I went for my morning walk just now, and I was listening to the Gary Bencivenga seminar on my headphones.
If you don’t know Gary, he is an A-list copywriter whose star shines brightest on the Copywriters Walk of Fame.
Gary’s sales letters mailed out tens of millions of times. They made him and his clients millions of dollars.
Before he retired, Gary was better at this than anyone.
An executive at Rodale Press, a big direct response publisher, said that Gary never lost a split-run test when going up against other top copywriters. An executive at Phillips publishing, another major direct response company, said that Gary had more winners than anybody else.
When Gary decided to retire, he put on a $5k/person farewell seminar where he shared all his best secrets. I’ve listened to the recordings of this seminar from beginning to end three times so far.
And yet, the following amazing story never managed to pierce that ball of lead that sits on my shoulders. Not until today.
Gary was talking about the first time he had to compete against the legendary copywriter Gene Schwartz, and try to beat a control that Gene had written for Rodale.
“I didn’t want to be overly influenced or depressed,” said Gary. So he didn’t look at Gene’s copy before starting his own.
After Gary finished his first draft, he decided to finally take a look at Gene’s stuff.
“I was so depressed,” Gary said. Gene’s copy was so much stronger.
But remember what that Rodale exec said? Gary never lost a split-run test for Rodale, not even against the great Gene Schwartz.
Here’s what Gary ended up doing:
I said, the only way I’m going to have a way of competing with Gene is if I figure out what he’s done to get these bullets.
So wherever his bullets came from, I would read the same page. I would learn from him just by mimicking what he had done.
So I said, “This bullet that he came up with came from chapter 3, page 4. What is the original source of this?”
And he taught me so much, just by studying his copy and by looking at the product itself.
I was able to beat him, but it was really his package too in a way, because I learned the technique.
Here’s a confession that’s not secret:
This approach to learning the technique of copywriting is what lies at the heart of my Copy Riddles program. I got the idea for that from another legendary copywriter, Gary Halbert.
And now, that same Copy Riddles approach has been endorsed by three big names — Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, and Ben Settle — all of whom have said publicly that this is the way they learned copywriting technique.
You can follow this approach yourself, right now, for free. Just like Gary did.
First, find a collection of winning sales letters written by a-list copywriters.
Second, get the product they were selling. You might have to stalk Amazon, eBay, used book sites, and online repositories.
Third, when you get both the sales letter and the out-of-print book in your possession, go bullet by bullet, and tease out how the A-list copywriter turned lead into gold.
Of course, you can also take a shortcut. You can take advantage of the fact that I’ve already done all this work for you, and that I’ve packaged it up in a fast, fun, mostly-done-for-you ride I’ve called Copy Riddles. To find out more about that: