From:
North of Jewfish Creek
Friday, 7:53 a.m.

February 28, 1997

Dear Friend & Subscriber,

      I bet Bill Gates never had a good piece of ass in his life.

      I'll get back to the crucially important subject of Mr. Gates' sex life (or lack thereof) in a moment. But first, please allow me to digress a few moments to other matters of far less global significance.

      Listen, I've been wanting to do something nice... something... very special... for my Lifetime Subscribers for a long time... and... if you're one of my "Lifers" you're gonna love this one!

      As you know, I've been writing and publishing this letter going on 11 years now and, during that time, I've been giving a few very expensive seminars, usually two or three times a year. Well, as it happens, each year, more and more of my newsletter subscribers and seminar attendees are members of the medical profession. Surgeons, shrinks, chiropractors, plastic surgeons, dentists (especially dentists), pediatricians and proctologists. (Speaking of proctologists, how does someone make the decision to make that his career of choice?  Is it like that scene in "The Graduate" where some guy whispers the word "plastics" in Dustin Hoffman's ear? Except, the guy says "assholes!"?)

      Whatever. Let's focus on dentists. Many of the D.D.S.s I've worked with like Travis McFee, Kit Weathers, the Madow Brothers and many others have become fabulously successful. It irritates me so many dentists I have worked with have far eclipsed the meager financial successes of their impoverished mentor. So therefore, I have decided..

The Dentists Of America Have To Pay!

      Ah yes. I've been asked to give a Gary Halbert Seminar especially for dentists. This seminar is not about dentistry; it is about the business of dentistry. But, the way I've put this together, makes it the most valuable seminar... anyone... could attend... no matter what... business they are in.  This is going to be my most intense seminar I've ever given. It's going to happen here in Miami Beach at the Eden Roc Resort & Spa (as posh as posh can get) on April 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th. Guess what it costs to attend? Are you sitting down? Ready? Okay boys and girls, the cost for a dentist to attend this seminar is... $17,000.00!

      You read it right. That's seventeen thousand smackeroos. And, it's gonna be worth every penny! I agreed to do this seminar (and, put my heart and soul into it) based on two conditions:

1.     I get paid a healthy fee.

2.     I get to let my Lifetime Subscribers attend... FREE!

      Condition #1 was no problem. When you're gonna get 100 or so D.D.S.s to shell out 17 thou apiece to attend a seminar, you can afford to be pretty damn generous with the guy making it happen. But, they sure as hell didn't like that second condition. So... I made the decision easy for them. "It's very simple," I said, "if my Lifers don't get to come free, I'm not going to do the seminar."

      They caved.

      And so, Buckwheat, if you are a Lifetime subscriber to this letter... and... you want to attend the hottest marketing seminar ever... and... you want to attend free... here's what you gotta do... and... you gotta do it now:

(A)   Call the Eden Roc Resort & Spa at (305) 531-0000 and book your room.

(B)   After that, and only after that, contact my office... by FAX... and let us know you are coming. We can't take phone calls for this. We're working feverishly to pull this deal together and there's just too many of my Lifers (not to mention all those dentists) who want to attend this seminar for us to spend time with each of them on the phone. Besides, after you sign up, you'll get an info package that gives you all the nitty-gritty logistical details. So, if you want to come, make your room reservation at the Eden Roc and fax my office (1-305-534-8366) a very short letter thanking me for making this possible for you... and... giving me your name, address, daytime phone number with area code, and confirmation number of your Eden Roc room reservation.

      You're welcome.

      Okay, back to Bill Gates and his sex problem. Actually, to be factual, I guess I should describe this as what I perceive to be his wee, wee-wee problem. You see, Bill Gates can only use one hand when he...

      WAIT! I gotta digress again. As I age I suffer more and more from CRS ("Can't Remember Shit") and, if I don't get this next part down on paper, I might forget. So, sit up and pay attention. Come closer. I've just read what I consider to be one of the best sales letters ever written. I'll tell you why this letter is so good after you read it. Here's the letter:

SPECIAL REPORT 

Is The Internet

Alive Or Dead

For Marketers

In 1997? 

Dear IC Member,

Pictured at right: the cover of a recent issue of POPULAR MECHANICS, featuring an article "Death Of The Internet." As you know, I've remained an "Internet skeptic", I think with good reason. This article and others, and many savvy individuals' analysis of and experience with the Internet just isn't very good. Let me summarize the negatives first:

1. As this article points out, it's crowded, cluttered, disorganized, and, increasingly, hard to get on - "busy signals for minutes to hours are the norm" - and slow to use. The first class action suit was recently filed against AmericaOnline, seeking to stop their sale of new memberships on the grounds that they cannot provide services as promised to the members they've got. AOL's problems are a microcosm of the entire World Wide Web.

2. The huge numbers of on-line users is, for most marketers, an irrelevant although seductive illusion. Most "business users" are using this thing one way and one way only for e-mail...as a a communication tool, like the phone or the FAX. They aren't "surfing." Or buying. In homes, the primary users are kids under the age of 18.

3. The "marketing success stories" remain few and far between, are often exaggerated and distorted by get-rich-via-Internet promoters, and many are not at all useful as models for the rest of us. The biggest winners are all in the "sex business" one way or another. The two web sites visited most: Playboy and Penthouse. The lion's share of the actual direct sales transactions are with sex products and services related sites. What was the 900# business is now on the Internet, but with pictures. In a recent A&E report on the "gentlemens clubs business" (which is booming), that industry's experts predicted the Internet offered their greatest opportunities for revenue expansion.

4. Contrary to popular promotion, marketing via the Internet is NOT "free." It takes time, attention and energy away from other, more predictable opportunities. There are costs for site set-up and maintenance. Etc.

For all these reasons, and others, I remain an Internet skeptic. However, over the past handful of months, I've conducted an exhaustive analysis of what opportunities do exist and may develop regarding the Internet, for a client of mine already operating one of the largest Internet "malls" and doing about 5-million dollars a year or so of Internet business, and yes, there are positives and positive indicators to talk about, too. For example:

1. A large percentage of adult Internet users spend a lot of time visiting web sites, surfing, conversing, plucking items of interest off bulletin boards, participating in news groups, and so on. In this month's newsletter, I noted the amount of time each visitor spends at a cataloguer's web site - phenomenal. I can tell you that the average visitor to MY web site goes through five to ten "pages" and stays there for some time. These folks are serious info gatherers.

2. My favorite expert Ken McCarthy (who I'll tell you more about in a minute) insists that people are less critical of what they find and read on the Internet than they are of traditional advertising.

3. Somebody hooked to each computer has money. After all, you're talking $2,000.00 or more in hardware, hundreds of dollars for software, and $20 a month or more to be hooked up, for service.

4. Most of the web sites and other marketing efforts now populating the Net are terrible, defy everything we know about direct-response, and cannot possibly produce. As John Tighe says "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Where all the marketing is done by fools, there's opportunity for the few with smarts. (At Ken's recent seminar, which I attended, he fully explained the big, [sic] most commonly made mistake with web sites and, by gum, just about everybody IS making that mistake.)

And there are some intriguing things you can do on the Internet - for example:

NEAR-ZERO COST CONTINUOUS COMMUNICATION

WITH CUSTOMERS AND TARGETED PROSPECTS

@  Once you identify Internet users who are your customers or bona fide prospects interested in what you are all about, you can e-mail them as often as you want, at a cost so cheap it's almost zero...with the push of a single button. Obviously, this has its appeal. Imagine being able to send out a monthly customer newsletter with zero printing or postage costs, no addressing, no stuffing.

NEAR-ZERO COST PUBLICITY...PROMOTION TO THE MEDIA

@  One of the few things I can tell you from personal experience is: the media is using this thing. Probably because they're lazy. Journalists of every stripe are going to web sites in search of story material. Talk show producers are searching the Net for guests. I have definitely gotten press as a result of my web site. (There are even pros who do publicity blitz's via Internet for $500 to $1,000. Ken told me about one, which I just used.)

LOW-COST, CONVENIENT RESEARCH

@  The Internet is a very valid and powerful research tool. In my newly revised 'How To Make Millions With Your Ideas/Inventor's Friend Course,' for example, we list over 200 Internet locations for help with idea protection, copyright patent, trademark, marketing, financing, business plan documentation, and we include hours on CompuServe, because of their proprietary services and discussion group for inventors.

And there ARE some people figuring out the puzzle: how to make money by direct marketing via the Internet. Small businesses? Yes - there's a garden center and nursery, for example, that reported a $7,000 profit its first 30 days on the Internet. There are mail-order marketers of everything from hot sauces to clothing to speciality books. There are the biggies, like Amazon Books. There is just enough legitimate, successful activity to hint that there could be more.

How Can You Sort Out The Wheat From The Chaff?

Do you remember the old game show "Who Do You Trust"? Who can you trust to give you the straight scoop here?

That brings us to Ken McCarthy. Ken, a long-time IC Member, is one of the very, very few "white hats" I know of in this field. Quite frankly, the crowd of so-called experts promoting get-rich-on-the Internet in various forms is mostly made up of charlatans, liars, frauds and, at best, theorists. Not Ken. Among other things, his company hosted the first business conference held anywhere, entirely devoted to doing business on the Web. Marc Andreessen, the whiz kid from Netscape (100-million-dollar net worth at age 24) was the keynote speaker. Ken's book, "The Internet Business Manual", was the first book published in Japan about doing business on the Internet. And the Japanese computer giant, NEC, holder of over 65,000 scientific patents, pays Ken a fat retainer just for his continuing advice about marketing on the Internet. (By the way, if you have the tapes from my 1993 DM Conference - $3,495.00 per person to attend - you've already heard Ken, although not about the Internet.) Ken has numerous clients, small and large, some of whom ARE making money via Internet marketing, and he is a legitimate practitioner, a service provider charging fair and reasonable fees, and simply somebody who really knows what he's talking about.

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get personal time with Ken even if you want it. He's just about as busy as I am - and more reclusive. After all, he IS a "computer nerd." But you may recall that I hosted a special seminar by Ken, just for IC Members, by invitation, late last year. You missed it, but you can still get most of it.

One Of The Toughest Seminar Audiences......

Ken asked me to deliver a small, focused group of tough-minded, marketing savvy entrepreneurs from diverse businesses, who would have their "BS detectors" on and would demand practical, crystal clear, truthful, how-to information from him. I did deliver such an audience (myself included) and we did ask Ken tough and practical questions. We drew out of him information, ideas and proven how-to's that, quite frankly, I haven't found the equal of in all my other research combined. Skeptical as I was and am, I found a few things I could immediately do to profit from the Internet. Some of the people in the seminar who are much more interested in all this went home and implemented dozens of strategies.

By the way, I don't go to many seminars. To do so, I have to write off days that could be sold for at least $4,600.00. I have to travel, and I do enough of that anyway. And most often, I'm disappointed. But I am very glad I was at THIS seminar and I would urge anybody using or contemplating using the Internet for marketing purposes to go - if they could - but they can't, because Ken is NEVER doing this again. He did it just to get everything on tape and into printed form. He's not a seminar giver by profession or passion. But you CAN get the seminar "in a box," to go through in your home, at your convenience.

What Will You Gain?

First, finally, a very clear understanding of what this thing is, how it works, the pros and cons, flaws and opportunities, real costs, and the info you need to determine whether or not you should be involved and, if so, how. Take all the mystery, confusion, techno-gobbledygook out of this, once and for all.

Second, regarding web sites, you'll learn how to "build cheap" and what common copycat mistakes to avoid. By the way, you do not even need to be online yourself - or even to own a computer - to understand all this and, if you choose, to profit from it. Ken shows you how to do everything with pencil, paper and a fax machine. For example, for a low monthly fee, you can have orders or even e-mail captured for you and delivered to you by FAX if you want to do it that way.

Third, you'll learn how to "promote smart." How to do truly targeted "posts", attract site traffic, create publicity, and so on. What you can and cannot do and how to do it.

Fourth, how to buy or rent the services you need without getting ripped off. (It's a jungle out there. One woman at the seminar was being overcharged by hundreds of dollars a month - and blatantly lied to.) You may choose to do some business with Ken. But if you don't, you will be infinitely better equipped to deal with service providers in your home town. You'll almost certainly see savings of thousands of dollars thanks to Ken's blunt advice.

What Can You Get Your Hands On?

Obviously, we can't go back to late last year and plunk you down in the seminar itself. But the giant Manual that I walked away from the seminar with is, itself, more useful and valuable than the literal room full of Internet "stuff" I've gathered from every other imaginable source. It is the seminar in print. Everything everybody got at the seminar plus more. Ken's making it available for just $377.00. Believe me, you can blow three hundreds bucks on utterly useless Internet marketing services so fast it'll scorch your mouse pad. And there is not a decent professional seminar you can go to anywhere on this subject for such a low price.

But there's more. In this exclusive offer, Ken is also including the audio cassettes from the entire day PLUS a 30-minute telephone consultation - both without extra charge.

Oh, and if you wind up using Ken's company to put up and maintain a web site for you or perform other Internet marketing services for you, you get the entire $377 back in service credits. (But don't worry: this is NOT a giant "pitch" for Ken's services. Not even close. This is a thorough, comprehensive, understandable teaching presentation.)

This is a package built to sell for over $1,000.00, yours at about one-third of that price. Ken can only accept a limited number of my IC Members on this basis, and he reserves the right to cancel the offer at any time. If this interests you, I urge you to use the attached Order Form and/or call Ken's office at 415-928-4072. Don't wait. You may be turned away.

Bottom-Line, Final Thoughts

Marketing via the Internet definitely is NOT for everybody, at least not now, not yet. For many, there is a compelling argument for ignoring the entire thing, putting blinders on, and sticking to what works for you now or to more predictable opportunities. However, for some, there is a compelling argument for getting in now, early, learning ahead for the herd, and finding opportunity. I cannot begin to tell you what to do about that decision. I can tell you that, if you do have an interest in using the Internet for marketing purposes, then you need Ken McCarthy's information....to protect yourself, to shorten your learning curve, to have a realistic assessment of your opportunities, and to maximize whatever profits may be possible for you.

	Sincerely,
	Gary C. Halbert

PS: Personally, I'm not about to pack up a tent, cooking utensils, first aid kit, musket and powder, and go tramping off on a safari in some jungle for my vacation. (Anything less than 24 hour room service is "roughing it" in my book.) But if I was going to do that, I'd damned sure do it with the very best guide I could find and hire.

PPS: This IS a very limited offer. There's an expire date on the order form, but that's the outside possible date. Ken can only handle a limited number of the consultations, so this offer may very well be withdrawn before this expiration date. The only certain way to participate is to call immediately.

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