It is an honor to be writing this one as the Total Package celebrates its 1,000th post this week.

I feel even more privileged to have you here reading my posts, and (hopefully) seeing enough value to post your comments below.

Some weeks I bomb and don’t seem to connect, other weeks, like last, I struck a chord and got your interest and comments.

This week I want to talk about the triad that each and every one of us needs to master.

We are here for a reason … to learn and profit.

And there are three stages to that:

1. By becoming more proficient at marketing.
2. By leveraging that skill (and the money made while using it) to bring on additional resources so that we can grow further.
3. And by packaging #1 and #2 up so that we can find new profit centers and offerings our clients want.

You and I both know that we are incredibly fortunate to have masters like Makepeace, Bencivenga, Bird, Masterson, etc here helping us for free.

Never before has there been such easy access to some of the greatest minds in business (I don’t mean to exclude any one of our editors here, just don’t have the room to list them all – there is a list of them off to the right of this post).

Each and every one of them dearly wants us to become proficient marketers and writers so we can fulfill our dreams, and pass on even more knowledge to other aspiring entrepreneurs.

Imagine the change we can all make happen if each one of us took the tools given here and used it to their greatest potential.

Businesses would flourish.

We would contribute immense amounts of money into the economy.

We would hire more people.

We would share our knowledge with others, and help the growth continue for many more decades to come.

That is how evolution and permanent change happens … with action.

Stage #1 in the triad:
Turn your knowledge into sales.

The Makepeace Total Package is here to help you become the best marketer you possibly can be.

And only through massive action will the advice given here turn into cash in the bank.

Take all the advice given here on this blog, test it in your own business, and see which techniques work best for you.

Some will work far better than others.

One reader of my personal ezine and this blog just wrote me from Australia to share that the techniques he learned enabled him to buy a pony for his two young daughters … a lifelong dream come true.

He took the ideas – tested them – found what worked – then went big with those proven winners. He took massive action on the idea and turned it into cash.

Everything you need is here to master the money side of entrepreneurial growth.

But then you need to turn that growth into something bigger, you can’t do it all yourself.

Stage #2 in the triad is to create
the freedom to grow bigger, faster.

And you cannot do that by working harder … you need help.

Entrepreneurial burnout is the result of trying to do it all yourself.

Been there … not fun.

I have written before about outsourcing to help with stage #1.

Hiring people locally is also a great way to leverage everything you accomplished in stage #1 and grow it even bigger.

But, not everyone wants that: some are content with finding a business model that creates them a decent living, and they can just plug away doing that.

But most entrepreneurs I know think beyond that.

And having help is the way to grow bigger.

So you bring team members onboard that give you the freedom to grow faster, without having to work more hours.

As your team develops, you find you are able to focus on the key skills and areas of passion that help your customers the most.

Once you have developed the skills to make money, and then leveraged that money to create freedom, you can then move on to the last stage in the triad.

Stage #3: Finding innovative ways
to create new profit centers.

Those can come from the team members you have on board … or can come through partnerships and additional resources you bring on board.

When you have the time and money to look to new income streams, the growth can be exponential.

The resources are in place to implement more ideas faster.

The money is there to invest in your growth.

Your mindset is there and completely focused on making it all happen.

The perfect combination all wrapped up.

Think about the three stages like a triangle.

Each of them is critical to make a perfect triangle. There is no one point that is more important than another. And each corner feeds into the next.

Some entrepreneurs focus more on one corner or stage more than others – and quickly find it off center and unbalanced.

But when you put equal weight on mastering the skills to make money, leveraging others to create freedom, and finding new and innovative ways to create even more income streams … the triad is perfectly symmetrical and balanced.

Having more money enables more freedom.

More freedom enables you to look outside the box for new ideas for growth.

New growth enables more money.

And so on.

Each stage feeds into the next and can continue to help you grow for many years into the future.

But you must stay balanced here.

Always be thinking about the three stages.

Don’t get caught up in one stage, neglecting the others.

With the economy as it is right now, we all have to work harder than just a couple short years ago.

But it is also the time when the weak will find they just can’t take it.

Leaving those of us who can to build faster and bigger.

When things do turn again, they always do, we will emerge with an incredible foundation for anything we want to accomplish.

But it all begins here and now
with a commitment to focus
on all three phases over the coming months.

Learn, apply, and make money.

Create freedom for yourself.

Leverage your freedom and money to find new profit centers you previously didn’t have.

Then make sure you tell everyone your empire began with the Makepeace Total Package!

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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In 388 B.C., Plato urged the ruling politicians of Athens to banish all storytellers beyond the city walls, claiming they were a danger to society …

“They deal in invisible ideas,” he argued, “concealed within the emotion of art, thus influencing people without their knowing.”

Indeed, every effective story sends an emotionally charged idea out to us … essentially compelling the idea into us … so that we must believe.

When an idea comes wrapped in such an emotional charge, it becomes all the more powerful … profound … and persuasive.

This is because a great story authenticates its ideas through the consequences of honest human choice and action. It is the creative demonstration of truth, the living proof of an idea.

And so every great sales story must encapsulate and prove a central selling idea: a single, clear, coherent sentence which expresses the story’s fundamental meaning, or moral.

The central selling idea shapes your strategic choices.
It guides you toward the meat and bones of your story.
Anything that is irrelevant to it must be left out.

Thus your sales story becomes a kind of philosophy of life that your prospects grasp intuitively – in a flash of unconscious insight.

The more disciplined you are in shaping your story around one clear and compelling central selling idea, the more depth of meaning your prospects will discover. They will spontaneously grasp the story’s invisible meaning and follow its implications into every aspect of their lives. Both the functional and the emotional benefits of your offering will become intimately understood.

At the core of your sales story lies that one overriding idea that describes how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence to another. It has two components: A value, and a mechanism …

Value means the most cherished (sometimes unconscious) outcome or desire your prospect hopes to gain from your product or service – happiness, wealth, independence, freedom, peace of mind, power, vengeance, self-love, whatever it might be.

And mechanism is the primary reason why the life of your prospect can turn from a negative value to a positive one. It is the catalyst that transforms sadness to happiness … sickness to health … rags to riches … impotence to power … loneliness to love … embarrassment to pride … damnation to salvation … and so on.

Your sales story is in effect a journey from the negative
expression of a given value, to its positive expression.

Take self-love and esteem for example. These are values. A mechanism for achieving them for many people is: To have a slim, trim and attractive figure that’s appealing to others. The corresponding central selling idea thus becomes: You can love yourself when you know the real secret to controlling your weight.

Now, we can take this central selling idea, and we can explore it directly. “When you’re slim, trim and attractive, you feel good about yourself. You have the confidence to be assertive with those around you and get what you want out of life. But if you’re fat and flabby it’s only natural to feel unworthy and undeserving.”

According to Plato, bringing our argument out into the open like this is the honorable thing to do. And sometimes, it is the profitable thing to do, too. But the deeper and more unconscious the value contained in your central selling idea, the less this is true.

In dealing with something as hidden, deep-seated, and close-to-the-bone as self-love and esteem, we gain much from passing our idea along invisibly – through the fictive spell of story.

Read this …

Listen, not long ago I was scared I was going to lose my husband. I’m not very tall and my weight was up to almost 200 pounds. He never said anything. Not one word. But … every once in a while … I thought I could see him looking at other women out of the corner of his eye.

Who could blame him? I looked awful and I felt terrible about myself. So … I decided to go on a diet. I went to six different book stores and I found out they had 67 different diet books.

I bought every one of them.

It cost me $1541.23 … and … seven months later … I had gained another 23 pounds.

So, I went to a doctor. In fact, I went to three doctors. I took every pill they prescribed for me … and … I stayed fat.

I tried four different liquid diets. I listen to those “subliminal” tapes. I ordered five different “can’t fail” plans from those late night TV shows. I tried acupuncture. I tried hypnosis. You know, it seems to me, I tried everything on the market. Unfortunately, the results were always the same …

I’d lose a few pounds in the beginning and then I’d gain it all back … and sometimes I’d even gain more!

Then, after all that, I did something really stupid: I left my husband! I must have been out of my mind. You know, he never hinted he was going to leave me. But … I was so scared he would … I decided to leave him first.

He begged me to come back. He said my weight didn’t matter. He said he loved me for who I was and not how I looked. He said sure, sometimes he would look at another woman because, after all, he was only human. But, he said he never once thought about cheating on me.

Well, now I know he was telling the truth. But, back then, I just couldn’t believe it. I guess that’s why I told him I wouldn’t come home until I lost every ounce of my extra weight.

He said he would wait for me, and I thank God … he did!

OK, now let me get to the good part. While I was separated from my husband, I finally did discover a way to lose weight and keep it off …

The story carries on from there to tease the reader about what this magical weight loss secret might be, without ever revealing it. For that, the ladies had to send away for “Betty’s Diet Report” – just $19.95, plus $3 shipping and handling.

Now, do you see how cleverly Gary Halbert (the copywriter responsible for this ad) used this little story segment to amplify the importance of this product? It’s not just about losing weight. It’s about liberation from the soul-sucking self-loathing that many women experience … and a pathway to greater self-love, esteem, and acceptance.

Let’s take the remaining time we have left today to analyze this ad a little further… 

Actually, we picked up the story in the fourth paragraph because I wanted to show you how Gary unraveled the central selling idea. But the first few paragraphs that set up the story are equally brilliant. Here’s how the body copy leads off …

My name is Betty Adams, and the first thing you should know about me is … I am not a doctor.

I am not an expert on nutrition. I never went to college and I don’t have a degree in anything. In fact, the only thing I consider myself an expert about is …

I Think I Know How Almost Any Woman in America Can
Lose Up to 63 Pounds in a Very Easy Way!

I know … because … I did it!

These first few paragraphs are a sort of damaging admission. While every other weight loss ad at the time tended to open with credibility copy – trumpeting the infinite wisdom of some kind of accredited expert – here Gary goes in the opposite direction, drawing attention to Betty’s lack of credentials. This serves several purposes.

First, it makes Betty look honest. The rest of the copy becomes more believable as a result. Second, it addresses the objection “why should I listen to you?” head on, rather than trying to hide from it. And third, it shocks the reader a little bit. She doesn’t expect an advertiser to say something apparently negative, and this – combined with the product claim in the sub-head directly adjacent – serves to deepen her interest.

Then in the story that followed, you can see how Gary discredits the experts, one by one. Obviously they don’t know scheisse from shoe polish. As if to say, “the alternative to what I’m offering you here is a conspiracy of imbeciles. Maybe it’s time us girls stuck together and figured this thing out for ourselves.”

This is just one of a series of Desperate Housewife ads that Gary wrote. You can actually feel Betty losing her grip and slipping into an intense state of irrationality, characteristic of desperation – particular in the surprising plot twist where she leaves her husband.

He used this powerful theme repeatedly, not only in weight loss, but in other niches as well. It calls out like a siren song to the low hanging fruit of the market – who really are desperate – while also hooking the interest of just about everyone else, with its sheer drama.

You might laugh at a story like this, thinking it’s obviously fabricated. But before you do, consider the enormous influence of the Creation Story, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Jonah and the Whale, and other powerful narratives. Each one had a central selling idea. Each one converted like crazy!

Plato would NOT have been impressed.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Well, here it is – our 1,000th issue. So today, we’re going to celebrate this milestone by giving you a quintuple shot of TTP.

See, we generally publish five kinds of issues here:

First, we deliver precisely what we’ve promised you since Day One: Our stock-in-trade is and will always be proven direct response strategies and tactics that have the power to help you produce bigger winners, more often.

Second, because successful business-building requires more than just great sales copy: We have also earned a reputation for publishing strategic articles that give you the chops you need to explode sales.

Third, because failure is so frequently due to a lack of persistence: We have become known for publishing inspirational articles that directly address the loss of faith, vision and creative energy that so often cause entrepreneurs – including copywriters and marketing consultants   to throw in the towel.

Fourth, to help you maximize your income as a freelance marketing consultant or copywriter: Many of our 1,000 issues deliver tips, tricks and techniques for “trading up” to a better class of client and structuring working arrangements that will make you both more money.

And fifth, because Washington Republocrats are constantly screwing things up for everybody: I have occasionally published a scathing indictment of the unparalleled idiocy, off-the-charts corruption and mind-blowing incompetence of politicians in both major parties.

So today, on the occasion of our 1,000th issue, we’re not going to try to decide what you need. Instead, we’re going to let you decide what would put the most spring in your step and then get what you need.

I’ve selected my five favorite issues – one in each category. So …

If you’re looking for solid, practical guidance to ramp up response on your next copywriting project, click this link.

If you’d welcome a plethora of solid strategies guaranteed to explode any business, go here.

If you’re a freelance copywriter or marketing pro and could use some great ideas for attracting a better class of clients, click this link.

If you’re feeling discouraged and need a shot of inspiration to recharge your batteries, click here.

And if you could use a shot of political adrenalin to get your blood boiling, brace yourself and then click this one. (This article actually got us AUDITED!)

Happy reading – I’ll see you next Monday with a whole bunch of great new response-boosting stuff I’m learning right now.

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

P.S. Do YOU have a favorite Total Package issue? One that really stands out in your mind or that went a long way towards helping you succeed? Scroll down and let us know!

Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.

Looking for more of Clayton's articles? Check these out.

Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.

If, in the summer of 2005, you’d told me that some day, I would one day publish the 1,000th issue of what was then my brand-new semi-monthly e-zine, I’d have figured you for some kind of nutbag.

After all; even a high-school dropout like me knows that, at two issues per month, it would take 38 years and six months to get to 1,000 issues. No way was I going to publish this rag until I was 91!

But it’s actually happening: Tomorrow we publish issue #1,000 – and after only about five years, too!

Now at a time like this – celebrating 1,000 issues – most online teachers would prolly be taking huge victory laps … strutting around like bandy roosters … and crowing like there’s no tomorrow.

Not me. I’m wondering how in the bloody hell I ever made it this long with my marriage, my fortune and my sacred honor intact – not to mention what passes for my sanity!

Fact is, if the chronology of The Total Package is ever written, it will be a glowing testament to what we did NOT know at each step of the way: More a chronicle of costly and painful lessons learned than the story of quick and easy triumphs fueled by my alleged genius.

Because I seriously doubt there’s a blunder you can make in this online publishing business that we haven’t made. And by “we,” I mean “ME.”

One thousand issues ago,
the world was a very different place …

It was the summer of 2005: Our income tax rates had been cut, interest rates were low and money was flowing. The value of our homes was soaring and the official unemployment rate was about as close to rock bottom as it ever gets.

… And so, with the U.S. economy going like a house a-fire, The Redhead and I decided to launch a copywriting blog. Because Carline Anglade-Cole told us to.

Years earlier, I had mentored my friend Carline when she wanted to become a freelance copywriter. In 2005, Wendy and I were in D.C. for a break; Carline, who still lived in the area at the time, visited us in our suite at The Willard.

The conversation, as I remember, went something like this:

Carline: “Why don’t you teach other people how to do what you do?”

Me: “Uh … OK.”

It was a selfish decision, really: I had already helped a handful of very good copywriters become great ones and the experience had proven to be one of the most rewarding of my life.

And so, The Total Package was born.

I named it that because I wanted my “blogazine” to deliver actionable ideas and advice on the full range of direct response marketing issues – from strategy to tactics … from nuts to bolts … from the creative aspects of campaign and promotion design to the dull boring numbers stuff that makes it all work.

So, armed with a somewhat catchy (but search-engine-hostile) title, I wrote the first issue and sent an e-mail to the few dozen folks in my address book saying they should subscribe and tell their friends and clients. They did; and within a week, we had just over 1,000 subscribers.

Maybe not so different after all …

I hoped readers would find The Total Package to be a breath of fresh air because, even back then, there were legions of phony-baloney copywriting and marketing “experts” online …

Charlatans that nobody in the real direct marketing world had ever heard of.

Self-professed geniuses whose only experience was hawking their own products – never competing with top copywriters in the real world.

Raw newbs who figured that by avoiding that whole messy and time consuming “learning and paying-your-dues” phase – and leap-frogging ahead to the “venerated expert” phase – they could make a fast buck.

To hear those gurus tell it, each one of them was the smartest and most successful copywriter/marketer ever. But right from the get-go, I made it clear to anyone who’d listen: I AM NO GURU – and frankly, I’m not all that bright.

I was – and still am – a working direct marketing strategist and copywriter. At the time, I had more than three decades of real direct marketing grit under my fingernails and battle scars a plenty.

I’d had my ass kicked in heads-up A/B test by the best copywriters in the business. At times, mercilessly.

I’d had more of my share of successes, too. People knew me because I’d exploded my clients’ sales on several occasions. Like the time I’d transformed a $300,000-per-month pipsqueak of a company into a $16-million-per-month behemoth in twelve, short months.

I also was known to have at least quadrupled several other clients’ sales and profits in a year or two. And over the years, my marketing strategies and copy had turned three tiny investment newsletters into the largest in the industry.

… Not because I’m particularly smart, mind you; I just know a few things about human nature. I’ve spent my life studying how to persuade humans to listen to my message – and having listened, to act in ways believed to be beneficial for them and also beneficial for my clients.

I also made it clear that I wasn’t doing this teaching thing to get rich. It was far too late for that. I’d been living on royalties earned by my successful direct response promotions – mostly for financial and health clients – for more than 30 years.

Those annual royalty payments had hovered well over six figures for a quarter of a century before shooting up into seven figures (well over $1 million per year) for more than a decade.

My deep, dark secret …

What I didn’t particularly care to reveal five years ago was my absolute ignorance of the nuts and bolts of ONLINE marketing. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have known what an autoresponder or a PPC ad was even if one had bitten me on the keester.

No problem; I figured I’d learn. After all: The Web is nothing more than a new medium – and in the 120 years since this industry was founded, no new medium has ever changed the basic, time-honored rules of direct response.

Because what we do is about people. And people are people regardless of whether they’re reading a sales letter that was delivered by direct mail, in a newspaper or magazine, or on the radio or TV.

Plus, I figured that even if worse came to worst, I could always test my way to Internet whizdom. But I soon discovered that when it comes to the Web, tangible, concrete reliable test results are as rare as unicorns.

Ask for hard data – anything beyond the fluffy, imprecise anecdotal stuff most web gurus deal in and you’ll generally get a blank stare. At best you’ll get some bogus apples-to-cumquat number stretching but rarely apples-to-apples test results.

Worse, nobody seems to care. After all: You can pretty much send e-mail for free. You’re not going to lose the million-dollar check you just signed to mail your promotion or to buy ad space or airtime because nobody ever asks you to sign one.

Lost profits? What are they? Nobody ever misses the profits they never earned.

The real disaster: In the absence of scientific test data, most folks figure one opinion is pretty much as good as another. Except that new unproven ideas seem to have greater value than old unproven ideas.

And of course, we all know that opinions are like – uh … noses. Everybody’s got one.

So if you ever wondered why so much confusion reigns and controversy rages on the Web, now you know.

It is better to be silent and thought to be an idiot
than to speak and remove all doubt

So, with precious little online experience and no reliable roadmap to guide me, I entered this strange and foreign virtual landscape with the kind of bold confidence that can only spring from abject ignorance.

At one desperate point months later, I even remember asking my pal Bob Bly how you build an online list! How humiliating.

Equally embarrassing: I had no idea who the major players online were. Early on, Jeff Walker called to say “thanks” for The Total Package. Since I had no idea that he’s the genius creator of Product Launch Strategy – or even what Product Launch Strategy was – I almost didn’t take the call. He could tell I had no idea who he was. We still laugh about that.

I was equally clueless the first time I met Rich Schefren of Strategic Profits … Frank Kern of Mass Control … Andy Jenkins of Stompernet … Joe Polish of Piranha Marketing and the Genius Network … or a dozen other leading lights whom I now count as friends.

The first time Drayton Bird wrote to compliment us on an issue, John Newtson came running into my office to announce that not only is Mr. Bird a subscriber, “He likes us! He really likes us!”

“Who the devil is this ‘Bird’ person?” I asked, only half listening. “David Ogilvy’s partner,” John said. “You know – the godfather of direct response marketing in Europe.”

“Holy moley!” I said.

Today, I take exceptional pride in the fact that Drayton and Clayton are buds.

Fortunately, though, before I could ball things up too badly, I bumped into Daniel Levis, who did know a thing or two about online marketing.

And equally lucky, Daniel connected me with Troy White. The two of them deserve as much credit as anyone here for any successes we’ve enjoyed.

I’d have done it for
the new friends alone …

First, starting The Total Package meant we needed employees to help carry the water. Every one of them has been a joy. So Pete Schissel, Jill Anderson, Martha Shelton, David Dittman, Graham Livengood, Forrest Livengood, Craig Burgwardt, Deanna Blanchard, John Newtson, John McCrae, Paul Maxey and Len Bailey, thank you so much for everything you’ve done!

Second, thanks to our contributing editors; without you, we’d have run out of stuff to give our readers years ago! So thanks to …

Drayton Bird

Bob Bly

Doug D’anna

John Forde

Yanik Silver

Michael Masterson

Gary Bencivenga

Mary Ellen Tribby

Carline Anglade-Cole

Michel Fortin

Wendy Montes de Oca

Bob Hutchinson

Charlie Byrne

… and everyone else who has contributed helpful articles over the years!

Third, thanks to the many direct marketing legends who have agreed to be interviewed in these pages – and by doing so, have inspired and enlightened us all: Ted Nicholas, Joe Sugarman, Gary Bencivenga, Drayton Bird, Arthur Johnson, Jim Rutz, Rich Schefren, Ken Evory, Yanik Silver, Perry Marshall, David Deutsch, and Jim Punkre.

Fourth, to the legions of readers who have used this blog or our feedback box to tell us how we’ve helped you, THANK YOU!

The last time I looked, our testimonial master file was 253 pages long and contained hundreds of thank-you notes and success stories from our readers. Those letters are our true measure of success.

Finally, the biggest thanks of all goes belongs to The Redhead; my wonderful wife, best friend and partner-in-anything-life-throws-at-us. As our General Manger, Wendy runs the entire show. She’s the real star – and everything we’ve accomplished since Issue #0001 is to her credit. Thanks, babe – I love you!

So where’s the value in today’s issue? What lesson can be learned from our experience so far?

I count five important things to think about, for starters …

#1. Never listen to anything Carline Anglade-Cole suggests – unless you’re ready to embark on a very long, very rewarding, life-affirming experience.

#2. Do something: Never let what you don’t have stand in your way. You will never know everything or have everything you need to guarantee success. People who refuse to act until success is guaranteed never amount to a hill of beans.

“Ready, fire, aim!” may not be the ideal way to do things, but it will always get you farther than “Ready, aim” … but never pulling the trigger.

#3. Never despise the day of small beginnings. From tiny acorns mighty oaks grow. My friend Tom Phillips started his publishing business on his kitchen table. He’s worth gazillions today. Ditto for Bill Bonner and every other great entrepreneur I know.

Get started. Do the work. Stick with it. Ninety-nine percent of the secret to success is, “Just show up.”

#4. Do Well by doing Good: Every one of the 999 issues we’ve published so far was delivered free of charge. What’s more, every one of them is still available for free in our archives.

But giving away free stuff online is no big deal. What is a big deal are the thousands of folks who say we’ve helped them succeed. And frankly those testimonials are worth far more than money to me.

#5. If you’re not studying every one of those back issues, you’re screwing up. BIG time. Do yourself a favor: Set aside at least an hour a week to study each one of them. Then, in 38 years or so, when you find yourself reading THIS issue, start all over again.

Well, that’s it for issue #999. Tomorrow, in our gala Issue #1,000, I’ll be back with more stuff we’ve learned that I guarantee will make you money.

If not, let me know and I’ll refund every penny you paid for your free subscription. My hand to God.

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Looking for more of Clayton's articles? Check these out.

Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.

Dear Business-Builder,

They say the ultimate in “chutzpah” is killing your parents, then asking the judge for mercy because you’re an orphan.

I know – gross. But you gotta admire people who know what they want and who’ll go to just about any lengths to get it.

Like the guy I knew who landed an airplane, unannounced at a KGB listening post at the Arctic Circle and bribed a Soviet Colonel to lend him a helicopter – just so his son could make it into The Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest person ever to visit the North Pole.

Or the infamous mercenary and publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine I spent a day and a raucous evening with in 1980 who got himself invited to tag along on the Bay of Pigs Invasion just for grins.

Or the guy I met just last week, who sold Castro a boatload of coffee for $1.8 million – cash in advance – then told the Cuban authorities his boat had sunk on its way to Havana.

I don’t care who you are; this stuff is priceless.

One of the most lovable scoundrels I’ve ever met
is a guy named Larry Owen …

I met Larry at Will’s Honky Tonk – “A sunny spot for shady people” – one of the raunchiest biker bars in Florida back in 1995. I was just walking away from the bar with an iced-down brewski when I overhead someone mention that he owned an advertising agency.

I spun on my heel and introduced myself. “My name’s Clayton; I’m in advertising too – I’m a copywriter.” Larry gave me a dismissive glance; “I’m Larry Owen,” he said in the most disinterested tone of voice imaginable. “Give me your card – maybe I can give you some work, someday.”

Don’t know if it was what he said or how he said it, but something about his reply really torqued me off. “I’m booked for five years in advance,” I said. Here’s my card … maybe I can give YOU some work.”

At that moment a great friendship was born. Over the years, we terrorized Florida on our Harleys. We kicked up our heels at countless Bike Weeks in Daytona – along with a half-million other bikers. We tore up Sloppy Joe’s every fall at the Key West Poker run.

Larry and I also grabbed The Redhead and whichever girlfriend Larry was charming out of her socks at the time and spent weeks touring Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. And we’ve been invited guests at some of the most obscenely outrageous parties thrown by some of the baddest outlaw biker gangs around (yes, you know their names!).

… And together, we created dozens of direct mail promotions that literally blew away everything my clients’ competitors had in the mail.

Because you see, Larry’s my Secret Weapon …

Without Larry, my now-famous promotions for Safe Money Report … the promos that enabled us to mail up to three million pieces per month while our competitors could only mail one-tenth as many … the promos that made that newsletter the largest and most successful of its kind in the world … wouldn’t have been anywhere near as successful as they proved to be.

And without Larry, my “23-Cent Lifesaver” promotion for Health Resources would not have mailed 30 million pieces over a couple of years.

Now, Larry is known for running with scissors and coloring outside the lines. So a couple of years ago, he disappeared. Turns out, he took almost two years off traveling solo and living throughout Central and South America. He spent months living with friends in a tree house on a Colombian island off Costa Rica, and at the boats-only city of Bocas del Toro, Panama.

And when he returned, his inbox was flooded with e-mails (and more than a few suggestive snapshots) from ladies who’d caught “Larry Fever” throughout Central America.

Now, Larry’s back at work – and once again, he’s turning out amazing direct mail promotions for major national clients in the health and investment industries.

What Larry Owen knows that could rocket your response
– beginning right now …

As you might suspect, I’ve worked with dozens of graphic designers over the years. Most were little more than computer nerds who had learned how to use Quark Express, PageMaker or InDesign – but who knew nothing at all about marketing, let alone how to create direct mail that people will actually read.

And of course, most of the rest were design school grads who’d been taught how to make a page look “cool” … or “pretty” – and who wouldn’t dream of junking up their precious white space with ugly type.

That’s where Larry Owen rises head and shoulders above the pack.

See, Larry began as an ad man – creative director for McCann-Erickson and J. Walter Thompson – cutting his teeth on memorable, even legendary campaigns for Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-A, Bosch & Lomb, Hilton Hotels, Sea World, Six Flags, Georgia Pacific, Wells Fargo Bank and many others.

That means Larry understands what it takes to create direct mail that actually increases response.

Want a sample of Larry’s work for your swipe file?
OK – here’s one …

Take a look at this PDF and you’ll see: Larry knows five things that have rocketed my response – and that can do the same for you:

1. If it doesn’t stop your prospect in his tracks, it won’t get read. As Larry’s laying out his promotions, he visualizes his prospect standing at the mailbox or at the kitchen counter sorting the mail. He imagines that the mail is full of strong controls by his client’s biggest competitors. And he crafts covers and envelopes that make it impossible to look away.
2. If it doesn’t make reading inviting and easy, it won’t get read. Larry is a past master at using the findings of the legendary Daniel Starch/McGraw-Hill Readership Study to lay my copy out so that it almost reads itself. From his type selection and size to his line length, to his management of widows and orphans, he removes every possible barrier to readership. And every spread is replete with pull-quotes and other devices to stop scanners in their tracks and to pull them down into the text.
3. If it doesn’t use photos, illustrations and other devices to communicate quickly and add credibility – and to keep prospects reading – it won’t produce a sale. In all my years, I’ve never seen a designer who’s better than Larry at incorporating images into copy in ways that deepen interest and readership – especially crucial in the long-copy tomes I’m known for writing.
4. If it doesn’t use what we know about color psychology to emotionally “heat up” the prospect, it won’t do jack. See, Larry knows how to use colors to put prospects at ease while your copy raises their emotional temperature.

Put simply, Larry knows that he only has five tasks in every promotion – and none of them have anything to do with making it “pretty.”

That’s why every promotion Larry creates does an outstanding job of …

A) Grabbing his prospect’s attention and instantly convert that attention to readership …

B) Making reading the page inviting and easy …

C) Forcing casual scanners into the text …

D) Including action devices on every spread with your toll-free number prominently displayed along with directions on where to go to find your order form, and …

E) Making your response device inviting and easy to use.

My advice:

• If you want a crackerjack designer who’ll add response points to your next campaign … who’ll turn your project around lickety-split … and who will NOT charge you a king’s ransom, drop Larry an e-mail at larryowen26@gmail.com. (Important: Better do it now; he’s laying out his work schedule for the next six months and his dance card is filling up fast!)
• If you’d welcome a way to learn how to create direct mail formats and design that amplifies response, stay tuned! Larry has generously agreed to take time from is busy schedule to break it all down and show you how a graphic designer thinks when creating a winning package.

So, watch your inbox next Friday for part two as my buddy Larry gives you his anatomy of a direct mail WINNER!

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Last summer I was in Vancouver speaking at the Canada Marketing Summit.

They had a great lineup of speakers … covering everything from lead generation, copywriting, teleseminars, information publishing, right through to motivational content. 

The audience MORE than got their money’s worth. 

… If they implemented what they learned.

How many times have you gone to a seminar, immersed yourself among experts, and then got back to the office without implementing at least one thing you learned?

Day-to-day things get in the way … next thing you know … a month has passed and nothing you learned was used or made you money.

It happens wayyyy too often.

The key is to immediately implement one or two things you learned. Then mark it down and block it off in your calendar for the next week to implement one or two more things.

But this is not what I wanted to discuss with you today.

I want to talk about magic pills for success …

… And rant a little about this belief.

If you understand the speaking model at seminars, this won’t surprise you:  Many events like this one have speakers who are there on their own dime. 

They don’t get paid for flights or accommodations. 

They get paid if they sell products or services to those in attendance. And usually, the revenues made are split (50/50) with the seminar promoter.

So if you sell a bunch of stuff … you make a bunch of money.

If you don’t sell anything … you don’t make anything.

A simple model that works.

There are three types of seminars
that are held these days …

1. Larger up-front registration fees and no speaker pitches (speakers are paid for their time in advance)
2. Low up-front fees and most (or all) speakers have something for sale (continuing education products, as they are called there)
3. Mid-range seminar fees and some of the speakers selling

Someway … somehow … the seminar promoters have to make money to pay for the hotel and expenses.

The only time this model doesn’t apply is with a customer appreciation type of event.

In this case, the seminar price was low, and the speakers sold.

At least … tried to sell.

Canadian entrepreneurs are a skeptical lot … and buying at seminars is a tough thing for many of them to do. 

I should know … I held the Wild West Marketing and Wealth Summit for the past two years (this year … still undecided for late in the year).

Anyhow, something happened there
that inspired me to write this today.

When I speak … I deliver real, usable, how-to information. 

BUT … myself … and the other speakers that provided solid information they could take to the bank … suffered in our sales at the back of the room. 

Those of us who delivered quality information all seemed to have how-to, 1-2-3 blueprint type of products for sale. 

And few people were interested in buying.

BUT, when the speakers got up and gave a 90-minute talk full of fluff and, in most cases, were giant 90-minute pitches for their magic pills … they sold. 

The speakers with products sounding like “plug this in to your computer, wake up tomorrow and be making $50,000 a day”  type of stuff … they seemed to sell. 

Quality information … no thanks.

Million dollars a minute with no work … where do I sign up?

Plug this audio in, go to sleep, and wake up wealthy? PERFECT! Just what I’ve been looking for.  Where do I put my credit card information?

This truly amazed me.

And frustrated me.

And confused me.

Do people actually believe the magic pill crap?  They must!  They were signing credit card forms to show their trust.

In this day and age, I just don’t understand people who believe they can achieve massive levels of success and wealth without having to actually work for it.  

Do you?

I highly doubt you would. 

Those following The Total Package blogs seem to be intelligent, well-educated, hard-working entrepreneurs.  I can see it in your comments to our articles.

I agree … it would be nice if these claims were true and really could be made this easy … but it is impossible. 

You MUST get out there and put in the work to reap the rewards.  Ask anyone who has attained a certain level of success how simple and easy it was.  Then stand back for the real truth and nothing but the truth. 

The exception?

The business opportunity crowd.  The pitches working best are the magic pills.

Anyhow, there are some lessons here
I wanted to share.

First, be prepared to put in daily effort towards your dreams.

If you take and do just one or two small things a day to propel your business forward, in the matter of a year, you have hundreds and hundreds of little steps you took towards making your year the best yet.

If you could do just one of these things a day, imagine what would be possible:

1. Write a new short blog post about something you saw through Google Alerts
2. Post a useful comment on a forum or blog that your perfect customers commonly frequent
3. Send a Top 10 list or helpful article to your clients and prospects
4. Make one phone call to a new buyer to thank them for their business
5. Distribute just one article to the e-zine banks and directories for them to post (for free) all over the Internet for you
6. Get a Flip cam and create a short 60-second video with a tip your clients and prospects would find useful (making sure your website is mentioned in the video) – and post it on YouTube
7. Figure out Twitter – and start testing one useful Twitter a day (I admit, this is foreign to me, but at the Summit I spoke with many people who are successfully using Twitter to build rapport with their market)
8. Put up a new blog post – and make sure you use a service like Pingomatic.com to get your blog out to the proper places
9. Find one new holiday or unusual event coming up and plan out a promotion you can tie into it. For example: did you know the following reasons for a promotion are coming up?

September is host to:

• National Courtesy Month
• Be Kind To Editors and Writers Month
• Shameless Promotion Month
• Women of Achievement Month
• Organic Harvest Month
• Jazz Month
• Fall Hat Month
• Children’s Good Manner’s Month
• Self Improvement Month
• Tiger Month
• Hispanic Heritage Month
• Baby Safety Month
• Library Card Sign-Up Month

Specific weekly occasions:

• First Week: National Childhood Injury Prevention Week / Self-University Week / Play Days / Popcorn Week / National
  Payroll Week
• Second Week: Minority Enterprise Development Week/ National Assisted Living Week / Suicide Prevention Week:
• Third Week: National Singles Week / National Clean Hands Week / National Love Your Files Week / International Women’s
  E commerce Days
• Fourth Week: Deaf Awareness Week / Religious Freedom Week / Banned Books Week - Celebrating the Freedom to Read
  Dog week

(Note: Some people ask if these are international holidays … I say … “why not?” There are no rules saying you can’t create your own special occasion or holiday! Make one up – and turn it into a campaign. Easy peazy.)

10. Surprise one of your customers today and do an endorsement of them to your entire database.
11. Send out a press release or announcement to your local papers about a newsworthy tidbit you can share
12. Ask a mentor of yours (or mastermind member) for help creating one new strategy you can implement to grow your business this year
13. Share some good news with those on your database (they are sick and tired of bad news … it’s everywhere!)
14. Do something for yourself today that gives you a treat for all the hard work you do
15. Ask your customers to share their favorite picture and story of their kids or pets.
16. Read one chapter out of your favorite inspirational or motivational book
17. Write out a few notes about why you started your business and what fires you up the most about what it is you do

If you did just ONE of those things a day
for the next 17 days …
what kind of a difference do you think it would make?

I dare you.

No … I double dare you.

THAT, my friend, IS the magic pill for success.

Consistent, forward moving actions that drive you closer and closer to achieving your goals.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and any ideas you have to share on how you hold yourself accountable to those single actions that MUST get done daily.

Small business mastery is ALL about doing the little things that add up to big things.

What small things are you going to do TODAY
 that push you forward?

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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A Final Note:

If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please submit a comment below and I will see how I can help.

"A man to carry on a successful business
must have imagination.
He must see things as in a vision,
a dream of the whole thing.”

– Charles Schwab

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For normal people, writing and speaking are a means of expressing their point of view.

For you and me – on planet copywriting – we have an entirely different objective.

We write to create an effect in people that compels them to want to purchase a product or service when we ask them to do so.

Sometimes we create the intended effect. Sometimes we create no effect whatsoever. And sometimes we create the opposite effect to which we intend.

Just the other day my wife came to me all jazzed up about Red Fife – the wheat. (I know, you thought this was going to be a story of lust, jealousy, and betrayal – shame on you.)

Some clever marketing had convinced my wife to make an investment in a magical loaf of bread. The source of its magic: said wheat. It was done through the power of story. Naturally I was intrigued.

As I was munching a piece of the bread, baked with Red Fife, she reads me the copy on the side of the bag. I quote:

“Red Fife wheat was named after David Fife who first planted the red colored seeds around 1842 on his farm near Peterborough, Ontario. Legend says that a friend of Fife’s collected 5 seeds in Scotland that he sent to Canada. Fife planted the seeds. The wheat flourished and set the wheat standard for over forty years.

Many consider it to be the ancestor to virtually all Canadian wheat grown today.

In 1882 George Weston started baking high quality bread. Because he only accepted the best ingredients, he would have used the award winning Red Fife flour. A family tradition of quality was started.

For over 125 years Westons’ has continued the tradition of providing the best bread to Canadians. We have supported the conversation and protection of heritage seed, focusing on grains which can adapt to diverse growing conditions on Family farms across Canada. This biodiversity is the basis for a strong national food system.

We are proud to be using Red Fife again. The best of the past, brought you today. Enjoy.”

Now, the story is intended to evoke down-home, mom-and-apple pie images, and install favorable branding for George Weston as a responsible, green, caring custodian of Canada’s food supply. In a word – trust – was the feeling the copywriter was aiming for.

But this is not the effect this copy had on me at all.

As my wife was reading it, two questions popped into my mind that had just the opposite effect. Did these same two questions pop into your mind? If so, stop reading, and write them down on a piece of paper write now. I’ll explain why in a minute.

Done? OK, continue …

The first question is the result of the two seemingly innocent little words “would have” in the second paragraph.

In 1882 George Weston started baking high quality bread. Because he only accepted the best ingredients, he would have used the award winning Red Fife flour.

Well did he or didn’t he?

Of course, he must have. Maybe, I mean, he probably did. He was a really quality kind of guy, you know. He probably used Red Fife.

And I’m thinking: How many other things does this company brag about that may or not have happened?

The second gaff is even worse. Do you see it in the fourth paragraph? This time the offending word is “again.”

We are proud to be using Red Fife again. The best of the past, brought you today. Enjoy.”

Now, in fairness, I may have missed some nuance in the writing while listening casually to my wife reading me this copy, but I got the impression that Red Fife is the finest. And so my gut reaction was: So what has George Weston been selling us all along? Chopped Liver?

This is kind of like spouting the suicidal phrase, “I’m going to be honest with you.” Excellent, thanks for letting me know you’ve been lying to me all along. I forgive you for your honesty.

The bread – in case you’re interested – was nothing special. And the copy just served to support my previous prejudice that George Weston is just another big, dumb company that barely meets my minimum standards as a consumer.

The point I find interesting about all this is that it was just three careless little words that ended the life of Red Fife in the Levis household. These three little words caused me to see the exact opposite of what the copywriter intended.

Execution aside, dramatizing your claims through story is a very powerful strategy. Stories are great for getting attention and readership. Just as importantly, they allow us to communicate ideas that would be suicidal to try and communicate in any other way.

Bread, Fishman, and the
Conversion of the Multitudes …

I was talking to my friend Michael Fishman the other day about market research and focus groups and surveys and that sort of thing. And how what people tell you about what they want and why they buy is rarely the whole story.

And he said something that I found really profound.

He said, “There are things that people will tell you. There are things people won’t tell you. And there are things people can’t tell you.”

Ask a person what they’re looking for, or why they bought, and they will tell you things they think you want to hear. Things that make them look good. And that fit neatly onto a laundry list of product features.

I want a better warranty … better gas mileage … more leg room … more power … better handling … whatever the case may be.

If you drill down you can attach benefits to these features, I want a better warranty so I can get better resale value … better gas mileage to save money … more leg room so I can be more comfortable … and down you drill.

But these are not reasons people buy. They are reasons people use to justify a purchase, AFTER they have already decided to buy.

Personally, I drive a 5,000 pound SUV. I tell people I bought it because it has a very effective 4-wheel drive system that gets me around when there’s 3-feet of snow on the road, which actually does happen where I live.

What I don’t tell them is that I really get a kick out of the – I’m-drivin’-in-my-truck-and-I-don’t-give-a-f@#k – feeling I get every time I slip behind the wheel.

At some level, deeper still, buried in my lizard brain – beneath millions of years of evolution, if you believe in that sort of thing – lurks an even more primal imperative that I can’t even begin to explain.

The first level is easily communicated in a very direct, matter-of-fact sort of way. “You need to get around when the going gets tough, Mr. Customer? I’ve got just the thing. Here, take a look at all of the reasons you’ll never get stuck in this particular SUV?”

But the second and third levels can only be activated through some kind of a story that “shows” rather than “tells.”

A young family is driving along a desert road.

A large gang of menacing-looking bikers overtakes their car and surrounds them.

The wife urges the husband to pull over.

“Relax honey - that’s the last thing we should do! I know exactly how to handle this.”

He pulls into a restaurant parking lot where you see 15 jet-black Ford trucks lined up like motorcycles at a biker bar.

The bikers pause before following them in. Eventually one of them says “I’m not going in there,” and another says “the salad bar is better up the road!”

The sub-text of the little story is that Ford trucks make you tough – a force to be reckoned with. That idea is patently ridiculous. Few would admit to such an absurd motivation for buying one. But I’d bet dollars to donuts that appeal goes straight to the lizard brain in man and sells an awful lot of trucks.

At a still deeper level, survival and even pro-creation come into play. A Ford truck signals you as a provider and a protector – prime mating material! Like a gallant knight in shining armor, atop a magnificent charger … just the sight of you is enough to send the bad guys running home to Mama. This rides even lower down in the sub-text, far below conscious awareness.

By showing rather than telling, you can trigger these powerful secret desires and primal urges. Once triggered, you can tell your prospect about all of the logical, common sense reasons he needs to justify his decision to act.

It is of course, a riskier proposition than talking straight features and benefits. You’re more likely to end up with a flop or chart-busting, gushing geyser of response than an also-ran. But that’s part of the thrill of it. Test small. Roll out big. And you’ll be OK. I promise.

The key thing in all this: If you can let your prospect figure out what you want him to think and to feel without coming out and telling him how to think and to feel, your copy will be much more persuasive.

Of course, it’s not always easy anticipating the effect of your words, much less their aggregate effect on the multitudes – as our hapless Canadian flogger of bread so aptly demonstrates.

Can We Take a Poll?

How many of you felt the same breaches of trust when you read the George Weston Red Fife story above?

Was it just me, or did you feel them too, at a gut level – before I pointed them out?

Take a look at your notes, and grace us with your commentary.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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About 15 years ago, traveling to California with K and Number Three Son, I met one of the originators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

He was sitting next to my son. We got to talking. My son was a big fan of the turtles back then. This guy, I forget his name, drew a turtle for him.

I asked him how he came up with such a creative idea.

"It wasn’t creative at all," he said. "It was a calculated marketing strategy."

This young man was in his early twenties at the time. He and his friends had developed the concept when they were in their teens. It didn’t seem likely to me that they could be so calculating, as he put it, at that age. I figured he was pulling my leg.

But then he explained.

"We were sitting around one day talking about how cool it would be to have a bestselling comic strip. ‘To do that,’ one of us said, ‘you’d need to pick something that was really cool with kids who read comic books.’

"So then we talked about what the coolest things were. We made a list and we decided that the three coolest things were mutants, ninjas, and turtles. We made them teenagers because we knew it would be teenagers who we’d be selling to."

"Wow!" I thought. "That is a calculated marketing strategy."

In the years since that conversation, I’ve thought about it many times when brainstorming new products. "What is really hot right now?" I always ask, to get the ball rolling.

By "What is hot?" I mean two things:

• What are the products our prospects are buying now?
• What are the topics they are talking about?

The purpose of these questions is to discover their most current thoughts, feelings, and desires.

Finding out what prospects are buying now tells you about their recent past. Finding out what they are thinking about gives you a perspective on the near future.

When I brainstorm like this, I am usually searching for a single idea – a single, powerful idea that I can use to create a new product or promotion. But sometimes I see an opportunity to do something like those kids did with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: to create one super-powerful "mutant" product or promotion by combining two or three hot topics or ideas.

Let me give you an example:

A colleague of mine created one of the bestselling promotions in the financial advisory industry last year by combining what were then the two hottest topics of discussion among the investors who were subscribing to his newsletters. Those topics were China and gold. So he led off the promotion this way:

Why Chinese Gold could pay 100% MORE than U.S. Gold over the Next 2 Years

Don’t buy another ounce of gold until you read this report.

In short: The Chinese government has created a secret new gold investment. The last time the gov’t did something like this, investors could have made 1,084%.

The copy went on to excite the reader about the enormous strength of China as an emerging economic power – something every investor was acutely aware of – and the dramatic rise in value that gold had taken in the past several years.

Harnessing these two immense forces, the copy suggested, would be a very fast and smart way to become wealthy quickly.

As I said, the promotion was extremely successful. It brought in more than double the number of buyers and millions more dollars than the publisher expected. He specifically attributed its success to this strategy.

Let me give you a second example.

The iPhone – one of the most brilliant marketing coups in recent memory.

The iPhone is a beautiful mutant. It is a state-of-the-art cell phone, a sophisticated MP3 player, and an easy-to-use mobile Web browser, all in one.

Of course, it’s much more than that. But these three functions were particularly positioned in the marketing. And for good reason. They are the three hottest trends in technology today. They are must-haves for everybody from students to business travelers to retirees.

Finally, let me tell you about a business I’ve noticed here in Delray Beach.

It’s a restaurant that offers a large selection of microbrew beer, caters to the "foodie" crowd with gourmet menu items, and restricts itself to tapas-style dining by featuring appetizer-size portions.

If you know anything about the restaurant business – in particular, the market in South Florida – you know that these are the three big trends. By combining them in a cohesive way, this restaurant became an instant success during a time when many restaurants have been foundering.

But three ideas at once? Doesn’t this violate my much-touted Rule of One?

Yes and no. The Rule of One, as you will remember, states that a marketing campaign does best when it begins with an emphasis on a single idea or benefit. When I see marketers and copywriters throw a bunch of ideas/benefits into the headline and lead of a promotion, I know it’s because they can’t decide which one will pull people in.

The Teenage Mutant Turtle strategy is different. It doesn’t come from doubt about which idea/benefit is strongest. It comes from recognizing that there are two or three really hot trends in the market at the moment. And it takes advantage of them.

You can’t always use this strategy. Most of the time the product you are selling cannot be connected with two or three super-hot trends. But when it can – and you can find some way to put them all together in a single package – well, then you can have the Teenage Mutant Turtle effect.

So how do you develop such a promotion?

Let’s go back to the financial advisory business. And let’s assume you’re brainstorming ideas for a new promotion for your investment newsletter.

China and gold were very hot last year. But, for various reasons, they are not so hot this year. What’s hot today? Brazil and oil, to name two.

So what if you could get your investment guru to find some Brazilian company that is specially situated to take advantage of oil in Brazil? One that would exemplify the best aspects of each trend but in an integrated way? Do you think that would work?

I bet it would. (I’ll let you know for sure as soon as I can get one of my clients to try it.)

In using the Ninja Turtle strategy, be sure your copy follows all the other tested and true rules of good promotional writing.

• Make sure there is a primary benefit for your reader contained in the principal idea.
• Make sure the copy makes that benefit real with specific examples of how your reader will experience it in his own life.
• Make sure it makes claims and proves them – being as specific as possible.

The Ninja Turtle strategy won’t work if your product doesn’t genuinely provide the benefits needed or if the two or three ideas can’t be coherently linked together.

But when it works, you will sense the power of your copy as you are reading through it yourself. And you will see the benefit of it when your prospects respond to you in droves.

Michael Masterson
Guest Contributor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Dear Business-Builder,

As you know, my mission is a very simple one: To make you money.

For the last four years, we’ve done that by bringing you truly amazing volumes of free information and advice in THE TOTAL PACKAGE – and by overdelivering mind-blowing income-boosting content at our Power Marketing Summit, our teleconferences and in our other products.

Not very long ago, Daniel and I spent some time talking about web marketing and what he had to say could go a long way to rocketing the response to your web promotions through the roof …

If you do any web marketing at all, you are NOT going to want to miss this interview!

Hope this helps – see you next week!

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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It’s not sexy or exciting or even revolutionary.

And if you’ve been studying copywriting for any length of time, you’ve probably heard it all before.

Nonetheless, I still see instances of this principle being ignored virtually every day. And doing so is almost guaranteed to give you a one-way ticket to failure.

Are you ready for the big secret?

The most powerful and effective copy is written as if the writer were having a two-way conversation with the prospect. In other words, you MUST write conversationally!

Not exactly earth-shattering, is it?

Still, it is one of the most critical skills to master as a copywriter.

Writing conversationally doesn’t mean throwing around a bunch of jargon or slang words. It simply means to write like you talk – with clear, simple language that expresses your ideas in the fewest possible words.

It also means writing in such a way that evokes intimacy. Not in the romantic sense, mind you. But in the sense that you make your prospect like you, trust you and want to hear from you again.

Fortunately, writing conversationally is one of the easiest copywriting skills to master. Everything you need to know you learned by the time you were five years old.

Everyone has a natural, conversational voice. It’s the voice you use to persuade your family, friends, colleagues and others who are close to you to your way of thinking.

Your challenge is to capture that voice and inject it into your copy.

As you’re writing, simply visualize your prospect and imagine how you would make your argument – and extol the benefits your product or service has to offer – if you were sitting across the table from them having a real-life conversation.

When you write as if you’re sitting down with a friend, you’ll transition more smoothly and easily … you’ll find yourself asking questions in the right places … answering objections at the appropriate moments … and your copy will feel remarkably natural.

And that brings us to this week’s Swipe of the Week – with a promotion from Motley Fool that’s more akin to a fireside chat than a hard-sell pitch for a financial product.

Download it now and see if you can pick up a tip or two about the fine art of writing conversationally.

And keep in mind: No one wants to be lectured or “sold.”

But you’d be hard-pressed to find a single person on this planet who wouldn’t engage in an interesting, down-to-earth conversation about their favorite subject: Themselves!

So take advantage of this powerful dynamic by making your copy sound more like a genuine conversation with – and about – your prospect, and less about you.

Until next time …

Yours for greater profits,

Paul Maxey
Makepeace-Trained Copywriter
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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