From:
North of Jewfish Creek
Dear
Friend & Subscriber,
I can be a real asshole sometimes.
And, since I'm not inclined to change...
well... maybe I'd better explain. Listen up: Here's a true
story. Once upon a time (in the late 1980's) a couple guys
called me for some help. They worked for a big company that
helped other companies here in the U.S. to market their wares
in all the Pacific Rim countries. Every time they got a new
client, it was worth serious
money (maybe hundreds of thousands) to the company they worked
for.
What they looked for in a new client was
someone or some entity which was not already selling to
Pacific Rim countries but, who should
be selling to those countries. They weren't after little
sized companies or even medium-sized companies; they only went
after the really big fish. Therefore, they didn't have
unlimited prospects, only a few thousand. And, they said,
their main problem was getting the attention of and, an
audience with, the top dog in those big fish companies.
Once I understood how much (how very
much) a new client was worth to them, I came up with a great
idea! I said they should get some paper money from each of
those Pacific Rim countries. Then they should take a bill from
each of those countries and put them all together in a stack
and wrap a rubber band around them. Then they should
scotch-tape each of those stacks of money to the first page of
a sales letter and send the whole mess by Fed Ex or DHL to all
their prospective clients... and then... follow-up with a
person-to-person phone call.
Imagine: You're a top dog exec in a big fish
company, you get a Fed Ex package with a letter with a packet
of actual money from various Pacific Rim countries
scotch-taped to the first page of a letter like this:
Top Dog Exec
c/o Big Fish, Inc.
123 Elm St.
Massillon, OH 44646
Dear
Mr. Top Dog Exec:
I am writing to ask of you a
small favor.
All I want is for you to take
the rubber band off the packet of money attached to
this letter and look carefully at each of the bills.
They are all real. Each one of these bills is an
official government banknote from a different Pacific
Rim country.
Why am I sending you all this
money? The answer is simple: You see, your company,
Big Fish, Inc., manufactures a line of products that
would sell like crazy in every one of the Pacific Rim
countries from which I have sent you a sample
banknote. This could be a brand new profit center for
Big Fish, Inc. which, in fact, could turn out to be...
even bigger... then the domestic market for your widgets here in the
U.S.
In truth, selling your product
line in these countries could become a dream come true
for Big Fish, Inc. It has the realistic potential of
tripling your corporate profits.
On the other hand, attempting
to market in these countries can become a nightmare
for an American corporation if they don't have the
right connections and are not aware of local business
customs and all the other inside secrets that makes
everything go smoothly and profitably.
That's where (hopefully) I can
help you. My company, Rim Job, Inc., specializes in
guiding American corporations into high profit
situations in various Pacific Rim countries... and...
we feel Big Fish, Inc. is exactly the kind of company,
with exactly the kind of product line, we like to work
with.
I'd like to explain in more
detail how a relationship with Rim Job, Inc. could be
very profitable for Big Fish, Inc. and I will call you
later this week to set up an appointment at your
convenience.
Thank you for the courtesy of
reading this letter.
Sincerely,
Eldridge J. Fogbottom
P.S. If you have
children, that packet of money can be a
great birthday
gift which will get your
child interested in global geography.
Talk to you soon.
|
OK, admit it: If you were Top Dog Exec and you
got that Fed Ex package, with that letter and all that
money, you'd be impressed, wouldn't you? You'd also probably
take Mr. Fogbottom's call too, wouldn't you? And, you'd
probably give him an appointment, right? And, if he truly had
his shit wrapped tight, there's an excellent chance you would
end up doing biz with Fogbottom and Rim Job, Inc.
Correctamundo?
The two guys who called me for advice were
stunned when I came up with this great idea right on the spot.
I was glad I'd helped them.
Or so I thought.
About a month later they called me again. They
said they were looking for another idea. "You mean
that one didn't work?" I asked incredulously. "I
can't believe it. How many did you mail and what kind of
response did you get?"
They hadn't mailed any. But they loved the
idea and thought it was "fun" to talk with a
creative genius like me and and they wanted to see if I could
give them yet another "killer" idea.
I was livid. I got as verbally abusive as I
could. I told them to never call me again. You know, to give
another person a really good idea, an idea that may solve a
major problem for them... and then... have them not even give
it a shot... well... that just pisses me off big time. I've
found out some things about myself in the last few years and,
one of those insights is... I
burn with desire to be a really
great teacher!
God knows how many people are rich because of
what I have taught them. I've received 3,000+ letters of
appreciation from such people. But it still gets me, it really
gets me, when I can't "get through" to someone.
Like most caring teachers, I am emotional
about my "students." I love it when they succeed. I
love it when they eclipse me.
But, you know what? I've been writing this
letter and giving speeches and seminars for more than a
decade... and... there are lots of people who've read nearly
every word I've written, been to most all the seminars I've
given, bought all my tapes and videos... and...
They Still Do Nothing!
And you know what I think? I think maybe, if
something comes too easy, many people don't appreciate it.
However, if they have to "work" to get your pearls
of wisdom, if they have to make a "mental
investment" to "get" what you have to teach...
well, maybe... they'll value it more, realize how precious it
is and act on what you've taught them.
Which brings me to why I referred to myself as
a "sometimes asshole" at the beginning of this
letter and, how, right here I'm going to prove it. (Actually, I suspect there's a lot
of people who have no trouble whatsoever with the concept of
Gary Halbert being an asshole.)
Anyway, here's the scoop: I know something I
bet you'd love to know. And, I'm willing to lay it on
you. But, I'm going to give you a mental workout and make you
jump through some hoops rather than throw it at you like
pearls before swine. First, to get you motivated to actually
endure my Machivellian manipulations, I guess I'd better jump
start your greed glands by telling you what it is I know I bet
you'd like to know. Here it is:
I Know How To Make
Money Using E-Mail And
Web Sites!
Lots of people pretend to know but they really
don't. They'll do stuff like tell you how important it is to
have an "Internet Presence" and, how they can design
and help you set up a killer web site for only $10,000 or so.
You'll get your web site alright. That part is true. What you
won't get however is orders and profits. Almost nobody makes
money with E-mail. Almost nobody makes money on the world wide
web.
But I do. I've been doing it quietly for about
36 months now... and... I'm going to teach you how to
do it too.
Before I do though, let's see if you can
figure it out for yourself after I give you a bunch of
seemingly unrelated facts. You know, one of the gifts of a
real creative problem solver is he or she can take unrelated
bits of info and end up tying together all that random data in
such a way as to answer an important question or come up with
a breakthrough concept. Now listen: No matter how crazy
it sounds, every single fact I'm about to reveal is related to
making profits via E-mail.
Pray let us proceed.
FACT
1: |
A
recent edition of the National
Enquirer, the May 27, 1997 edition with these
headlines on the cover, "Jon Benet Secret Police Files," "Who's Gay Who's Not," and "Dying Sinatra Confined To Wheelchair"... well anyway, that
issue has two ads you should have in your "swipe
file" and, lurking within those ads is a major
key to making E-mail pay a profit. |
One of those ads is a full-page masterpiece
with the headline: "KILL FOOT PAIN DEAD!" This ad
does not ask for an order. It is designed to generate
leads. Here's the coupon used in the ad:
FEATHERSPRING
INTERNATIONAL, INC.
712
N. 34th Street, Dept. NE-057 l
Seattle, WA 98103-8881
n YES!
I want to end my foot pain. Please rush, at no risk, the FREE FACT KIT that tells me all about Flexible Featherspring Foot
Supports. I understand there is no obligation and no
salesperson will call. I will look for a LARGE
PINK ENVELOPE containing all the details.
Print
Name
__________________________________________________________________________
Address_____________________________________________________________________________
City _________________________________
State _________________
Zip_____________________ |
Trust me, the wording of that coupon contains
a crucial element related to making E-mail profits.
The next ad is a masterpiece also... but...
this one is two full pages. Do you have any idea how
much it costs to run two full-page ads in the Enquirer?
Anyway, this is a very copy intensive
ad with the following headline:
Can
you feel your need to smoke
disappear this quickly and easily?
There
are countless men and women who finally stopped smoking, even
though they no longer believed they could. Their success is documented in written testimonials. Here are extracts from
some of the letters that have been sent to Andre Passebecq:
Yadda,
yadda, yadda... |
Guess what? This ad doesn't ask for an order
either. It's also a lead-generator. Here's the coupon used in
that ad:
Detach this form and return to:
Bodywell, Inc.
PO Box 3014
Wallingford, CT 06494
Please
indicate: Your age _____
How old you were when you started smoking _____
How many cigarettes you smoke per day _____
Your present weight _____
Yes, I would like to get rid of my
desire to smoke, quickly and easily. Your completely
free offer of information about the Passebecq Method
interests me. I understand that I am in no way
obligated to buy anything whatsoever, and that no
salesperson will ever contact me.
Please send me the package in
discreet wrapping by first class mail.
____________________________
Name
____________________________
Street Address
____________________________
Apt #
____________________________
City
____________________________
State
Zip
ATBP06-1 |
FACT
2: |
In
the early 1980's a guy walks into the Coach &
Horses Bar on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. There's
a bunch of other guys at the bar and a pretty girl
sitting by herself. Several of the barflys are
seriously trying to lay a line on this pretty young
chick. None of them make any progress. But, the guy
who just walked in and, who had never seen this
young lady before, walks up to her and speaks to her
quietly for a few minutes. The young lady smiles and
gets up and leaves immediately with this guy. Can you
guess why? (And no, she wasn't a hooker.) |
FACT
3: |
A few
years back I encouraged all my readers to run the
following ad in their local newspaper: |
Women
needed to address envelopes at home.
must have typewriter, pC or good handwriting.
call (000) 000-000 |
Several of my subscribers ran that ad and learned
something incredibly valuable. (Something that today,
relates strangely to making a profit using E-mail.) Three of
my subscribers immediately "got it" after they ran
it and they went on to make a very fast $750,000 profit
because of what they had learned.
FACT
4:
|
As
I revealed in an earlier issue of this newsletter,
last year is the first year more messages were sent
via E-mail than via the U.S. Postal System. |
FACT
5: |
75%
of all business executives who use the Internet, use
it only for E-mail. |
FACT
6: |
There's
a company that works with dentists which provides a
really interesting service for them. What this company
furnishes dentists with is, the name and address of
every person who lives in the Zip codes near to where
that dentist's practice is located... PLUS... any of
those people who have a PC and who use E-mail...
well... the dentist gets all those E-mail addresses
also. |
PAY ATTENTION! Did you hear what I just wrote?
I said you can get the E-mail addresses... PLUS... the real
street addresses of millions of people. Do you understand the
importance of that? Of having a person's real address and
their E-mail address?
I bet you don't.
FACT
7: |
There
are several companies in the U.S. that will set up
mass conference calls for you. You can have hundreds
of people on the same call. Nothing new there, right?
But, check this out: You can ask those people
questions and, they can give you their answer by
punching a button
on their touch-tone phone. |
Here's what one company does: They get several
hundred people on a conference call and then, they expertly
explain what they have to offer. Then, near the end of the
call, they say something like this: "We have three
questions we'd like to ask everybody on this call: (1) Do you
like what you've heard and are ready to sign up right now? (2)
Are you interested but you feel you need more information? (3)
Are you not interested at all? If you are interested
and ready to go, please press one; if you want more info,
please press two; if you are not interested at all, please
press three.
Hundreds of people then press one of those
three buttons all at the same time. Then, after a little more
chit-chat, the host concludes the conference call.
20 minutes later, the company that arranged
the conference call, has the name, address and telephone
number of all those people who pressed those buttons and...
Those Names Are Separated
By Which Button
They Pushed!
Yahoo! A dim light has started to glow in your
sick, little mind, hasn't it?
Yes, you be right, Bubba. Those hot leads, the
people who pressed button #1 ("I'm ready to buy")
are phoned back immediately by telephone sales people!
Is that slick, or what?
FACT
8: |
The
king of junk E-mail is a Philadelphia man named
Sanford Wallace who runs a company called
CyberPromotions. He sends nearly 4 million E-mail
ads... daily! |
FACT
9: |
E-mail
is the most widely-used application on the Internet
with 11 million users. |
FACT
10: |
www.answers.com
could easily be the most useful web page ever. It
has a network of real people who can answer almost any
question you might have with hard facts and a little
personality. Answers to easy questions will cost you
$1.79. Moderately-difficult questions cost $5.99 and,
if your question requires research, you're gonna have
to fork out $11.99. You post a question, pick a price
range and click the send button. Within 24-hours, one
of 40 researchers from around the world will send you
a personalized letter by return E-mail. |
The
answers are typically several paragraphs long and come from a
wide variety of reference sources which are listed at the end.
If the sources include web sites, the answer includes hot
links. Before users get their answers, a group of answers.com
quality assurance employees go through responses to make
sure they have answered the specific questions satisfactorily.
There's also an option to ask for clarification if the
questioner wants an even more detailed answer.
FACT
11: |
For
$99 you can get software that types whatever you
dictate. This software has a bigger vocabulary and is
a better speller than any college kid. For immediate
delivery call 1-800-IBM-7235 ext. 5296 or, for more
info, visit www.software.ibm.com/is/voicetype. |
FACT
12: |
Another
piece of software called Globalink Power Translator
translates documents, web pages... and E-mail... from English into French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Check it out by calling Globalink at 1-800-837-2095
ext. 8001. |
FACT
13: |
81%
of the readers of the International
Tribune now communicate via PC's, 73% E-mail and
faxes, laptops and the Internet. They also spend 1/2
hour daily reading the paper. This data is from a
survey of which you can (and should) get a summary by
calling (212) 752-3890. |
FACT
14: |
The
six top markets for international phone calls from the
U.S. are, in rank order: |
|
BANK/COUNTRY |
AVERAGE PER
MINUTES CHARGE |
MINUTES
PER YEAR |
1. |
Canada |
34 cents |
3.05 billion |
2. |
Mexico |
85 cents |
2.01 billion |
3. |
U.K. |
73 cents |
1.03 billion |
4. |
Germany |
88 cents |
662 million |
5. |
Japan |
$1.00 |
576 million |
6. |
Dominican
Republic |
84 cents |
410 million |
FACT 15: |
There
are 50 companies with compiled directories of E-mail
addresses. These are not web site directories.
They are directories of personal E-mail
addresses. You can check out a couple of them at http://www.four11.com
and http://www.bigyellow.com.
(That last dot is the period at the end of my
sentence, not part of the E-mail address.) |
FACT 16: |
People
who keep their mailing list on a computer need to be
very careful. Believe me, I know. Here's an article that will explain one reason why this is
true: |
Mailing list
gobbled
In 1984 I began a desperate search for people
who have a progressive neuromuscular disorder called
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. I was born with CMT, and
I felt that I was the only person with it. I was a
newspaper reporter, and I knew the power of a letter
to the editor. Through these letters I found thousands
of people who had the same disease. I started a
newsletter and a nonprofit organization called CMT
International.
On Nov 18, one of our oldest computers went
down and took with it our 4,700-name mailing list.
Many of the people on it were from the United States,
particularly Florida, and we have no way of contacting
them.
Please help us find our former members and
reach new ones. To contact CMT International, call
(905) 687-3630.
LINDA CRABTREE
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
|
FACT 17: |
If
you do a sales campaign which lets people fax in their
orders and, you can't handle all the faxes, you need
FAX OVERFLOW. Info's available by calling (305)
780-2855. |
FACT 18: |
Gary
Halbert has quietly been making thousands of dollars
from the Internet and E-mail for the last 36-months. |
FACT 19: |
Gary
Halbert is an asshole and has decided to make his
subscribers figure it out for themselves for a change. |
You've
got the facts, now go to it.
|
Sincerely, |
|
|
|
Gary C. Halbert
"Asshole" |
P.S. |
Aw
nuts, I'm not that big of an asshole. I guess I will
tell you. I've got a report and, I'll send you one
free of charge if you want it.
However,
you will have to at least do a little work to get
it... because... you can't ask for it by phone, fax or
regular mail. No. You're
gonna have to ask for it by using E-mail. Just
send your request to crolfe6334@aol.com
and you'll get a copy of it right away.
Peace.
|
Copyright © 2003 Gary C. Halbert. All Rights
Reserved.
|