And, after that headline, your copy begins like so... "Dear Friend, my name is Famous Movie Star and I want to tell you about a hot new report I just read that could be worth a small fortune to you. This report is called, 'Gary's Guide to Government Goodies' and..."

      Etc., etc. Now, what about that business of holding checks, money orders and credit card charges for 30-days? Listen, my friend, one of the main reasons people are reluctant to buy by mail is they are paranoid. They see their money disappearing down a black hole into a "Never-Never Land" where, even if they don't get what they ordered, they never get their money back!

      But, if they can post-date their checks and money orders for 30-days, then they have in their minds (and in actuality), some control over their money. They can cancel payment if they don't receive or are dissatisfied with your merchandise. This removes much of their anxiety and paranoia and makes them much more likely to give you an order.

      But wait! Isn't this M.O. going to result in a lot of bad checks? Aren't we living rather dangerously here? It depends. I believe if you truly deliver quality, the positives drastically outweigh the negatives. For example, I have recently sold 2,091 copies of my book, "How To Make Maximum Money In Minimum Time" using this idea of holding all payments for 30-days. And guess how many bad checks I got? Believe it or not, only 45 or, to put it another way...

Only 2.15%!

      Trust me, amigo, this is far fewer bad checks than are generated by most ads that do not offer the 30-day hold!

      But don't forget, my book delivers on every single promise I make in my advertising. If it did not, I expect my percentage of bad checks would be much higher.

      Onward. Let's talk about this business of double-your-money-back, OK? Look, when you offer this kind of "conditional" guarantee, said guarantee is predicated on the buyer actually trying the plan of action you reveal to him. Here's a true story: Once upon a time, I joined a health club and, after visiting the establishment just once, never went back again. What I discovered was that using all those machines and doing all that exercise was work. And that's not what I wanted. No. I wanted magic. So anyway, I had a friend at that time who was an attorney and he offered to pull some shenanigans and get my money back for me.

      But I said no. You see, they lived up to their part of the deal. The gym was there. The equipment was there. The instructors were there. In other words, they provided everything they promised. So, in my mind (and I still feel that way today), I didn't deserve the money back.

      Keep that in mind while I tell you another true story. (I can't remember whether I've written about this before or not. Oh well, such is life when you have CRS*). Years ago, I was called in as a consultant/copywriter to do some work for "Entrepreneur Magazine." At that time, they were having trouble with refunds on these "Start-Up Research Reports" which they were selling for around $30 to $60. And you know, they could hardly believe their ears when I told them to start offering a double-your-money-back refund. But see, I told them to make it conditional. I told them to merely ask the guy who bought one of their reports to just prove he at least made the merest stab at using the info. I told them to tell their customers they could get a refund just by asking for it on their company letterhead, stapled to which was one of their business cards and photocopy of their business license. They didn't have to jump through hoops. They just had to make an effort to at least start a business.

      The results? Sales went up and refunds ceased to be a problem.

      CAUTION: Do not misuse this technique. Don't insist your customer do something unusual to get a refund. Just insist he try using those exercise machines before he concludes your health club isn't worth the cost of membership.

      If you are unreasonable about this, if you make it too hard for your customers to get a refund, you stand an excellent chance of getting slammed around by some regulatory agency. Trust me, I know this to be true from personal experience because one of my clients had this problem.

      Here's an example of how not to do it. There's a guy who goes by the name of Don Carrington and who sells something called, "The Millionaire's Road To Riches" report which is about selling by mail. Here is what he tells his customers they must do in order to get a refund:

"1.    Send me a copy of the 'Globe' and 'National Examiner showing your full-page ad in it.

2.     Send me a photocopy of your advertising insertion order form certified as being received and acknowledged by them.

3.     Send me a signed sworn statement from your bank manager certifying you did not deposit $15,000 in your bank within 30 days of receiving your first order.

4.     Return the original mailing label from the package you received this material in, unaltered and unchanged.

5.     Return this material in salable condition.

6.     Package all of the above together, and send it to me by 'insured' first-class mail.

7.     These instructions must be followed exactly, and everything must be done within 120 days of receiving this material."

      Pretty cute, right? Actually, it's stupid. This guy, if he doesn't change his ways, is very likely to get his ass in a sling. The Federales, if they ever happen to read his refund instructions, are going to come down on him like a ton of bricks.

      And look, there's no need for this garbage! Let me tell you something. If you deliver value, if you deliver what you promise to deliver, then...

The Only People Who Will Ask For A Refund

Are Those Who Never Intended To Keep
Your Merchandise In The First Place!

      So, you don't have to ask them to do much. Just ask they do a little something. Get a few business cards printed. Apply for a business license. Go to the gym and use the equipment 5 or 6 times. Actually, try the diet for a week. These are reasonable requests, but what Don Carrington is doing is foolish, stupid and dangerous.

      Look, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this Don Carrington is a bad guy. Also, I'm not inferring his report is of no value. I'm just saying he's misusing the idea of a conditional guarantee in a manner that, through personal experience, I know to be dangerous.

      Now, let's put all this together and see what we've got. First and foremost, we have...

An Offer With Proven Viability!

      That is supremely important. It is the bedrock foundation of everything else in this letter. Remember, you can't multiply zeros! All the celebrities in the world, all the tricks, gimmicks and strategies, all the strong guarantees, all the generous offers to hold checks 30, 60 or 90-days before processing... none of this amounts to a hill of beans unless you start with a proven offer.

      But hey, we did start with a proven offer. The proof of this, of course, is these "seized property" ads just keep running over and over.

      OK, this next part here should be interesting. What I'm going to do is make a few "educated guesses" on what all this "sweetening" will do to one of these promotions. My first guess is many of these ads pull in about 1-1/2 times ad cost. Let's say an ad costs $10,000. What that means is, according to my guess, it would be usual for one of these "unsweetened" ads to pull in $15,000 on that $10,000 expenditure. If the book sells for $12.50 plus $1.50 postage and handling to generate $15,000 in sales, the ad has to pull in 1,071 orders ($15,000 ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­divided by $14.00). Now, let's say it costs $3.00 to print up the book, stick it in a padded envelope and mail it out book rate. So, the cost of processing 1,071 orders is 1,071 x $3.00 or $3,213. Therefore, our expenses (not counting overhead) are $10,000 to pay for the ad and $3,213 to fill the orders or a total of $13,213. Which, when deducted from our $15,000 gross sales, leaves us a gross profit (before refunds, etc.) of $1,787.

      Doesn't seem like much, does it? Rounded off, it's about an 18% return which will take about 90-days to be realized. But you know what? That's an annualized return of 72% which sure beats the stock market, doesn't it?

      No matter. Being the greedy capitalist pigs we are, we're not going to settle for this kind of chump change, now are we? No Sir! So now, let's see what happens (according to my guesses), when we sweeten up this little puppy. Here's what I think the sweetening factor (improvement in sales) will be from the three major changes we've discussed in this letter:

            CHANGE                        SWEETENING FACTOR

                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      1. Adding a celebrity                                                                       x 1.4

      2. 30-day hold on payments                                                            x 1.3

      3. Double-your-money-back guarantee                                           x 1.2

      OK, now remember, our unsweetened ad pulled in $15,000 so, let's multiply that by the SF (Sweetening Factor) of adding a celeb:

$15,000 x 1.4 = $21,000

      And let's take that number and multiply it by the SF of a 30-day hold on payments:

$21,000 x 1.3 = $27,300

      And let's take that number and multiply it by the SF of a double-your-money-back guarantee:

$27,300 x 1.2 = $32,760

      So now, my friend, let us cipher together and see what financial miracles our changes hath wrought. Since our gross is now $32,760, that means our ad is now pulling in 2,340 orders ($32,760 divided by $14.00) which will cost us $7,020 (2,340 x $3.00) to fill. Add this to our advertising cost of $10,000 and you can see that our expenses, sans overhead and returns, amount to $17,020 which, when deducted from our gross of $32,760...

Leaves Us A Profit Of $15,740!

      Yahoo! Now we're cookin', ain't we? Remember, the profit of the unsweetened ad was $1,787 which means we have upped our profitability 880%!

      AN IMPORTANT POINT TO REMEMBER: You do not have to be twice as tall to see twice as far. Just a few inches more in height will put your vision above the heads of all the rest of the mob. And so it is with response. You do not have to double your response to double your profit. Since the first big chunk of change you drag in goes to pay for your advertising and fulfillment expenses, you only have to "sweeten" your gross a wee bit (maybe by about 15%) to double your profit. However, in this hypothetical case, we have, by plugging in a celeb, a 30-day hold and a double-money-back guarantee... we have achieved enormous increase in net profit by slightly less than doubling our response.

      I wonder, my friend, do you realize the importance of what you have just read? I have given you the closest thing you'll ever get to a fool-proof money-making formula. I know, I know... it's not a "magic money chant" that will give you riches without effort. It's going to cost you something in time, money and effort. But the payoff... my Lord, the payoff for doing what I have just described could, very realistically make you a multi-millionaire who laughs at what used to be money problems.

      Think about it.

	Sincerely,
	Gary C. Halbert

P.S. With this issue, I am sending you a free gift. It is a magnificent piece of art, suitable for framing, that will make a tasteful addition to your office decor. You'll find it inside sealed envelope #1.

        As far as sealed envelope #2 is concerned, please do not open it unless you are one of my "Inner Circle" Lifetime Subscribers. This is a "closed circuit" message for Lifers only who have not yet responded to my electrifying letter of June 29, 1990.

P.S.#2  I don't feel finished yet. I want to give you even more this month. So, let me ask you something: What do you think the guys who run those "unsweetened" ads do when they get an order?

            Well, what they do is, they wait till they have enough orders to justify sitting down at one of their stupid PC's to input all of the data. Then, they generate labels and, when they get around to it, they slap a label on a padded envelope and send out their books. That means that, from the day their customer answers an ad, about three weeks (minimum) goes by before that customer hears from the stranger to whom he has sent his money.

            Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

            But not you. No Sir, that's not how you are going to take care of business. What you are going to do is this: You are going to get out a first-class letter to each of your customers the same day you get his order and tell him you appreciate his business and how smart he was to order your book which has already been shipped to him in a separate package.

            And... and... and... you're also going to tell him how you've got another related report hot off the press that, if he orders now, he can get a deal on and get a head start on a brand new way to make money.

            So, what's this new report going to be about? Well, I don't know. I can't do all your thinking for you. Maybe it's how to get deals on bank repos. Or how to make a killing buying diamonds from pawn shops (you can) or make money reading classified ads or... or... or whatever. The point is, if you do this and do it right, something like...

20% Of The People You Mail

This "Welcome Letter" To

Will Immediately Send You Another Check!

            Peace.

Copyright © 2002 Gary C. Halbert.  All Rights Reserved.