Gary Bencivenga

Do your customers really want a relationship with you?

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I talked about the legendary copywriter Gary Bencivenga yesterday.

​​Gary wrote sales letters that brought in millions of dollars for big publishing companies. He rarely if ever lost a split-run test, even when competing against the highest level, against other top-of-the-pile copywriters.

​​I’ve been going through Gary’s farewell seminar for the fourth time. I’m finding all kinds of nuggets of gold that I had missed before.

For example:
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At one point during his farewell seminar, Gary mentions in a slightly exasperated tone the idea of “relationship marketing.” And he says:

“I buy an aspirin because I have a headache, not because I want a relationship with my druggist.”

Maybe you’re ready to pick this statement apart. And I’m sure you can. I’m sure you can do a good job proving that Gary’s statement isn’t true, not most of the time, not with all people, and that it doesn’t apply to your particular situation or to the way the whole market has changed since Gary was in his heyday.

That’s fine.

​​I don’t have a dog or a cat in this fight. I’m just here to share Gary’s idea with you, and maybe give you something new to think about.​​

But if you think a bit, and realize that maybe your customers aren’t primarily interested in buying from you because you are you, because they want to imagine you’re their friend and they like your sense of humor and they feel good about obeying your commands, then what are you left with?

Well, you can always talk about your offer.

​​Or about your customers’ problems.

​​Or about convincing proof that your offer will solve your customers’ problems.

Or simply about your customer’s deep hidden desires, about his identity, and how your offer naturally reinforces that. ​​

If this is what you want to do, and you want to do it well, then you can learn to do it with my Copy Riddles program.

It teaches you to write copy by showing you how A-list copywriters have done it, starting with a dry source text, and ending with a sexy and sparkling sales letter that netted millions or tens of millions of dollars. Often, without the slightest shred of personality or relationship.

And yes, among the A-list copywriters that Copy Riddles looks at is Gary Bencivenga himself. ​​If you’d like to find out more, take a look at the page below:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Newsflash: Gary Bencivenga endorses the Copy Riddles approach

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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:

https://bejakovic.com/cr-3/

“Unsubscribe please”

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Last night, following my “Buy my 10 Commandments book” email, a reader replied:

“Unsubscribe please”

I’ll admit it. This irritated me. I figured my reader was just too dumb to know how you unsubscribe from an email newsletter.

But then I had a hopeful thought.

Maybe my reader just wanted to show her displeasure at my grossly self-promotional, zero-value email?

When I checked ActiveCampaign, it turned out I was right. My reader had found the unsubscribe link and unsubscribed on her own. But as she was walking out the door, she just had to let me know about it.

This isn’t the only parting shot an unsubscribing reader has taken at me.

Last January, during a launch I was running, a troll wrote me and suggested I read up on copywriting fundamentals before promoting any more offers of my own.

To which, I wrote a newsletter email about his helpful suggestion.

The troll replied to that newsletter email in an offended tone.

So I wrote a second newsletter email about his offended tone.

At which point, the troll unsubscribed. In the “reason why” field you get when you unsubscribe, he wrote:

“You’re simply too dumb to be helped.I tried twice & you can’t tell the difference between a troll & someone with advice. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

I’m telling you all this because enemies are good for business. They’re so good that if you don’t have them, you have to make them up. Here’s America’s greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga, on the matter:

“And if you can create an enemy in your copy, that’s what happens. You set up a three-point discussion and you come around from your side of the desk to be on the reader’s side of the desk and then it’s you and the reader against the enemy that you’re railing against.”

The trouble is, my emails are usually so placid and polite that I’ve been suffocating any potential enemies in the womb.

In that whole span from the guy back in January to the woman last night, I’ve gotten zero even mildly criminal replies to any of my emails.

I don’t know if it’s too late. I hope not.

There’s a theory that Gotham City is so full of wacky costumed villains simply because Batman is there. The villains watch the evening news, and see other criminals scrapping with Batman. They want a challenge also, and so they congregate on Gotham.

I’ll see whether writing about the “unsub plz” lady or the “you’re too dumb to be helped” troll will bring out any latent Scarecrows or Penguins on my list.

If they do come out, I’ll be sure to write an email and let you know about it.

In the meantime, let me promote something. That’s like lighting up the Bat-Signal in the night sky for making blood boil among wacky villains.

My offer for you today is my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters.

This little book features a commandment by Gary Bencivenga. Gary’s commandment is not about enemies. It’s both more fundamental and more powerful than that.

If you’d like to read it, here’s where to go…

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

… and I’ll be back tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. ​​

Nobel Prize-winner shows just how right I, John Bejakovic, was

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Trust me for a moment or two while I tell you about the following interesting people:

On October 3, 1918, a man named Grover Bougher sent a letter to his brother George, a Private in the American Expeditionary Force.

Two days later, Grover was killed in a train wreck.

Grover’s letter was returned unopened the following April, with a note from the Command P.O. that George had also been killed, fighting the war in France.

Neither brother ever learned of the other’s death.

But life goes on. Eventually, Grover’s widow, Lulu Belle Lomax, met and married a man named Vernon Smith.

Smith loved children, including Lulu’s two daughters by Grover Bougher. And while Lulu had often said she would never have any more children, Vernon’s love for her two daughters changed her mind.

​​The result was Vernon Lomax Smith, born on January 1, 1927.

Fast forward to 2002:

Vernon Lomax Smith is awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Well, actually he shares the prize with Daniel Kahneman. Like Kahneman, Smith did work in behavioral and experimental economics, so the Nobel committee thought it okay to split the prize among the two of them.

Fast forward even more, to 2022:

Vernon Smith, now aged 95, has taken part in an interesting experiment. Except, he is not the investigator. He is part of the experiment itself. The experiment runs as follows.

Smith and a lesser-known coauthor (one without a Nobel Prize) submit a paper for publication.

Will the paper be accepted for publication? How will Smith’s name influence those odds?

Result:

If Smith’s Nobel Prize-winning name is revealed to peer reviewers, they are more likely to accept the paper for publication.

If Smith’s name is hidden to peer reviewers, the reviewers are less likely to the accept for publication.

Common sense, right?

Except, what was not common sense, what was not obvious, and what was in fact shocking to the scientists who conducted this experiment, was the size of the effect of revealing Vernon Smith’s name to peer reviewers.

If Smith’s name was revealed to peer reviewers, they were 6x more likely to accept the paper than otherwise.

Same paper. Same quality of ideas inside. 6x difference in response.

6x!

Yesterday, I, John Bejakovic, wrote an email advising you to give your prospects mental shortcuts to make their decision-making easier.

One of the most valuable of such shortcuts is, as I have long trumpeted, to sell people, and not ideas.

Ideas are vague, hard to grasp, and hard to judge.

People, on the other hand, sell much better. How much better?

Well, thanks to Vernon Smith, we now have the answer:

​​6x better.

Like I said, this is something I have known for a long time. But I still need to remind myself of it often.

For example, I have lately been promoting my Most Valuable Email training.

I’ve given you all sorts of idea-y reasons why you might want to buy this training and learn the “Most Valuable Email trick” inside.

What I haven’t done yet is tell you maybe the most important reason.

While I have used this MVE trick heavily – more heavily than anyone I know of — I did not invent it.

In fact, I have seen some very smart and successful marketers, including Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, and Mark Ford reach for this trick it in non-email content.

It’s much rarer to see this trick being used in emails — outside my own — though I have spotted Daniel Throssell using this trick on occasion.

So many names.

So many people.

So many reasons to buy my Most Valuable Email training.

In case you are interested:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

The sales secret of Man on Wire

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Last night, in a desperate hunt for a movie to watch, I turned to the Rotten Tomatoes 100% Club. That’s a list of some 370 movies that have had uniformly positive reviews — a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score.

This led me to Man On Wire, a 2008 documentary about a man named Philippe Petit. In case you haven’t seen this movie, the gist is:

Petit was a tightrope walker. And obsessive.

Back in 1968, when he was just 18 years old, Petit hit upon the idea of walking on a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center.

Problem:

The towers hadn’t been built yet. So Petit spent the next six years scheming, practicing, and waiting in preparation for his audacious August 7, 1974 walk between The South and North Towers, which lasted 45 minutes.

But here’s a question that maybe immediately pops into your head, as it did into mine when I heard about this stunt:

How exactly do you stretch a wire across the two towers? The wire weighed 200 kilograms, or about 450 lbs. Petit was doing his setup clandestinely, in the middle of the night, while hiding from security guards, so helicopters and cranes were out of the question.

So what the hell do you do?
​​
​​You can’t just hoist the wire up from the ground — it’s a 400 meter drop (over 1,300 feet). You can’t just toss the heavy wire across the 40 meters (130 feet) that separate the corners of the two towers.

A hint comes early in the movie.

You see a silhouette of a man packing things into a bag. It’s supposed to represent Petit.

Along with other unrecognizable equipment, the silhouette gives away something familiar — an arrow.

The fact is, one of Petit’s henchmen shot an arrow with a bow from one tower to the another. And that arrow had a fishing line attached to the end of it.

They used that first fishing line to pull across a slightly sturdier string.

Then they used that string to pull across a strong rope.

And finally, they used the rope to pull across the actual wire, which like I said, weighed as much as an adult melon-headed whale.

Maybe see where I’m going with this.

Because when I saw this in the movie, a lightbulb went off in my head.

“I know this technique!” I shouted in the darkness.

But not from tightrope walking. I know this technique from sales. I first read about it in one of Gary Bencivenga’s Marketing Bullets. Gary called it one of the “the most powerful master strategies I ever learned.”

You can find the explanation of this sales technique below. But not just that.

You can also find lots of inspiring personal stuff about Gary at the page below. Such as for example, that for a long time, Gary was such a bad copywriter that he considered giving up and becoming a mailman. He even went to the post office to pick up a job application.

The only reason Gary stuck with copywriting, the only reason he persevered and eventually became so successful, the only reason we know of him today, was that he was told at the post office that they are not hiring at the moment, and when they do start hiring again, thousands of prior applicants will be ahead of Gary in line.

So Gary stuck with copywriting and marketing.
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And one of the biggest things that Gary learned in the years that followed, and used in all his copy and marketing, from his sales letters to his olive oil business, was this “Man On Wire” sales technique. In case you are interested:

http://marketingbullets.com/bullet-15/

Why I didn’t collect my $10.5 million

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Today I found a tantalizing email in my spam folder. The sender was Mrs. Mary J. Parker. The subject line read:

“FROM THE UNITED NATIONS POLICE (UNPOL)”

The email explained UNPOL was contacting me because of some money I’d wired to Nigeria.

This is a bit embarrassing. But a while back, I got another email. It described a unique opportunity to help somebody and get rich at the same time. At least that’s how it seemed.

I wired the money as that first email asked. And I waited to get rich. But I never heard back from anybody, or saw my money again.

Anyways, the email from Mrs. Parker informed me that a bunch of organizations, including “Scotland Yard Police, Interpol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI) United States of America, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria and all the African Crime fighter leaders” have been working hard to capture the fraudsters who grabbed my money and the money of other people like me.

These law protection agencies caught a bunch of these “Internet rats.” They retrieved billions of dollars.

And now, to make it up to me, they wanted to send me $10.5 million so I could start a new life. All I had to do was furnish a certain Dr Richard Kelly with $450 and also my correct and valid details.

Now here’s something that might shock you:

I decided to pass up this offer. Even though I’d previously wired money to unknown persons in Nigeria. And even though $10.5 million was on the line. Why I did this is the subject of this post.

Let me set things up by telling you about two direct mail campaigns. The first campaign was written by Gary Bencivenga. It made a generous offer:

Six free issues of Boardroom’s Bottom Line/Personal newsletter, plus a premium book. All for free, no strings attached.

It was such a generous offer that Gary thought it needed a reason why. So he used the idea of a survey.

“Fill out this survey,” Gary’s letter basically said, “and send it back to us. As thanks, we’ll send you six free issues and the book.”

This campaign was a massive success. A bunch of people sent in their surveys and got their trial six months of Bottom Line/Personal.

The trouble is, they didn’t subscribe much when the trial expired. And those who did subscribe didn’t buy much of Boardroom’s other books or offers.

But a control is a control. And so this survey offer kept running.

Until the second campaign. Which was was also written by Gary Bencivenga. And which also made the same generous offer.

But instead of using the free survey, the second campaign sent a 64-page booklet, titled The Little Black Book of Secrets.

This booklet had the most interesting secrets from different issues of Bottom Line/Personal… along with occasional calls-to-action to get your six free issues + bonus.

Result?

The second campaign pulled in only HALF the number of responses of the survey campaign. But twice as many of those people actually paid to subscribe when their trial ended. Plus, these non-gimmick customers bought way more of Boardroom’s other products.

In the long term, the second campaign was the winner, and became the new control. Which brings me back to the email I got from UNPOL.

The people at UNPOL did right by giving me a second opportunity to wire money to Nigeria. That’s standard direct marketing — it’s called having a back end. But here’s the thing:

I’m a greedy and opportunistic person.

Sure, I liked the big promise of being able to get rich quickly. That’s why I wired my money over the first time. But my interest was fleeting, and I’ve already moved on. That’s why I didn’t reply to Mrs. Parker’s offer today.

It’s pretty much the same as those people who filled in a 2-minute survey to get something free from Boardroom. Because hype and impulsiveness can get you lots of buyers… but those buyers can make a wobbly foundation for your business.

As Michael Fishman said once:

“Your selling copy in the prospecting process can actually impact the longevity of a customer with the company. So what I mean by that is if you make very, very big promises for a self-help product, a health or investment product… if you make very, very big promises for that about quick results and overnight success, etc… the kinds of people that will find that believable and ultimately will buy turn out to be folks that are not very committed in the long run to your company.”

But you’ve stuck with me for over 750 words now. Do you feel yourself becoming a bit committed to reading my stuff for the long run? In that case, you might like to subscribe to my daily email newsletter. It’s free, now and in six months’ time. Here’s the optin.

The next “greatest living copywriter”

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In response to my “Long-form copy is finally dead” email yesterday, a reader named David wrote in:

So Gary is the Greatest “Living” Copywriter rn. And that’s great. I agree with you.

But I couldn’t help but wonder, if he dies (and I’m not wishing that he does), who’s going to become the Greatest?

I’m thinking top contenders are Stefan, Evaldo, Ferrari and Haddad.

But I have no clue what the metrics are for choosing these kind of things. It’s just a thought that ran across my mind.

Anyhow thank you for your emails. I enjoy my time reading them.

Rather than who will be the next greatest, I can think of a more interesting and useful question:

Why would any person not named Brian Kurtz possibly think that Gary Bencivenga is the “greatest living copywriter?”

After all, it’s not there in the copy. There’s no way to rank “copywriting greatness” by staring at a bunch of sales letters.

It’s also not about results. Again, unless you are Brian Kurtz, who had a chance to compare the sales made by Gary’s copy to that of some other copywriters, you have no direct knowledge of Gary’s results.

So what is it?​​

Well, if you’re anything like me, and I imagine David above, you believe Gary is so great…

Because you’ve heard people like Brian Kurtz say so…

… because you’ve heard of Gary’s farewell seminar, which cost something $5k to attend and which brought together 100 successful DR marketers and copywriters, people like Gary Halbert and John Carlton, to sit and listen to Gary for three days…

… because thanks to email newsletters like this one, you’ve heard Gary’s name mentioned a million times, often with the attached tag line, “greatest living copywriter.”

And if I had to speculate on the rather fruitless question of who the next greatest copywriter will be, I think it will be something similar. Just as something similar applies to you.

Whether you’re a copywriter or a marketer who sells on authority and personality… whether you’re self-employed or under somebody else’s thumb… whether you’re new at the game or been at it for a while…

Your positioning and ultimately your success are much less about any metrics you can point to, and much more about the legend that emerges around you, or that you create for yourself.

That might be something that’s worth thinking about.

I’ve done some thinking about it myself. And I’ve concluded that, at least for the moment, I’m not in the “being a legend” business.

That’s why I’m happy to contribute to Gary’s legend instead of building up my own.

As befitting Gary’s legend as “greatest living copywriter,” I put him first in my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters book.

​​If by some chance managed to miss or resist my continued attempts to sell you that $4.99 book, here’s where you can find it, along with Gary’s irresistible commandment:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments​​

Long-form sales copy is finally dead

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If you go on Google right now, and search for “fresh pressed olive oil,” you’ll soon find a quirky web page as the top result:

It’s the Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club, which mails you olive oils from around the world, right after they’ve been pressed, year round.

Here’s the interesting thing about this site for copywriters and marketers:

One of the people behind this business is Gary Bencivenga, often referred to as the “greatest living copywriter.”

Back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and up to his retirement in 2005, Gary made his clients lots of money (hundreds of millions of dollars?) by writing long-form sales copy. His promotions sometimes spanned 50 or 60 pages.

And in fact, Gary even wrote a long-form sales letter for the Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club. It used to be there, right on the homepage.

But if you check the homepage of the FPOOC right now… that long-form sales letter is not what you will see any more.

Instead, what you will see is a quick and clear headline for the offer…

Some bullet points that have been pulled out from the original sales letter…

A bit about the founder of the club…

And a couple of buttons to buy.

All in about 2 pages of copy, max.

So what’s going on?

I don’t know. But my guess is that they tested this shorter home page, and it’s working better than what they had before. Here’s the lesson I draw from this:

If you start to learn about sales copywriting, you’ll quickly be told that “copy is never too long, only too boring.”

You might hear this backed up with the experience of top-level marketers and copywriters — including Gary B. — who will tell you that long copy, if done right, always outperforms short copy.

And it may be true… if you only have one shot to make the sale (ie. direct mail) or if you are selling to cold traffic.

But that’s not how many online marketing situations work today. The FPOOC and its website are a perfect example of that.

And that’s why I say long-form sales copy is finally dead.

And in case you think this is just cherry-picking and exaggeration… then I agree with you.

​​But I also think it’s no worse than saying “copy is never too long” — when it clearly can be. Even if it’s written by the great Gary Bencivenga himself.

All right, that’s enough copywriting iconoclasm for today.

But in case you want more copywriting lessons — and not all of them controversial — you might like to sign up to my daily email newsletter.

Daily email battleship

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One of the most eye-opening and mind-expanding collections of direct response insights I know of is an interview with Michael Fishman.

For context:

During Gary Bencivenga’s farewell seminar, the only person to get up on stage and present, besides the great Gary himself, was Michael Fishman.

Gary was an A-list copywriter.

Michael was an A-list list broker. (A-list list broker broker?)

In other words, while Gary’s expertise was to come up with creative words…

Michael’s expertise was to find creative lists of people to send Gary’s subtle sales letters to.

But what’s that? You say there’s not much to be creative about in choosing lists?

Well, that’s why that interview was so eye-opening and mind-expanding.

Sure, some of Michael’s work was routine. He had to keep a close eye on which lists were interested in related topics… which lists were hot… which lists were made up of recent, eager buyers, spending good money.

But sometimes, list picking was much less routine. Some of Michael’s work involved a real leap of insight and intuition.

For example:

One offer that Michael worked on is Boardroom’s Big Black Book. This was a typical Boardroom book of secrets — what never to eat on a Greyound bus, that kind of thing.

The Big Black Book​​ was many hundreds of pages long, and it was sold through a sales letter filled with fascination bullets.

And yet, get this:

Michael had the idea to promote the Big Black Book to a list of buyers of manifestation audio course, sold on TV through an infomercial.

Totally different products… totally different markets… totally different formats for marketing… totally different everything.

So why did Michael recommend this manifestation list and why did the list end up working?

That’s the crazy thing. Because this list was made up of buyers of a product called Passion, Power, and Profit.

Get it?

​​Big Black Book… Passion, Power, and Profit.

Michael had the insight that some buyers really respond to alliteration in the name of the product. That’s why the BBB offer turned out to be a good fit for the PPP list.

Like I said, eye-opening and mind-expanding.

This brings me to my offer to you for today:

It’s a little game that you and I can play. I call the game Daily Email Battleship.

This is how you play:

Sign up to my email newsletter. When you get my welcome email, hit reply and write me the names of all the daily emails newsletters you are subscribed to.

I’m not talking about just copywriting and marketing. Anything. Magic, manifestation, or medicine. Any topic or person or business is okay, as long as they email, more or less daily.

And then:

1. If you tell me a newsletter I also subscribe to, it’s a direct hit. I will tell you that. So if you write me to say, “I am on Ben Settle’s list,” I will write back and say, “Great, so am I.”

2. But if you tell me a daily email newsletter I don’t subscribe to… I will counter. And I will tell you a newsletter I subscribe to, which you don’t subscribe to.

3. And if I can’t do that, because you are subscribed to more novel and interesting daily email newsletters than I am, then you win.

And as your prize, I will tell you why I am collecting these email newsletters, and what this has to do with the Michael Fishman story above.

This information might be valuable to you. Or it might just feed your curiosity.

In any case, if you’d like to play, the opening shot is yours.

What’s the best font for making sales?

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A couple days ago, I saw a little study titled, “Best Font for Online Reading.”

Spoiler: there’s no clear answer.

One font, Garamond, allowed the fastest reading speed on average.

But that’s just on average. Not every person read fastest with Garamond. Another font, Franklin Gothic, proved to be the fastest font for the most people, though the average reading speed was lower than Garamond.

So is it time to change your sales page font to Garamond? Or Franklin Gothic?

Or maybe even to Open Sans — the font that came in last in terms of reading speed?

There is an argument to be made for having people be able to read your copy faster. If they get through your copy more quickly and easily, they get your sales message more easily, and they make it to the order button faster. And money loves speed, right?

On the other hand, there’s an equal argument to be made for having people read slower. The more time and effort somebody invests with you, the more likely they are to trust you (one of those mental shortcuts we all engage in), and the more likely they are to justify that investment and trust by buying in the end.

So like I said, no clear answer.

But this did bring to mind a story Brian Kurtz likes to tell about a time he hired Gary Bencivenga.

As you probably know, Brian was the VP at direct response publisher Boardroom. And in that role, he hired some of the most famous and most brilliant copywriters of all time, Gary among them.

Anyways, Brian’s story is about two sales packages, one fast, one slow, both written by Gary Bencivenga, both promoting the same product.

To me personally, this story has proven to be the most fundamental and important lesson when it comes to copywriting or running a direct response business.

Brian’s little story won’t tell you what kind of font to use, or what kind of copy to write, fast or slow. But maybe it will make that choice a lot clearer in your mind.

In case you want to read Brian’s valuable sales and copy study, you can find it at the link below. But before you go read that, perhaps you might like to sign up for my slow but trustworthy email newsletter. In any case, here’s Brian’s article:

https://www.briankurtz.net/how-you-sell-is-how-they-will-respond/