Back in the 90s, A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos wrote a control for a Boardroom book called Tax Loopholes. One of the bullets in that control read:
“Surprise! Choosing the wrong private school for your child can cost you a bundle in tax breaks. What to do on page 90.”
I found the actual Tax Loopholes book online. And here’s what it says on page 90:
“If you send your child to a special school for psychological reasons, be sure to choose the right school. Otherwise your medical deduction could be disallowed. Recent case: A psychiatrist recommended that a child attend a boarding school. The IRS refused to allow the parent to take a medical deduction because the school was not a “special” school, and the curriculum didn’t deal with the child’s problem in any way.”
So how did Parris get from the source material (boring, unsexy) to the bullet (intriguing, sexy)?
Let’s take it step by step. If I had to summarize what it says in the book, I might say something like:
“The trouble is you can send your kid to a boarding school for a medical reason thinking you can get a tax break, but it ends up disallowed because it’s not the right kind of school”
There’s one big problem with this. And that’s that very few people are thinking of sending their kids to a boarding school for a medical reason.
So now the clever thing that Parris did becomes obvious.
Because if your appeal is very specific and limited, you can broaden it simply by generalizing and omitting stuff.
That’s how a boarding school (specific and fairly rare) becomes a private school (general and pretty common)…and that’s how the mention of the medical deduction simply disappears. Now our basic-bitch summary becomes:
“You can send your kid to a private school thinking you can get a tax break, but it ends up disallowed because it’s not the right kind of school.”
(This is already pretty close to what Parris’s bullet says. Beyond this one insight, it’s mostly a matter of tightening up the copy.)
Now here’s why this trick is so valuable:
This generalization/omission sleight-of-hand doesn’t just apply to writing bullets. It’s something you can do in all your copy if your initial appeal is too narrow. As Parris said once (I’m quoting from memory):
“Ask yourself, does it help my case, does it hurt my case, or is it neutral? If it hurts your case or it’s neutral, take it out. Only keep it in if it helps your case.”
By the way, I’ll be going through more bullets and source material like this, to figure out how great bullet writers do their business.
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