." with a
label affixed to it... didn't cost the $a to $15 I thought it would cost
to rnake... it cost just $2 a bottle when I bought them in 1000
lots... and that price would go down even further when we'd order
larger quantities.
3. It was small and cheap to ship- I think at the time, the post
Offlce was chargingus $1.87 to ship a bottle in a bubble bag. I was
charging $6.95 to cover shipping and handling, so the cost to buy
the bag, the cost of Postage, the cost of the product itself, was a-li
covered in this fee. And these botties are small, so they didnt
require a huge warehouse to stock them. you could easilv stick
20OO bottles in a one-car garage bay.
4. women had a huge problem with what this product was to help
them with... and there was only one other product on the markei
at that time offering to help with this problem And iike I was
saying
before, this other product's marketing was Mickey Mouse. A bunch
of ugranola nuts" as I ca-ll them who knew eveqrthing about herbs
and didn't know a thing about advertising and marketing... but
I
sure as hell did!
I sat at my brand new (at the time) orange iMac and just
got
typing. I wrote a really good sales letter and found three
mailing
lists that I thought were worth testing first.
letters and get i2 orders istill 2.4%)..' the 12 orders are NOT
enough to scientifically gauge a roll out's response percentage '
I mailed 9000 letters to 3 lists of 3000 names each' Al1 9O00 got
the sarne exact letter... I had a coding device {which I'11talk about
later), which told me which mailing list they ordered from when
they were ordering. The orders started coming in, and I always like
to sit-in on tests-.. as they are the very foundation of a million-
dollar promotion. You want to make sure everything is right. i once
deemed a sales letter selling golf clubs a failure because I didn't get
any orders from a test mailing. Little did I know, we had the wrong
B0O# on the letter. The letter with the right phone number was a
success. Nowadays I watch every test as if it were a child fresh off
her training wheels.
The first few orders start corning in. I vividly remember a lady
saying how much she identified with the writer of the sa-lesletter...
and how it almost made her cry. She busted out her credit card
immediately. Sure, a woman may have signed the letter we sent
out... but it was written by me... a burley... hairy-chested'-. ltalian
guy. I found this kind of funny. I guess that's when you know you
are a good copylvriter. Sure, I got a lot of orders, but the final
response didn't impress me much...
I was thinking I'd get 2o/oto buy... I ended up with a lot less.
This is why you have to test different mailing lists... you can have a
hit on one list... and a disaster on another list... even if they are in
theory the same type of people on them! Logic makes no sense in
this business and even seasoned Professionals like me fail to bring
in enoush orders frorn time to time.
4t
so we had a list that broke even. Ivlany direct marketers say that
breaking even is 9A'/" if success is iO0%. Now you have to do
things to better the promotion.
"And if you're one of the first 2oo people to order, you1l receive
FREE ENROLLMENT into our preferred customer club where
youll qua-lify to receive a full $2O discount on all your fufure
bottles of (product name). And so you don't go d"y without
(product name) in your system, youn automaticarly"
receive a fresh
bottle every 3o-days and your credit card will te billed the club
Member Price of $39.95 plus $6_95 S/H- not the $59.95 fee non_
rnembers have to pay. There are no minimuffr amollnts of bottles
to
buy and you can cancel at any time. The number to call is l-g0o-
123-4567, and you can call 24 hours a day, z days a week."
.12
l'he addition of this paragraph was the only difference between the
initial sales letter that broke even, I ordered another batch of fresh
names from the list broker and had these new letters printed rvith
the magic paragraph. We mailed out 3000 and kept our fingers
crossed. You see while a back end is a rnust in this business..^ an
,,auto,ship" makes the back end l0o times more profitable. Notice
how the paragraph was worded as if I was doing thern a favor of
making sure their fresh bottle was there on time. while it is true,
they were getting the auto delivery and a reduced price... I was the
rea-l winner, beca.use I got to rebili their credit card automatically
every month until they called and told me to stop. This is super
profitable and absolutely legal to do.
The product I just told you about was my first attempt at dietary
supplements a:rd after having a hit with the first product, I was
fascinated with this business. I was hot to come up with my next
success.
I wrote the sales letter. It was basically the very same offer I had
for the first supplement.., the first bottle for $59.95 plus $6.95
shipping and handling and then they would be automatically
enrolled into my Preferred Customer Club and receive automatic
rnonthly shipments.
ChapterFour:
All AboutMalllngLlsts
A great sales letter, selling a great product, to a poor list wili never
do as well as a so-so letter, selling a so-so product to a HOT
mailing list.
Anyway... we're now talking about mailing lists, so lets move on.
Remember, its better to have a good list with bad writing skills and
a poor product than it is to be the best copywriter in the world,
with a hot product, to the wrong list.
J9
Anyway, i like BIG lists. I like BIG HorLiNE lists. when vou,re
looking through the sRDS book, youll see the counts foieach list.
These counts will be the universe (all the names on the list,
regardless of how long ago they were added), youll see the
s,6, 12
and maybe everi the 24 month count- which is pretty easy to
understand... and youll see the HOTLINE count.
when yo' get a mailing list to mail your stuff to--. its
ca]Ied
"renting"... you're not "buying" the list... you,re just
"renting. it for
a one-time usage-.- unless you pay more or get permission
for
unlimited usage.
Now, you are the person who wants to RENT mailing iists to see if
you can sell your stuff to their customefs, or their subscribers, etc'
DATA CARDS are the.listing for a specific list. Do you know how a
realtor puils a listing on a home for sale? Well, this is the same
thing. The Data cards are not actually "cards', they are just
iistings in the SRDS book or sheets of paper a list broker will send
you.
You can get your hands on the SRDS book yourself and contact
the LIST MANAGER of each list yourself, or you can call a LIST
BROKER and theyll get the same lists for you'-. and you won't
have to make 1o to i5 phone calls to different LlsT MANAGBRS.
LIST BROKERS are also supposed to help guide you to the best
mailing list for your offer- Basically, the way it works is you fax
them r .opy of your sales message and they'll use their "expertiseo
to locate you all the lists that have people ready to buy your
product.
In fantasyland, this is how this works... but in the real world, if the
LIST BROKERS were so good, they sure wouldn't be RENIING lists
to you... they'd be mailing their own shit to the lists they know
"work" so well.
But still, LIST IIROKERS are usefr:l becamse they don't add any
more money to the lists you rent {the list owner pays his
commissions)... and they can make all the phone cal1s for you to
the other list managers... and best of all, once you start rolling
out... the list broker can extend you 3o day credit terms on all the
lists you rent from numerous iist managers.
i1
1. There are BUYER iists: These are lists made up of acfuaj people
who bought from the company. Victoria's Secret Catalog Buyers is
a list of all the people who bought from their catalog, and you can
select them by date. The last 12,month narnes, the last 6-month
names, the last 3-month names, even the HOTLINES for the past
month's buyers. Buyer Lists are the most powerful mailing lists to
rent.
2. There are SUBSCRIBER lists: These lists are what they say they
are.., subscribers to a magazine... or to a newsletter. while these
lists are great, and tl1ey are sorne of the bigger lists, they are less
powerful than the actual "buyer'lists... part of the reason is that
subscriptions are sold numerous ways. Direct rnail sold
subscribers.., sweepstakes soid subscribers {publisher's clearing
House-t54pes)... 3 -month free trial subscriptions... Bilr-Me- Later
subscriptions, etc- Where a buyer is a buyer is a buyer...
subscribers can come into the list many different \f,'ays. obviously,
the best subscribers are DIRECT MAIL soLD subscribers. so, if
you can, sometirnes i eliminate all the swEEps soLD subscribers
from the lists I test.
'l'here's
3. coMPiLED lists: These lists are the least powerful of the
three, but I did get them to work for me sometimes. cornpiled lists
are made up of data complied in some way and organlzed. year,s
ago a comparly RL POLK {now owned by EeUIFAE had a compiled
list I tested and it worked for me TwlcE on two separate offers.
This list was compiled by way of warrantSr cards. you know when
you buy a computer and the warranty card has a million and, one
questions on it and you feel obligated to jill out each and every
question or else J/our warrant5l may be voided... well, that data
went straight to RL POLK.
I iike mailing lists where the customers paid a lot of money to get
on the list... hopefully more than I'm selling my product for. Youll
see this stat listed on the AVG. UNIT SALE part of the data card.
This is another reason why magazine subscriber lists don't pull as
well as buyer lists... rnagazine subscriptions are cheap- usually
under $2O.
But I've also made the majority of my money from subscriber lists
and this is for at least two reasons. Magazine subscriber lists are
usually huge. i'd rather ea-rn a do1lar on one rnillion names than
earn four dollars on 25,OOO names-.. wouldn't you agree? There's a
difference between powerful and profitable.
A1so, magazine subscriber lists are more creditable to me. I11 tell
ya... probably 9O% of the lists in the SRDS book are inflated,
hyped up... maybe even phonebook names! Who's going to poiice
it? And if they did.-, how would they do it? How can you prove the
name was actuall-y a man who purchased a $+OO item... within the
last 30 days? You can't. That's why there are a bunch of liars out
there. Usuallv the business thev are in revea-ls the level of their
credibility.
I tested a well-known adr-rlt video cata-log vs. one I never heard of.
One got 3a/oto buy... the one I never heard of got less thaii a
quarter of a percent to buy. These are the sarne type of lists in
theory- adult video buyers... but if this was really the case, why the
difference in response? Could the unknown list have phonebook
53
I had a product that was pulling six times cost on the subscriber
list, but when I placed the ad in the magazine on four pages-.. I got
not six times onr money back... we got back nearly ten times our
money!
Most books on direct mail will tell you about the RFM guidelines to
keep in mind when you are selecting a mailing list. I think they're
worth going over-
Recency:
The most important. This means how recent the name is. Peopie
have a habit of buying in surges. You want to get thern while
they're in that surge. It may last 30 days... it rnay last 6 months,
Obviously, the fresher the better. This is where logic makes no
sense. You'd think if sorneone just bought a diet pill last monlh...
they wouldn't be ready to try your brand for at least two months.
But it doesn't work this way. The same goes for opporhrnity
seekers. You'd think if someone bought a book on how to make
money last month... they wouldn't buy another book on how to
make money for at least a few months... or until they realize they
don't want to.-. or can't do what the product says they have to do.
But it doesn't work this way. lf they bought a diet pill last month...
)_)
youll have an easier time selling them another pill a weeks iater
than you r,vould if it were 12 months later'
FrequencY: _
This is the seconcl most important. Frequency means how many
times this particular customer bought. MULTI-BUYERS are what
they are called in the mailing list world. Multi-buyers afe twice as
likely to buy as one-time buyers. So, the more times they bought,
the more powerful theY are.
Monetary:
This is the least important of the three, but it is important.
Monetary means how much this customer spent to get on this iist'
I was just telling you about this a few pages back. obviously, you11
have an easier.tirne trying to sell your $6O product to a list of
customers who all paid $5OO to buy something, rather than trying
to sell the same $6O oroduct to a list of people who put out $ i 0 to
bu.y the product that got them on the mailing list- Maybe they
cannot afford your $6O product, where you know for a fact the list
of the $SOO buyers can afford your $60 gizmo'
Nor,v,in the perfect world, you'd rent only mailing lists of people
who bought similar products as yours--. ald the last time they
bought it was last month... and they bought the same thing seven
times in the past... and they put out five tirnes more money on it
than what your product is being offered to them for-
I've never found a list like this one. If you did, by the time you slice
it down... you'd be looking at a just few thousand names.
But you should strive for as close to perfection as you think you
can get. Youll never find the perfect list like I was saying before...
but why not try to get as close as you can to perfection?
Usage Reports:
Something you can request from a list manager or a list broker is
the USAGE REPORT for a particular maiiing list you are looking to
rent. This report is broken down in two sections. One is
"Continuations' and the other is'Tests".
:6
It really can narrow down some lists to test in the future- But there
are errors in usage reports as well. I rernernber being a continuing
customer for a certain catalog company- i saw a copy of their usage
report and I was not on it. Not that I even want to be on it... I like
to operate in silence... but if I wasn't on it... how many other
companies are not on it... and is it even accurate? Everything irr
this business has to be questioned numerous times and in
numerous ways, as nothing is as it seems- especially in mailing
lists.
Dont call a list broker until after your sales letter is crafted. Go to
the library and look through the SRDS book yourself and open
your rnind. The ideas will just start flying in, one after another!
a1
)!
Five:
Chapter
All About MagazlneAdvertlslng
Now, where I told you about selecting a mailing list then fitting a
product to it.,. I would not advise doing this with rrragazine
advertisements. And if you're testing a new product'-'
It's very possible to send out 3OOO sales letters and not receive one
single order! I mailed a test of 4OOO letters a few months ago and i
didn't get one single freakin'order!
That's another good thing I like about magazine ads is that 5rou
can negotiate your price. In direct mail... it's hard to get a huge
discount on printing... it's hard to get a huge discount on mailing
lists... and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get any discount on postage.
If you have a product related to a niche market like car stereo and
a new car stereo magazine comes out, I'd say it was worth a test as
that magazine is a "specialized" magazine. The people who picked
it up at the nervsstand were probably car stereo mrts- And they
were not ordinary guys picking up a copy of EDGE... a MAXIM
knockoff.
Here are a few examples of new men's magazines that came and
went in less than a few vears'time:
GEAR
STUN
E D GE
RAMP
CONTROVERSY
RADAR
i9
I have tested a few new magazines rvith great success... but only
after I knew I had a successful advertisement. I had a car stereo
membership club that I advertised in fwo new car audio
magazines, CARSOUND and AUTOTRONICS. Both books were new
and both books failed, but I did have great success advertising in
them. The same goes for MIND AND MUSCLE POWER. This was a
magazine by the Publisher of Penthouse. I was in their first issue. I
needed 1OO0 orders to breakeven, and I ended up with 5OO!
Unfortunately, MIND A'ND MUSCLE POWER is also out of
business. Bottom line: NEW MAGAZiNES DO NOT MAKE lT TO
YEAR TWO.
Tel! the advertising rep that you are skeptical as hel| because they
are new. Tell thern to rrn your ad for free and if it works, youll give
them a full 12-month contract. If they are not game..' forget them'
If you have a full page ad working very well for you in Publication A
and you are paying $25/M for a full page ad... when you go to
advertise in Publication 8... youll want to pay $251M or less.
Ahvays try to pay less. The less you pay, the more cash you get to
keep, and that's the name of this game.
Audited Circulation.
Magazines can lie about their circulation. Many new publications
do. In order for businesses to rairly gauge the different magazines
to advertise in, there are two 3rd party circulation-auditors
magazines hire to validate their readership numbers. ABC is the
one most magazines are audited by.
The real important figures you need to look at on the pink audit
sheet are the paid subscribers and the paid newsstand. Add these
two together and then gauge your CPM from this count.
If you're iucky enough to have a magazine tell you about their total
.,]-eaders"...tell them that's nice... but you are interested in hog'
many PAID CIRCULATiON they have each issue' PAID
CIRCULATION is the only number you care about- When you ask
this question, Magazine A, who was just raving about SOO,OOO
readers will have to tell you they sell 1O0,OOOcopies each and
every month, but a survey they performed says their magazines get
read by 4 other people, other than the guy who originally
purchased it. This is also called "pass alongl readership.
Frequency.
Magazines come out in all different types of frequency. Some come
out every mont]-r... some every two months... sorne every quarter...
some EVERY WEEK! Here's what I can tell you about frequency.
Monthly publications are great. Bimonthly publications are good
and they give you a little more time to make your money before
their next issue comes out. Quarterly publications are not worth
advertising in, and weekly's or biweekly's come out too fast for you
to recoup your advertising dollars from the previor:s issue.
You wiil get better results if you are on the right hand side of the
magazine. It's as simple as that. Many magazines may not want to
guarantee you a right hand page... but make sure you get your
point across that you want a right hand page. Don't be fonled by
magazines... they want your business. If you're going to walk away
over which side they put your ad on... theyll make sure they don't
lose the sa-le.
I don't even like to mess around with this shrlT anymore. Nowadays
I place three pages ads that are right, left, right. I'm guaranteed my
right hand page.
If you are doing an ad smaller than a fulI page, youli still want it
on the right hand page and as far up front as you can get it.
Fractional Advertisements.
Maybe you don't have the big dollars to place full-page ads just yet,
and that's fine. You can place fractional ads. These ads are I l3
page... l/2 page.-.213 page... even I /t2 page.
Negotiating Ad Cost.
Here,s some proven ways to get the Publisher rvay down on his
prices. First of all, tell the ad rep you are your own in-house
advertising agency. These words will save you 157" right off the
top. Advertising agencies get 157o comrnission on all ads. Next,
rnake sure to tell them you are a direct response advertiser. This
could get you an entirely new rate that wiil be as much as 25oh
lower. The reason for this is simple. Publishers know if you are a
rnail order advertiser,.You are going to be counting the sales from
your ad. General advertisers do not do this, so the publisher
knows he can gouge them. The general advertiser's ad agency
rloesn't care about this too much, becalse they earn a commission
of 15% for the entire cost of the ad the company runs' The more
the magazine charges, the more the agency makes in commissions.
Ad agencies are useless. In fact, by the time you are flnished with
this book, you could probably go to Madison Avenue in Manhattan
and create better ads than 7Soh of the chumps in their fancy oflices
high above the citY.
Another technique yort can use to get the rate card price down is to
tell them you want the "pre-pay" discount, if they have one. You
can save an additional3o/o this way.
Also, tell the advertiser you want the l2-time rate. Obviously, if the
ad works for you, you're going to run more and more magazine
ads, right? If the magazine does not allow you to make enough
sales to cover it's cost, yolr can call the publisher and renegotiate
your ad rate. If they are sfuck and you can't get a better rate, you
don't have to run any more ads- even if you told them you were
going to run I1 more times.
When you add up and use all these techniques.-- yor'r should shave
5O% off the one time rate card price.
Spreads Suck!
Spreads are fwo page ads, one on the left and one on the right'
They look good, and make you feel good because your ad is fwice
as large, so it has to be fwice as powerful... but it's not. Let me
explain.
If your advertising copy runs over into another page... put your
first page on the right hand... then the second page on the back of
the first page. This way, you can attract a potential reader on two
separate page turns.-. and if a reader wants to rip out your ad, al1
he has to do is rip out the one page and he's got the front and back
of your ad in one rip! By doingyour two page ad this way, instead
of a spread, you'd be looking at getting 2OOV>more orders for 2OOo/o
more advertising cost... this you can live with! NEVER, NEVER,
NEVBR do a 2-page spread. They never worked for me.
in the
get extra credibiliry by having you ad look like a page
"magazine. 'Pub Setting".... setting the art like the
This is called
publisher.
Condensing.
When you a_rewriting.your ad, you may rl.n into a little problem
where there is too much text and not enough space. instead of
buying another page... and instead of eliminating potentially
po*e.frl selling copy... what I'd advise you to do is shrink the size
ortn" copy. If you have an interested reader, hell read B point type
if he has to. so, if I had to choose between brrying another entire
ad page... and doubling the cost of my advertisement... or editing
potentially powerful and needed sales copy... which will lose me
the sale entirely... or simply shrinking down the copy to fit it ail...
I'd choose the latter. Something funny is that a crammed-looking
ad appears like it has something important to say to the reader'
Controlled Circulation.
Earlier in this chapter we talked about paid circulation. Some
magazines, especially TRADB PUBLICATIONS are what is called
CONTROLLED CIRCULATION. This means that the readers have
not paid for their subscriptions, but they all had to qualify in some
way to receive the magazine. A trade magazine may go to lOO,OOO
CPAs. In order to get t}.is magazine you must be a CPA. If yorr are
a CPA and if you requested this magazine, you1l get it for free.
ChapterSix:
CreatlngYourSwlPeFile
Now, to the blind eye, yolr may think they are really just giving
away the free sample of their product... but when you actually call
them and order their sample, they1l have a script the order taker
will read to you. It11 say sorrething like this:
Now, had you not responded to your competitor's ad, you would
have never figured out the method behind their madness. An ad
that gives away a sample supply will almost always pull more
orders than if you just tried to sell the customer right off the page.
You have to keep a:r eye on rvhat others are doing in you.r related
field.
Seven:
Chapter
The BackEnd
The back end is where all the real huge profits come in.
it every
I sold a product for $6O. I got 40,000 new customers to buy
in advertising every month to get those
month. i paid $1.2 Miilion
+o,ooo people. Had I left well enough along, I would have grossed
never leave
$2.+ n4iition on the $6O sa-les to 4O,OOOpeople' Brrt I
well enough alone-
Before I even decided to test the product I'm talking about, I made
sure it had a strong back end'
You can se1l them while they are on the phone ordering the initial
product, you can include a back end offer in the product's
shipment, you can go back and mail your customer list every 30-
days... or every i4-days... or even every week.
Do you know when you stop mailing? When you stop furning a
profit. Your customers will not get a.nnoyed receiving so much
advertising from you. Remember, they did want your product...
why wouldn't they want additional products to rnake their initial
purchase better or more rewarding to them?
Ttren, three weeks later, I'd. send the sarne narnes another offer.
Again, it was a $2O0 product, 6ut a different one from the first
offer. I'd get a:rother 57o to buy. I{ere's another $1O in my pocket.
At this point, I furned every customer who bought a $2O book into
a $4O customer.
A few weeks later came back end offer #3. Another product for
$2O0. I again got 5%. Now wete up to $30 on the blck end of a
$2o book purchase. We're now at $50.
Another few weeks came offer #4. This time it was a $1OOO
product' I got 17o--.but since the product was a $tooo product, I
added yet another $tO to my back end r:rofits.
Norv we're at $60 in sales per customer'
And i kept this going and going. When I finally ran out of related
products, I'd remail the first, the second, the third, etc, offers.
So, when most people would wonder why I was thrilled to sell
S1O.00O worth of books from a $10,OOOad... I would chuckle. I
knew after a few months, that a $2O book buyer would make that
$tO,0O0 ad bring me $4O,OoOin sales.
Your customer list is the most valuable asset youll own. You can
remail it time and time again and it'll never wear out. I don't even
look to market products unless they have a great back end
potential.
Back end sales can come from reselling the identical product you
first sold them. If yoir were selling a pill or a cream".- t1lis would be
resold to them.
Here's a great back end stratery for a skin care product that
reduces the appearance of wrinkles.
12
The customer tries the sample and orders your product for $6o or
so.
Now you have your first back end set up- the autornatic
shipments
While your customers are enjoying the product, you send them a
sales letter for a compiete moisturizing and cleansing kit' Il has 4
or 5 different products in the kit, that if they were sold separately,
would cost $3OO or so... but you can offer them this "kit" for just
$139.95 plus $lO shipping and handling. If youVe been paying
attention, the $lO you charge will cover the entire cost to
manufacture t}re 4 or 5 bottles and the entire cost to ship the
whole thing to thern.
Since your customers love your initial wrinkle crearr, they believe
your claims for the moisturizing and cleansing kit. You end up
with 57o buying this kit. Five'percent response adds $7 to the
customer's lifetime value-
already won their trust... so you can hit them for a larger price
poin:.
Norv remember, all this will fall on its face if you are sellingyour
customers junk. If a customer bought something from you and
they rrere not satis{led, they are not going to rebuy in a iarge
percentage as they rvould if they were at least satisfied with what
you sent them. While your product does not have to change their
lives... it does have to at least satisfo them somewhat'
A video is sold for $9.95. If you order with a credit card, you1l
receive a bonus video for free. But in order to receive it, a credit
card is needed. No clreck orders get this 2nd video'
The purpose of this is to gain the credit card numbers, so you can
automatically resend them a new video every month and you don't
have to go through the "bill me" headaches. You simply bill their
credit card. Of course, you have to let your customer know you're
going to do this.
I know a guy who does this and makes $9O Million a year.
When the auto ship product is different every shipment- like the
videos, you can have a lower initial sales price... but when the
product is the same every shipment- like a bottle of pills... you
have to offer the lower price on the future shipments because there
wiil be no advantage to being in tlle ciub, If you're selling a bottle
1A
of pills for $20 to attract a lot of cr-rstomers and then go to tell them
you1l automatically send a fresh supply every month for $60-
theyll teli you to buzz off and just reorder as they see fit for the
initial $2O fee. They wouldn't do this on the video club... because
theyH just be ordering the same video every month instead of a
fresh one as tfre videos are different each shipment. Understand?
It took rne a long time to understand that you can get rich very
quickiy with a product that leads itself to back end sa-les...
especially when the product is a consumable- and you can
automatically reship a fresh supply when the consumable is
finished.
Let's pretend I was marketing the sale of this book. l'd rent mailing
lists... advertisements in rnagazine... buy Internet search terms,
etc. But what about if I went to my buddy who has a newsletter
with thousands of readers
And this technique works on the flip side as wer. say I sold 20,0o0
copies of my book through direct mail sares letters and rnagazine
ads and my buddy wants to get more subscribers for his
newsletter. I can go to him, or he can come to me and we can
15
I would make money from a product that I don't own-.. and heli
make money from gaining new subscribers rvith a huge influx of
orders as I wrote the letter to my customers telling them what a
great newsletter my buddy puts out.
I don't know how many times I can attempt to drill this in your
head. The back end is where ail the real prolits are. If your product
or service does not have a huge back end potential... forget it-
unless your upfront response is huge. it is so much easier to resell
an existing customer than it is to attract a new customer, itll make
your head spin.
Back end products should always cost more to buy than the initial
product theyte purchased- unless it i.s the sarne product they are
buying over and over again- like a bottle of pills.
Bottom line: Back end products are products you can go back and
sell to your customers after the inilial sale- Back end products can
also be sold as up sells or'bumps'while the customer is on the
phone ordering... but that's an entire chapter on its own we'll cover
iater in this book,
i6
ChapterEight;
Auto shlp
The greatest examples of auto bill are utilit5i compalies. You sign
up, and theyll keep your power on and billyou... TILL YOU
FORBID their services- usually when you move.
Back end sales are great. We talked all about them in a past
chapter. Your customers will rebuy things from you at a rate of 5%
to 25o/o or so- depending on the product and their satisfaction level.
But auto ship gets every customer to rebuy unless he or she calls
and tells you not to.
11
Sure, from the customer's point of view... theyll qualify for a lower
price... and theyll automatically count on the product arriving in
their mailbox- even when they are far too busy to call yor.r.when
they're out of product... but the real benefit is for you- the
maik.t.r. Youll make every $1 in advertising glve you $6 worth of
sales... where it would get you just $2 without the auto ship club.
"And if you're one of the first 20O people to order, youll receive
FREE ENROLLMENT into our Forever Trim Club where you'll
qualify to receive a full $2O discount on all your future bottles of
(product name). And so you don't go a day without {product name)
in your system- destroying fat, you1l automatically receive a fresh
bottle every 30-days and your credit card will be billed the Club
Member Price of $39.95 plus $6.95 S/H- not the $59.95 fee non-
mernbers have to pay. There are no minimum amounts of bottles to
buy and you can cancel at any time. The number to call is 1-8OO-
123-4567, and you can call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.'
Some direct marketers don't even reveal the auto ship club in their
sales letters or advertisernents. What they do is have a script the
order taker reads to them when they place their orders. I had to do
this when we were running TV and radio spots. You only have 6O-
seconds to sell the product itseli.. not enough time to sell an auto-
delivery club. So, we didn't speak of it in the commercials... but
AFTER we got the entire order... only then did we read the script
word for word.
Did a 1ot of customers ba-ik about their credit card being billed
automatically? Some did. And for the ones that did, I offered a
special 4-pack of the product they were buying for a great price.
The majority who didn't want the auto-delivery did take the special
4-pack... so at least i made more money than the $60 one bottle
sold for.
lq
It,s fpnny, but I sold 4O,000 fresh people a month. The initial bottle
sold for $60. But maybe 5% of the callers actually got off the phone
with just a $60 sale'
One thing about this auto ship concept is that it will only work on
customers who buy with a credit card. You cannot rebill a
checking account off a check that was mailed to you.
Now don't get rne wrong-.. I'm not talking about just rebilling a
custorner's credit card without their knowledge. All my customers
were either told in the advertisement, the sales letter, or through a
script read to them on the phone. Even my website told them when
they were ordering.
How are you going to rebill all these credit cards every month? I'm
glad you asked. Later in this book, I1l tell you a-11about the
software youll use to process credit card transactions. The
software provided by the banks will allow you to set up each
customer's account to rebill at any price in any interval'.. rebill
every 23 days... 45 days... 30 days... however you work your
promotion. I'd stick with every 3O days.
This auto ship concept worked so well for me that once I saw how
well it worked... I stopped taking orders for my product with
checks or money orders! I didn't even give the customer an option
to pay this way in our ads. If a customer did want the prqduct I
was seiling and said he didn't have a credit card, only then would
we give them an address to send a check to... but we still made
sure to tell them about the special 4-pack offer.
What I liked about the auto ship club was that I didn't have to
drum up sales from scratch every month. What I mean is this. I
was selling 16O,0OO bottles of pills every month. Since my
customers stayed in the auto ship club for an average of 4
months... I had 4O,OOOpeople canceling their shipments every
month. To remain at the 160,000 mark... I didn't have to go out
and bust my ass getting 160,000 new sales... I just had to bring in
the 4O,O0Othat fell off to stay the same size.
3(l
NOTtr:
W h i l e w e h a v e n ' t t o u c h e d o n m o n e y b a c k g u a tY*q
r a n t e 3o
e s ydays"
e t " ' I w' i'd
ould
advise you this: f;;tt'tt res-hipping a product
This way, you don't get zapped
make my guaran.J. fo, 30 days--
withacustomerlookingfortwocreditsatatime.-.o neforhisfirst
Try to keep your guaraxtee
shipment and one for his second'
till the length of the 2nd deiivery'
""tioa
g2
ChapterNine:
LlfetlmeCustomerValue(LCV)
Here's another example. Lets say it's costing you $l2O to bring in a
customer. Lets say your initial sale is $6O, which all $60 is CTO.
So, you're losing $60 on every sale that comes in. If you didn't have
a back end... you'd be out of business prett5r fast right? Oh, yes.
I look at it iike this. If you have just one product you sell to your
customer-..you do not own a business... you own a "promotion". In
84
First of all, to operate with these kinds of numbers, you either have
to remain small.,. or have some form of investment money to help
cover expenses until the database of customers really starts
growing.
So, a few weeks after you lose $60 on the initial sale... you resend
your customers a fresh supply of whatever you were selling for
$40. Now, you're $2O in a hoie instead of the $6O. Next month,
they get another supply for $4O. Now you're $2O in the plus. Next
month you send another and you're up $6O... the next month
you're up to $1OO... the next month you're up to $t+O. That's {ive
shipments after the initial.
The LCV of this lype of customer would be $26O. If you didn't know
this, when you lost $60 on the initial sale, you may have deemed
this effort a failure... but if you have enough cash to get you
through the lean months-.. you ca.n be on top.
ChapterTen:
TheTwoStep
The Two Step... no, I'm not going to teach you a dance' It's another
way to find targeted customers for your pioducts
2. When you need a lot of space to tell your fulI story and sales
pitch and it would be unprofitable to run all those pages in a
magazine.
6. When you're just starting out and want to make success as easy
as you possibly can.
Let's go overwhat a 2-step is... and then we can go over each of the
examples in great detail.
Now, under the headline, you may have a photo of the house and a
paragraph that will tease the reader. it will NoT spill the beans as
to how or where you were abie to buy the home so cheap- You're
going to have to tease like your girlfriend in the 9th grade did'
After you tease them with the paragraph... you'd then say
something like, "To claim your free report... simply call this
recorded message and tell us where to send it. You can call 24
hours a day, 7 days a week. There is no obligation."
Now, everyone likes free stuff... and since they do not have to deal
with any salesperson hounding them when they call... youLl get
thousands of people requesting this free report... which is
basically...
Of course, the report won't be all sales pitch.-- you will educate a
little on the Tax Deed process... but the main thrust of the report
will be,.. here's this fabulous opporfunity you may not have known
about... here's proof it is really true... I am an expert... and I'm the
best person to teach you... so here's how I can help you make a lot
of money.
88
Here's when and why you should use the 2-step approach:
2. When you need a 1ot of space to tell your fulI story and sales
pitch and it would be unprofitable to run all those pages in a
magazine.
Some products- especia-lly new ones sometimes need a lot of space
to tell your entire story. And if your product needs four or five
pages to "sell" itself... that may or may not be profitable. A 2-step
ad can get you prime prospects and the sales letter/free report yor,l
send them can easily be 12... 24-.. 48 pages or more!
marketers prefer 2-step ads. Their entire sales pitch and offer and
product claims are not out there in the open for all to see.
I'rn sure you're seeing all these TV commercials for The Inventor's
Help line... and Inventec... and others. The commercial usually has
people saying that th6y thought of ideas before some large
cornpany and if they had a Patent, they'd be rich and so on. These
commerciaf s are looking for people just like this... people who have
an idea they want to Protect-
Now, the last time I checked, there were no mailing lists for people
with good ideas {and bad ones) who are looking to get protection in
the form of a patent. Well, acrually, the comrnercial says nothing
about a Patent.-- but you know what I mean. Being there are no
mailing lists, they went to the largest general circulation media...
TV and placed these 2-steP ads.
The people who cali these places probabiy do have some form of an
idea... and everyone thinks they have the greatest idea... so these
company's will feed off this and offer protection so big corporations
wil1 not profit from their ideas {irst. Even if the inventor does not
wish to market and rnalufachrre their idea... they feel assured
they are protected rvith a Patent... hoping a large company will
contact them and look to buy their idea or give them a royalty fee.
Whatever. The would-be inventor gladly shells out $5O0 or more for
the protection of their idea. A great 2-step exampie.
qr)
I'm sure youte seen the Tempurpedic Sleep System. It's a foam-
like mattress that is made out of some high-tech material invented
by NASA. Anyway, these mattresses are several thousands of
dollars... as most qualify mattresses are. What this company does
is rrn 2-step cornmercials and infomercials offering free
information and a sarnple of the mattress material. Basically, you'd
call the 80O# and give them your name and address... and
probably some other information, like what brand mattress do you
currently own... when are you looking to purchase a new
mattress... etc.
Theyl.l then send you the information and the mattress sample...
and theyll probably remail you sales literafure every so many
weeks... and maybe even call you on the phone. Only in the
information package they send you will there be a price sheet
saying these mattresses cost like $2OOO.
6. When you're just starting out and want to make success as easy
as you possibiy can.
Success with 2-step ads is the easiest way to do direct marketing
right. The 2-step technique is advised for beginners by many direct
mirketing pros- including myseli First of all, you're building a
mailing list of prime prospects. The prospects will respond to your
2-step ad shouid be lO-times as likely to buy your product ttran
people youd mail to on a cold mailing list. After a11..-they did come
forward and self-qualify themselves as prospects.
but you want to make sure it doesn't hinder response too much.
Also, if you can get the toll number to work... you're sat'ing a ton of
money on the phone bill you're going to have to pay every month.
i was flipping though.a men's magazine the other day and I saw an
ad that gave away a free "Sex Pill Guide" that listed all the top
herbal-Viagra-type pills on the market these days. The product
they were giving away said nothing about this cornpany actually
selling any form of pill themselves. Al1 it said was that they
published a guide and it was free for you to have and it was meant
to help guide you to the best product as they tested them all.
Anylvay, I called and got myself the guide, as I wanted to see the
mechanics of this offer. Why would they advertise a free guide?
Where are they making rnoney?
So, I called a recorded message and left my name ald address with
a fake middle initial, so I can track everything I receive frbm this
company in the future... as I'm sure they're going to mail the hell
out of me.
This is a goocl idea... not the most ethical... but it is good. I'm sure
it Works for some products. The secret to success is acquiring
enough leads to justify the advertising cost-
The secret is to attract enough leads to get the cost per lead way
down... but you don't want to get too vague in your ad, as you will
attract a lot of leads..^ but ttrey will not be as qualified- And you
don't want to hype up things too much as when they receive your
literarure, theYll be turned off.
2-Step Math.
Here's horv to do the math on a 2-step promotion-
Lets do the math on a 2-step ad I just saw and responded to in '
Entrepreneur Magazine -
His product is selling for $5OO. He gets to keep all $5OO as CTO as
it is an information product.
Lets say he gets 25O to buy. That's 57". He's looking to gross
$125,000. That's 8.3-times his initial $15,OOO gamble! Even if he
got just 90 people to buy out of the 500o... he stiil increased his
money by 300% and grossed $45,OOO!
What is the major task at hand for you to replicate an offer like
this? You have to attract prospects for $2 on average and you have
to sell 5% of them at $5OO- Selling the 57o is not the biggest
problem... its getting the 5OOOpeople to request the free
information, the free report and payrng $5OOO for the ad.
Your Advertisements'
Let Your Competitors Pay For
for$1"' go to 4 oiyour
Here's an idea. If you are acquiringleads
each tuy the leads f1o3 vour ads for
competitors and g"1-th"* to your
leads first"' then sell them to
25 cents each. You mail the
cents each gets you $- per name"'
competition- Four guys at 25.
in advertising!
just what it cost VJt i" acquire them
ChapterEleven:
An lrreslstlbleOffer
The better the offer... the more appea-ling your sales pitch will be.
Here are a few examples of offers I have used in the past with great
sllccess:
for the second set of knives is actually the cost for them to
manufacture/buy the knives and the cost to ship them to you.
Feel free to give away a bonus and ask for the customer to pay a
shipping and handling fee. This fee covers the cost you have to pay
to buy or make the item... and you can usually include the extra
bonus gift in the shipment the customer is going to get anyway for
no additionaL cost.
You can offer a free gift that the customer has to claim after he
gets the initial order. For example, if you buy a car wax kit and it
comes with a free bottle of tire dressing.-- some companies wili
include a coupon in the wax kit that the customer has to send in
to receive the tire dressing. Not everyone will request the free
bottle, but you can still offer it to everyone. I really haven't done
this one for at ieast 1O years. With a product I was selling, I offered
a free gift that I reguested the customer pay the S/H on... but
instead of including it in the initial order, I simply included a
coupon the custorner would have to mail with the shipping and
handling fee. Maybe 7Oo/"of the customers requested the free
bonus.
In order for this to work, you have to take orders only with credit
cards. A customer calls and orders the triat. He pays the $9.95
trial fee and the shipping and haldling fee- carlton will offer you a
rush shipping upgrade, which of course there is a profit for him
on. Then only after they got your credit card number,.. only after
98
they have your shipping address-.. nnly a few seconds before you'd
say "goodbye"...you hit the caller with a script that goes something
like this, "OK- you qualify for Carlton's $9.95 3o-day in-home trial.
Your credit card will be billed just $9.95 plus $x for shipping and
handling. Preview the course for an entire 3Q-days and if its not
everything you hoped it would be send it back to us within the 3o-
day trial period and youll owe nothing more. Otherwise, if you
decide to keep the cor-rrseand make rnoney with Real Estate, yogr
credit card will be billed in four easy monthly installments of
$59.95. Your shiprnent is going out today and youll receive it in
about 1O days, so look for it. Thank you for calling!"
I seriously doubt 50% will send back the course... maybe youll get
2OYoto send it back... but even if you get 2Qo/o...
who cares? The
$9.95 fee is non-refundable--. as is the shipping charge. You lost
nothing. Resell the course to someone else.
Offer Installments.
Like the trial offer, this offer must be used only with credit card
customers. Yorr cannot accept checks or money orders with this
type of offer. If you're selling a high-ticket item... it may make
sense to offer your customer an instaliment plan. You see this all
over TV nowadays... "JUST 5 PAYMBNTS OF JUST $19.95!"
Breaking up the fee is a surefire way to get more sales. How many
homes would sell if there were no such thing as mortgages? Not too
many, right? The same with new cars? Without financing... a
dealership will have a tough tirne selling a high-ticket car. It's no
different he:'e. If you're.selling a $18O item-.. maybe you can do 3
easy payments of $59.95... and better yet... maybe you can do a
combo offer... $9.95 for a 3o-day in-home trial plus S/H... and
then you can do 3 paSrments of $59.95 instead of billing an entire
$tSO on the trial offer.
Like I was saying before in a past chapter... you can combine these
techniques sometimes and multipiy their power.
Now, when you offer installments, there are a few risks. First of all,
you do not get all your money upfront- You have to wait for it...
sometimes as long as 4 or 5 months! Another thing is credit cards
may go bad... or they may be declined for a month,s billing and you
either have to double up on next month's billing or call them and
get a fresh credit card.
100
c.o.D
Cash On Delivery. lt is not used too much nowadays' I never used
it. There's really no reason to use it. There's art extra fee. Many
people reject the shipment and you iost the shipping costs and all
the lost time. But if you want to do this, make sure to send your
customer a postcard a few days before they are to receive the
package and tell them that you have included another special free
bonus in their order. This will help make the customer acfually
take the C.O.D. when it arrives. Still I think Cash On Delivery is
more of a pain in the ass. If your customer does not have a credit
card... or at least a debit card- which almost anyone can get-..
maybe you do not want them as a customer.
Bill Me Later.
This is a specialty for magazine publishers for one reason... if they
had to actually get people to pay up first... they'd get 5O% of the
people they'd get to respond... probably less. Billing later is risky.
You don't really know the people you are sending your products to.
Nightingale Connant makes their entire business from a "bill me
later" promotion. That's how they attract new customers in the
large quantities they do.
You have to have a billing system set up for you to mail out the
invoices. You can include an invoice in the shipment saying when
the money is due. If you're selling a subscription that you can stop
when they don't pay up... it's better than if your product was a one
shot and they got it all in their possession. Think before you do
this offer. While I'm sure youll get more orders, it ali boils down to
this... Track how many orders yolr get when you ask for the money
upfront. Then offer the "bill me later'option and track how many
orders you get... then track how many paid up in 3o-days or
whenever the bill was due. if the prolits were signihcantly larger
with the "bill me"... even after you subtract all the lost product
(your hard cost- not the selling price) ald all the added tirne to bill
people- go for it.
1i)l
Bxample:
If you can get your "bill me later" offer to work like this... it's worth
doing... but again... you have to wait to get paid- you d better have
a few bucks in the bank ahead of time.
"lost"... but the bigger problem comes next month when this
person is calling you irate if they didn't call and cancel their auto
deiivery in time and they have 5 billings on their credit card for
$4O or so each. The credit card companies may start to think
you're up to some kind of no good and give you heat. Make sure
you say in your ad, "LIMIT ONE BOTTLE PBR CUSTOMER AND
PER HOUSEHOLD".
You won't have to worry about this too rnuch if your monthiy
product is a different product... there's really no advantage
scamming additional copies of the same video.
They really wanted him to seil all the watches at the same time.
Joe offered to do a split test, 'x'here one ad would have just the one
black, men's watch and one ad would have all the colors and the
men's and women's sizes. When the sales results carne in... they
chose to run the ad with just the black, rnen's version of the Navy
Seals watch. Now, this was an extreme example..- tJ:e watches
103
were all the same. But definitely, if you're selling a weight ioss
pill... do not also offer an herbal-viagra at the timel
"r*.
PEOPLE CAN ONI-Y BE SOLD ONE THING AT A TIME.
If you want to give an unrerated product away for free with the
purchase of your main product... that's fine... just dont
try to seli
two things at the sarne time.
r04
ChapterTwelve:
GuaranteeEverything
you can keep the fee it cost you to ship the product... create the
product... take ihe call." etc.
Conditionai Guarantees.
This guarantee only permits the customer their money back if a
certain thing does or does not happen as your product/service
claimed. "If my sports picks are not at least 9oo/o accurate for the
next 3O days... I11 refund every dime of the money you paid me!"
Now, unless you under-perform and unless your customer actually
calls and takes you up on that guarantee , you don't have to give
money back unconditionally.
the next 120 days or we'11give you DOUBLE your rnonelr backl
Simply take 3 photographs, newspaper in hand the very day you
start the prograln and take 3 more photographs, newspaper in
hand on the 120th day. If you cannot honestly say tha.tyou took
this product faithfully, as directed, worked out regularly..- and
didn't see an added 2O pounds of muscle, send the empty bottles
back. Well send you DOUBLE what you paid."
Do you really think they're going to take three before photos, three
after photos... a whopping four months later... and keep ali the
emply bottles? A few will... but not all. And these are not out of
this world conditions. All you're asking the guy to do is docurnent
his success... work out... use the product like directed... and keep
3 or 4 empty bottles. .
Here's a great example. I was selling some realy high-end car care
products in 1995. I sold a pint size and a quart size kit. To stir-up
some larger quart size kit sa1es, I found a supplier of some really
high,end iooking orbital polishers. These things looked like they
cost $10o... but I was buying them for under glo in quantity. Now,
the shipping and handling for the all the waxes and the buffer was
$19.95 or something close to it. I covered the cost to ship the
entire kit, the cost to manufacture the waxes, and the cost to buy
the orbital polisher in this $tg.gs. I told my cr.rstomers, if they
weren't blown away with the wax prodr.rcts, they corrld refurn them
r07
in 30 or 60 days and they can keep the orbita-l polisher for their
time and faith in rny products nor.v. Customers who asked for their
money back acfualiy feit like they were taking advantage of me'..
keeping the polisher that looked iike it cost me $1oo... but a1l the
costs were covered in the shipping and handling fee I charged them
initially. They were not to get back when they requested a refund.
When I made such a powerful guarantee like this one, prospects
knew this polish had to be something special- otherwise I'd be one
crazy (and bankruPt) guY!
hurdles. One, they have to use the entire thing. That takes 30-
days. Maybe results will take this long to manifest... Remember
what i told you about stretching the time frame out in the
'Iwo,
beginning in this chapter. they have to remember to hold onto
the container. Many people throw things away by accident. Of
conrse, if a customer calls you and says they threw the container
away, you're still going to give them a refund.-. but you'd be
surprised how many will not call just to avoid the confrontation.
And three, they have to send the bottle back to you. That takes a
bag... postage.. - and people are lazy . Of course, if a customer calls
and wants their money back".. and they do not want to send the
bottie back to you- by all means give the damn refund. But again,
you d be surprised by how many people will not call.
But beware; youte going to lose some money here. Call Tags do
cost some money. The shipping charges to corne back to you cost
i09
ChapterThirteen:
Premlums
It's nice to get a free bonus or a free gift when you buy something.
i've taken products that only broke even and added a premium and
saw response greatly lifted.
Premiums must cost you little or nothing out of your profits. Now, I
do not mean premiums should be worthless- they must have some
form of worth in order for them to work.
I'm going to give you a few examples of free gift offers I've 'used in
the past and how they helped or didn't help.
Many times, youll add a premium and you will not see response to
your sales letter or advertisement increase.
I once sold a car wax kit and gave away an orbitaf polisher. There
were two versions of the kit... a pint and a quart size kit. I gave the
polisher with the quart size kit. I was able to get the polishers for
under $14 from a manufacturer. To offset the cost of the polisher, I
had to increase the shipping and handling charges... and response
for the quart size kits went up. I recall mostly all of the purchases
were for the larger size kit. I benefited rwo different ways. I first of
all sold a more expensive version of the product... and secondly I
was able to increase overall response. This is what I call win-win.
ltl
Once the customer got the package, they got a diary they had to fill
out as they used my product, and if they can complete the diary in
its entirefy*... I'd send them a DVD Player for free! I was getting
these DVD Players for $4O or so. My monthly shipment of pills cost
the customer $4O. I got my customers to use the product for an
average of four months. Ttre.survey was a six-month study. If the
customer completed the diary I included with their order, they had
to be on the product for six entire months. Now, I got two extra
months worth of sales... one of the month's revenues, I had to use
to buy the DVD Player- but I still got an entire extra $4O sale as
profit... plus the diary from my customer- which I could use any
way I wished. The customer got a free DVD Player- for using a
product he enjoyed. This was also win-win for all parties involved.
I used this same offer for a CD-ROM club I had a few years back. I
was getting huge quantities of software for $l each from companies
who needed to clear out the warehouse for the next version of the
software. For example, one of the products we had in the CD-ROM
club was a popular typing software. version 4 was on store shelves
for $50... version 5 was coming out in a few months, so the
manufacturer was selling me the entire remaining version 4
software for $1 or so.
from rny mailers was increased because of the free softwai'e,.. and I
got the customer to stay a little longer. I rnade more money on both
ends- increased rnembers... who would stay mernbers longer.
Many companies will even let you keep the free premium even if
you ask for a refund. And why shouldn't they? The additional cost
to include the premium is usually made up in the shipping and
handling charge they make you pay. And shipping and handling is
usua-lly not a refundable fee.
Magazines like sports Iliustrated are famous for giving away the
football clock... or whatever with your 'paid subscription". They
key word is "paid'. To get a subscription, you just call the BO0# on
the screen or rnail in the order card. Theyll send you an issue with
a bill for the subscription. when and only when you send them a
check or credit cand number is when thevLl send vou the free
il3
clock...orfootbailphone...orwhateversportsgiftthey'reoffering
that particular Year'
ChapterFourteen:
and Endorsements
Testlmonlals
One of the main four reasons why people won't respond to your
sales letters and your magazine ads or your TV and radio spots...
is they do not believe what you are saying. Testimonials, when
used correctly can take away some of their skepticism.
Testimonials must have a fulI name and a fuli city ald state... and
they must be more in depth than "it's great!"
I like a testimonial like this, "I started using XyZ three months ago.
When I first started using XYZ, my breasts were barely an A cup...
but now, I am a fuIl B and my breasts no longer disappear when I
put a shirt over them!"- Mary Brown, Houston, Texas.
them if you decide to use their story in your ad, you1l give them
$50O or whatever.
On the very bottom, ask for a signature allowing you to use their
story in future advertisements if you choose. Also, |'d put a second
box that they have to check off if they will allow you to use their
phone number andlor email address- You cannot have prospects
contact them without their signed permission. Now, including a
phone number in the testimonial is extreme, and not a lot of people
do this... It would be fine for you not to include a contact method
to the user.
i
Celebritv Endorsements.
I once ran commercials on Howard Stern's radio show every
morning. We had a se{F Penthouse Pet do the voice-over and
results were very good. After we ran the commercial for several
months, response dropped and it was no longer proiitable to run.
We told the sales rep at the radio station we were looking to pull
the ads as they were not pulling for us any longer. Howard didn't
want to lose the business we were giving his network, so he did the
voice-over for our commercial for free. He endorsed the product
and said how he's hearing from users how well it works for them,
etc. I agreed to test his commercial for a few weeks and agreed not
to pull the ads until I got the results. We ran Howard's new spot,
and found it didn't add to the response at all- We did pull the ads
in the end... but we did put the commercial on our website and the
link said,'Listen to what Howard Stern Says About Our Product!"
ChapterFifteen;
WhyPeopleDon'tBuyFrom
FourReasons
YourSalesLettersand Advertisements
his job description at the Post Office was? MAKING SURE NOBODY
THREW ADVERTISING MAIL IN THE TRASFI:
If you're sales letter screams JUNK MAIL, yotrr prospect may throw
it away before ever giving it a chance to get opened. In later
chapters, l'm going to show you how to make your sales letters get
opened byyour prospects. ILi tell you this right now; if you send
out a sales letter- or worse a FLIER... even worse, with an
ADDRESS LABEL on it... it's not going to get a second of your
prospect's tirne. In the garbage it goes... and you could have been
offering $l Million FREE inside... your prospect will never get to
that point because the letter you sent them looks like trash.
If you are running arnagazine ad, your ad may not look appealing
to read, therefore your prospect keeps flipping pages- overlooking
your entire advertisement. I know it sounds like a broken record,
but Ive included an entire chapter on craftin g magazine ads later
in this book. If you've got a bad ad, laid out wrong... and not eye-
appealing... the reader will keep on fiipping and flipping until
something does finally get their attention. If your ad does not go
'against
the grain" as far as what an "ado is supposed to look like,
it won't get all the readers it should be getting.
121
Its sirnpie- You have must have a product that appeals to a large
group of your prospects and you have to make sure you are getting
it in front of the right prospects- and if yor.r're mnning a rnagazine
ad., or a TV or radio sport.-. you have to do this for the right price.
Pay too much for an ad, and you just made it that much harder to
cover your advertising cost. It is irnperative you negotiate the
absolute best media cost when you run an advertisement. lf all ads
were free, every product would be a hit'
There will always be someone who wants your product... the trick
is having enough in your prospect list or magazine readership to
buy and bring back more in sales than it cost to promote.
The same goes for other products. Sometimes they simply cost too
much. I remember when I was first getting started in direct
response; I wanted to go to a seminar that cost $550O. I didn't
have that kind of money... nor did I have any kind of asset I could
"hock" to get the money. If there was a scale of 1 to 1O on how bad
I wanted to go to this serni-nar..- I would have rated my desire a 1O.
I really wanted to go... badly.
122
Now, there were two other options to purchase the seminar. First,
the seminar offered a payment plan. It was like $5OO a month for
I I months. And the second option was a home sfudy version of the
seminar. It was basically a tape recording of the seminar before the
one being offered. It cost just $2200... and they also offered
payment terms of $2OO a month for a few months'time.
Yotr're a smart person. You can figure out other ways to make your
product seem more affordable.
Here's what I believe, There are more people who would buy your
product had you made your pitch more believable than people who
would buy if your offer and/or claims were more powerful and
exaggerated. Give it a shot in your next sal.es letter or ad.
seem more
give a flaw. The admission of a flaw rnakes your claim
believable. It works like this:
But there are paragraphs in this book- ideas in this book- whole
chapters in this book that I have never had the ba1ls to put down
on p"p"t before! And they will open doors to you- maybe as soon
io*o-ow- that otherwise might have taken a lifetirne of waiting
"*
for you to rvalk through."
,,OLtr new wrinkle eraser is not a permanent fix. The results you
achieve with this product will only be ternporary'
But even if the results last eight to ten hortrs, this product will
enable you to hide every fine line and wrinkle on your face. The
results this product provides, even if they are temporary, are
absolutely amazing!"
"But don't think for a second this product will work if you do not
participate in a healthy diet and exercise progra.m- If you sit on the
couch and continue to eat large portions of the wrong food, this
product will do nothing for You.
But on the other hard, a recent clinical shrdy did show this
product could burn 93O extra calories each and every day when
you eat and exercise properly. That's nearly half your caloric intake
for the day...ZAPPED!'
Do you see how the admission of the truth... or a flaw right before
a claim is made makes the clairn seem more believable? Flere's how
I think of it. If you put a -2 fact right before a +4 claim... that +4
ciaim wi.ll have the believability power of a +8 claim- Understand?
Good.
I ZL+
Here's a few more ways you can make your sales pitch more
believabie to your prospects:
A STRONG GUARANTEE-
When you can offer them a money back guarantee, they feel you
believe in what you're selling and if you were selling crap, you'd go
broke prett5l fast.
TAX RETURN-
If you're selling something on making money... its best to prove
you're not full of shit. Include a tax return showing you made over
$2 Million last year. Also, if you're selling some form of a Tax
Reduction service, include a copy of a few tax returns showing the
best savings you had for your clients... of course with their names
blacked out for privacy!
TESTIMONIALS-
People really do read testimonials.
125
CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT.
Especially when the letter actually comes from the celebrity. People
think they know the celebrity they see on TV. If yog get a letter
from Jennifer Anniston talking about a new product that she uses
to keep looking yol-rnger...you're going to read it... believe it... and
probably buy it.
FREE TRIAL-
Nothing beats a free tiial. The customer can check out what you
are selling for free and only after it lives up to its claims will he
then decide if he's going to buy it or not. This is powerful!
LIST PATENTNUMBER-
If your product is patented, you can include this number and say
something like, "This product is so amazing and unique, the
United States Patent Of1iceeven granted us a Patent. The Patent
Number is 1234565644.'
NOTARIZED STATEMENT-
If you're willing to put your claims under oath... it seems more
believable to your prospects.
A COPY OF A LICENSE-
If you,re licensed to practice something, a copy of the license can
add credibility.
AS SEBN IN...
If your product has been advertised or written about in
Entreprener.rr Magazine.-. you can say, "as seen in Entrepreneur
Magazine"
A SAMPLE OF PRODUCT-
Obviously, if a customer can sample the product first... especially if
it is included with the sales letter-.. like a packet of a wrinkie
serum... before she buys... that is powerful! But you better make
t29
sure you're product is good... or you'll get less results than if you
left well enough alonel
IN-HOME TRIAL-
This is a powerful technique that practically every infomercial
marketer is using nowadays. I explained how it works in an earlier
chapter. Remember?
ADMISSION OF FLAWS-
I was speaking of this earlier in this chapter. People will think if
you have the balls to tell the flarvs-.. you're not exaggerating or
lying about your positive claims.
FRtrE-STANDING PHOTO-
A replica of a real photo is used sometimes. The way to make fake
photos is to print them and trim them, then on the back, have a
mbber stamp made that says "Acme Photo Labs" or something like
it and stamp each and every fake photo.
130
WOW! That was one hell of a chapter! My fingers a-re on fire from
typing! Again, sorne of the techniques listed in this chapter, I11 go
into greater detail later in this book.
NOTE: Since uriting this book, I haue discouered get another rea.so/L
uthg someone mag not respond to gour offer. You can couer the 4
main reasons whg theg don't buA... but theg still mag not respond
even if theg uant gour product. TheA mau not want it enough to
exchonqe the dollar amount uou're asking for it. Sure, theg can haue
allthe moneA inthe u;orld..- but just because they haue enough
moneg- it does not mean ttteg'll pay wlnteuer gou ask. For
example... I hnd seueral millions of dolLars in the bank, and I
utanted this new Lamborghini- The only thing utas that I did not
want to paA the $50,OOO ouer sticker price the dealer u)as asking for
it becaztse it usas sl"rch a hot car.
Sure... Aoul prospect mag utant Vour nen) diet pilt... but if gou were
asking $1oo a bottle--- some people mag not utont it BAD EN)UGH
to exchange their money for it. You could euen pice the damn thing
at $3o and there may still be people uho utilt not want to exchange
the $3o in the bank.for these pitls. THIS IS WHERE EX1ELLENT
COPYWRITING SKL.LS COME IN. You haue to do a good" job of
conuincing lTtem the orice uoTt're askino is-rust a fraction o-f what he-
or she is to gain in RESUlrs using gour praduct. Make sure to read.
the nert chapter-
131
Sixteen:
Chapter
Hlrea Gopywrlteror Do lt Yourself?
If course, I didn't have a book like this one to guide me through the
ad creation process..- but you still may or may not be ready to
acfually '\rrrite" your own thing.
I guess only you can be the judge. lf it were up to me, and if you
had a few thousand extra dollars to have even a low-grade
copywriter create your sales letter or ad, I would advise it.
But on the other hand, if you barely have enough money to put out
a 2,500 mail piece test... or if you're sirnply a hands-on type of
person who wants to do the entire thing yourself".. you've got to
sfudy the next live chapters that are all about crafting the sales
letter or magazine advertisement.
Too much money? To some, yes. To some, no. l'm not trying to
"sell" you into hiring rne, so do not get the r,vr-ongidea here. But
this is what I think: A full-page ad in Maxim Magazine will cost you
$8O,OOO.Think of this ad as the lot you want to build your dream
home on- it's an oceanfront lot with l80-degree views of the
Pacific. Are you going to ruin it by parking a trailer on it... or do
you want to build yourself a mansion?
While the guys in the top 5olowill charge the $1O,OOOand more...
you can hire a guy for $5OO to $ 1,0O0 that will create at least a
"good' sales pitch for you... and at this moment in tirne... you may
not even be able to create a "good'sales pitch- Do you know hovq to
find out if you're as good as one of the 8O7" who can create "good"
a.dvertising? Read the next Iive chapters... study them... then write
your own mail piece or advertisement. Afe you confident in it
enough to print it and attach 37 cents postage to it? If so, go for it.
If not, this chapter is for you.
But before you hire a cop5rwriter... there are sorne experts in this
field who will give your sales letter or ad a "critique" for a small fee
or even free.
Or even better, get in touch with me- since you bought this book...
111critique your sales letter or advertisement for free as well,
Either way, Vou'll get a iist of the things you're doing right and the
things you're doing wr-ong- so you can fix them before you spend
any money running or mailing an5rthing- My latest contact
information can be found elsewhere in this book-
But even if you do not wal.lt to give "writingl a try- even with a free
professional critique...'you're left with no choice but to shop for a
copywriter.
Writing great copy comes with experience. Even if you have a little
money to invest, a cheapo copywriter can at least produce "good'
copy... otherurise, he'd be working at McDonalds.
After you read the next few chapters, even if you decide not to write
your first sales letter or ad, you can at the very least have enough
skill to "recognize" good, great, or horrible advertising copy.
If you\ze got the money and want the best copy... call on rne.
Maybe if you make me feel bad for you, and if I got some space I
need to fili... mavbe we can work out some'discorrnted" deal.
t34
ChapterSeventeen:
The Mall plece
First of all... it's best to start with a standard #10 package that will
weight 1oz. ar under... which will quali$ you for 37 cents First
Class postage which is the standard cost to mail a letter at the
current time.
l1'x17' Sales Letter: When this sheet is folded down, youll have
enough space to {it a 4-page letter. This is enough copy to sell most
products... and is a standard size I always use.
I
r35
8.5" x 3.6" Order Card: This is the card the customer wiil fill out
and mail back to you. It is usually printed on a stiffer cardstock
paper. This sheet will have enough space on it to reseli the oifer,
capture the shipping information, contact information, credit card
number, etc, This card gets inserted by the custorner into the 6
3/4 envelope listed below.
This mail piece will weigh less than one ounce and it will have
enough space to do the entire selling process. Now, let's talk about
the mail piece youll use when you do not want people to order by
check or money order.
11"x17" Sales ktter: This sales letter will do the same as the
11"x17" in the first template.
8.5"x5.5": This is where I'd usually list all of the questions and
answers prospects may have.
B.S"xl l": This piece should be a brief version of the sales ietter...
which goes over the top benefits of your product- It can l<iok like a
full-page magazine ad... or an editorial write-up- 1'his piece is
basically for the people who do not go directly into the 71"x17"
sa-iesletter, so it has to "sell'on its own... only qr-ricker than the
main 4-page sales letter.
This mail piece also weighs in less than one ounce- This is a great
template when you do not want mail-in orders. Say you were
selling a pill that you wanted your customers to order with a credit
card for an auto ship program... if you give customers no other
alternative to order... other than the 8OO#, that's what he1l do. If
you give him two options... you're going to get a lot more check
orders... and if you want to rebill automatically, getting check
orders will kill your chances totally.
Folding:
If you have a choice, you want to "Z-Fold', instead of "letter
folding" your sales pieces that need to be folded. It will not alter
your chances of success at a11...but it is easier for the reader to
oZ' technique tlran a
open your sales material when it is folded irt a
"letter fo1d".
Insertion Order:
The order in which your pieces are inserted into your envelope can
actually alter response! This is how I like to have my pieces
inserted in the envelope. All the fronts of the pieces should be
facing the REAR of the # I O envelope. If you are looking at the back
of the #1O envelope, this is the insertion pattern for Teinplate
Letter # I :
From the inside back of the #lO, you should see the lL"xI7" sales
letter facing the rear, behind that, the 7"xlO" facing the rear, then
the order card- facing the rear, then the 6 3/4 envelope- facing the
rear. So if you were to stack these four inserts on top of each other
on a table, the 6 3/4 envelope would be on the bottom, front facing
up, and on top would be the 11"x17" sales letter, facing up... then
this stack would be inserted in the #1O facing the rear of the
envelope, so if you were to look through the rear of the #10
envelope, you should read the headline on the 1l"xl7" sa-lesletter,
and the front of the #lO envelope, where the prospect's name wili
be ink-jetted on, should see the rear of the 6 3/4 envelope.
r37
From the inside back of the #1O,you should see the 11"x17" sales
letter facing the rear, behind that, the 8.5"x5.5"'facing the rear,
then the next 8.5"x5.5"- facing the rear, then the 8.5"x11"- facing
the rear. So if you were to stack these four inserts on top of each
other on a table, the B.S"xi 1" piece would be on the bottom, front
facing up, and on top would be the 11"x17" sales letter, facing up.-.
then this stackwould be inserted in the #1O iacingthe rear of the
envelope, so if you were to look through the rear of the #10
envelope, you should read the headline on the 1I"xl7" sales letter,
and the front of the #1O envelope, where the prospect's name will
be ink-jetted on, should see the rear of the B-5"x11" piece.
Paper Quality:
Don't be fooled into thinking you need to use high-quality paper.
Just plain-old standand white 2O pound pap.qr- Heavier paper... or
glossy paper only adds to the cost to print and the cost to mail, as
it is heavier. Stick with standard sfuff.
Graphics:
We're going to go into graphics and layouts in a iater chapter. But,
I'11give you a preview of what youll learn- KISS. This stands for
Keep It Simple Stupid!
138
Addressing:
When it comes to addressing your # 10 envelope with your
customer's address and name.., do not use a mailing label. The
trick here is not to make this looklike junk mail. You're goingto
want to print the addresses right onto your # 1O either through
your computer printer... or you want a letter shop to ink-jet the
names on for you.
Postage:
The last thing you want to do is print a bulk mail permit box on
the upper right corner of your envelope. The second to last thing
you want to do is stamp the mail with a postage meter. What you
want to do is apply a real, live, First Class Stamp. The same ones
you use to maii your phone bill. You're NOT going to cio'pre-
sorted" First Class Mail... you're going to pay IIULL PRICE for a
REGULAR First Class Postage Stamp! I1l go more into this in a
later chapter.
Before I write even one single word of copy, I have an idea of what
the mail piece is going to look like- meaning its components. Now
that you have an idea of the components, yolt carr start gathering
ideas for headlines... gathering questions and answers you think
prospects may have-.. gathering testimonials... etc-
It should not be fancy. It should not be cute. Here's the only two
ways it should look like:
it can look oflicial. It can look like a letter coming from the iRS or a
Government Agency. It can look like it is a credit card bill' It can
iook like a letter from an Attorney... or a Doctor'.. or a Medical Lab-
or it can be vague, with only a return address in the "cornercard"
and no company namc! No other words on the envelope other than
maybe "First Class Mail".
Here are a few great examples of official envelope ideas I've used in
the past with great success. I was selling dietary supplements. I
had the logo of the company in the corner card along with the
address. It said, PharrnaCeutic Laboratories in logotype and under
the logo, it had the address: 4O55 Industrial Blvd. Lyndhurst, New
Jersey, O7O71. I printed tJ'is in Process Blue ink, so it looked
medical. In this sales letter, I had results of a clinical study on the
product I was selling, so on the envelope, in the lower left corner of
the envelope, I added the words: "First Class Mail- Important Test
Results Enclosed"
I'm looking for the day when I do some sort of promotion with an
Attorney. Boy am I going to have fun with this one! I know an
Attorney that sells a course on buying Real Estate at Tax Deed
Sales. Wouldn't it be great if he sends out sales letters in his
Attorney envelope? I'rn sure every person who gets one of them will
open it as soon as they get it!
My friend Gary Halbert says people sort their mail over a trashcan.
If it looks like junk mail... with advertising copy all over the
envelope screaming claims... with a mailing label affixed instead of
a stamp... sent to them bulk rate... into the trash it goes. So, make
it look personal... or make it look oflicia.l.
Later on in years- once you have a winning sales letter, you can
experiment with teaser copy on the envelopes... but right now, let,s
play ever5rthing on the safe side. Remernber, the # I reason why
people will not buy from you, is they do not receive or they do not
notice your sales material. Personal and oflicial letters always get
delivered by the Post Office- with respect,.. and opened by the
recipient!
l
l.-t L
ChapterEighteen:
Graphlcs...
PhotosandTypography
Many people new to this business waste way too much money
when they are at the graphic artist, at the printer, or when running
a magazine advertisement.
Novices think the prettier a sales message looks... the flashier the
graphics... the more colorful... the giossier the paper... the better
the response. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Regardless of that, i mailed the test mailer and it did well. When I
rolled-out the rnailer in a larger quantity, of course I used the
correct paper. I even took away the 2nd color I used for the
headline, and made it all black ink. Did response suddenly go
down? NO. It was the exact same.
Think about it- when you are offered something you waxt, are you
going to care if the sales letter was on fancy paper? If anything, the
fanciness of the paper would take your attention away from the
sales message.
A few weeks later I rvas reading about headiines and i wrote a great
headline for this ad. I went back to the graphic artist and told her
to remove the fancy lettering on top... knock the colors down to one
{b1ack)... alrd she looked at rne like I was crazy for "uglying" her
beautiful graphics.
The next month when the ad came out... we tripled the results it
got. An ad that broke-even was now bringing in three times its
cost... and it was uglier... less colorful... and cheaper to run as it
used one less colol! I was happy and learned a very valuable
lesson. The secret is in the rnessage and getting the message
noticed and read- not by looking pretty.
Even with rnagazines. I do not ever pay for color to be added to rny
ad. Acfually, for a magazine to charge for a color ad is a scam, The
osignatures" or groups of pages
entire magazine is printed in large
at a clip. And nowadays, magazines are all full color. So it's costing
the publisher not a single cent more to run your ad in color. They
just want to charge you for it. Its kind of bullshit. But we shouldn't
care, as we never want to worr5r about running color ads- even if
the publisher will give us the coior for free. Now ttris may sound
cratrj, but the secret to successful advertising in magazines is to
get noticed. If the entire magazine were full color... if the publisher
is even giving away color to all the other advertisers... it would be a
great advantage to you to do a black and white ad. You'll have the
"sorest-thumb" in the magazine!
Now as for the acfual graphics and the typography, I have a very
strict set of rrles about the fonts you use, the sentence length, the
paragraph length, etc- I will go into deeper depth below.
)44
Headline Fonts.
When creating headlines, I like to use Ariel... Helvetica... Franklin
Gothic... Eras... or Times New Roman for the font. Now there's a
difference in fonts- there's Sans Serif... and there's Serif. As you
can see, I wrote Sans Serif in Sans Serif type. This type is missing
the little extender on the ends of letters. There have been studies
that show Serif fonts have a better comprehension level. But for
headlines, where it's just a few simple words, fee free to r-rseSANS
SERIF type. If it were up to me, I'd tell you to stick with Helvetica.
Subhead Fonts:
When creating sub-headline text, you carr use the same font as the
headline... just smaller... not as bold... and maybe in italic type. If
you do not want to use the same font, feel free to use 'firnes New
Rornan.
Paragraph Headers:
For paragraph headers, if you are using Times New Roman for the
body copy, you can use the sarne font... just BOLD it. If you are
using Courier for the body copy, and you want to use it for the
paragraph headers, youll want to underline it... as bolding Courier
is not too prett5r in my opinion. I sometimes use Helvetica in bold
for my paragraph headers... regardless if I'm using Times New
Roman or Courier for my body copy.
Colors?
I don't know horv many times I should say it-.. but I have never
had a color ad pul1 it's additional cost for color. I've never even had
a color acl where I got the color upgrade for free out pull the very
same ad in black and white. This is the same for sales letters in
the mail... or in magazine ads. I think black and white is a great
advantage in magazines... especially ones with a lot of color ads.
You want to get noticed!
Fancy Graphics?
Now, I do not want you to go and create ugly ads and sales
letters... but they do not need a top-dollar graphic designer either.
I remember I went to a new graphic designer and had hirn create
an ad for me from scratch... just to get a different look than the
ones I've been creating. Do you know what this guy did? First of
all, he used a. scan of brushed alumimrrn and put that behind the
headline- Now the headline cannot be read as easily and it sure
doesn't stick out as well with the background image. Then as a
screen behind the body copy... he ran TEXT! This ad looked like a
train wreck. He thought it was a piece of art. Do you think The
New York Times worries too much about making articles look like
works of art? Hell no* and either should you. The theory you
should have is that you just want to get your test read and noticed.
That's ali. What gets an article read in The New York Times? A
good headline that sucks you into the body copy- Graphic
Designers always want to show-off their skills of making things
look pretty. That's fine. But tell them to use their skill on your
letterheads and business cards- not your advertising!
and add these words, but not as boldly as they would... you may
get away with ir.
Why would you want your ads to look like an article in the
magazine? well, a magazine's readers trust the magazine they're
reading. That's why they buy it... subscribe to it... and read it.
They trust it. And trust and believability is one of, if not THE
biggest reason people do not buy your product.
It's been proven that 5oo7o more people notice and read "editorial"
style advertisements than pretty, fancy, graphic*overdosed ads.
You're not here to be prett5l... you're here to get attention. Editorial
formats get more attention.
Photos:
Most of my direct mail never has photos. My magazine ads usually
have a photo of someone's face in the upper right hand corner with
a caption. A photo could be a great grabber in a magazine... not so
much in direct mail sales letters.
Captions:
In rnagazine ads, the first thing people see is an image, then the
caption r-rnderthe photo.-. sometirnes even before thev read the
1A1
Paragraph Length:
I11 speak more about this in the next chapter... but you should
keep your sentences to no more than seven words... and you
shouid keep you paragraphs no more than seven lines long.
Americans read at the 6th Grade level. You've got to keep the
sentences short-..-seven words or less.
Coupons:
I want my rnagazine ads to look like articles.-. I want my sales
ietters to look like actual letters. If my offer does not require a
check or money order payment option and I'm just taking credit
cards, I never cor-rpon. But for some promotions that do take
checks, I use an order card in direct mail.-. and in magazine ads,
it's really your call for order coupons. If youte going for the
editorial look... editorial copy does not have order forms.
t 4ti
ChapterNineteen:
Gopywrltln$
ite only made a few chapters in this book about writing copy. I've
done this for a reason. The last thing the World needed was
another book about copywriting! What the World needed was a
book that would teach you how to conceptualize, strategize, and
implement techniques you need to sell products and services
through direct response. I1l teach as best as I can about writing
copy in this chapter... but if you want to get a super education on
the fine art of writing copy... there are many books that can reaily
go into depth about the subject. I1l list a few of my favorites
towards the end of this book.
The level of yorrr ability to convince people will tell you how rich
you are going to be... not oniy in this business..- but every
business. The entire World goes round on people buying things...
and people selling things. The people who can sell the best, make
the most sales.-. and make the most money. And to sell, you have
to make people see things your way. They have to agree with you.
They have to feel you have their best interest at hand. I'm going to
teach you how to do this.
***
t49
Dear Friend'
jt
L h a L s L i m u f a L e s j - r n p r o v e r n e n L ,y o u r b o d y s L o p s with a
burst of GDFSI
T F qrr16
woul-d be worth it if you're single and after
taking DynaBolics, you st.art to attract beautiful
w o m e n/ t w i c e a s h o t a s y o u r p r e v i o u s l o v e r s . C o u l d v o u
imagine the new sex*l_ife that is waiting for vou?
Than.< Yc::,
'..f.-"^y^B-*.
Benjam.in Bergin for MedEx Labcratories
To Order Calf: 1 - 800-I23-4557
DynaBoI ics, you ' d be LLer order now ' Once rde are sold
out of DynaBolics w e ' . 1 - . 1b e f o r c e d to tllrn away new
cus Lomers unti-l the nexL baLch is avail-abf e which rnay
be I20 days from now- So again, our phone nui'nber.i s 1-
800-123*4567 o r i f y o u c a n s e n d your card info j-n Lhe
mail. Our address is 7 5 0 0 W e s t Lake Mead B . l - v d . , SuiLe
9-582, Las Vegras, Nevada 89128. And don'L forgeL-
you're protected by a fuli 120-Day DOUBLE YOUR MONEY
B A C K G U A R A N T E E . .s. o t h e r e ' s no risk on your partl You
have nothing to l-ose-.. it's that plain and simple-
Let me ask you a question... after reading this, even if you weren't
a bodybuilder.-. did it stir you up a bit? This was a great example
of some killer copy. You should want all your sales letters to sound
this cornpelling.
There a-re a couple of things I want to cover that are "golden rules"
of writing copy.
You cannot write copy like this. The reader does not care about
you and your plant-.. or what you feel.-. "we" is as bad as saying
FUCK in your sales letters.
The right way to write copy is from the reader's viewpoint. you're
going to want to say "You' a lot... and for every 5 tjmes yor_rsay
t51
"you', it's ail right to say "I"' Here's an example from the sales
letter I've reprinted for you eariier:
Do you see how the entire thing was focused on the reader of the
ous'... it's all about
letter? Nowhere does it say'we', or the reader.
Urgency.
When you get to the "closeo of your letter... you're going to want to
get them to order right now. If you allow them to put the letter
down and think about it later... or even order later... there's a
chance theyll forget to ever order! You want to compel them to
order on the spot.-. as if they are luclgl they received your sales
t-58
Captions.
If you are using a photograph.'. you absolutely must use a caption
gnder the image. ln a magazine ad, the first thing a reader sees is
the image... the second thing he does is read the caption"-
sometimes even before he sees or reads the damn headline!
ALWAYS USE A CAPTION UNDER A PHOTO IF YOU ARE USING A
PHOTO!
The "P.S."
The PS is the second most read thing in a sales letter. The first
thing they read is the headline, then they go right for the PS. It
would be wise to restate the entire offer in a nutshell for the PS of
any sales letter. Pretend the PS is being read all by itself- without
the sales letter... you want to get the entire offer across to your
reader.
difference was the headline" The next chapter is going to teach vou
ail about headlines and how to u,rite them. Eugene Schwartz's
book, "Breakthrough Advertising" spent an entire 5O% of the book-
the entire first half of the book on teaching how to find and write
the headline! It's that important!
3. The Proposition.
This is where you're gbing to go into how the product can help the
reader, and why he or she should use it.
This is where you're going to talk about price and what he is going
to get for his money... what does the purchase come with... and
free bonuses... etc.
5. The Guarantee-
This is where you are going to remove arl of the risks your prospect
is scared of. An5rthing that may leave him thinking there's a chance
hell lose his money if this does not furn out to be what you said it
was going to be. You got to get rid of this feeling. you got to assure
him in a powerful way, he is not at any {inancial risk for going with
his gut and ordering this thing through the mail- from a totar
stranger- without even seeing it!
This is where you tell him how to order. what numbers to ca'ti...
where to send a check or money order. And maybe even a little
push. Here's a version of one I "copied" from a Joe Karbo ad, I love
it to this day...
161
"Look- 3O-days from now you can be nothing more than a month
older, or you can be on your way to {inancial freedom. You decide.
You have nothing to fear, because you're protected by a fuIl 30-day
DOUBLE YOUR MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. So, have your credit
card handy and call 1 -8O0- 123-4567 right now, before the limited
supply of 327 are sold out forever."
1. Command Attention.
The body copy will show the prospect why your product exists.
Why people are buying it. What it is going to do for the person who
uses it.
There are tons of weight loss aids. But the one yoll are seliing has
been clinically proven to burn as many as 93O calories in a given
day's time. That's nearly half a woman's 2OOO caloric intake for a
day's tirne- This study result has to back up your claims...
otherwise the claim will go in one ear ald out the other as all
direct response product claims automatically get discounted S0%
from your reader- and that's at a minimum.
You're going to have to tell your prospect why he should grasp the
advantage your product delivers. You already got his attention. you
aJready told him what your product could do for its users. you
then proved it was true. Now you have to persuade him to grasp
162
this advantage. You can entice him with a great price... a great
guarantee... BOTH. The sky is the limir.
Now you have to close the thing up and get them to reach for their
wallet and call you right now. If you have a poor closing... he may
put the ietter down and go on with his life. you have to ciose
correctly. Here are 4 steps I use to ask for the cash:
People are scared they're going to lose their money. scammers are
all over the place. You're not the first sales letter or advertisement
he's read in his life. He's seen it all... and read it ail before. He,s
been ripped off in the past. He knows your sares copy is probably
full of hyperbole. hrt him in a position where he "thinksn hed
really fuck you up if he wanted his money back.
You see this on infomercials all the time".. .order within the next
14 minutes and youll receive John's euick start video- where
you1l iearn step-by-step...yada... yada... yada... a
$30 value_yours
absoiutely kee!" of course, the order takers are not sitting there
with a sto-owatch...counting the minutes... or co'ntins until the
25oth order comes in..- but it is a technique that works..- as rong
2s Jrou make sure it's believable- obviously, if you're writing thisln
lbJ
Somepeoplelovetomakethingscomplicated.Drrmbpeoplemake
people makg complicated
simple things complicated' And smart
do... but
;;ilg; simfre. plaiing an order should not be hard ro
marketers really mess it up'
t;;'; be amazedby how many
days a
Simple. Simple- Simple. An 8O0#"',24 hours a day"' 7
.n! A simple order
*..i.... even if you have an answering rnachine
to stick the
form to fil1 out... an easy to use response envelope
order card in and mail' SIMPLE' Keep it SIMPLE'
Do you know what's even fi.rnnier than having the wrong headline?
Having NO HEADLINE. Most advertisers use either a poor
headline... or no headline at all. This is why they fail. This is why
they say, "Advertising Don't Work".
Now, you don't always have to re-invent the wheel when it comes
to creating headlines. Once you get better at direct response
writing, you may want to explore creating more original
headlines... but like I keep saying throughout this book- let's keep
it safe. We're going to mold orlr new headlines off old headlines
that have been proven to work... time and time again over the past
decades- selling millions of products and serrrices.
Jay was doing consultation work for a financing company for gold
and silver. This company was offering 2/3rds bank financing on
gold and silver as long as they got to hold the acfual gold or silver.
Now, their ads were breaking even at this point. The ad was
brining in enough saies to cover running the ads... paying the
commissions to the salespeople... and basically keeping the lights
on. This company called upon Jay and within a few minutes he
changed the headline to this:
"If Gold Is Selling For $3OO An Ounce, Send Us Just $lOO and
Well Buy You All The Gold You Want
Jay's new headlines were saying the same things.-. it was just
making it more clear and telling the reader how the 2/3rds
financing benefited him.
The point of this chapter right now is not to talk about testing
headlines against each other... but how to create the best headiine
for your ad or sales letter off the bat.
This was just a quick, off the cuff example... but for you to insert
your own product is not too hard to do- even for a beginner.
Here's this list of my favorite headlines you can adapt to fit your
own products or seruices:
4 1 . I S Y O U RH O M E P I C T U R E - P O O R ?
61. WHY (brand name) BULBS GIVE MORE LIGHT THIS YEAR
67- HOW ANY AUTO REPAIR JOB CAN BE 'DUCK SOUP" FOR
YOU
79. "YOU KILL THAT STORE -- OR I'I-L RUN YOU OUT OF THE
STATE!
97. NOW! OWN FLORIDA I-ANDTHE EASY WAY... $1O DOWN AND
$1O A MONTH
Quotation Marks.
When vou add quotation marks around a headline..- it increases
its pulling power. so when you get the opporfunity..- use the quote
marks-
"They All Laughed when I said I created a pill rhat Burned 93o
Calories a Day... But Now Theyte All Asking Me For Samples!"
Johnson Box.
A Johnson Box is a box placed around a headline to make it stand
out more. Give it a try in your sales letters and see how it looks. I
wouidn't use one in magazine ads.
i75
Proven Starters.
"HOW TO" headiines:
Questions In Headlines.
I really do not like to ask questions-.. unless they are 997" sure
going to get me the answer I want-
Grabbers.
Grabbers are a specialty of my friend and direct response guru,
Gary Halbert. Instead of a headline... he'll stick a dollar bill to the
top of a sales letter. The letter will open like this...
'Dear Friend,
Band-Aids...
Photos...
"Dear Friend,
Why did I attach a little packet to the top of this letter? The answer
is simple. Enclosed in that packet is $3 worth of our most
advanced 2-Minute Fine Line and Wrinkle Filler.
If you've been noticing a few fines lines and rvrinkles... and want to
keep them a secret- I believe this product can help you in less than
2 minutes time.
Here's what you should do right now. Remove the packet from this
letter. Tear it open and apply a small drop of the clear serum to
your index finger. Go to the nearest mirror and apply a small
amount of the serum to the right side of your face where you want
to hide a wrinkle or fine 1ine. DO NOT APPLY TO THE LEFT SIDE!
Leave the mirror,
Now, remain still and give this amazing formula 6O seconds to dry.
Then go back to the mirror... Amazing isn't it? Wrinkles and fine
lines are gone!"
Now you'd go on to your sales copy and sell a ton of this stuff.
how are you going to attach thousands of these things when you
are rolling-out? lf you're using $i bills...you almost tripled ytur
mailing costs... are you sure it's worth it? you got to test different
ideas as you gt:.
ChapterTwentyOne:
Prlnters
The big printers you're going to worry about only after you have a
winner in the mail. The larger print houses usualiy cannot do
srnaller jobs at a good price- nor do they want to. They're all about
large multi-hundred-thousand piece print runs.
The smaller guys could never handle the largerjobs... even if they
say they can-.. but they are needed when you have to print small
test jobs of 2,OOO-1O,OOO sales letters.
Since I usually trse the sa.me format for my mailers, I do not have
to go and get it re-quoted every time I do a nerv letter. But if i do
something different for a particular mailer... I always get it quoted
out from three or four different printers. youd be amazed how
different their prices are-.. sometimes 5o% cheaper than their
competitors!
To get bids, simply prepare a simple one-page sheet and put across
the top of it, "Quote Needed A.S.A.P" and fax it to each pii.rter.
within a few days, I1l start getting phone calls with the prices.
one thing I like to do is tell the printer how much I'm looking to
spend on a particular print job on the fax. Of course, it,s a piice
119
I'm looking to pay... minus a few bucks- just in case I'm a littie
high and can ssueeze a few bucks out of thern.
When you are looking for printers, do not go tJlrough your graphic
designer. If you're using a graphic artist, hell try to get you to get
your printing done through him. AII he's doing is bidding out your
job and tacking on uhnecessary rnoney. Do it yourself... but if you
want to... you can 1et him quote the job if he asks. Who knows?
Maybe he can get a lower or at least an equal price and it's easier
to keep ever;rthing under one roof-
But if you contract your own printing... make sure the designer
doesn't try to hit you for some bullshit pre-press charge or some
kind of massive "collect for output" and "disc burning" charges.
People will try to get money out of you in some of the craziest ways
when they feel you don't know what you're talking about. And
youll soon learn not too many people even know what they're
talking about!
One coior= I
Two colors= 2
Three colors= 3
Four colors= 4
Bleed: This is when the ink goes right over the edge of the paper.
Most of my pieces do not have bleeds.
Lift Note: This is a little folded note that sometimes gets included
in a sales package. It basically says something like "Read This Only
If You're Skeptical" on the outside and then the reader would lift it
open and read the inside... which would be additional text, usually
going over the guarantee or another free bonus on top of the sfuff
you offered in the main sales letter. I usually do not use lift notes.
Here's some things that add to the price of printing that you do not
really need...
When you are looking for a printer, here is the quote you need to
send to them for each of the packages I spoke about in an earlier
chapter:
:i*?l:;*******
{Your Name)
(Your Address)
(Your Phone Number)
Dear (name),
Please quote this job and get back to me no later than (insert date
here). When you are finished with the quote, or if you have any
questions... my number to call is (O0O)00O-OOOO.If you have the
quote and you get rny voice mail, please leave the breakdown on
my voice mail... or fax the entire thing to me at (OOO)OOO-O0OO.
Thank You,
fiiour name)
4 . 6 3 / 4 e n v e l o p e ,1 / O
li#;.:" *" o,u sheet-voull use for the "phone-in' only mail
package, that will not permit the mail-in check orders as described
in an earlier chapter.
{Your Name)
(Your Address)
(Your Phone Number)
Dear (name),
Please quote this job and get back to rne no later than (insert date
here). When you are finished with the quote, or if you have any
questions... my number to call is (0OO) OOO-OOOO. If you have the
quote and you get my voice mail, please leave the brea-kdown on
my voice mail... or fax the entire thing to me at {OOO)OOO-OOOO.
Thank You,
{your name}
o
"
:..:i.:.:::..::"''"o''
Maybe your sales letter will need to have one or more of the
8-5x5.5 sheets printed on both sides...or maybe the g.5x1i will be
printed on both sides... as I have stated above, it's just for one-
183
Anotherthingyourprintermaybeconcernedwithishowtheyare
it on a CD-ROM in a
to receivethe graphics' Most printers prefer
standard' Check
progr"* caileJ Quark Xpress' That's the industry
be providing the
*ltt tn. graphic designer as to what format he'l1
printer as well as the designer have the
artwork on. Make suie the
same formats for easy transferring'
ChapterTwentyTwo:
Lettershops
Sure, you can do all this work yourself... but when you're mailing
1OO,00Opieces each and every week... you're probably not going to
be able to handle it. And for the price a letter shop charges... it's
worth it.
Letter shops usually charge one cent or less for each time they
have to "touch" your sales material. For example, if they have to
sfuff four pieces in your envelope, that's four cents... then apply
the address of your prospect... that's another penny. One more
penny to seal the thing. If you're going to have thern apply the
postage... that's another penny.
Here's what i like to do. I like to get a quote from several elderships
making thern think they are going to do everything for me- even
drop the letters at the Post oflice after they've applied the postage
Ill provide thern with. I1l rnake sure to have them breakdown each
and every fee... the insertion... the addressing.-. the postage
application... etc-
If you let them think they're doing the entire job, theyll sometimes
quote the job low, just to get the job... and then theyll 'stea.l' a
little of my postage on every iob. That's where theyll rnake the
r85
clifference of the money they had to lose to get the job in the first
place.
And that's a huge scam letter shops do' It's just too tempting to
stea-l some of the Postage-
And if you iet the letter shop know ahead of time that they are not
going to be applying postage, your quote will be much higher
because they know they can't steal any of it-
so I let them think they're going to get the entire job. After I get the
quote, only then do I tell them I'm going to be applying the postage
and dropping ofl at the post oflice. If they do not want to honor the
quoted price... tind another letter shop because this one is a bunch
of scumbags.
You may be thinking how can the letter shop rip you off if they
have to show you a postage receipt directly frorn the Post OfTice?
Tn:st me... to dummy a postage receipt is easy... and they have
numerous ways of doing it.
I can tell you numerous horror stories about acts iike this
happening.
But, when I noticed this little letter shop's owner had a nice, shiny,
new Mercedes Benz... I got thinking there was something going on.
Ever since then, I1l have the letter shops do all the work, except
the postage appiication-
I do this not only for the stolen postage... but also for the simple
fact that I can drop all the pieces myself in the s€une day. It is
important to drop all the letters the same day... I,lt tell you why
in
a later chapter... but they all have to drop in the *^** d.y.
il17
Many letter shops are lazy and take their time dropping your
letters at the Post Office in small quantities over a few days'time...
even when they tell you they are afl sent.
T h e y l l d r o p 1 2 , 0 O Oo n e d a y . - . l 5 , O O Ot h e n e x t d a y ' . . a n d s o o n - I t ' s
easier for them to do it this way...ald they do not understand why
you want to drop all in one day. But trust me, you have to drop in
one single day.
One time I dropped 2OO,OOOletters and I had the letter shop drop
off the letters to me. I was looking at the envelope and noticed all
the pieces were inserted upside down and backwards. It was too
late to reprint the entire thing... nor would they eat the cost to redo
it... all they would do is credit me the few thousand dollars they
charged to do the inserting.
Had I not inspected the pieces, I would have never known of this
error.
Let me tell you about a horror I had with a letter shop in 1997. I
was doing a 5OO,OOOletter mailing. I was doing 25O,OOOone
week... and 25O,0OOthe next week. Mailing one went out, and
initial response was great- just as the test told me. Then came
week two and the next drop was getting no orders- What the hell
was going on?
Then, some of the people who were ordering were asking why we
sent them two sales ietters a few weeks apart. I let the first few
calls go- thinking there were a few duplicate names on the mailing
list we got from the broker. Then we started getting more and more
calis. By this point, I knew something was horribly wrong.
The first thing we did was look at the disk of names the list broker
sent us. They were frne. No duplicates at all.
What happened was the letter shop fucked up big time. The guy
they had addressing the envelopes, who probably couldn,t speak
English....did the lirst 25O,OOO envelopes week one... and then on
week two, instead of remembering where he left off (at 25O,OOO)
and starting at 25O,OO1...he addresses the same 250,OOO names
again!
Do you wa't to know the funniest thing? The damn letter shop
thought they'were going to get paid the $40,0oo we owed. them for
the sfuffing the 5OO,0OOpieces at B cents each!
189
If you know me by now, I surely didn't pay them a cent. I ate the
ioss, and never used thern again. What real1y sucked was the saies
rep I used at this letter shop was a friend of rnine. We went out to
dinner... to the movies.-. and to the bars a few times. It was a
shame they didn't want to make good for their error... but they
knew they couldn't... it would take literally miliions of letters they
would have to stuff for me for free to make the loss back to me.
ChapterTwentyThree:
Postage
This is what I've learned. If I'm getting $t.ZO in sales back from a
mailer that cost me 6O cents to mail out with a First Class stamp...
Id get backjust $1-OO in sales if I Pre-Sort my postage and save a
dime... payrng 50 cents-
You get what you put into this. If you're going to double your
money... youle still going to double it when you Pre-Sort your
postage... but you're going to get less orders.
First off all, letter shops will not do this for free... theyll charge a
few cents to Pre-Sort. You mav save 7 cents or so... but vou're
r91
I acfually had a letter shop who had enough balls to offer me the
first level of Pre-Sort postage pricing... only to Pre-Sort it deeper
with other mailers... and where they were charging me 27 cents
postage, they were a"srually paying sornething like 22 cents! Oh
sllre, you can have a nickel for every letter I want to mail. I don't
think so.
if you can put 6O cents into something and make $1.2O.-. would
you rather put 5O cents into it instead to recoup $ 1.OO? I sure
wouldn't.
This is the same as getting good results from your sa"les letter and
thinking you can save money by cramming the entire offer on a
post card and mailing it instead of the costly sales letter. It's not
going to happen. If you're doubling-over on 6O cents mailing the
letter... you may double over the 4O cents itll cost to mail the post
card- if you're luclry- Don't do it.
weigh more- See if you can get a $1.00 sales letter to getvou back
$2.00 in orders. You should always try to go up the ladder..,
spending more and not going down the ladder,-thinking you could
save money.
Now don't get confused. I do not rnean increase the sales letter's
paper quality or color or graphics...I mean keep the postage
always at the best it can be- a straight First-Class stamp. I also
mean, if you are gettinga2OAo/" financial return on a standard #1O
package,.. up it to a 9"x12" package and see if you can retain the
2OOohreturn on your investment. Do not try to go down to a post
card in an effort to save money. That's a prescription for disaster.
Why should all of your mailers have a real, live First Class stamp
'
on them? You need the respect of the Post Oflice for one. When
Po6tal workers see bulk, or Standard Rate mail, they know its junk
mail and they treat it as that. They feel they do not need to rrsh it
out as fast as First class mai1. You do not need this unnecessary
headache.
ChapterTwentyFour:
The Post Offlce
First offall, the Postal worker on the loading docks is not your
friend. FIe usually hates his job... hates his life... and surely hates
you when he see all the ucrap" you're bringing him to sort and
mail.
When you drop it off at the main hub, make sure a Postal worker
sees what you're dropping off, so it doesn't sit out on the dock.
I tell you many tirnes in this book, your biggest priority is getting
you're mailer's envelope respected and delivered by the Post office.
You do not earn any respect with teaser copy printed all over the
front of the envelope. You do not get any respect with mailing
labels instead of typed or hand-written addresses.
I clicl a 40,000 piece test a few months ago where I seeded the drop
with four dummy names..' three friends-'. and my own home
address. Wouldn't you know,.. the three seeds got their letters and
I never received my letter in the mail! My own seed!
You absolutely have to keep a few seeds in the mailings- I'd say at
least one seed letter for every 1O,O0Oyou mail'-. and if you're
testing a few thousand... like 5,000- and it is a test, stick five or so
seeds in there. Tests are important. The last thing you want to
have is a winning sales letter- but you'll never discover it because
your letters were never mailed'
A few years after I joked about this with him, guess what his job
dut5r now is at the Post Office? To make sure nobody throws the
damn mail in the garbage!
Another thing I cannot figure out to this day... after ten years in
this business... is how I get better response mailing from certain
states and worse from others.
moved the company to Arizona, and when I mailed the same letter,
just in Arizona this time... I got just 1.29o response.
I lost .4% just mailing it from a different state. And it wasn't just
one time... it was every time I mailed this letter. I had to hire a
letter shop in Nevada and have friends see the drops at the Post
Office for me. Response went back to I.60/o in no time.
Also, the Post Office can change their mind at any time. Once I was
mailing my IRS-Style 6nvelope successfully 2 million times. I was
sending out 4OO,OOOpieces every few weeks and they never gave
rne a problem... t1en all of a sudden, I was dropping off 25O,OOO
pieces and the jerk on the loading dock gave me a problem.
Ormaybeitwasbecanrsemyenvelopeactuallytrickedtheminto
their
doing ih"irior" and they didn't want to be tricked into doing
my direct rnail envelopes look like junk mail,
ioOsltf t cle-arly made
'rrr.v wouldn't have to
.""ra iaentiry it easier as junk mail so they
deiiver it... or deliver it with such priority!
ChapterTwentyFive:
HowToTest
I t e s t e dt h e s ep r i c e s - $ 1 4 9 . 9 5 . . .$ 1 6 9 . 9 5 a n d $ 1 7 9 . 9 5 . T h e l o w e s t
price pulled 3O orders. The middle price pulled 3O orders as well.
The high price pulled just 15 orders. Had I not tested the different
prices... and went with the $179.95 price... I would have left a lot
of money on the table I could have harvested had I iust not been so
greedy.
Now, the higher price may pull more orders sometimes. This is a
win-win for.you! More orders and at a higher price, How could you
go wrong there? You can't.
other times, when you test price, you may pull 3o ord.ers at
$10
and 10 orders at $3O.
sometimes, the lower you can sell something for, the more orders
you get. Sometimes, it's the middle price like I experienced with
the
software program I price tested.
199
are handled and compiled are different. Maybe the buyer of each of
the companies is different. Who knorvs? The answer to 9 out of 1O
questions in the direct maii business is "TEST".
But, on the other hand, if you have a killer headiine, one modeled
afterthe 125 or so Ite listed foryou in the headlines chapter...you
can triple... quadruple... or increase yorrr orders even more. you'd
sirnply mail one group of letters with the one headline and one
group of equal quantity with the other. what you experience may
arnaze you.
There are several main rules you have to abide by when testing-
1. You can use a different phone number and have the prospects
for each different variation call a unique phone number.
3. You can code coupons customers have to mail in. If I'm doing a
price test... I sornetirnesleave the main sales letter alone and
simply insert coupons for different amounts of money off. The sales
letter will say to include this coupon to receive $X off their
purchase. For phone orders, you can put a bogus code number on
your coupon and ask the caller for the coupon code. If it's
CJ2O81... than can mean it's a coupon for the $2O offpromotion.
5. You can have the caller ask for a certain Promotion Number.
You can say something in the letter like, "Just call 1-BO0-00O-O00
and tell the operator you're ca-lling for Promotion #23 and he'il...".
Even if the customer does not mention the promotion number.-.
you can ask him for it. Just make it easy for him to find... like
where the letter was signed by the author of it.
I've gotten to the point where the only things I can test with radical
differences in results are prices and mailing lists. I don,t know
what it is- I can do two totally different sales letters... or two totally
different headlines... or two totally different offers... I always ...*-
to pull the same amount of orders +/- a few orders. I guess this
means I have gotten so good at crafting copy and sales letters, I
suck out all the people who would buy my product- The only way
I
ca,n entice more people to buy is by using a better mailing list oi a
different price.
ChapterTwentySix;
WhispersandScrearns
There are many factors, which wi1l affect the response of your saies
letters or advertisements. Some whisper... and some scream. I:-
this chapter, youll learn what these response factors are... and if
they're worth testing or not.
Screams
I would classify a scream as something that will make a huge
difference in the response of your sales letters or advertisements.
These screams-which are listed in no particular order of
importance... are the first things you should test to increase the
pulling power of your sales letter or advertisements.
copy:
The copy in your sales letter will make a huge differencein the
pulling power of your promotions. My friend Gary Halbert makes
all his seminar attendees perform this exercise before they get
going. He makes his attendees write two different letters to their
Mothers- One starts off saying how great she is, and how she has
been so good to them... and the second letter says how she is a
wrinkled old bitch, agrd how she rnakes them miserable.-. and that
she should drop dead!
Now, the attendee gets nervous when Gary makes them actually
address and apply postage to these trvo letters. He makes them
actually send them out.,. but to their own homes {not their
Mother's)... and tJley are to serve as reminders as to how powerful
copy can be and how a letter that costs the same to mail and the
same to produce, can have such a radically different effect on its
reader.
The sales copy in your ads and sales letters can have wildly
different effects on its readers. One approach can make you
millions and one approach can make you go out of business. It is
1r\A
the copywriter's job to find the right approach and get the seliing
job done.
Mailing Lists:
If I had to say what the strongest, most powerful part of your direct
mail success is, I would say it was the mailing list or lists you are
going to mail to. I've had offers that made me over $8 Million in a
rnonth's time flop on many, many mailing lists. Seriously, I couid
be rolling-in 60O% returns from certain direct mail lists... then I'd
go to test another list- even a list that appears to be identical-
absolutely flop. Sometimes not even getting more than three orders
on a 5,0O0 piece test!
I1l say it now... I11 say it later... I11 say it one hundred times; the
mailing list is the most powerful variable to your success in this
business.
Prices:
Aside from mailing lists, once an offer shows some form of life...
meaning it brings in at least close to break even... the next most
important thing to do is test pricing. I remember a few years back,
I was waiting for a new software program to market and when it
first came out... my price was a little high, so I had to offer the
product at $199.95. My results we not too great- I simply broke
even.
I then put this offer on the shelf and forgot about it for six months
or so. A few months later, I re-tested the offer with three different
205
prices. I was a iittle too high on the initial offer price... so I came
in*., a bit. I ended up turning this promotion into a $2,000,000 a
year paycheck. I would have never discovered this had I not priced
iestea. This $2 Million bought me a new Bentley.-. a second home
in the Desert... and a shiny, new $1OO,O0ORolex- Good thing I
price tested.
Headlines:
Headlines are pretty powerful as well. I'd say they are the thirC
most important factor to your direct marketing success. l'm sure
many direct marketers would disagree with me and say the
headline is more important than prices and mailing lists... but I
haven't had this proven to me. That's what this book is all about-
not what I learned in other marketing books-.' it's about what I
learned doing this business myself for over 1O years-
Offers:
What you're offering can also make a huge difference with
response. Many direct mail pros would say, if you want to increase
your response... increase your offer! It's true. I always like to offer
as much as I can without upping the shipping fees too much.
Remember, I like the shipping and handling fees I charge my
customer to cover the entire cost of the package and the postage.
How much can you get the shipping up to before the customer
starts to balk? I had 4 bottles of pills and it rvas $15. Some people
complained, but it is.not really as steep as Carlton Sheet's Real
Estate course.
They have a $9.95 30-day trial offer plus shipping and handling.
They conceal the shipping and handling fee until the prospect calls
and orders. Do you know how much this grry is charging to deliver
13 CDs... 4 or 5 VHS cassettes and a few booklets and plastic CD
case?
Premiurns:
'lhis goes back to the offer. This is not rocket science. The better
the offer... the better the gifts... the more compelling the reason to
order... the better your results will be. I had promotions that broke
even when I tested them, only to pull thousands in profits once I
added a killer Premilrm-
I did this with a car stereo membership club- the custorner got a
free car alarm when he joined the club-
Postage:
Now, your offer will riot profit or fail based on the type of postage
you use... whether it be Pre-Sorted... or straight First-Class... or
even Standard Rate. But your results wili be greatly different. I find
the better the quality of postage... the better the quality of the
delivery. The better the delivery, the better the results. In my
experience, if you think you're going to get a deal with the Post
Office... you're going to pay for it on another end.
Product:
The product is king. If you have a great product mailed to the right
people... even if it has bad copy...you wiil pull in orders- This is
why the opportunit5r for knockoff-artists is so lucrative. They do
not have to know how to create the best ads... hell; they can copy
and borrow a lot from yours. It's the product that makes them
survive: If they didn't have a hot product to steal from someone..
they d be out of business. I genuinely believe.,. no matter how well
you know how to create advertising... if you have a bad product...
your results will be bad. I snicker when i hear a lot of direct mail
pros saying that the product really doesn't even matter. They iike
to sell some story that their cop5rwriting will make anything sell. I
don't believe this to be true. I do believe you need a product that
has some use to its users... and the amount of users has to be
large.
208
Back End:
This is huge. lf I didn't add my auto ship paragraph to the end of
one of my sales letters... it would have cost me over $5 Million a
month. Can it be true that a paragraph that costs absolutely
nothing to add can be worth $S Vtillion a month? The answer is
ABSOLUTELY!
Guarantees:
Your prospects want to be assured they are not going to be at any
financial risk buying your product or service. You have to take
away any risk of loss they may have in their minds. Some
guarantees will add or take from your response. Sometimes yotl
may find that a conditional, double-the-money-back guarantee will
out puil a traditional guarantee. Test this shrff out when the time
is right.
But their size killed the sales for us. Sure, this company has
created elaborate scripts the order takers can read from, but when
a customer is ordering a complex product, he does not want
important a:rswers to be read off a screen! If he was ordering a
pasta maker... mayb.e he'd be fine... but for an ingestible product...
or even any complicated product for that matter, he may need an
experienced order taker to assist him.
When my calls were at West, I'd look at the sheer volume of calls
my advertisements would bring in... but the ratio of sales they
acfually rvere able to capture from all these ca1ls was shit.
I'm serious. I was running TV spots and West was answering the
cails for me. I was getting2SO to 5OO calls per 60-second spot.
How many orders did they get frorn these callers? Maybe three or
four! I pulled my account as soon as possible and brought the calls
in house. Response went up immediately.
Whispers
I would classif,r a whisper as something not really worth too much
of your time when it comes to testing variables. i'd advise you to
test some whispers only after you got a successful ad or sales letter
and you have tested all the factors that scream.
Paper Color:
Don't waste time thinking your sales letter can pull more orders if
you use a fancy, colorful paper you've had your eye on. Fancy
paper... glossy paper... color printing and the like will have
absoiutely no effect on your sales letter's response. Your prospects
do not care if an offer was or was not on a good quality paper. Do
you ever remember yourself saying, "I was going to order this
product, but since they printed their sales letter on regular paper...
I'rn not going to go for it." or "I was not really interested in their
product... but since they printed it on such a nice paper stock...
and since it was such a nice color... I'm compelled to buy right
now!" This does not happen- Period.
The "control" package is the best package you have. As you test
variables, and find better ways to do things that add to rnore
money for you, updat'e the "control" package with the new price...
or the new offer... or the new guarantee.
113
ChapterTwentySeven:
Costsand Steps
One of the iirst questions I'm always asked by people iirst getting
started in this business is, What's it gonna cost to start up?"- iVe
got the answers for You right here-
Once you get your corporation formed, youll have the paperwork
needed to get an EIN# and resale license {if you need one). The
corporation company will have all the info you need to obtain these
two items. You need the EIN number to open a bank accor.rnt.
Graphic Design
Under $20O
If you are handy with euark Xpress...you may be able to ray out
your own sales letters or ad. If not, go see a graphic artist- but
rnake sure you keep them in your control. wotrring fancy. Give him
a few examples of what other winning sales letters and ads look
like.
]l5
List Renta-l
$550-$650 per iist in test qttantities
Mailing lists have to be rented in rninimum quantities of 5,O0O
names- even if you are going to rnail just I,OOO to 2,OOO letters'
Most people can get this thing started for $2,OO0 to mail 2,OOO
letters to $3,5OOto mail 4,OO0letters. You can get away with just
printing the sales letter, stuf{ing it yourself and mailing it yourself.
You can answer your own calls- A mailing list or two needs to be
rented. The sales letter can be "dry tested".
Step-By-Step
From An ldea To A Test Mailing
product been out on the market? Does this product lead itself to
back end sales and maybe even automatic deliveries?
STtrP NINE- PRINT SALES LETTER: Shop around for the lowest
price you can get for printing your sales letters. There are many
variables from printer to printer and their prices reflect this. We're
trying to get the lnwest Price.
STEP TEN- OBTAIN MAILING LIST: Order the maiiing list last. The
iast thing you need is a list getting stale sitting on your computer's
hard drive waiting for the damn printer to get you the test sales
letters.
When you are mailing thousands of sales letters every week, you
do not have the ability to wait the entire month to see if the last
week's mailers are doing well and keeping their response
percentage. You need to use this 7-day trick. Drop 10O,O0O sales
letters, by day 7 as long as you broke even, drop the next
100,000,.. then wait another 7 days... you should have doubre the
t1f3
amountyouhadontheTthday"'ifso,dropthethirdlOO'OOOand
so on.
even and
STEP FOURTEEN- EVALUATE RESULTS: If you broke
wanttobettertheresults..'youneedtotestthethingsthat
start rolling-
scream. If the thing is a smash hit... you may want to
on the side. If results are horrible,
o.rt ,igt^rt now and iest variables
you rnay want to see if there is another reason why the letter failed'
A few
was the phone hooked up? were the letters delivered?
chapters ahead, I did an entire thing about bettering response'
)19
ChapterTwentyEi$ht;
BumpingUpTheUnitSale
Let me tell you a funny littie story. A few years back, I was doing a
large-scale promotion that was beginning to lose its pulling power
at the cash register. I was getting less and less response- This
happens at the end of a product's life cycle-
I had tons of employees and didn't want to lay anyone off, so i had
to {igure ways to get more money out of the advertisements and
sales letters I spent money on'
This was four up sells. Did some customers get annoyed? Yes. Did
a lot buy? Oh yes... More than enough in added sa-les to put up
with the occasional guy we annoyed.
You want to use the same order taker for this test.
And after you sr:id him a few additional things, yol-l can then say,
"OK, you wiil receive yoltr order in about l0-14 working days' Do
you want to upgrade to express shipping for $5 extra to receive
everything in 5 claYs or less?"
You can make the rush delivery charge anything you want.
Regardless of what the delivery costs from the shipping company."
you still have to pull his na:ne out of the regular line up of orders
and give it special treatment. This means you have every right to
charge whatever you wish to do this'
And it's a:inazing how much the sales percentage will vary
depending on the person answering the phone. Our night order-
taking service couldn't up sell for their lives. Maybe IO%.
My fianc6 and Mother (who both worked for me) could up sell 9O7o
and 960/" of their orders respectively. They liked me the most, so
they did the best.
Also, if you are not going to give the order-takers a little prize for
selling people... you're going to feel it in lost sales. Give them
something. i gave rny order takers $2.5O for each up sell they could
sell. If they got a customer to take a 2-year at the reduced price...
they'd get $2.50. If they got the customer to buy the CD-ROM,for
$5O... they got $2.50. If they got the customer to buy the
encyclopedia CD for $+O... they got $2.5O. If they got the customer
to enroll in the second discount buying club for $39.95... the order
taker got another $2.5O. In the end, if they could sell everything...
they got $1O in commissions. If they were only able to sell two
222
things... they got $5. This rvas in addition to their hourly pay of
$tO or $t t... ancl they could sell $2O rvorth of up sells {8 up sells}
in an hour easily. Order-takers off the street were making $12OO
and more a week in paY.
I even had the phones ring in a row. Line one... and if line one was
busy... line two... and so on. I put the #1 up seiler in position one...
the second in position number two. This way, I was abie to extract
the maximum out of all our callers by using the best performing
reps tirst. If you couldn't up sell... you got the last phone on the
list. And they didn't care... they took a lot less calis. They got paid
to sit there and do nothing!
J'd limit the up sells to three or four at a time. More will annoy the
callers. But trust me... none will tellyou to forget their entire
order. That's a fear most marketers have.
ChapterTwentyNine:
Response Rates
i giggle rvhen I hear novice marketers say something like this, "This
magazine has 2 million readers... I think I can get 4o/oof the
readers to buy from seeing my ad!'or... "When I mail my sales
letter, I think I can get 2Ao/oof the people to buy off my sales
letter!"... If it were onlv that easv-
You can still make a forfune if liou bring back just what you spent
as long as you have a huge back end.
You can make millions of dollars when you double your initial
advertising cost as long as you have a strong back end. I did.
I had a pill that I was selling for $60. I needed loh in orders from
my sales letters to break even. I got 2a/o. So, I was proliting 6O
cents from each letter I mailed. This is good. But the real profits
came in when the automatic shipments kicked in a few months
later- I got an average of 4 bottles.sold to each customer. This
brought my gross CTO to $ t gO. Remember, it cost me just $:O in
advertising costs to attract a nerv custorner- That's six-times cost! I
114
Good initial response rates should be lx- if you have a killer back
end-..
Response of 2x cost can make you rich if you have a strong back
end.
when all is said and done with back end sares... you're rooking to
achieve 3x to 6x cost. I made $lOO Million with 6x cost.
225
If you mail a sales letter and it breaks even, you should be happy.
Now resell the shit out of these customers with other offers! Mail
these customer every freakin'week if you can. Mail and mail and
mail until the list is no longer bringing more back in sales than it
costs to mail.
I only mail First Class, as you should. When I mail First Class, I
wait for two or three days to get my first order, then I count how
many days it takes me to break even and make back the money I
just spent mailing the sales letters. Let's say, it cost me $1,20O to
mail 2,000 letters. lr{y product sells for $OO plus S/H. I need 20
sales to recoup the initial mailing cost. If I can get these 20 orders
by the 7th day ofresponse, I1l do 2x cost by the 3oth day of
response. This has proven itself to rne rnany, many times and is
what I go by to see within 7 days what takes others 30 davs to
figure out,
House File.
Your house hle or house list is the list of customers you sold your
products to. This is the most powerful maiiing list you will ever
possess. No other group of names will be more responsive than
the
list you compile.
The bottom line is this: you want to gage how well you
are doing in
this.businessby a times-cost ratio, liyiu re puffi"g
2x cost...
you're doing well. Anything more than that...
and insider yourself
King!
)21
ChapterThirty:
RefundRates
No matter how great your product or service is... you have to offer
your customers a money-back guarantee... and no matter hou'
good your product or service is... people will take you up on your
guarantee.
'You
Don't take it personal. You know the saying, can please all of
the people sornetimes... or some of the people all the time... but
never all of the people ali of the tirne." I think that's how it goes.
But an5rway..-
Youll always have people... some correct... and some insane... who
feit your corporation and your product have wronged them. I,m
sure there will be people who bought this book that will absolutely
love it- probably 95%'. And there's going to be 57n who think I,m
wasting trees. You cannot take it personal.
You actually want Sa/oor 7o/" of your custorners to ask for their
money back. And this 5oloto TVo is what you can expect in refunds.
Ite been involved with products that have had lozo ask for a
refund and we still made millions of dollars..- so as long as you're
not giving back over loolo... you're probably doing a great job
at
selling-.. and you're still satis$ring 90% of your custJmers-
which
is a lot more people than the s0% the president of the united
States satisfies.
228
Here's rny rule of thumb: If you're getting less than 107o to ask for
're not selling hard enough- If vou're
their rnoney back... you
getiing more than 1O7o,you're overselling your product. Try to
keep it around 7o/" and youll be {ine.
You'll get five times more credit card buyers to ask for a refund
than people who ordered with a check or money order. I've noticed
this for the past few years. I guess the credit card buyers see their
credit card bill later and feel the money'gone' a few weeks after
the check orders. The check orders feel the money gone the instant
they mail their order to you. Also, credit card buyers know they
have certain levels of protection with Visa or Master Card or
whatever they used.
When you do get a refr:nd request, make sure you resolve all
legitimate refund requests within 3O days... or as soon as you can.
I rvas mnning a $ 1OOMillion company with a half of a million
customers... and I was just 5 to 7 days behind on consumer
credits. You should have no problem offering credits the same day
they are requested. But do make sure the credits are legitimate.
If you're linding that you have a lot of refund requests but you
want to continr.re to sell the product as you are because response is
so good... or the people who are returning the product are losers...
here's some sfuffyou can do:
That's why get-rich ads selling books or courses should hide the
"money-making-technique" in the ad. The secret has to be in the
course or book. You'l-l sell more by conc€aling the acfual "task,' as
it's sure to turr some people off, as opportunit5r seekers hate to do
"worko.
The people who were killing this company earlier with the high
refund requests were lazy and they didn't even want to read the
information in the kit. The info in the kit was of quality and could
help someone looking to get in that particurar business. If they
wanted their money back, they had to prove the publisher was
selling junk- which they couldn't. And those that could... were so
littie, he'd gratefully give them 2OAo/otheir money back.
There are tons of hurdles you can put refund requesters through...
you can tell them to call and ask for a RA# (return authorization
number) before sending back any product. some companies wili
-JU
Your customer service reps can have some kind of retention script
can use to try to get your customer to keep the product. I
Jhey
know dietary supplements sometimes do not go to work on the
body within the 30 day guarantee period... so, I used to have mv
reps offer to extend the guarantee for another 3o days to go to oo
days and a minimum of Soyo of the people who wouid have asked
for a refund would agree. Their resurts would come in the next
few
weeks and they were'glad they gave the pills more time to
work for
them.
l-t I
ChapterThirtyOne:
Response
Increaslng
3. Make sure the mailing list broker sent you the right list and
didn't send you another one in error.
ChapterThirtyTwo:
WhatI KnowAboutWebsites
If I'm taking 1,5O0 orders a day... for one, I've got to hire an
employee, which costs money. Two, I have to have the phone lines
and pay for the 800#. Three, with each callg1 there is a chance of
human error and a loss of a sale.
when orders are being taken over my website, I do not have to hire
an employee to take fhe order. I can take orders a1l day long... all
night long..- in any weather. I do not have to worry about phone
lines being busy... and I don't have to worry about employees
saying the wrong sfuff to the prospects and losing the order.
But of colrrse, you cannot have just a website to prace orders. And
you cannot handle all of the orders yourself if you get large
enough.
And as for the website itself... it's nothing more than a sales letter
on a screen. Graphics that take forever to load... forget them.
special Flash Players or other software that is requiied to see the
site... get rid of them. people are not going to go and download
software to view your site.
I usually breakdown the site to five pages or so. This helps in the
search engines as well. The pages are as foliows:
-)1
2. More lnfo page- this is the page the home page will go to when
the viewer clicks on it. It rviil have the entire body copy of my sales
letter.
5. Order page- this is a page that asks for al1 the informalion
needed to place an order. This can all be inputted into a shopping
cart for processing.
These five pages and what they are to have on them is all you need
to know about websites. The fonts... the headlines-.. the paragraph
lengths... the sentence lengths... everything I taught you about
writing copy is the sarne on the screen of a computer.
Spam-.. forget about it. It got us sued three times from people we
sent it to!
Paid seanch... do it. It works best for the trademarked name of your
product.". or of your competitors. If you're selling a product that
has a huge competitor... free ride off his trademark. Try to buy
search terms that have your competitor's product name in them.
Everyone that clicks on his trade name... you can get your
product's n€une in front of hirn or her as well. Free advertising!
XYZ was their product narne and Product Name was our product's
name. This trick allowed the knock-offs to piggrback on my $1.2
Million I spent a month in print, radio and TV advertising. When
people forgot my domain name... or wanted to do a little research
on my product... they were bombarded with people saying their
product was better and cheaper than mine. Some custorners were
fooled... but many were brand loyal and wanted the real thing.
i hateci these knock-offs when they free rode like this... but If I was
the sma-ll guy... like you are going to be... free ride your ass off
buddy!
Websites are also great for keeping in touch with custorners and
prospects. If you can find a way to capfure an email address and a
name...you can send offers to these people, as many times as you
wish and you pay nothing.
Web marketers are doing this with newsletters" You go to their site
and subscribe to a newsletter. You write a few pages of text and
send it to them every week... or month... or whenever. You can also
send them offers for other products as you see fit.
This program cost me $1O. I sent out the emails offering a great
deai on a new software program I was selling. I recall getting phone
calis to place orders within 3O minutes of emailing. I don't even
know if you can do this anymore. But the point is, websites are
great as tools for direct response- they are not the be-all, end-all as
many wished they would become,
ThirtyThree:
Chapter
MerchantAccounts
I usually dont carry cash, so I asked her where was an ATM. She
pointed to a Wal-Mart across the parking lost. I got in my car and
went over to the crowded Wal-Mart. I got so disgusted; I just drove
away- leaving the cookies behind.
This is fine. I'd just let my customer know when you're getting off
the phone with him that he will see a charge on his credit card
billed as "whatever". This will eliminate anv confusion.
I3r3
I've used both $pes of merchant accounts in the past. The ones
directly from the bank are great... but they take longer to get... and
they are a iittle harder to get- You have to show them some good
paperwork... tax returns... and other stuff-
The third party guys don't really care for all of that. Guys like
Multicards will hoid your money for three weeks where regular
banks deposit daily into your bank.
Discount Rate:
This is the fee the credit card company will charge for you to
process your orders. I wouidn't pay anything over 37o if you were
dealing witJ: a traditional bank. Fees for the third party providers
can be 5.9%... all the way up to 157o. Dont pay anything more
than 67o. On rnany businesses, the owners are iuclry to make 1O%o
of gross sales... and they got to bust their Asses for it! Why would
anyone give this much to some guy who is doing nothing but
processing your credit card order?
Reserve:
This is a fee the merchant may or may not want to collect. This is
an insurance policy the bank will hold in case your company goes
belly-up. This fee is refundable 1BO days after you terminate your
account with that bank. This reserve can be collected as a "rolling'
reserve, which is usually 5o/" or worse, lO%. This means the bank
will collect an additional 5oloof your gross sales and put thern in a
non-interest bearing account in case they are ever financially
harmed by your company-
239
Charge backs:
A charge back is when a custorner contests the charge you put on
his or her credit card. This usually happens when a custorner does
not recognize the chdrge or what he ordered... sometimes the
customer was not happy with the product and it is easier for them
to call the 8oo# on their credit card statement than it is to dig-up
your phone number. Maybe you placed a charge on yollr
customer's credit card without their permission and they are
pissed off. Maybe the customer knows you sent him your product
without requiring him to sign for it at the door. All he haslo do is
say to the credit card company that he never received the product.
The merchant account will ask for you to provide them with proof
the customer got the order... and ytu don;t have an5rthing... yo,
have to give them back their rnoney. A very few people will do"othis,
so it may not be worth getting signatures for every package you
deliver. To obtain signatures, it may cost an extra $3 or SS
i.,
order. If you got one person out of lO0 ripping you off... it,s
cheaper than adding $3 to $5 on top of every order to get
signatures.
You can fight a lot of charge back requests with the credit card
company. Before they acfually suck the money out of your
account, they usually give you the opportunity to speak your
end.
of the story- This is called a 'retrievaL". Ill talk about them
next.
Retrieva"ls:
This is when a customer contests a charge on his credit
card and
before the credit card company charges back the purchase,
they
sometimes give ynu the opporfunity to fight the charge back.
240
lf you got a signature at the door from your customer... make sure
you show this to the bank. As soon as they see you got a signature,
theyll usually rule in your favor. But like I was saying beftrre, it
may not be financially smart to get a signature from every
customer. And you a-lso run the risk of the customer not signing
for the order and it comes back to you and you have to credit the
purchase.
TMF.
This is the black list. You're dead if vou're on this list. TMF stands
for Terminated Merchant File. You're supposed to get listed on this
list when you commit sorne kind of fraud or if a bank gets beat' By
fraud, I mean you went crazy with your customer's credit card
numbers and took-off never to be heard from again. But this is not
always the case, if your charge back percentages exceed 1o4 for
more than three months..- the bank can and will terminate your
merchant account and you may even get placed on the TMF.
lf you're a business owner and get placed on the TMF... you have
to have a partner or silent partner in order to get merchant
accounts ever again. So be careful and make sure you do not
exceed 1% in charge backs.
Limits.
Sometimes, especially on new accounts, the bank will put a cap or
a limit on how much you can charge. This is usually fine when you
are just starting up. I rernember many times when we had an $8
Million limit and we \rv'erebumping it every month! We had to put
more money in reserve to get the limit increased.
I'm sure this rvill probably be the first chapter to get outdated in
ihis book. So this information is current at the time of writing,
which is June 2OO4.
)41
ChapterThirtyFour:
CallCenters
First of ali, there are large caller centers like West in Omaha,
Nebraska...and then there are srnaller ones yor-r can find in your
local phone book. Let's talk about large ca-ll centers first.
I figured if this call center can handle these company's order calls,
they could sure handle ours- an herbal supplement I was doing
some consulting work for. I was wrong.
This large cornpany had over lO,0O0 people answering the phone.
With all order takers, they get better the more familiar they get
with the product. When there are 10,OOOpeople answering the
phones... in order for a rep to get their second call for your
product, you'd have to sell 10,000 people! The reps at these large
companies will never get familiar with your product. So if it's a
high-tech product or a supplement, where customers may have a
lot of questions, a large call center may not be the best fit for you.
:!+ )
Another thing that bothers me about cafl centers is that they are
horrible on theirup sell percentages. If you can up sell 40% of your
customers rvhen you're using your own employees... chances are
you'li get just 59t frorn a call center. The reps just don't caie. And
they sound too obvious they are reading a script. Again- because
they cannot get familiar with your products.
Another thing that annoys me about large call centers is that you
cannot "see" the people answering your calls. I want to see with my
own eyes what they are doing right and what they are doing tvrong.
You cannot do this rvith a large call center where the client is not
allowed in the call roorns-
Now there are some pros about using a call center. They have reps
ready to answer your calls 24 hours a day 7 days a week. you
don't have to rvorry about who cannot lind a baby sitter... who is
sick... whose Mother just died. That's the ca-llcenter's problem.
Another thing that is good is that if the phone lines are not busy,
you don't have to pay an hourly wage. If you were to take calis in-
house, youll have to pay for your employees even if they are sitting
doing nothing.
Also, if you are running TV spots, it's pretty costly for you to get
100 phone lines in your building. That's how many pebple call in at
once when a TV spot hits the air. when you are u"i"g ilarge call
center, they have thousands of lines. They can take l,0oo..ll" for.
your product at the same time.
You could never take 1,ooo calls at once. And even if you
did, what
happens for the next half hour until the next comrnercial
comes
on? Nothing- your people just sit and get paid for
aoi"g nothing.
Large call centers rike WEST actuary pay for
the tolr-charges
through the Boo# theylr give you. Ari y.; rr"u.
to f"y them is Bo
'aA
_-a
Something WEST did for us was credit us $2 for every order call
that came in. Rernember, they were charging us around 8O cents a
minute. And if we would allow them to "Ditch" our callers with 3-
issue trial magazine subscriptions, they'd pay Lrs $2 per pitch
regardless if they sold the customer or not. This worked out OK
and offset some of the costs.
They are a little smaller, so their reps can and will get used to what
your product does and what the up sell script is going to read like.
Theyll get more of the ca-llers to buy and they'll get a higher
percentage of callers to up sell to something else. Again- because
they are going to get more familiar with your offer.
Then there's a flip side to the smaller call centers. They usually are
understaffed. The owners want to maximize their profit margins
and if they run lean, theyll do better. What they don't realize is
that a call may now sit on hold until the order rep gets off the
phone with his last order. A lot of people will just hang up... even if
it an 8O0# they are calling-
Large call centers are great if you are running ads, letters, or
commercials that are capturing caller's addresses to send them
information... like a free report or info package. They kind of suck
when it comes time to sell something. And they really suck when
the product you are selling is complicated and may lead to many
questions being asked by the caller.
Like I was saying trefore, if you are just having customers ask for
an info kit or a free report, a large call center should work just fine.
This is what I used to do. I used to have a small call center answer
my calls over night and on the weekends. During regular business
hours, we'd answer our calls in-house. Once our company grew,
we took our calls a1lday and all night... we'd open at 5am and
ciose at 1am.
ChapterThirtyFive:
Telemarketing
In these days, there's "do not call" lists where consumers add their
names and numbers to national lists and if a marketer calls these
people, he can be in some serious problems.
The only way you may be able to get telemarketing to work for you
is if you have an offer and you want to call your customer iist and
offer it to them. That's line. Trying to get cold prospects that are
not your customers to buy though the phone has never worked for
me- ever.
what I then did the next morning was have my best up selier call
each and every new customer from the previous night and say they
were calling to "verify" their information. My up seller would go
over their namer the spelling, their address,their phone number,
their credit card information, etc. The customer was impressed to
think we \,l'eretaking the time to call him and verify all his
information, And right before our up seller was going to hang up...
they d say, 'let me tell you about a few of our specials we have
going on right now...'and they'd go right into the scripts.
Guess what. callers that could not have been sold anything if I iet
the answering service do it the night before, were now buying like
crazed animals when we'd simply "verify' their information.
Other than these two ways... Ite never had any form of
telernarketing actually produce profitable results for me. I,m sure
there's millions of businesses making telernarketing work...
otherwise the Feds wouldn't make "do not call" lists. I never was
able to figure it out.
148
ChapterThirtySix:
ng
TeIevisionAdvertisi
What I've been noticing now is that companies are using a wide-
screen format commercial, where they have black space on the top
of the commercial and biack space on the bottom.
Producing the spot or infomercial is where some big biils come in.
I've shot 60-second spots for $14,O0O and I've shot 60-second
spots for $114,000. The differences in response were no different.
The commercial looked great... but did it pull more orders for me
than the cheap $14,000 spot did? Nope.
get businesscards made until I was making $50 Miilioir and felt
stupicl r,vhenpeople were asking me for a card'
lnfomercials are a different story and way beyond the scope of this
book and surely this chapter. There are mariy formats for
infomercials... there's talk show format, which is the cheapest to
produce and may cost $25,OO0'.. then there's the high-dollar
productions that can cost as much as $2OO,OOO!
ChapterThirtySeven:
RadioAdvertising
If you place radio spots... do not getupsetwith the results from the
first three or four days. Radio spots do take a few days to get up to
full speed. They need repetition to start generating the orders.
I remember when I first started a radio carnpaign and the first few
days the results we less than impressive. I had to go on a trip to
New York and a day or two after I left, I got a call from one of our
rnanagers saying the radio spots were generating orders like crazy.
I'm talking aOO orders in a single day from a single radio show!
Now, when it comes time for radio spots... I like to adverti". o., tJk
shows and not so much music stations. If I'm having great success
on certain talk show stations, then I can try some music stations...
but the last time I tried the music stations, I did not do so well.
You want to advertise during drive times... this is when most of the
listeners are in their cars. That's when peopre really listen to the
radio... not so much at work or at home.
t_53
usually the radio station will do the voice-over comrnercial for you.
They already have the personalities with great radio voices and
they have the fuIl-blown studio to record the thing in. But if you,re
looking to run commercials on different stations, the one station is
not going to give you a copy of the spot to rr:n on a competitor,s
station.
I did very little radio advertising in rny heyday... and while I was
successful..- I'm not a know-it-all as I am with direct mail and
print..So, if you're looking to place advertisements on the radio... It
may be wise for you to go and seek further education on this topic
in other books or consultants.
!)q
ChapterThirtyEight;
The"SuckOut"
Before I attempt to tell you what the "suck out" is, I want to
illustrate two different stories for you.
The first time I ran the ad... it did great... the second time... it did
well... the third time I ran the ad... it did okay... the fourth time, it
broke even. Any ad piaced after that lost money.
other words, my ads would go great for a few months... but once i
sr.rckedout a1l the hot buyers... if the magazine didn't repienish
thcir readership with fresh names iast enough- my ads rvould soolr
be worthless.
Gary Halbert says the same thing. He makes ads that were so
powerful; they'd only work once or twice- Sure, they worked great
on." ,rr twice... but they pulled every potential customer out of the
readership in one or two insertions. This is not a bad problem.
And then you have grys like me who, once their one page ad puils
like mad... I then go to 3 or even 4 page ads and suck out every
single freaking prospect interested in my product.
Of course, if you say you wouldn't mind making the steady orders
for years placing small ads instead of larger ads that suck out too
fast... you may get knocked-offby a larger competitor and he'l1
place larger one page ads and steal all your profits... or even run
you out of business.
Obviously if you asked me what you should do- run the smaller
ads that rnay last longer or run the larger ads that may burn-out
quicker... i'm going to teli you to run the larger ads.
256
First, you can you run your main ad for a few months and once it
starts to decline, you can run an alternative ad that sells its
customers from a different point of view to attract different
customers. When you are creating this new ad with a new slant,
make sure you do not borrow much from your first ad.
Now, run this new slant ad and it should bring in new customers
that are furned on by different claims and different desires. Run
this ad one month; run your first ad the next month, and so on. Or
you can run your {irst ad until it pulls no more then run the
second ad until it pulis no more and then go back to the {irst ad. If
the response is restored, great. If it's not..- you have to create a
third ad with another slant.
If you can get away with this and keep recharging your product
with new ads, you're in a great position.
I d rather have the first situation work for me, when I just recreate
the ad with a new slant... instead of the advertisement running
every other month.
257
There are other ways to boost the sares of an old or worn ad... look
in the past chapter that ta-lks about improving your response by
improving your offer. Maybe you can do a new ad with a
premium... or a glft...or adding some up sells... or increasingyour
back end.
what a marketer does when his ads no longer pull as well as they
did shows his true character. you have to be innovative. you *u"t
get the response back to where it was. In this business, you're
either growing or dying,
l_s8
ChapterThirtyNine:
Employees
The thing I'd tell you to do is first find some family members that
can help you out- I'm sure you're nervous to acfually hire a
stranger and be someone's "boss" so quickly. And another thing is
you probably dont want to go and rent office space just yet. Itll be
kind of uncomfortable for strangers to come and work from vour
kitchen with you.
our first employee was a lady named Joyce and we hired her from
a temp. agency. I remember getting my hrst employee... boy was it
strange... especially since she was in her mid-4os and I was a 21-
year-old high-school drop out!
As I got better at writing direct rnail sales letters and magaaine ads,
we hired Leah... our second employee... then Marcia... our third
employee. I had two of these three ladies working for me until
1999, when I was doing several millions in revenue and had 25
employees.
259
i. Keep It Professiona,l.
I <ion't mean you have to be a robot- But try to keep the wall there
between employee and employer. Do not go to happy hour with
them. Do not ask them to go to the movies with you. They cannot
be your friends outside of the office.
Another time, one of the mairied women in the office was asking
me what bar I hung ou.t at on the weekends. Remember, I was in
my early 2O's! I told her, and she said, 'Oh! My friends and me are
going there tonight! Maybe well see you!" I thought nothing of it.
What she was really doing was stalking me. I saw her at the club
that night... I didn't see any of her friends. I had a couple of drinks
in me and was fairly loose. A few moments later, she came and sat
at my table... and was talking in my ear because the music was so
loud. would you believe this girl started kissing me? I pulled back-
even though she wasn't bad looking... and the next day around the
office.-. I heard the mrnor... "she ald vince u'ere at a club making
out! And she says he's a good kisser!" Talk about embarrassing.
t60
The people working for you may become seriously jea.lous. Jearous
employees are cancer, and they affect the entire work force. Look-
the people working for you, unless you are commissioning them in
some way, are stuck at the job they are in. They are there to either
answer your orders or take your customer service calls or ship
your orders. The key word they see is YOURS. They think
everything is yours. They think if you get 3OO orders a day at
$1O0... all the $3O,O0O is yours to keep and you're at home in
some mansion lighting up cigars with some of those hundreds.
Trust me- they are not happy for you. They are happy they have a
job to pay their bills. And if you ever fire them, ail theylr remember
is how rich you are and how they can destroy you.
I've had one employee quit and his friend still worked for me. His
friend was working overtime one night and made a copy of our
entire database of customers. They stole 5oo,ooo customers and
26r
And if you keep cancer working for you- theyU cause you huge
problems the longer you wait. What they do is wait and wait for
you to slip up and once they have something on you... you're dead.
I remember I had a woman who was begging for additional hours
to work, as she needed money. Our company did not offer overtime
because I'd have to pay them time and a hall She went on to say
that she would forfeit any rights to time and a half and she just
wanted straight pay. I was not involved in this decision. We ended
up giving her the extra hours at her flat pay. A few months went by
and tiis lady turned into cancer. She must have been on drugs.
262
Her performance was slipping. And when she was fired evenhraliy,
she was vindictive and went to the Labor Board and complained
she was working past 4O hours and never got overtirne pay. All
those hours we gave her out of the kindness of our hearts, we had
to go back and pa.y her the half tirne. It was like $2,OOO.
They felt why were they going to work hard or work fast when this
guy is getting everyone's lunch and doing personal favors?
Remember, this was the shipping room... not the laboratory... to
the ernployees in this department; this was a big deai to them.
What made it worse was this favored kid would go and show-off to
his co-workers. When my partner made him pick up a prescription
from the drugstore, tre gave him his debit card to pay. We1l, this
kid went to all his co-workers and showed them the credit card
and told them that my partner actually gave him a credit card and
he can buy anything he wishes. Of course, these workers saw the
na-me on the credit card and became iealous.
263
6. Check References:
We had to hire people so fast; we didn't get to check their
references a1l the time. You've got to do this. Most of the references
on what turned out to be bad employees were bogus' And a simple
phone call or two to the references would have helped us before we
hired this employee. I even wanted to give my new hires drug
tests.,. but so many people were on drugs, we'd have no
employees.
Also, if you hire Paul who refers three or four of his friends to come
and apply, if they tel1 you they are friends of Panrl, you shouid not
hire them. When Paul is with his friends, he thinks he's rolling
deep and is more prone to becoming a bad employee. When you
fire Paul...you lose the three friends as well a:rd nobody is there to
arf swer your orders! And even if his three friends stick around,
their performance will be shit because every day they'l1 be hearing
it from Pai,rl, saying I gotyou that job... it's a shit job... fuck them...
264
you should quit. Even if he doesn't quit, hell think it is a bad thine
to come to rvork for -vou. You don't need this.
say if you hired Paul's Mother and she messed something up. It's
going to be weird bringing it to her attention, and what's worse, if
she's a disaster, and you lire her, paul's feelings will be hurt.
One time I had an employee Al. He was an all right guy. He said
his brother-in-law needed a job badly and we hired him. This was
way back in 1998 before I had my "rules", Al turned into a bad
seed and was looking to attempt to take-over the company by
steaiing its clients along with another employee. We fired him
irnmediately as we did his friend. Now, Eddy, Al,s brother-in-law
still worked for us because he was a good worker and he did need
the money- he had a lit'tle girl to take care of. But his sister, A1's
wife was giving him shit... and Al was giving him shit... and I saw it
in Eddy's eyes... it was killing him. He didn't want to quit. He
needed the money. But his famiiy forced him to quit. It was a
InCSS.
hour because at Sp.n, they don't have to think about work until
tom0rrow.
Aiways make sure your or"der takers are reading their scripts
properly and monitor every thing they cio.
If you treat them badly. If you treat them unfairly. If you make
jealous of you... theyll look for any way to bring down your
lhern
business... with either hate websites slamming your company...
complaints to government agencies... or even worse.
ChapterForty:
TheOnly3 WaysTo GrowYourBusiness
l'm not gonna take credit for this chapter. My Mentor Jay Abraham
broke it down so beautifully- There's just three and only three
ways to grow any business. We're going to go over the three
rnethods and dig deeper into different tactics in each of the three
methods.
Here's some ways you can get more new customers in the door to
buy your product or service:
l. Referral Systerns:
You can put into play referral systems where your existing
customers can refer new customers to you for a bonus. Let's say if
you send a letter in your orders... or if you send a letter to all your
existing customers and tell them for every customer they can refer
to you, you'll send them $3O or so. All they have to do is have their
friend call this special 8O0# to order. When the guy ca-lls to place
an order, you ask him who referred hirn to you. You take note and
send the guy the $3O or whatever you promised him.
2. Acquire Customers at
Break-Even and Profit On The Back-End:
I was selling a pill a few years back that rnade money on some lists
and broke-even on some larger lists. Sure, I could make some good
money maiiing the srnaller lists and actually make a decent profit
on the frontend... butthe sheervolume I needed was if I used the
l6ft
iists that broke-even. These lists were rnuch larger... but I was not
able to make a profit on the initial sale. But since I knew
customers would buy a certain amount of times on the back-end, I
was able to acquire these new customers at break-even and bank
onthe fact they1l buy a lot of product from rne on the back-end.
Jay Abraham teils a story about a company that was selling "fluid
transmission" goods- like PVC. The company would have sales
people calling on others to mal<e sales. The initial sale had a profit
of $25O or so and they gave the sales people lAo/o of that. The
company owners knew that these new customers would buy a lot
more over the course of the year and they would be worth about
$ 1,OOOmore in profit over the next year. What Jay advised this
owner to do is instead gf commissioning just 10% to his
salespeople... he should give them 100% of the profit on the first
purchase. The company owner wor-rld really fire-up the sales staff
and the owner would make 3 or 4 times the profit on the back end
sales becamse he'd have 3 or 4 times as many new cr:stomers!
4. Host Relationships:
I talked about this is in a past chapter. A Host-Parasite
Relationship is where you can have other businesses solicit their
customers on your behalf and split the proceeds. Let's say you
owned a film company and you knew of a guy who owned a camera
company. What you can set up is a deal where he solicits his
customers and tells them all about how great your fiim company
is. And since his customers need film, as they are all camera
customers... it's a shoe-in and response should be great. Now, you
would normally pay postage and printing in circumstances like
this, and you'd probably split the profits SO/5O. Nothing is set in
stone... you can alter this offer any way you and your host wish.
269
sure, you may be able to rent his customer list... but the response
will be many, many times more powerful when the sales letter is
coming from the camera guy to his customers endorsing you.
There's a big difference than you mailing them yourself.
like other cattle. The end result is flawless hides that do not have
markings in them from when the cattie bump against the barbed
wire.
1. Up sells:
We just talked about up sells and bumps a few chapters ago, so
this should all still be fresh on your mind. I was able to jump the
average unit of sale from $7O to over $ 100 just by adding some up
sells and commissioning my salespeople to sell, sell, sell! Going
from $7O to $10O on an initial average unit of sa-leis an over 4O7o
increase in average unit of sa-le. Later, I'm going to show you how
to explode your business, just getting a 2OYoincrease on each of
the three growth methods.
iucky to get a 50150... and maybe youll encl up paying the entire
postage and printing. If this is the case, don't cut them in on the
profits... See what they want to sell their product to you on a
wholesale basis for. You'11know what it needs to be. If it's lower to
get the product at wholesale than it is to split profits... go the most
profitabie route. This is a powerful marketing concept and win-win
for the other business... but you'd be surprised how many
businesses will not be interested in doing this with you!
You can also offer a free bonus with a certain purchase frequency.
Remember I was saying about the free DVD players when a
customer stayed on my product for six months? I was making $4O
each and every month they took my herbal supplement..- I was
getting four months on average. I could buy DVD players for $40...
and I would give one to the cu.stomer once they took the product
for 6 months. Now, the 6th month's revenue paid for the DVD
player in full..- and I got the fifth month's revenue, when I wouldn't
have gotten it as I had a 4 month er:stomer life- When you.'re
selling 4O,OOOpeople a month, that extra 4O,OOOpeople buying at
213
$40 for the fifth month is $1.6 Million in free cash every month.
The sixth month's revenue of $1.6 Million went right to bu5zingthe
DVD player. And I clidn't just.send the DVD player automatically to
the customer- They had to remember they were on the product for
6 months and they had to call and request it. A good 307o never
took us up on the DVD player because that was not the reason
they wbre taking our product. Had they requested it, it was theirs.
If they didn't, we profited even more.
ChapterFortyOne:
KeepingOut of Jail
If you do not know what yoll are doing... you can end up pissing off
an Attorney General... the Federal Trade Commission... the Postal
Inspectors... or any of the other numerous Government "alphabet"
agencies. Here's how to avoid the most common business mistakes
that get direct marketers in trouble:
Rule One:
Ship Products Within 30 Days Or Sooner!
From the very day you charge the customer's credit card, or from
the very day their personal check clears the bank... you have 3O-
days to get them their order. Most cttstomers will call and bicker
within two weeks if they have yet to receive their order. So if the
product is going to take the full 30-days to get to your customer,
make sure to tell them when they are on the phone placing an
order.
Now, you can ship products later than 3O days as long as you let
the customer know. That's why you see some commercials saying,
"allow 3 to 6 weeks for delivery"... and sometimes even longer! If
you cannot deliver the product within 30 days, make sure you tell
the customer when they order. I like to ship my orders within 4 or
5 days max. Sometimes things are out of your control, like when
you have a spike in orders and n:.n out of pi1ls or whatever, and
the manufacturer says they're going to need 4 weeks to fill your
purchase order.
Sounds good? You can'use those words if you ever need to'
Rule Two:
Give All Legitimate Credits Within 15 Days!
Trust me- if you're being too strict with credits and most of your
customers place their order with credit cards, you're only asking
for charge backs from the credit card company. And remember, if
you jump over 17" in charge backs, there's a good chance you can
lose the merchant account and where are you going to then
process your orders?
Rule Three:
Don't Lie To Yor,rr Prospects!
lf you hype your product in your ad- that's fine. If you use
h5rperbo1e...that's fine. if you lie... you're screwed.
)76
Sure, you may be able to get awalr' with it for a little while... but
once an alphabet agency is sticking their nose a-li in voi-rr
business... it's nothing but a headache.
I got a new rule for myself. Unless I can get an expert such as a
Doctor to say my product can do what I said it can... and unless
this Doctor can be a total stranger..- and would be able to go on a
stand in a courtroom and tell the prosecution what I say is true...
I'11refrain from saying it.
And if you want to mai<e some crazy claims, make sure you get the
back-up proof ahead of time. If you're saying this cream reduces
cellulite by 360/o...you'd better find some scientific data to prove
this... and keep copies of it in a safe place other than your home or
office.
Rule Four:
Sell Products You Know Will Work As Claimed!
Joe said fine but wanted to achrally try the product to see how
good it works. The popular infornercial marketer didn't want Joe to
test the product and he told Joe about a story that I found funny:
It was about this father and son. The father had a-il these cans of
tuna and they were trying to sell the funa- the only thing rvas the
tuna was expired- They bought the funa from someone else, and
now they were trying to "unload" it on someone else. The kid said
)71
to his father, why don't we just eat the tuna?.. and the father told
the son. that an't eatin' tuna... that's sellin' tuna-
Joe declined to sell the product... but the story is funny. Carlton
Sheet's Real Estate program is sellin'funa... not eatin'tuna. If it
were eatin'tuna... he would not be seiling the information... he'd
be using it to buy real estate. Most product I see on the market are
rvhat I call "sellin'tuna". Try to sell only what you feel at least
works somewhat. Remember, your opinion of the product is your
opinion. What matter is can you get in trouble for selling what
you're selling? And do more than l07o of your customers ask for
their money back. If you can honestly answer NO to those two
questions, you should be fine.
ChapterFortyTwo:
BlundersThatCostMe Millions
in this chapter, I'm going to teil you some of the top blunders that
we've had over the past l0 years... some which cost me MILLIONS
of dollars. You'll make the same mistakes if you're not care{\rl, so
read this chapter and make sure you do not mess-up like I did.
We printed and mailed the letters and were wondering rvhy four
days after we dropped, we had just a few orders. It wasn't until one
of the order takers came to me and said a lot of people were saying
the 80O# on the letter was wrong, so they had to call the 800#
directory to get our correct number!
When she came to me and said that, l knew that was what's
wrong. I called the 80O# in the sales letter and it went to some
carpet cleaner's answering machine.
One of the guys who worked for me got the carpet cleaner's 8OO# to
forward to our lines. We were getting orders. What did he do? Did
he cut some kind of a deal with these carpet cleaners?
T\-rrns out he called the phone company and sirnply forwarded the
800# to our number. This was wrong, and I'rn not even sure if that
was what he did... but it got the orders,coming back to my phones
and while results were not as great as they should have been... at
)79
was
The carpet cleaner ended up finding out we took his 8oo# and
tcind of pissed off. we made him feel better when we gave him
$5.oo0 ior the 30-day usage of his nurnber plus pay his phone bill-
which we did. We also gave him a bunch of software to donate to
the church he was a member of. Turns out the carpet cleaning
business was out of business... so we were lucky' Had it have been
a thriving business, he would have told us to screw-off'
Can this reaily happen? Yes. I even once had a competitor cut into
the phone junction box in front of our building complex and pull
our phone wires out of the connector! lt took the phone company
hours to figure out what was going on! We lost a ton of calls!
Website Down:
I really didn't understand too much about web hosting back then...
and I wanted a single server to handle my website alone... so i had
my programmer put just my site on it's own server with it's own T1
line. So here we are paying $t,OOO to host a simple S-page site...
280
and we had so much down time, this guy lost me easiiy $200.000
in sales. Bottom line- only deal with professionals. If some one
sucks, either a vendor or a customer... take the lesson and get rid
of them.
When you get large, you're not going to simply have a few phone
lines in an oflice. You're going to have a major phone system. Ours
c o s t o v e r $ I O O , O O O . . .c l o s e r t o $ 1 5 0 , O O O .N o w , I r e m e m b e r a f e w
times when this big black box went on the fritz and no seryicemen
were available to come immediately. I'd have 5O order takers and
3O customer service reps looking at me with nothing to do...
knowing every second that went by l was losing money.
The iirst night they had the phones forwarded to them ,I got I /2
the orders I usually get. They were telling us that's all that called
and I just remember thinking to rnyself, "Don't these assholes
know how many orders I get? The next night I calied and some
"ignant" woman hung up on rne after ringing the phone 8 or 9
times... then when I went to call back, it was off the hook for at
least an hour. I never saw anything like it. we imrnediately took
our ca-lls away from these jokers and they actually wanted to get
paid for their time!
I remember I once tested a golf club and left all the calls at the call
center. I was wondering why we didn't get any orders a rveek later.
I called the number listed on my letter and nobody answered the
phone! I called the catl center and nobody in my office alerted them
281
to look for calls on this number i used in the sales letter. My office
s c r e w e dt h i s u p .
You have to nip bh.rndersin the bud. If you don,t catch them fast
enough... they can run you out of business. If your phone lines are
down... the customers are not going to call you back. If y'ute
luclgl, you'Il get 40%. The same with the website. If it's down...
you're losing orders forever. Do not deai with unprofessional call
centers or website hosting companies. The first sign of shit with
them... get rid of them.
ChapterFortyThree:
Knock-Offs
Many direct marketers do not come up with their own ideas... they
steal other's winning ideas.
One direct marketing pro told me once you see an infomercial run
two weekends in a row... it's a sign that it's a profitable show and
other direct marketers will soon steal the idea.
But I really cannot hate them for what theyVe done. My fianc€e
Suzanne gets so mad when she sees one of the knock-offs TV
commercial on TV. I tell her this:
It ta.kes her about a second to say she'd do it. I then say, well how
can we be mad at someone who'd do the same thing wed do?
283
Maybe I'm fooling myself with this bullshit... but it does sure work
to calm rne down. It's a form of a compliment right? We1l, lets not
push it.
cheaper, maybe they should contact rne and bccome m-v media
buyer because I can't get it anY less'
EXCLUSIVES:
This is a tactic I've used for years and it's worked like a charm. I
pissed offall my knock-offs with this tactic... and I loved every
second of it. what I do once I know I have a winner in direct mail
and want to expand into magazines is get exclusives'
The magazine may have no problem with this because they are not
being flooded with marketers wanting to place ads for the same
prodircts you're selling at the time. But the key words are "at the
time". once you get going and the knock-offs come out of the
woodwork... they'Il be hounding every magazine you advertise in.
You've already done the research and proved that magazine works'
So, if youte got a hit and want to expand to magazine ads, get
exciusives right after you negotiate price. If the magazine wants
you to pay $21 ,000 and you want to pay $2O,0O0... the dealmaker
for thern could be the exclusive.
That,s a200k premium... but since I was getting the pages for
fuli
$20/M or $20 cPM... I budged... but made them throrv-in
color... which I used sparingly just to mimic their layout'
Did competitors hate it? You betcha! Did I keep them out? Yup.
sure, they could have copied my product very easily... but if they
couldn't solicit large volumes of customers like i could'.- they stood
no chance.
Month after month, they all fell out. within three months, they
were no longer advertising in FttM. But this would have not been
the case if these marketers were good at creating advertisements.
Lucky for me, they weren't. The publisher should have taken the
exclusive.
you a better deal!". The deal is no better you can be sure of that...
but they will call your competitors and try to egg-them-on to run
ads. Keep in mind, they're a business'
ChapterFortyFour:
ln Closing
I hope I was able to alter your life at least in a small way. Hopefully
you become a multi-millionaire! I sure gave you all the tools I used
to get there 48-tirnes over!
This book may take a few times to read for everything to absorb
into your brain. I1l tell you one thing". it's easier for this
information to be understood if you have an idea for a product in
mind while you are reading it'
Trust me. People have copied what I've done and made themselves
were in
$2OO Million empires... and they were not taught like you
this book.
Your mind has two parts. The conscious and the sub-conscious-
'dream" life. No matter how
Ask yourself to create all idea of your
crazy some of the things sound, write them down in bullet-form. I
don't care if you'd wish you'd own a Rolls Royce and a $20 Million
Estate... and you're famous and you're going out with a beautiful
celebrity... whatever you dream- write it down. Pretend you stili
have the wild imagination of a child. That imagination we used to
have was God's greatest gift to us and our teachers, otlr pai-ents,
our friends all told us to "kili" it. How sfupid they were!
289
in
Now, vou have this list of 2o things or so you wish you'd have
yo.,rlif.. Norv, write them down in present tense as if you aiready
"have
them. so, it lvon't be, "l want a Rolis Royce Phantom"". it'i1 be
.,1own a Rolls Royce Phantom. It's black with a red leather
interior."
Now make a list of the good things in life you want and write them
in present tense. This is called your list of affirmations.
Now, write down your perfect life..., which would include many, if
not ai1 of the things you've listed, you already "had"'
On the top of this pagb, write the date in which you want the goal
to materia-1ize.I)on't set it too close... but don't set it 1O years away
either. Maybe six months away... maybe a year away like this
book's title, "The 12-Month Millionaire".
This is the "secret" of the rich and famous. This is the "secret"
they've used to build their fortunes. Now you can use it yourself.
I wanted a black Rolls Royce. Black with a black Everflex roof and
a cream interior- under 2O.0OOmiles and it had to be a 1991 or
newer.
I wanted a bpsiness that was clean and long lasting that grossed
over $20,000 a week in gross sales.
She ended up moving out west with us a few years later and her
health is good.
When I wrote this, I lived with my Uncle. A few years later, i had a
$+ l,tillion Home and a $2 Million Home at the same time and I had
full time maids that kept the place clean ald picked up my child
from school and even babysitted on the weekends if we needed her.
I could go on... I listed a few more things that all came true. And
while they may not seern like big deals to me right now, they were
written in 1994... and in i994 I didn't have too much. This shrff
was HUGE for me to be thinking about back then. But they all
came true.
This sfuff sounds freaky... and it is. But this is the way we were
'Ihis
wired as humans. is how we get ahead in life. When we have a
sllccess, we do some of the stuff these Eluys teach... it's just we
2q1
clidn,tknowwewerecloingit.onceyouknowhorvtodoitatwii]''.
the World is voursl
your mind"' the mind
Once you plant the stuff you want-into
And everything you want in
makes your body change its vibrations'
of vibration'
life is aitracted to you through the law
the best book that
You've got the best book on rlirect response"'
canteachyouhowpeoplemakemillionsofdollars-fast..'now
youtegottogoout^andgetone,two,orallthreeoftheseself-heip
tooks IVe listed in this book'
ifyoueverneedtocontactme'mycontactinformationislistedin
this book. Feel free to email me'
within the next year"'
Let,s get going! You've got to be a millionaire
my friend'
or else I'rn a fraud. Get cracking! Good fuck'
THE BEGINNING
)92
BONUSCHAPTER ONE;
Fishing
Now, the "product" I'rn selling is just a means to an end' lt's the
"bait" on my hook, so to speak.
i really do not care what I'm selling as long as it makes the fish
bite... and bite we1l.
I feel the same way about products. You shouldn't care so much
about what they are, as long as they pull in the orders.
And that's what this entire business revolves around... you having
strong enough bait to pull more revenue in orders than what it cost
you to mail the sa-lesletters in the first place.
You also have to make sure you're fishing in the right pool of
water. If you're looking for a certain type of ftsh, and they are not
known to be in the stream you're fishing in... get the he1l out of it!
You could be the greatest copywriter in the world, and that is not
going to guarantee youll make rnillions every time you mail a new
293
letter for a nerv product. If that were true, I sure as hell wouldn't
waste rny time writing this book, I'd be rvriting sales lettersl
Try to find a huge wave and ride the damn thing. lf you're seeing
that iow-carb stuff is in, make some sort of product that
pigrybacks off the demand for low carb stuff... a low carb diet
newsletter... a carb-biocker diet pill... etc.
Look for these waves and ride thern. Look at the ipod from Apple.
Do you see how much money these after market accessories
manufacturers are making?
You want the best bait. In order to find it... find a huge need or
desire or pain and make it all better for your prospect. you can
find and create hot products by riding the waves.
294
BONUSCHAPTER TWO:
In a Day
HowTo Lose$48,OOO,OOO
Well, I knew you wouldn't let me finish off this book without
explaining what the hell I was talking about'
I,m sure a lot of people reading this book said, "why the hetl would
this nut start his book with a paragraph iike that?" The answer is
simpie.
Look- I wouldn't want to learn anything from a guy rvho has lived
the pampered life. I want to learn from the guy who has seen the
top of thl mountain... as well as the basement of the jail. That's
the guy who has the "right" information for me.
You see... I was pretty darned successful. I had over $1O Million in
my checking account alone. t had mansions ali over the place'
Dream cars. Everything.
Anyway, here I'm worried oniy about running the business and
keeping the nurnbers right. I',m not focused on being a "target".
So, the limo driver ended up getting fired or quitting- I don't know'
He was so pissed at my partner for whatever reason, and instead of
just letting it go, he went to the local Police Department and said
my partner fondled his son!
Yes.
what this guy then did, was go to the Attorney General of the state
I was operating my business in- He went in and told the
prosecutors a story about how my partner and I were in the mob
and how we were paytng off tl.e mob.., and how we la.ughed at the
customers who bought our products, because they were bogus..-
and horv we never gave customers credits, etc'
Nice guy.
Instead of the state doing a iittle research into this guy, his false
"fondling" story and maybe even giving us arr opportunity to
respond to these allegations... they created Forfeifure for Seizure
Warrant and got a Judge to acfually "help" them polish it!
So, one day my partner and I was at the bank and the Manager of
the branch (rvho rvanted to work for us) comes over and asks, "Why
are all vour accounts frozen?" We looked at hirn like he was crazy,
296
Turns out, the State with their "witness" are suing us for fraud and
money laundering and a list of other horrible things. That was fine.
But what they did was forfeiture. A forfeifure is when the State
comes in and takes a1l your assets- your cars- your homes- your
bank accounts- even the engagement ring off my Fianc€'s finger!
Now, how the hell can yoll fight a case with no resources? In a
way, I wish I were doing something wrong when they seized
everything. If I were doing something wrong, I would have stashed
millions of dollars and had Passports ready to flee. But I had just
$2000 in my pocket and a Rolex on my arm.
On top of taking all your monev and assets, thev also stack
Criminal charges sky-high. But they never file them... they just
threaten you with them.
why rticl they do this?'lhey wanted the $48 Million my partner and
I had.
Not only that, but who's going to pa-v for all those experts you have
io hire? They do nor rvork for iree.
!'J !
'lhe State knows ii,vou ca.nnot aiiorci to ileht iire case, alci if thev
stack the threat of Criminal charges deep enough. youli probabiy
iust torieit ali your assets to them anci gr; away. A rvindl-ail-
You see, rvhen the_Vseize ali _vour aSSetS!the onlv wa-v the,v can
,'keep' thern is to have you sign them over (usuaiiy in
actually
some sori r:i a piea bargain cieaii... or ii-vou get convicted at trial.
And then of course, your ass is going to jaii as well'
I aiwavs haci the beiief vou can make rrlorlelf ' and vou cannot make
time. But I was not reariy to give up just yet'
Ail the pressure iook its toli a Jiear into this. fuly partner and I
stmck a piea deal where we'd forfeit $47 Miilion in cash and assets
and piead guiit_v to monev laundering anci tiaud schemes. ln
refuin, we d put ihis behind us, and keep famiiy mernbers oui of
'I'he
the hot seat 1vewere in. State just wanteci the money'
Turns out the investigators told him when they tirst met him that
they would give him as much as lo?i, of what they seize from us-
That wor.rld have been iike $4.8 tvliliion. Fleli, I know people wholi
make up shit atrout peopie they iike ior the chance at $4.8
Ir{illion... let alons scme guy';rho hates us!
LY'
'l'he
reason whv he carnc iorward? The State ncver pi:ici irirni rinci
he was pisseci anci wanteci io get back ai them the same way he
wantecl io get back at us.
But it was ioo l:rte. We entereci the plea aireativ anci tne .jr-rcige
wouicin't iet us oui of ihe Piea!
I'm not goingio reveaj ihe state I was in... but t wiil tcii vou that it
is a "good oid boy" siate anci it is very corrupt.
The $48 Miiiion ihe State seizeri was suDposeri to go to aii the
victims we createcj with or:r products. While I was in the joint, I
',rrasre.ading a ne',r,'spapergrticle about us. The Sts*'c clairned thei'
received just over- SOOOreqrlests for refunds from o1.rrc1'lstomers.
Our products sold for $5O. I)o the math. That'*e $25O,OOOin
reflr,nds... which is just a.\'hat 1'eelvot-lld ha.ve given back in tti/c'
r,veeli,stiine. But lr.itat is tlre state goi;rg to do rvitlr the othe;'
$47,7SO,OOCthey seized from us? Windfall profits!
Heil, even the builciing our busincss was in... it was sutrposed tg be
liquidared for the "victims". Well, The US Customs Office is in it.
They just decided, "He3r,we iike this building.-. iets iake it'"
Don't have seizable assets. lf you have nothing for them to terlse.
they do not care about purting you in jail- Ail they are afier is rhe
rl1oney.
And -your Lawyer r,vili make back oifice trades with yor-rr lllolleyi
They1l make deais with the state where theyll make sure you give
the staie ail your seized a.ssets in exchange for thc State going
iight on one of their "Vioient" criminal clients. Beiieve me..' li's
true ,
L>'
trne oi our i\iiortrevs has a iriend, rvho hrad a son' This son sot inio
an arg11mentrvith someone anci while the grly was waikii-rg awav'
the kici shor ihe qtrv irt rhe backi
Somehorv, or-rrAitorney got tiris kid got ofl with -iust six ,vears of
probation! Hnd i went to jail! Go figure.
4. i wouia have had Passports tor all my familv involved. li's easier
ior you to negotiate when you are not under US iaw.
5. I would have looked over each one of m-v acls with a magnifying
glass. i wouid have had the ads critiqued by an r\ttorney. i wouid
have made sure I have soiid proof of everv claim, and I would have
kept all ihis soiid proof off site- Not in my home or office-
Sornervliere hiciderr.
6. This rvas out oi rnv control, bui I wouid never make an employee
quit or ger iired mad. Now, when this guy cannot get a new job and
is having financiitl problerns, the iirst ttring he wants to do is make
you have iinanciai Probiems-
i tiiJ
i mention the guy who createti Giris Gone Wild a i'ew tirncs in this
book. He recentiy ran inio a problem in Fioriiia. Agents seized his
Ferrerri and his private jet. But they had to return the jet as it was
ieased! in ihe iong run, he beai ihe case and ali charges were
dropped. But the.iet riid corle back to him immeciiateiv.
'l'here
are probably oniy a handfui of direct markelers tirat carr tell
you as much as I can. I've seen it ali. The good... the bad... the
ugiy. When vou make,vour miliions, make sure to protect them.
-lt) I
E niinor
Lrrrrrbr.v' ro'
Tiie lViillionaire'stibrary
'fcsieci
Acivertising lvlethods- John Caples
'ihis is a great ancl classic book that reaiiv taugnt me about testing
adverr.ising.i think this book is a mrrst-read!
'l'o
T]ne l,azv ivlan's Wa-v R.iches- Joe Karocr
Joe is the man. His book was one of the l-irst books lve read on
direct response. The first half of the book teaches about Dyna-
'l'ire first few chapiers of this book changeci my life for the
Ps-r'ch.
betrer anri a more porveriul anri proforrnci level than just iearning
how to cio maii orcir:r. ll taught rne how I can rely on m1ust:if to get
anything in iife i need or want' Once you're finished with my book
you shoulci go and reacl ieie's as soon as vou can!
i lookecr lor this book lbr over eight years! lt was lirst published in
1966 anci then again in i9B4- And finally again in 20O4. When it
w-as i-irsi publisi:eci irr i966, the author clairns it sold only a few
thousand copies! The new pubiisher of it said he broughi ihis book
track io the marker because he iolrnd an oider copv selling for $90O
on the Internetl Was this book worth the eight years it took me to
finally find it? Ycs. Eugene taught rne many things. One of them is
that if I prrt a potential drawback or negative clairns before a
positive clainr, it ttrerkes tire positive claim fuul to ten times as
por','erfui .:s the cl.::im presented by itself. And n'here most
marketers add hype to their ads and sales letter-s when they do not
r.voik... and get i:o bettet'iesults... wheti the i'ea-l l'eason r,vhy tlte ad
failed is that thc prospect didn't believe the clairns. Hyping the
claims in the seconci aitempt does not make it better. lvlavbe going
in ihe opposiie cjirection will produce better results... water down
some ciaims-.. or acid some negative facts about the product to
make the eood stuff seem more beiievabie. This book was written
i\) /
This is the crassic book rvhich Davici Ogiirry said that nr.>bod1'
shouici have anyihing to do with advertising untii he has reaci this
book 7 times. I believe ii. Hopkins was one of the ilrst gu,vs to
teach aboui advertising techniques being scientiiic- meaning they
can be baseri on scientific princ:inies. This is an old book... Lrut it is
a must reaci.
i like Davio Ogilvy. i rvas upset when right after ire dieci a few v<:ars
ago, I saw his most recent book on ihe "deep-discouni" table in
Barnes and Nobie. You can iearn a iot about his two lavout
formuias- which i have borrorved many times.
22'39 Tesi Secrets For Direct Marketing Sur:cess- liennv Hatch and
Don iackson
I env-v people who do noi know about Hiii's teachings and are
about to learn it ior the first time. Hill changed my life. i u'as abie
to ligure out how peopie are successiul. This is a ciassic i:or;k. A
rnusi read!
,\\r-)
l first gr'lt ihis Ierrge400'page book in 1995. I siiil have it rvithin five
feet of me right as i'm t54pingthis. Jay Abraham was probabiy one
'I'FIE
of, if not biggest consultants rvho inspired rne the most. I
i-emember firsi iearning some of the sltlif in this book anci i was
: a c k a i e w h r : n c i r e d . . .i r h i n k i i k e $ 4 o o - - - b r r t i f
f l o o r e r J -i r ' i i s e i S r o r b
you have it ten years later atrd can still refer to it, it's a gr:od
investment.
'i'his
ciassic teaches vou how to get wirai vou want by giving others
what they want. i.ior reaily about mail order, or direct response
selling.". but it is a must read for any one looking to "sell" either in
person or through Print media.
This is a iree site of m_vpa1 anci rnentor Uary Halbert. i-ie's the seif-
prociaimed "Best Copywriter In The Worid" who's made huncireds
of millions ior the peopie he's rvorkeci with over the years. 'fhis site
is basicaliy copies of his famous nervsierrer dating back to 1986.
it's free and itt a must reaci. You're eoing to want to get on his iist
so you can get aierted every time he posts a fresh newsietier.
grobleru:
Srrt ::s] :.ne-tter ii+t+ goAd- I ar31,.=I b*ve a- -t5r3-iI
oi rniiii,-lns <-rfrir-rilz.rrsin
Als<-r-ive rlzrrle m(-)re thAn m,., rail sner-r-e
this business. For me, i now gei my kicks helping ot.her marketers
i nc m.St: i r-'s a. i r:li r-tnc:.
t r-rm ZLk-r-'
"'
(-lr-resti._)ItrJr'{-y-)n.-'r]I'i) .r'LrLt"t
-\'f-}Lt,iLrruit,'!'l:tt-.lc n-rtrre.iJfti.{',,it z'Lv,;:1i-,.-1,-r!
business.
l i h a i i r h e n d i r i r * , ' a sd i v i r i e S l , f i ( ) O . O 0 i )h 1 . t h a t : 2 O 0 . i . . a m e r p \ . r - / i r h
$5,000, That would be the fee I w-oulcineed to be paid by 2OO
-rc in ar:::uC pa;'.
ciie::is iiialic lfl!' iji-:e ;;lilitrcrt ii;liat-s
r-'<-rn5!rJ-er
F-ive gra-nr: is a piftant-:e- e sner-:ially wtren yr-rr-1 mi,rrk"eting
experts such as .Jay,Abraham charge $5OOOfor one single hour...
a-nd j think ]'r-)Llma-v E1ar.'e ttl irook irim in 2-h,-,r-r-r That's
bir-rr;5-3.
TEN GRAND ior 2 hours,
-1. &,Itt c:eliu,lct-rntsrtber tr-t or:'t o nr-:/ci t-ri m.e uLh-ereler I ur,... rt-rtr-i
4. !,iyl nr,:rst-tile,i Iui.rirr:SS rr.:Sr!rt:€d.t:rr:[t-tSi-r.:::i'.t,t'rtr
r:rrt-r,t-ii. tttr:20i.)
ciienrs... ?'his u)alj .-. befi:re ute actuaiiy spr,ait- Llolt can shoot me ap
t!r-t-'rt)
r-'iir-tr-:5;t't-t-tr(i
{:'rnilii.ii,'sf ii Ltt.ii.i. <-ut'rr-
itl<tk- at)€r ?!-t€:rytti:tg u'nei
think abou: ii for o second antl tnen i can ccil Aou bQck LDiih the
(:,liLS [r(i r'..-t.
counry right norv- rvith aii oiyour qrlestions. I can help you guicle
i,he :tratospncrei
-vour b,-,-sines:sanri i!n2r-nrr'is l'-l
r-'cr,tici.vr-rr,t
Scricrr-ts!-v-- irtage vL)r-lwL)LLir-lt-re wrth NlE
itow sr-tct-:essl'r,.rl
in YOUR corncr? Whar about if i found a way to guide you to a i0O
Mi11ir-ln Dr-rilir-r iririt,r i\,rq: 1-iq-rp1r
it t-rt:itlre'
The rhis
i:est c:=r.ri ir-i_:r.tr_lr gr:ing;1
is.r.L.tr_r'!-,j get ir,ii:, in Y(jl-lii c(-rl1l{:'li
for under $i4 a ciay. FOURTEEN FUCKii'iG DOLI-ARSi
H o l d - v o u r h o r s e s - , . t h e r - e e r e f o u : t e r r n s . 1 1 6 1 11 6 . , ' 6 1t r : a g r e e t o :
!", P+-""':i4rrt is sir-t-eir: i:ril r:::fr+:rt-
The fee i'm asking ior is so smaii considering r''rhat you are to gain
r",.'ith,.vannil.i-rfs.
a-n11 ai::r-r i riei nr-rt-',-';a-nt t-r--'r.jr-te; i rio n[,rt.-.,iani','olii
rnortgage money... or ihe money your famiiSzneeds io use for
r-linner tr-rnigirt. I m gtring tr-rneerl real plir-vers whr-) r--a-na-ffi-rrrla-11
the
money upfroni.
Nk-Vi n r--:
ent-] a m r:s:arv a h oo . co rr
yr-lLir r-'ner-'k
i i I ' f n r - y f C 1 t : r ; ) t - l t - itL n . - i -i . . r t - r . , , 'ifl e r 0 ( . 1 m . . . i l n . - i : l S i r - r n q a - S
ciears the banl<... i'ii send you out the secret business card wiih aii
ccntilct iniorm:.'.tirrn tr: ir:ir-r-'hrne '
i[r; qyjtlr-':-r-i
l'hanks!
Vincent,Ia-mes
.tlu th or, i) irect iviarke te r, Con sul tant, C opywriter
. !il
'*rnt-1h;r-r-'qi1
Sr: there
'io 4O8'2iO
scme... this book is nothing mor{: rhan 92'625 !'?orcis"'
o t 5 , 5 6 4 s e n t e n c e s ' T o s o me' this
c h a r a c t e r s. . . 2 , 4 7 3 p a r a g r a p h i " '
wiii i:e a iiie-changlng e;<perience'
a-ssome of
Don'! discor-rntfor a- second- the teaching in this hook-
and women
them are reaiiy simpie- They have made many men
- J-LiC)NAIRES. EVD N BILLIU NAIRES'
ii,iIi.i-iON AIRE AN [) ivii_II .TT i''I_i
*borrowec!." one oi rnv prodticr
A man trcrm ohio na-r-necisteve h-as
buiir a
ideas, appiied my ieachings, and in iess ihan 35-molths'
rlt_tAR'l.ER{lF A LTILLION bOt-.l.nn business with 9{-){lern'!:lovees'
HOWB]GT\NEN,iPiRtrT\REYOIJGOi}JGTf)BLIILD?
Good Li-rck.
Vincent.lames
Ir'iarch 29tb, 2OOs
8:59 PIvl
Las Vegas, Nevada