"What the hell is this crap?”
Published: Sat, 07/31/21
It was selling an event he was putting on.
And he told the story about his first writing job (in the 80’s) working full time for the late Gary Halbert who gave him an assignment to write an ad in the diet niche. John had a track record of winning controls for the the biggest direct mailers and had ghost-written for some of the highest-paid copywriters in the game.
But he really wanted to impress Halbert and slaved over that ad day & night.
Finally, near exhaustion, he took it to Gary.
Gary then read it, looked up, frowned, and threw the letter across the desk at John saying…
“What the hell is this? Re-write this piece of crap, and put some friggin empathy into it.”
In other words:
Gary “broke” John’s sales copy.
And it was a very pivotal point in John’s career, according the story he told about the incident. He said it awakened his “Inner Editor.” And he trained himself right then and there to break his own copy like Gary or any other top writer would do.
The rest is history.
Which brings me to the point:
Using your own Inner Editor to break your own copy is nothing to scoff at.
In fact, another story about this is when I did some work for “Email Players” subscriber Captain Chris Pizzo. He hired me to write some supplement ads many years ago. Before I wrote a single word he said he talked to a lawyer who specializes in helping direct marketers deal with the FTC.
And the lawyer told him point blank:
“Imagine a big pharma executive with the FTC in his hip pocket reading this ad and trying to decide if you are competition.”
Needless to say:
That influenced every word of my copy.
Every jot & tittle had to pass that test in a game of market cat & mouse so the ads would both stay off the wrong radars, be “clean” from anything even perceived as false, while also selling the products.
Fast forward some years later:
I found that such helpful advice I decided to hire “Email Players” subscriber and internet Marketing attorney Mike Young to review one of my sales letters. His job was to go through my copy and try to “break” it for potential legal problems. To say it was worth many thousands of times what I paid for that advice would be an understatement.
In fact, I hired him yet again just a week ago for another ad.
And I’ll be doing it for all future ads henceforth.
This all may look like a “copywriting” lesson.
But it goes far beyond mere copywriting.
It can be applied to all kinds of things in your business. And in the August “Email Players” issue I get deep into many ways you can use this mentality in your business & marketing (there are all kinds of ways to use this to drive up ye olde profits and sales you almost certainly aren’t hearing about anywhere else) as well as your regular “day in, and day out” life — from determining who you can trust to who you pick as a spouse. (I even talk about how I “broke” Stefania before picking her, if that tells you something… which you can read about on page 30.
This is not a “light reading” subject.
It took double the pages I normally write in “Email Players” to teach it.
It took more than double the time it usually takes to write it.
And it will take far more than double the effort to read, apply, and use it.
Realize that before subscribing.
This 10-year anniversary issue was a true labor of lust for me.
And, in some ways, was quite therapeutic to write.
Which is good for you for reasons that’ll be obvious when you read it.
That is, assuming you’re subscribed by the deadline.
It goes to the printer today.
After that?
Too late…
Here’s the link:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com
Ben Settle