A Conversation with the Legendary Copywriter Gary Bencivenga Part I
In this special interview issue …
Welcome, Business-Builder!
If the thought of an extended interview with Gary Bencivenga doesn’t already have you quivering with anticipation, you are obviously in desperate need of a quick course in direct response marketing lore.
Three decades ago, when I was just beginning my journey in this fascinating business, eagerly devouring everything by John Caples, David Ogilvy, and Dan Rosenthal I could lay my hands on, Gary Bencivenga had already served a personal internship with each one of them.
When I was barely scraping by as a freelancer – writing ads for water heaters and local banks and dreaming about breaking into the super-lucrative financial publishing business – Gary ruled the roost, writing one blindingly brilliant control after another for the biggest mailers in the industry.
Gary doesn’t know it, of course, but in a very real way, he was my mentor. I spent a fortune I didn’t have at the time subscribing to every publication he promoted just to make sure I got samples of his promotion packages.
Whenever one of Gary’s inspired promotions arrived in my mailbox, it was a red-letter day: Like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day all rolled into one. Studying those Bencivenga controls taught me more – and made me more money – than all the books by all the great masters who had gone before combined!
So let’s dispense with hype and horsesh*t: Right now, the Internet is crawling with charlatans claiming to be the greatest copywriter alive – and then urging you to pay them a fortune for their books and courses. Many are complete frauds – scam artists who have never had a single hot control for a major mailer – looking to make a quick buck off of you.
Other self-proclaimed experts really have made millions writing copy – most of it aimed at selling their own books, courses and conferences, but rarely if ever competing against top writers in the real world.
Only a handful of copywriters in our generation have ever competed at anywhere near Gary Bencivenga’s level over the long haul. And if our little fraternity held an election today, Gary would be unanimously elected King. Gary showed us the way and we worship the ground he walks on.
And as a bonus, Gary is the nicest, sweetest, most humble, and the most generous guy you could ever hope to meet.
Yeah, I admit it: I genuinely love Gary. I want to marry him and have ALL his babies.
… So as you can imagine, it was an absolute thrill to spend a full 90 minutes picking his massive brain for ways to help you get bigger winners more often.
Here’s how it went …
- USP Heresy: Why your obsession with the “Unique Selling Proposition” could be lowering your response …
- Winning the Mind Game: How to quickly and easily program your mind to automatically create grand-slam ads for you …
- No Pain, No Gain! The painful (and enormously profitable) secret for honing your sales copy to razor sharpness – and driving response rates through the ever-lovin’ roof!
- “Yeah, Sure!” The two most dangerous words in your prospect’s mind – and the single best way to neutralize them …
- The New Magalog: The next great direct response format breakthrough is already here – are you making the most of it?
- Beyond Benefits: Why prospects don’t give a hoot about what you think you’re selling … and what to offer them instead to drive response rates sky-high …
- And way too much more to list here!
