I recently read a personal story about Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest Americans of all time.
Carnegie had a couple of nephews who studied at Yale University.
These guys never wrote their mother, and they paid no attention to their mother’s frantic letters asking them if they are ok.
Andrew Carnegie wagered a hundred dollars he could get an answer from his nephews by return mail — without even asking for it.
So he wrote them a chatty letter.
In the postscript, he mentioned casually he was sending each of them a five-dollar bill.
But he neglected to enclose the money.
Sure enough, replies came from the two nephews, thanking uncle Andrew for his letter, and letting him know him he forgot to send them the money he mentioned.
By the way, I read this story in a book written by another Carnegie.
That’s Dale Carnegie, in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People.
And I think this story does a good job illustrating the fundamental principle behind the whole How to Win Friends book. I believe this principle is also the fundamental rule of copywriting — the first thing I would tell anybody who is looking to write sales copy, whether for their own business or for a client.
I won’t spell this rule out for you here.
But if you want to see how you can put it into action when writing your own copy — specifically your own sales emails — then check out hte following: