From:
North of Jewfish Creek
Tuesday, 9:00 p.m.
I
have been working on a marketing concept for nearly half-a-year.
This is, I believe, a concept that wouldn't work nearly as well
if John Kerry were elected President of the United States. Since
George Bush has been re-elected President (and the results are
now final) it is my belief this marketing concept will work in
a spectacular way. And, this could be a bonanza no matter if you're
marketing on-line... or off-line... or a combination of both!
By
the way, you should not take this information as to mean I was
or was not rooting for George Bush to win. I don't believe my
newsletter is a proper forum in which to express my political
views.
But,
since Bush did win, I would like to use this concept I have developed
to make as much immediate money as I can for myself, and a few
other select people. Therefore, I am now doing something I haven't
done for 14 years. That is... I am, as of right now, actively
soliciting for a few new clients.
I
have done some client work over the past 14 years, just to make
sure I wouldn't lose my touch. However, when all of these clients
came to me, it was their idea, not mine.
It
would appear I have not lost my touch, to say the least. Three
days ago, I got the results of a sales campaign I had written
for a very famous person in the marketing and real estate business.
You would know his name instantly but, for personal reasons, I
think it's best I keep his identity confidential.
In
any case, the spreadsheet (Lord, I hate those things!) he sent
me illustrated the copywriting I did for him pulled in 6-1/2 times
MORE MONEY than anything written by any other copywriter he has
ever hired. By the way, he's a multi-millionaire so he does have
the money to hire the "creme de la creme" of copywriters
in the entire world.
I
want to tell you about the last time I actively solicited for
clients. I was living in Key West and informed the readers of
my newsletter that, if they were willing to pay my fee ($15,000
upfront and 5% of the backend sales my efforts produced) I would
pay all their expenses to fly to Key West and put them up in a
hotel at my expense, while we discussed their project. I also
told them if they did this, they didn't have to guarantee they
would become a client of mine... but... they at least had to be
a "for real" prospect to whom price would not be a concern.
Many
of those people did become clients. And a few did not. But there
was one guy I especially remember. Why? Because, in my opinion,
he was guilty of fraud. After I flew him to Key West, put him
up in the best hotel, and discussed his project at length with
him, he said, "Everything sounds great... but... I think
$15,000 for your upfront fee is too much to pay you."
I
did everything I could to hold onto my temper but, what I really
wanted to do was leap across the table we were sitting at, wrap
my hands around his neck, lift him up off his chair and in the
air, choking him until his entire body was shaking and his legs
and feet were dancing around like he was doing the "Funky
Chicken".
But,
of course, I didn't do any of that.
I
simply ended the conversation immediately in a civil manner, took
him back to his hotel and suggested he get an early flight back
to wherever he lived. I think that man was genuinely bewildered
by my sudden lack of zero interest in him and his project.
See,
it's no crime to not be able to afford the expertise of someone
like myself. But, it is obnoxious to pretend you can afford someone
like me... when... you flat-out already know you can't afford
me... or... you are unwilling to pay the fees I charge.
Look,
I want you to understand something: I have untold
thousands of rabid readers of this newsletter. But, this message
is truly only directed at a handful of them. Maybe only one or
two. It is only directed to what I call "PWM" (which
is an acronym for "Players With Money").
Since
it is my job to provide my readers with a learning
experience, I'm going to do that by demonstrating how to do
something I've never quite done before. Many copywriters have
written to me complaining they couldn't get any clients. I always
tell them, there's no such thing as a world-class copywriter whoshould
be hurting for clients. All he should have to do is write a sales
pitch for his services. And, he should then be flooded with more
clients than he can handle. By the way, I wrote a newspaper ad
once for Jay Abraham that, when it was ran in a single newspaper,
brought him in 602 potential clients.
Anyway,
if I were writing a pitch for my copywriting services (as I guess
I am doing now) here are some of the points I would make:
* Gary Halbert
may have hit more "financial home-runs" for his clients
than anyone else in history! These clients include Ron LeGrand,
Robert Allen, Ernest and Tova Borgnine, awardwinning actress
Nancy Kwan, Vikki LaMotta and many others, too numerous to mention.
* Gary Halbert's
biggest home-runs have been written for himself or companies
in which he had some sort of ownership. Everybody knows about
the famous "Coat-of-Arms" letter, which may be the
most widely-mailed sales letter in the world with more than
600 million copies mailed. That family crest letter built an
organization that needed 700 employees to keep it going... and...
40 of those employees were needed just to make the bank deposits!
* Gary wrote
a sales letter for a diet product for Health Laboratories of
America which was so good, it almost made skinny people buy
the product! At one point, when the client had run out of diet-related
mailing lists, on Gary's recommendation he got the compiled
file of everybody in America who had a driver's license. Then,
via computer, a simple calculation was done based on the height
and weight information in that file. If it turned out a person
weighed more than they should for their height, the client mailed
Gary's sales letter to that individual. The client mailed millions
of letters to that one file and made DOUBLE THE PROFIT.
* Gary has
written for the biggest financial publishers in the world, including
Phillips Publishing, KCI, Agoura Publishing and many others
whose name you would not recognize! Once he wrote a "penny
letter" for Phillips Publishing. (That's a letter that
has a penny attached to the front page as a "grabber".)
Phillips Publishing mailed so many of those sales letters, they
actually had to have the Denver Mint produce many more pennies
than they normally would have and had to have them shipped in
box cars directly to the Phillips facility.
* When Tova
Borgnine wanted to launch a new perfume, Gary not only created
the winning formula for the perfume, he also wrote a newspaper
ad that created the biggest perfume launch in history! His ad
got more than 7,000 people to show up at the Century Plaza Hotel
in Los Angeles. The ad also produced unsolicited purchase orders
from monster department stores like Federated (the biggest department
store chain in the world), Filines of Boston, the May Company
and a host of others. The event was also written up in "Time"
magazine. The work Gary did for the Borgnines literally put
their company on the map and jumped their gross from $20,000
per month... to... $800,000 per month!
* Gary wrote
an 8-page direct mail promotion for Howard Ruff that doubled
his subscription base!
* Another
company hired Gary to help them raise money for their IPO and
his full-page newspaper ad (which appeared twice in "Investor's
Business Daily") brought in enough qualified investors
to produce nearly two hundred million dollars!
* Gary worked
on the Nancy Kwan skin care commercials and made the breakthrough
that enabled them to run profitably on TV for nearly two years!
* Gary wrote
a direct mail promotion for CASI (Computer
Amusement Systems Inc.) that jumped their gross from three million...
to... 13 million a year!
* But, Gary
also made millionaires out of many "mom and pop" small
type businesses who had very little to start with!
* Gary helped
guys like Jeff Paul, Joe Polish and many others go from eating
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to become multimillionaires!
* George
Zangas (world-famous power lifter) mailed a postcard Gary wrote
for him... which... generated $1,000 for every $100 he spent!
And George continued to make these profits even though he mailed
it to the same list five different times!
* One of
the marketers Gary admires greatly and who is worldfamous is
Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy got his start in marketing working
for Halbert's Inc. in Bath, Ohio. At a seminar about a year
ago, Dan was talking about a guy who said he couldn't make a
profit with the ad he was using. Dan looked at the ad and thought
it was spectacular. Dan then discovered it was Gary Halbert
who had written the ad! Dan told the guy (and you can hear it
on tape), "There's no way to improve this ad. It was written
by Gary Halbert. If you can get Gary, and you can get him interested,
and you can get him focused, there's no way in the world you're
going to get a better piece of marketing copy from anyone else
on earth." Dan then pointed out to this guy it was not
the ad that was failing but, it was the way the guy was exploiting
(actually lack of exploiting) the ad and his failure to set
up a proper infra-structure and several other things he was
not doing properly. NOTE: I have not quoted Dan word-for-word
about what he said about that ad because I do not have that
tape right now. But, I have related accurately the gist of his
comment.
* Gary's
worked on 17 successful infomercials, wrote the two most successful
direct response newspaper ads, has produced scores of highly-successful
magazine ads, created several catalogs, developed phone scripts,
etc.!
* Many people
say you should include testimonials in all of your sales pitches.
Gary stopped collecting unsolicited testimonial letters more
than a decade ago after he had already received over 7,000 of
them! Now that he has the most widely-read marketing newsletter
on the Internet, it would almost be impossible for him to buy
enough ink cartridges to print out all the rave testimonials
he gets on a daily basis.
Okay,
those are just a few of the points I would make about
myself if I were writing an ad to pitch for clients. But, probably
the most important consideration you should be aware of is...
most of the time... I am not willing to take on any clients. But,
I am a little bit "in heat" to work with a few clients
now because I have just made what I believe to be is a truly gigantic
marketing breakthrough. Everybody in marketing will know about
this breakthrough a year from now... but... it will be old news
by then. I believe it will work for years to come. But, I think
the first people to use it are going to make money beyond their
wildest dreams.
You
know, I could write a more compelling sales letter to you for
my copywriting services. But frankly I'm tired of writing about
myself and this half-assed, sloppy pitch is making me feel "funny".
But, I do feel moved to tell you another story.
I
was recently contacted by a guy who said he had read each and
every issue of my newsletters on my website and he was thinking
about hiring me. He wondered if I would send him a portfolio of
ads I had written for other people so he could evaluate whether
or not I had enough talent to work for him. I was NOT polite with
this guy. I told him something to the effect, "Look, if you've
really read all my newsletters, many of which include examples
of what I've written for other people, and you are still in doubt
as to whether you should hire me or not, you are NOT a serious
person." Actually, what I said was much more profane than
that. But, I see no need to reprint it here.
This
deal is not for everyone. There are certain people who
shouldn't even think about calling me in response to this offer.
So please, if you fall into even one of the following categories...
do NOT contact me to become a client of mine:
*
I don't want to waste one single second with somebody who cannot
afford my $15,000 upfront fee and/or thinks they are going to
be able to hire me at a discount.
* Also, I
don't want to talk with anyone who has to check with anyone
else as to whether or not they should hire me. If you have to
check with your lawyer, your accountant, your spouse, your mommy
or your daddy or anyone else, just assume it wouldn't be a good
idea and don't waste my time.
* My methods
are unusual, to say the least. Don't expect me to slow down
to a crawl just to make you comfortable. When it comes to money,
I go right for the jugular and, if this takes you out of your
comfort zone, you should look in the Yellow Pages of your phone
book under "Advertising Agencies" and go ahead and
waste your time talking to one of those brilliant Ph.D.'s who'll
be happy to create a much more conventional (and totally unprofitable)
campaign for you.
* And, I'm
not looking for anyone who has to scrape up the money to hire
me. It puts way too much pressure on me to know someone has
bet their entire life's savings on me producing a winner for
them. And that, if it's not a huge winner, they and their family
will be reduced to eating bark off trees.
* Another
thing, if you are hiring me to write a promotion for you, I
will want to get a lot of information from you. But, you need
to remember that once I have this information, I will write
what I think is the best and ask you to check it for factual
accuracy. But, I will NOT change the sales pitch I have created
just because you and/or your spouse (or someone else) thinks
the ad would work better if it were
written differently. There is an exception to this. If you,
yourself, have written sales pitches (as I have) that have generated
billions of dollars in profitable revenue, then I will be interested
in what you have to say.
One
last thing, I am only one person and I can only do so much work.
I've got a spectacular new marketing concept which I think will
work like crazy... and... the best time of the year to market
most products is the month of January. So, if you are at all interested
in hiring me and becoming a client of mine ("for real"!)
call me at (305) 534-7577. If I'm not available to take your call,
simply leave your name and contact information (phone number and
best times to reach you) and I'll return your call as soon as
humanly possible..
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Sincerely, |
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Gary C. Halbert |
*P.S. In my
opinion, what I've just written is a lousy "sales pitch".
I could do much better if I gave it the time and effort it deserves.
Basically, the pitch can be boiled down to "I'm Gary Halbert
and I'm eager and willing to write for clients for about the next
30-days. So if you're interested, call me right away at 305/534-7577."
*P.P.S. I
feel a little guilty about writing this long e-mail message to
you. I think I should only write you brief e-mails informing you
I've posted a new newsletter on my website. But, I can't help
it. I am so excited about this marketing concept, I wanted to
get this message to you on the same day Bush won the Presidency.
I'll behave from now on. I promise.
Copyright © Gary C. Halbert. All Rights Reserved.
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