So don't mess around with your life. I have messed up enough for both of us.
End of sermon.
Now, I'm going to talk to you about a big difference between people who make it in any field (including crime) and those who do not.
That difference is awareness.
Most people (at least many) walk around with their heads in the sand.
They are lost in a fog. They go whichever way the current of the streams of their world happens to push them. They are sheep and they are regularly shorn.
This is a bad way to be in prison. Prison is a microcosm of society and weak fish are gobbled up fast. So are those who walk around with their heads in the clouds oblivious to what is going on about them. You can't sulk in prison. You can't waste time feeling sorry for yourself. You can't stay lost in fantasies about your woman or what you are going to do when you hit the streets. No. What you must be here (and it's a good idea wherever you are!) is alert, on top of things and ready at any time to "catch a break".
Guys in prison take care of themselves. They exercise their bodies, pay attention to their grooming, read, study and much more. You see, you never know when opportunity will knock (and it does, even here) and, if you are smart, you must be ready.
Does all this have anything to do with direct mail and mail order? You bet it does. Mail order (and all other) fortunes are made by men and women who know what's going on in their fields. These are the people who stay up to date. They read the trade journals, they make sure they are on everybody else's mailing list so they know what the competition is doing, they read all the "HOT" mail order publications, they keep their "SWIPE FILE" up to date, they read and reread the classic books written by the best people in the field, they have idea files that contain newspaper articles, notes of unusual info, hot new ideas, good layouts, unusual propositions, and so forth. They also know who the leaders are in their respective fields and they communicate with these people on a regular basis.
You know, kiddo, quite often I am referred to as an advertising genius, the "best copywriter in the world" and so forth. Now, as you know, I would be the 1st person in the world to deny these claims but if I really am so good, there is at least one reason for it that everybody misses. It is this:
I Work Like Crazy!
STOP
4:57
START AGAIN
5:37
I just came back from the TV area and there is a guy out there who lives across the hall from me. At first, I didn't recognize him. He's a white guy, a body builder, and he has long flowing shoulder-length hair. He's been down for a long time and the reason I had a hard time recognizing him is his hair is now very short and neat. And, I'm telling you, with his short, neat hair and his no-nonsense glasses, he looks like Clark Kent. Well, anyway, I heard him explaining to another inmate that he is getting ready to go before the parole board and he is going to make sure he doesn't give them any reason to not turn him loose.
This, my man, is the attitude to have. Always be ready to catch a break. You know, if you play enough poker, sooner or later, after thousands of hands, everybody in the game will more or less have been dealt the same amount of good hands, bad hands and mediocre hands.
What determines the winners? It's how they play the cards that were dealt them. Were they alert and ready to exploit the good ones? Did they perceive that the bad ones were in fact bad in time enough to dump them without huge losses? Were they ready to exploit or abandon their mediocre hands as the different situations dictated?
Sweat the details. It's an area I have been remiss in and I am working to correct this state of affairs.
You do it too.
Man, am I doing a lot of writing! I've even learned to hold the pen another way when my hand gets tired from holding it the regular way~~
Oops! I lost it.
You know what? It's so hot in this room I have to keep a bandanna (it's the blue one) under my arm to keep from getting sweat stains on the paper.
And now, we're going to talk about believability. Believability is one of the top most important ingredients of good MO & DM promotions. One way to increase believability is to give exact details. Instead of "most car owners" write "77.6% of all car owners". Instead of "you can lose lots of weight" write "and the average reported weight loss over a 31-day period was 37.5 pounds for men and 26.3 pounds for women".
And, did you notice up there that when I mentioned my bandanna, I said "it's the blue one" in parenthesis? Did you wonder why I wrote it like that? I bet you didn't. I hope not. I hope not because if you did notice, then you were noticing my writing style instead of my message.
And that's not good. However, I'll bet that little extra detail of info drew you closer to me and my letter and made this communication "more real" for you.
And, if you were a stranger, these types of details makes everything that is written that much more believable.
STOP
5:57
START AGAIN
6:00
Now, here's something else that seems to fit in my rather mish mash theme for today. It has to do with time. You know something? Most people who are on top of things and "aware" usually know what time it is within a few minutes without looking at a clock or watch.
Check yourself right now. Don't look up from this page and write down right here what time you think it is. {time you think it is _________________}
Now check and see what time it actually is and write it down right here. {time it actually is _________________}
How much difference is there? If there is more than 10 minutes, you are off too much. You should be able to guess with no more than a 7-minute margin of error either way.
This is one of the ways I check myself. And, if I am more than 7-minutes off, I take a walk or do something else physical before I have any important discussions or make any important decisions.
You know what got me going on about this? Of course you don't. Well, what got me going was, I looked at my watch and realized I was a full hour off!
STOP 6:09
I LOVE YOU
AND GOOD LUCK!
Dad
UPDATE:
My father’s guilt worked on me with everything but roadwork. I just hate running and still do.
Every few years I pick up jogging and build up to running a few miles a day and I just hate it.
The only marketing related update I’ll add is there are many ways to add more believability but I’m going to ad a relatively new one.
Now that it’s so inexpensive, video can often provide excellent proof of claims but I like to add a special twist.
In print you can use the videos existence as proof by saying our customers have taken to youtube to share their success stories.
I like to offer video testimonials whenever possible and I will write out the main thing I want them to hear in a quote directly below the video like so.
*************
VIDEO
*************
“… Bond’s advice doubled my profits!”
This way readers don’t even have to look at the video to get the main point and the fact that the video is there adds more believability than static testimonials.
As I said there are lots of ways to add beleiveabilioty to your offers and you can read more of my dad’s advice over at halbertizing.com
more free letters at halbertising.com
The Boron Letters
Chapter 24
Thursday, 7:15 AM
July 5, 1984
Dear Son,
Well, I'm feeling better today. I think these short, frequent days of fasting are really cleaning me out. I really feel a need now, more than ever, to shed my excess weight because it is starting to get really hot here. In fact, I'll be it's 80 degrees or so already this morning.
Anyhow. What I want to tell you this morning is that after tomorrow I am going to stop writing these letters for a while. There are several reasons: For example, I need to review some reference mater
ial and take notes and then, more or less outline, the future letters as my babblings seem to me to be getting too random. Another thing is that I want you to get this first batch of 25 letters typed up so I can easily review them and take notes from them also. And, also, I need to catch up on some of my other work like filing my rule 35 motion (a request for a modification of sentence) so I'll have a chance of getting out of here earlier.
And, finally, I have a couple of "bankers" who are eager for me to develop some promotions which they will finance and then we will split any profits 50/50.
And you know what? I think an excellent way for you to learn how to make money in this business is to watch over my shoulder as I begin to create one profitable promotion after another.
Here's how I'm going to start: First of all, I am going to go through the SRDS book and make a note of all the lists that look like hot markets. Then, I'm going to show Eric this list of listsand ask for his comments. I'm sure he will be able to add to my lists and maybe he will also be able to tell me that some of the lists are really not so hot.
In any case, after all that, I will have a page full of list selections and I will write you a letter telling you what lists I have selected. After that, I will put on my thinking cap and develop some product ideas to try and sell to the various lists. By the way, I would very much appreciate any ideas that pop into your head after you see my list of lists. Well, in any case, after all this, I will sleep on it and then, pretty soon, I will codify (isn't that a neat word) and isolate the projects I want to work on.
Then I'll talk to my bankers.
Here's the way it works with my bankers. If they see a project they would like to be involved with, they will have to come up with a development fee of $5,000.00. (Believe me, that's peanuts to these guys.) This $5,000.00 will be used to create a DM piece and to make a test mailing of that piece to 2-5M names. We will also use some of the money for product development.
O.K. after that, if the response is no good, the banker will eat his $5,000.00 loss and we will go on to the next project.
If, however, the results look good, we will then proceed to a larger mailing of perhaps 50,000 pieces. And then, after we get our results from the 50,000 pieces, if everything still looks good, we will start rolling out and taking care of business.
It's a good outline, I think. I intend to keep you informed every step of the way and I'll let you "live" the development of these projects with me. And, as a matter of fact, I think I will let you help me with some of these projects and give you a small cut of the action.
So, sharpen your driving skills. Do your roadwork and get cracking on all those other things I told you were good things to do. I'll join you again on my lunch hour.
STOP
7:40
START AGAIN
3:12
Well, kiddo, it's past the lunch hour but better late than never, eh? Whatever. I'm stuck for a theme again. What do you suggest? O.K. How about the subject of IMPACT? Good, I'm glad you agree.
Impact is the impression you or your promotion makes on its intended target. Someone once said that the average American is subjected to about 1,500 commercial messages every day. Probably so. Especially when you count billboards, ads on TV, ads on radio, ads on the backs of buses, on taxicabs, on match covers, in newspapers, magazines, direct mail pieces, etc., etc.
However, out of all those ads very very few have any appreciable impact. And impact is one of the things I strive for.
STOP
3:18
START AGAIN
9:17
And, what I want to talk about right now is my favorite way in all the world to achieve impact with my DM promotions. What I'm talking about is attaching things to the top of my letters. I've mentioned this before but now I want to go into it in considerably more detail.
The best letter ever to use this technique was the classic "dollar bill" letter featured in "The Robert Collier Letter Book." (must reread)
This was a first class letter that was designed to raise funds for a children's hospital. When the recipient opened the envelope he discovered a personal typed letter with a real honest-to-goodness dollar bill attached to it. The copy explained that the writer wanted to donate a thousand dollars to a certain children's hospital but that he realized that a thousand dollars wouldn't go very far. So, what he (the writer) had decided to do was divide his $1,000.00 contribution into 1,000 - one dollar bills and then mail these bills to 1,000 different people. Now, he went on to say, what he hoped is that everybody who received one of these dollar bills would decide not to keep it and, instead, send it straight to the hospital with one or more dollars of their own.
Did it work? Oh my! It was probably the most effective direct mail promotion ever mailed. It got better than a 90% response and the people to whom it was mailed eventually contributed tens of millions of dollars!
That's Impact!
Today, in the mail, I received a copy of my Japanese "Penny" promotion. This promotion, as you know, has a Japanese "Penny" attached to the top of the letter and the copy says that the writer is attaching the penny to the letter for two important reasons.
The first reason is to get attention. And, secondly, because what the letter has to talk about was discovered in Japan, the writer felt that some sort of "Japanese" eyecatcher was appropriate.
This letter is working like crazy. It has impact.
But, be careful. Whatever you attach to the top of your letters should tie in with the rest of your letter and what you are selling. It should make sense and fit into the promotion in a natural way.
Here is an example of how not to use impact: Some companies print up advertising that, at first glance, looks like a traffic ticket. Then, they hire kids to put these traffic ticket type ads on the windshields of parked cars.
What happens is, that the owner of the car comes back to discover what seems to be a traffic ticket on his windshield and he, naturally, grabs it forthwith and starts to read it.
It sure gets his attention. It sure achieves impact. The guy will sure remember that company.
But He Will Remember The
Company With Distaste!
He Will Remember That This
Is A Company That Scared
Him And Made Him Angry!
You know what all that adds up to?
No Sale!
STOP
9:40
START AGAIN
9:42
The message is clear: You must not use "cheap tricks". Make what you attach to the letter "fit in". All it takes is a little imagination. Let's see if I can come up with a couple of original examples:
How about attaching an eagle feather to a letter that tells how these birds are in danger of becoming extinct?
How about attaching a Mexican Peso to a letter that talks about inflation? I did it and it was a great puller.
How about a computer microchip attached to a letter that explains why a certain new electronic product is superior to the competition?
How about my son attaching a picture of himself to a letter to his old man that tells him how he is getting into good shape?
How about you send me some ideas along these lines?
STOP 9:48
I LOVE YOU
AND GOOD LUCK!
Dad
In this letter my father mentions bankers and it's every creative marketer's dream to have a capable and energetic partner who handles all the logistics of managing the business but it rarely works out.
Here is the natural evolution of a copywriter.
After studying the art of copy, most newbies struggle a lot to land jobs.
They have a few failures and eventually write a winning ad for a client or tow.
Soon, the word of his success gets around and all of a sudden others want to talk about hiring the new hot shot.
The writer soon learns it takes a lot these to research and write effective sales copy for a particular market so copywriters naturally begin to get more hits
in one field and begin to specialize.
Not wanting to deal with all the hassles of finding new clients and selling them on how great their copy is, the writer soon finds life easier working for just one or two clients.
These are the clients they write winning ads for and these business owners begin to dominate the copywriter's workload.
Then one of two things happens.
Either...
A) An ad or two fails to produce profits
or
B) The client refuses to keep handing over money for what they consider to be a few hours of work done a long time ago
No matter which case happens the writer soon finds themselves in a bad situation.
They have been off the market and now they struggle to find work.
By this time they usually partner with an old friend who wants to tap into their success or start their own business (usually selling a copywriting course)
The Boron Letters Page 13