I’m traveling for a few days, and while sipping my exotic travel coffee this morning, I thought:
“This damn daily email… how could I get it done a little more quickly today, while at the same time making it worthwhile for my readers to actually read?”
I waited for inspiration.
And I waited.
“Surely” I said to myself, “my subconscious, that powerful torpedo guidance system that Maxwell Maltz told me about, won’t leave me in the lurch. It will come up with something. Won’t it?”
My subconscious shrugged its shoulders. It was enjoying the morning coffee and the cool breeze too much to do any thinking.
Sure enough, I was left on my own.
So I did what I always do in situations like this.
I went back to a big ole file where I’ve collected the most valuable and interesting stories from the classic marketing books I’ve read over the years.
Such as, for example, the following short story from Claude Hopkins’s My Life In Advertising.
Hopkins is often called the “godfather of modern advertising.” And with reason. He helped build up Palmolive and Quaker Oats and Goodyear into giant brands that still survive and dominated today, a century later.
Anyways, my second favorite Claude Hopkins lesson is the following story, about the relative ineffectiveness of clever copywriting and sales techniques. Hopkins wrote:
“Mother made a silver polish. I molded it into cake form and wrapped it in pretty paper. Then I went from house to house to sell it. I found that I sold about one woman in ten by merely talking the polish at the door. But when I could get into the pantry and demonstrate the polish I sold to nearly all.”
I suspect there is some value in that story, if only you meditate on it a little. At least that’s what I’m doing. After all, Hopkins’s implied promise — 10x your results by focusing less on your clever sales pitch — is too big not to at least take a little seriously.
Like I said, that’s my second favorite Claude Hopkins lesson. My favorite Claude Hopkins lesson…
Well, it’s one I like the sound of a lot. But even though I learned it years ago, I still struggle to apply it.
If you want to read all about it, including how to maybe make it a little easier to apply, you can find it in Commandment VI of my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters. If you still haven’t got that little book yet: