The Boron Letters – By Gary C. Halbert

Takeaways
● Money is often a by-product of enthusiasm. When it comes to making money, attitude is the most important thing.
● You want to know what people DO buy, not what they SAY they buy. You need to know how it really is, not how people (or you) wish it was or how they think it is. You should become a “student of reality.”
● “The only advantage I want is A STARVING CROWD!” – Constantly be on the lookout for groups of people (markets) who have demonstrated that they are starving for some particular product or service.
● Three main guidelines when picking lists to test:
○ Recency – the more recent they’ve purchased something similar, the better.
○ Frequency – The more often they purchase, the better.
○ Unit of sale – The more they buy, the better.
● Halberts Marketing Law: Sell People What They Want To Buy! – locate a nerve, their “hot button”, observe ads that are working on them.
● “Most of the world’s work is done by people who didn’t feel like getting out of
bed.” – When you don’t feel like working, just start anyway.
● The truth is determined not by how people use their mouths, but rather, how
they use their wallets.
● The more honest you are with yourself and others, the faster you will see what really motivates people.
● As a general rule, the more “custom tailored” your promotion is the more successful it will be.
● Ideas breed other ideas. It’s okay to have bad ideas.
● When you get stuck or emotionally jammed up, one of the ways to get yourself unclogged is to keep moving. Run. Walk. Jog. Write. Do the dishes. The key is movement .
● Books are recommended: “Scientific Advertising”, “The Robert Collier Letter Book”, “2001 Headlines”, “SuperBiiz”.
● Make yourself a collection (“swipe file”) of good ads and good dm pieces and read them and take notes.
● To make your own product:
○ Peruse Amazon, New York Times Non-Fiction best seller list
○ These let you know what info markets are hot. It is easier than ever today to make money working with subjects you love because it is so much easier to target a lot of customers into very odd or strange things.
○ Even if only 1 in 10,000 people feel the same way about your passion, you still have a huge pool of people to target. In fact, it will probably be hard to even find competition in such a highly-targeted and bizarre subject, which makes it easier for you to dominate that market.
● It’s better to be in the spam box of a primary email address than to be in the primary box of a spam email address.
● Putting specifics and details in a letter or email makes it feel more personal and important.
● One key question every business owner should ask is “how can I make it so ordering is even easier?”
● 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 order, then you will get more orders.
● Keep two task lists:
○ The first is of every important thing you really should do while at your best.
○ The second is of all the important tasks which I can do equally well regardless of my mood.
● Working in libraries and coffee houses is a way to trick yourself into doing work where everybody else is.
● When trying to stand out, try and fight any urge to sound like a cliche and use phrases which a reader could finish on their own. You only want the reader to get that head-nodding “been there, done that” feeling when you already got the prospect’s attention.
● Many marketing greats keep a power words list. Look at tabloids and make a list of headlines that really suck you in. Divide your list of words into positive and negative. Peruse it before you begin your copy dump.
● Disguise your pitch until you want the prospect to know you are selling something. Add a few videos, use monster headlines with benefits to let the copy appear to be broken up in sections. The proper time to let people know you are pitching is after you have started seriously fueling their desire.
● Before beginning to write the actual copy, you should assemble a file that contains everything you can get your hands on that is relevant to your promotion. Then, start reading and taking notes. Take nuggets so you don’t stuff yourself. They can be one word, a phrases. Write what occurs to you when reading all your material. Always make sure to include complete description of your product and what it will do for you.
● Next, re-read all the notes and put a star next to the really good ones, two stars next to the even better ones, and the red hot ones put three stars next to. After that, stop working on the project. Put it out of your mind for a day or two. Often what occurs during this time is an outstanding sales idea.
● Use a proven sequential outline like AIDA which stands for ATTENTION,
INTEREST, DESIRE, ACTION:
○ First, get his attention
○ Second, get him interested
○ Third, make him desire what you are selling
○ Compel him to take whatever action is needed to get whatever it is you are selling
● Keeping your whole project in a box really helps. Make sure you keep a pen and paper on you at all times because ideas come when you least expect them. ALL great copywriters write their nugget notes, bullets, and headlines by hand. Also, rank everything in terms of what the buyer cares about.
● AIDA
○ Attention comes first. Must get the right kind of attention. Must be relevant.
○ Next, we must catch their interest by feeding interesting facts.
○ Then we must stoke desire by describing the benefits our prospect gets.
○ Get him to take action by being very clear and specific.
● A simple way to get a reader interested it tell their story by telling your story with the problem your solution provides. The key is to switch to talking about them as soon as things get better in the story.
● Describe benefits emotionally. Your second choice headlines often make good bullets.
● Use simple, common everyday words in your copy with short sentences and
paragraphs. Ask questions every once in a while and answer them yourself.
● A good writer is one who makes things perfectly clear. Makes it easy for the reader, easy to understand what he is saying, easy to keep reading.
● THE BEST WAY TO BECOME A GOOD WRITER IS BY WRITING GOOD WRITING.
● Eye relief is an important concept. Go through many edits, cutting everything out until cutting any more would be cutting something the customer would like to know. Chop long sentences into two short ones. Break up paragraphs
● The judicious use of parenthesis can provide “eye relief” for your reader. Your copy should be laid out to be and eye treat. Wide margins, a certain amount of white space, double spacing, short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, and an attractive, inviting layout.
● The layout of your advertisement should catch the attention of your reader but not in a way that causes him to “notice” the layout.
● Whenever you write an ad, it should have the look of an exciting news flash.
● You can do a better selling job when at first it does not appear you are attempting to do a sales job.
● You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
● Ideally you want to offer first time buyers three price points.
○ The cheap option which has what you need
○ The deluxe or mid-priced option with some bells and whistles
○ The supreme package with prestige service
● When a person goes in for a job interview, the interviewer decides whether or not to hire the person in the first 40 seconds.
● You either hook a reader or lose him when he very first looks at your ad. Not when he reads it, but when he first looks at it.
● Most of the time, a person will never alter his original impression.
● HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. You should never make a decision when you are any of those things.
● YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT, YOU JUST HAVE TO GET IT MOVING.
● A little trick to improve your copywriting is to read your copy out loud. Rewrite the
tough spots and read the copy out loud again. Keep repeating until your copy is
completely smooth and you can read it without any stumbling at all.
● You must always find a market first, and then concentrate on a product.
● One way to increase believability it to give exact details