Book notes: The Boron Letters, by Gary Halbert

Try Things At Least Twice

Just the second attempt at anything hard will be much easier. Not a little bit but by A LOT. It is true of almost everything, not just sports.

Everyone wants to climb the mountain, but the big difference between those at the top and those still on the bottom is simply a matter of showing up tomorrow to give it just one more shot.

"There is no justice. There is only power.

“nothing is impossible for a man who refuses to listen to reason,”

sometimes there is no use wasting time and energy fighting established beliefs by arguing, and it is better to just silently go about proving or accomplishing your goal.

my father had a healthy disdain for the mindset of regular people, and that is indeed a positive attribute especially when it comes to making money.

surround yourself with people who have similar goals or who have already become great successes.

we have all been trained to accept capitalism, but only as part of the workforce.

rely on your own strength instead of somebody else's compassion!

I read a quote by John D. Rockefeller in "The Enquirer" today to the effect that nothing is as satisfying as self-reliance, and I totally agree.

I don't want you to become a fighter in the physical sense as much as I want you to become a "Fight Avoider." I want you to be able to avoid fights without losing your dignity.

he started to marginalize the people that held him back.

Never, ever encourage people who drag you down to hang around.   A support system is like a garden, and you always need to be on the lookout for weeds to pull.

often, self-reliance is the real motive of great business men and not money.

Money, in my opinion, especially big money, is most often a by-product of enthusiasm

The money is where the enthusiasm is.

you must become a "student of markets." Not products. Not techniques. Not copywriting.

you must learn is what people want to buy.

the way to deduce what people want to buy is to simply observe what they DO buy!

be careful. You want to know what people actually DO buy, not what they SAY they buy.

What else would they be likely to buy? How about more of the same? (That's usually a good bet.)

contact the SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service) online at: http://next.srds.com/home

constantly be on the lookout for groups of people (markets) who have demonstrated that they are starving (or at least hungry!) for some particular product or service.

THE BEST LIST OF ALL IS YOUR OWN CUSTOMER LIST

little tweaks do make a difference, but they show there is far more money in adding to your product line and creating backend offers,

These three guidelines are recency, frequency and unit of sale.

I try to structure my deeds so that I get paid often. You see, when there is big money involved it is very hard for the clients to write those checks.

Sell People What They Want To Buy!

So many people get excited about Gary Halbert’s copywriting skill, they forget his main focus was on good hooks, offers and solutions.

don’t focus on writing better copy. We focus on creating better deals.

"Most of the world's work is done by people who didn't feel much like getting out of bed.

It has long been my belief that a lot of money can be made by making offers to people who are at an emotional turning point in their lives. For example, when they have just had a baby, just gotten married, just lost a loved one, just gotten a raise, just filed bankruptcy, just purchased a new car, and so on.

How You Can Make Extra Money And, then you customize it to something like: "How Architects Can Make Extra Money" or "How Churches Can Make Extra Money" or "How Chiropractors Can Make Extra Money" etc., etc.

And the lesson is that when you get stuck or emotionally jammed up one of the ways to get yourself unclogged and flowing again is just to keep moving. Run. Walk. Jog. Write. Do the dishes. Or whatever. But don't sit around waiting for a flash from Heaven.

The key is movement!

Did you know that there is now a way for a cardiologist to buy L.A. real estate without making any down payment whatsoever? Etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

What you do at this point is create your product, and here is how you do it. First, you go back to those books on real estate investing and you extract in outline form all the good ideas in these books. Then, you pick out the best of the ideas and overlay them with the ideas you will have by now come up with yourself. Next, you arrange these ideas in some logical form and you start writing. Please remember, what we are creating here is a report NOT a book. I figure it should be something like 100 typewritten pages.

Note: A great formula for creating info products!

You see, the market is saturated with information products merely rephrasing what most of the industry leaders say but…   A little originality  goes a long way in promoting your info products, and it is very easy to come by.

it’s nearly impossible to go through any learning curve and not wish you had known something right from the start or discovered a slightly better way of doing something.   These original ideas become your unique solution or hook!

To peruse markets, I’d also suggest Clickbank, Amazon, and The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Sellers list, BUT ONLY PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT STAYS ON TOP WITHOUT BEING FREE!

I should tell you that another additional way to achieve this bond of intimacy and immediacy in your letters is to describe where you are and what you are doing as you are writing the letter.

A time-dated communication carries considerable more weight than one which is not

the little touches like this that keeps the letter flowing, the reader moving along, and, it relieves him of the burden of trying to figure out what he is supposed to do when he finishes reading a particular page.

If you can get a person who is not going to order to agree, in his mind, to write and tell you he is not going to, then you will get more orders. Can you guess why? Aha, you didn't get this one, did you, smart alec? No matter. I'll tell you why. You see, what happens sometimes is that a person who is getting a pen or pencil and a piece of paper in order to write you and tell you "No" will sometimes start thinking like this: "Well, you jerk. I'd kind of like to get in on this deal anyway and now that I've got the pen and paper I may as well go ahead and order.

fight any urge to sound like a cliché and use phrases which a reader could finish on their own.

when my dad says he uses picture words, he really means phrases and terms which paint a picture like cherry red.

Describe what it looks like when happy customers receive the benefit of your product.

do is take my notes in the form of little nuggets of information. When I am done the paper I have been writing on looks like this:

Remember this when you are taking these notes don’t stuff yourself. Sometimes, my nugget notes consist of just one word. Sometimes they consist of meaningless phrases. Many times my notes make sense but many times they don’t. No matter. I never worry about it. I just keep writing. I write what occurs to me as I read the list cards, the jackets of books, the ads, the DM pieces, and all the rest of the material I have assembled. Now here are a few things you should always include. A complete description of your product including how many pages, how many words, how many photos, who wrote it, facts about the author (his age, background, success stories, etc.). You should also take notes on what this product will do for you. Will it make you wealthy? How will more money help your customer? Will he be able to buy a better car? Take more vacations? Afford a better home? If so, put it down.

OK now, after you have taken all these notes STOP 9:47 START AGAIN 9:54   what I want you to do is re-read the notes and

the really good ones, put a star * beside them. And the ones that are even better put two stars ** next to them. And then, the red hot ones you put three *** or more stars beside them. Now, at this point, what you need to do is stop working on this project. That’s right. Just let it go. Put it right out of your mind. Just go on about your other business for a day or two. Now then, often what happens during this time, is that an outstanding sales idea will occur to you. Sometimes this idea will be how to get attention, like with my baggie idea.

ALL great copywriters write their nugget notes, bullets, and headlines by hand.

catch his interest. How do we do this? Well, let’s start by feeding him interesting facts. Like how much money there is to be made by investing in Maui real estate. By telling how much sand (cubic tons) is on the beach where we got the sand in that baggie. By telling how this is one of the best beach front investment opportunities in Maui. By telling how many pretty girls there are around. By telling the specific kinds of fish you can catch right off the beach. Etc.

What we do to create desire is we describe the benefits our prospect gets if he buys our product or service. Now, in the case of an investment-orientated offer, what we have to offer is the prospect of making money. At least this is our main attraction. So, what's let's do is let’s help him to picture in his mind the benefits of having more money. Don’t think it’s not necessary. Remember, you must always do even the obvious. Here then, are some benefits of having more money:

New car - impress your friends and family, ride in comfort and luxury Nice house - comfort, luxury, and status Peace of mind - no worries about bills or financial emergencies Vacations - money lets you travel the world, go where you want when you want

“Would you like to get in on this great investment opportunity? Would you like to be one of the privileged few who actually own a piece of the finest beach in Maui? If so, it’s easy to order. All you have to do is fill out the order coupon and send it to me with your payment,

tell him to do all this RIGHT NOW! TODAY! Tell him what he will get if he hurries and tell him what he will lose if he delays.

Sometimes I devote as much as 25% or more of the entire ad to closing.

Another simple way to get a reader interested is to tell their story by telling your story with the problem your solution solves.

The key is to switch to talking about them as soon as things get better in the story.

My teenage kids were acting out and it felt like there wasn’t enough time in the day to be a good parent. Then I discovered a 40-page book which changed everything.   This book shows you how to benefit, benefit, benefit.

bullets…the basic pattern should be specific/blind fact, benefit.

Only 20 Minutes leaving the rest of the day free to do anything   Why The 4 Way Guarantee Crushes The Competition   A Four Line Note Which Cuts Refunds In Half!

You will also find your second choice headlines make good bullet. tThere are no hard and fast rules; not even the rules of English apply.

End of sermon. Do it. Here is a short list of “killer” promotions to get you started.   Tova Ad     How To Burn Off Body Fat Hour By Hour     The Beverly Hills Diamond Ad     The Original Family Coat-Of-Arms Letter     How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age     How To Get What The U.S. Government Owes You     The Famous Dollar Bill Letter From The Robert Collier Letter Book     The Amazing Blackjack Secret Of A Las Vegas Mystery Man   The Original Astrology Today Ad Written By Ben Suarez

Use simple common everyday words. Use “get” instead of “procure.” Write short sentences and short paragraphs. Use “transition” words and phrases to make your writing flow smoothly. Do you notice how I use transition words and phrases such as the following? Well, as a matter of fact, I first blah... Now, naturally, we don’t want to blah, blah...

Read Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions

I’ve seen a lot of people come to learn how to write copy from Gary Halbert and they are not all equal.

Not everyone who followed this writing exercise became a good copywriter but everyone who did become great wrote out the winners.

YOU CAN DO A BETTER SELLING JOB WHEN AT FIRST IT DOES NOT APPEAR YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO A SALES JOB.

You either hook a reader or lose him when he very first looks at your ad or DM piece. Not when he reads it, but when he first looks at it.

if your prospect gets an instant "lift" from just looking at your ad, then he will start reading it and looking for reasons to convince

himself that the promise of your ad is true!

Please remember this word: HALT. HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, and you should never make a decision when you are any of those things.

I found a way to show my customers that he was unique and valuable to me.

"Since you are one of the world's leading gynecologists, we feel you are in a unique position to appreciate this picture book of unusual______

"Since you have proven yourself to be an astute judge of art,

"A mutual friend of ours, Tom Smith, said I should write you because, he says, you are the best judge of value of a book like this that he knows.

Offering special deals based on where your promos are listed works well too.   You can offer Facebook specials and deals just for subscribers of a certain website or maybe readers of The Miami Herald.

You Must Always Find A Market First... And Then Concentrate On A Product!

Products are a dime a dozen. They are important, but much less crucial to success than finding a hot market.

a big difference between people who make it in any field (including crime) and those who do not. That difference is awareness.

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?

And, did you notice up there that when I mentioned my bandanna, I said "it's the blue one" in parentheses? 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.

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,

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?

HALT. Hungry. Angry. Lonely. Tired.

how precious the good times and the good people are. I hope I have learned never again to not take care of my special relationships.