Gary Halbert

10 tiny marketing projects you could complete in a week

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A guy named Ben Stokes just published a free tool to help you build a one-item online store. I’m letting you know this for two reasons:

1) Maybe you want to build a simple store for a product you have in mind. In that case, you can try Ben’s free store builder instead of paying for Shopify or fussing with WordPress.

2) Ben also has a unique blog at tinyprojects.dev. He does a tiny new programming project each week. He tracks what he did and how it went. The one-item store builder is Ben’s most recent entry.

All of which got me thinking:

​Somebody could make a similar site about marketing. Just pick a tiny project you could complete in under a week. Do it. Write up how it went, what you learned, and show off the results.

You’d learn something. You’d build a portfolio. You’d make connections. Maybe you’d even make some money.

I at least would love to read it. I really hope somebody will do this — maybe that somebody will be you.

So to help you get started, here are 10 possible tiny marketing projects I came up with just now.

​​I’m not saying these projects are great. But they don’t have to be a success in order to be a success, if you’re hepp to what I mean. Here’s the list:

#1. Get booked on a podcast
​
​Make an inventory of your skills, interests, and experiences. Go on listennotes.com and search for podcasts that might be interested in hearing what you have to say.

​​Send the podcast hosts an email explaining what valuable info you can share with their audience. If you have zero upon zero valuable experience or skills, then find a travel blog and talk about where you live. Any place can become interesting with a bit of research.

#2. Promote an affiliate product
​
​Go on Clickbank. Pick a top 15 Clickbank offer. Find a subniche you could promote it to (eg. weight loss for people with PTSD).

​​Create a tiny lead magnet that answers a specific, curiosity-inducing question in 4 paragraphs max. Create a landing page offering this lead magnet as a PDF.

​​Write a soap opera sequence for people who sign up, promoting the affiliate product. Create 3 Facebook ads and run $5 worth of Facebook traffic to your page each day for 3 days.

#3. Work on getting a story to the front page of Reddit
​
​Search the Internet for a sufficiently shareable/outrageous/inflammatory story that hasn’t blown up yet. Or use your own content. Figure out which subreddits might go for it. Put it out there. Go on Fiverr and pay for 5 people $5 to upvote it using a bunch of different accounts, and try to make it reach the front page.

#4. Publish a Kindle book out of repurposed materials

​
​Blog posts you’ve written, articles, emails, your personal diary, letters to your mom, or your high school term papers. Whatever you’ve got. Put it together. Figure out a hot title. Research how to make a Kindle book. Create a cover using Canva. Write an Amazon listing for it. Publish it on Amazon KDP.

#5. Start a blog where each week, you post a profile of a different successful marketer

​​Dig around on the Internet and collect info on this marketer. Then reach out to the marketer, explain what you’re doing, and ask one or two in-depth questions to make your piece unique and more than just a rehash what’s out there. If you don’t hear back, that’s content too. ​​Write it all up. Link to the marketer’s offers and his site.

​​ If you don’t know any successful marketers, here’s a random list to get you started: Michael Senoff, Brian Kurtz, Todd Brown, Matt Furey, Hollis Carter.

#6. Same as #1 but with guest posts

​​This can be better if you’re starting out and you can’t claim to be any kind of expert, or even pretend-expert. Simply make it your goal to get somebody somewhere to accept your guest post.

​​Look at a bunch of blogs or sites. Select the most promising ones according to your own interests and how good/accessible they look. Come up with a headline or two or three, and write the blog owner an email pitching your post. Do it over and over for a week, or until you get a yes.

#7. Create a micro dropshipping site

​​Go on Amazon and dig around for ecommerce products. Look for a product that 1) has 200+ reviews, 2) makes you say, I can’t believe this is a thing and 3) sells for under $20. Then go on Ali Express and find the closest thing to it. Create a one-product store with Ben Stokes’s one product store builder. Connect it to your Ali Express supplier and make it ready to do business.

#8. Create a personal ad for your own service business

​​Find Gary Halbert’s personal ad. Model it to describe your ideal client, and to promote yourself as a copywriter or whatever it is that you want to do.

​​If you think your ad is great and you’ve got a bunch of money, buy some space in the Los Angeles Times and run it, just like Gary did. ​​If you’re not confident about your ad or you ain’t got money, put your ad in a Google Doc. Make it publicly visible. Link to it from Facebook and post it in Facebook groups, while sharing your learning lessons from the exercise.

#9. Recreate the Significant Objects project

​​Go to a local thrift shop, antiques store, or flea market. Buy 5 quirky objects, all under $5. Then go on Reddit and search around in various subreddits (r/relationships, r/letsnotmeet, r/askreddit) for personal stories that went viral or got lots of upvotes.

​​Figure out a way to tie some of those stories up with your thrift store products. Retell the story in a tight, condensed version, tie in your product, and make this into an eBay listing for the product.

#10. Create a blog about about tiny marketing projects that you complete in under a week

​​Make a list of 10 projects you will tackle over the coming 10 weeks. Write up a week 0 post about your motivation, the steps you took to create the actual blog, and hint at the first project you will handle the following week. ​​Then send me a link to it, and I will be your first reader.

​​And if you’re strapped for cash, just write up the initial post in a Google Doc and send me that. I’ll pay the $10.17 for registering the tinyprojects.marketing domain for you, and I’ll let you use my hosting for the blog itself until you make your first $1k online.

How to avoid disappointing readers and burning yourself with “secrets”

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If you go on Amazon right now and look at the top 15 bestsellers in the Internet Marketing category, you will see a curious thing:

6 of those 15 books have a title of the form “[Topic] Secrets.” So there’s Traffic Secrets, YouTube Secrets, Instagram Secrets, plus three others.

Obviously, “secret” is a powerful word in direct marketing. It goes back to Robert Collier at least, who published a book called The Secret of the Ages back in 1926.

In the decades since, you had Gary Halbert with his sequence of “amazing secret” ads… Boardroom’s collection of “secrets” books… and today, Agora’s newest imprint in the IM space, which has a newsletter called Daily Insider Secrets.

Like I said, secrets obviously sell. Then and now.

And yet, I’m writing this email to warn you about “secrets.”

For one thing, “secrets” can make you sound like everybody else. 6 out of 15, remember?

For another, “secrets” might attract the wrong kinds of buyers. They might also put the right kinds of buyers into the wrong frame of mind.

For a third thing, and most important, relying on words like “secrets” can allow you to coast instead of coming up with better content. For example, here are some of the secrets from one of those Amazon best-sellers:

“Secret #1: What is copywriting?”
“Secret #13: It’s all about them — never about you”
“Secret #31: Polish your sales copy”

I don’t know how chipper you would have to be to avoid getting down in the mouth when this treasure chest of secrets is opened up.

But what’s the problem? The book is a best-seller, right?

In my experience, being on an Amazon best-seller list doesn’t mean much. But even if this book were a legit best seller, putting out generic content and calling it a secret leaves you wide open to competition. Your only defense is this thin mist of curiosity, which can dissipate in a moment.

Maybe I’m digging myself into a moralizing hole. So let me finish up by telling you what I tell myself, because it might resonate:

Put in a bit of extra work to come up with unique content and a unique perspective. Once you’ve got that, if it warrants being called a “secret,” then sear that on its rump and let it run.

But odds are, once you’ve done that bit of extra work, you’ll come up with a better, more interesting title or headline for your content. Maybe you’ll even start a new naming trend. One which half a dozen Amazon best-sellers will copy for years to come.

By the way, I’ve also got a daily email newsletter. It’s called John Bejakovic’s Newsletter of Secrets. You don’t have to sign up. But if you want to read all the secrets inside, here’s where to go.

How is your vagal tone?

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“Well I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?”
– Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

Gary Halbert once wrote that if you’re in the marketing business, you always have to do two things:

1) Keep the fundamentals in mind
2) Keep an eye out for what’s working right now

Well, right now, one specific health offer seems to be working like crazy. I’m assuming this because I’ve gotten dozens of emails promoting this offer over the past two months.

Many of these emails came from various Agora health brands (the offer in question also seems to come from an Agora brand). Others came from 3rd party newsletters that I suppose are affiliates. And I’ve even seen email drops in Newsmax promoting this offer.

I’m listening to the VSL right now, and two things stick out as possible reasons why this offer is doing so well at the moment.

First, it has a unique “problem mechanism” (that’s a term that I first heard from top-flight copywriter Stefan Georgi). In this case, the problem mechanism is “low vagal tone,” which as the VSL will tell you, will do everything from shriveling your nuts to corroding your cells and even burning out your brain. Do you have a health problem right now? Maybe it’s time to get your vagal tone checked.

But how do you check your vagal tone? Well, the VSL has an answer for you. It’s even got a solution in case you find that your vagal tone is low.

And that’s the second possible reason why this VSL seems to be killing it right now. The “solution mechanism” (your run of the mill, Gene Schwartz mechanism) is not a pill, not a supplement, and not even a newsletter. instead, it’s a special sound, or as the VSL says, a “healing frequency discovered between 85-255 Hz.”

Maybe that’s the secret chord that David played to increase the vagal tone. Anyways, if you’re in the marketing business, and you’d like to see this offer that’s working so well right now, here’s the link:

https://pro.donovanhealth.com/p/OV6SSSPKG1I/EOV6VB48/

Rough and smooth copywriting sandpaper

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I believe it was Michelangelo who wrote:

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

Similarly, every hairball of a first draft has a good piece of copy inside it. And it is the task of the copywriter to discover it.

Perhaps you think it’s grandiose to compare copywriting to fine art?

You’re probably right. But the fact remains, I’m currently writing the first draft of a video sales letter, and it is far from fine.

No matter. Because as soon as I wrap up this first draft, hopefully tonight, I will start to polish it. I’ve even got 7 separate grades of sandpaper of varying smoothity, which should help me discover that good piece of copy hiding inside.

#1. Tidbit sandpaper

With this sandpaper, I make a new loop through all my notes. Product research, customer research, testimonials… And I note good tidbits that I haven’t yet included in the sales letter. These tidbits could just be a good phrase, or a convincing argument, or anything. When I’ve made this list of tidbits, I go in, and I squeeze each one into my copy at some point.

#2. Vision sandpaper

Show, don’t tell. So “Jack was starting to give into the pressure” becomes…

“Jack was pounding away at an old typewriter. He had already typed up hundreds of pages, and each one repeated the same phrase over and over. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'”

#3. Grasp-the-advantage sandpaper

This is a must for good copy, and it comes from Victor Schwab’s book, How to Write a Good Advertisement. Throughout the copy, make sure you are bringing it back to the prospect, and making it clear why this matters to him.

“Our real estate investing system gets you all the hot leads you can handle for free.”

Yeah, so what?

“So you don’t have to spend any of your own money.”

Yeah, so what?

“So you can get started even if you’re dead broke right now.”

Hmmm…

#4. Midge sandpaper

Master copywriter David Deutsch has this thing he calls, “Hey Midge.” Basically, the copy should sound like something a guy would say to his wife (Midge?). In other words, this is where you focus on writing to just one person, your ideal avatar.

#5. Dumb sandpaper

There’s a website out there called the Hemingway Editor. You paste your copy in, and it tells you the reading level. It also tells you how to lower the reading level. I aim for grade 6.

#6. Intense sandpaper

David Garfinkel said on a recent episode of the Copywriters Podcast that the way to make copy “intense” is to write long copy, and then cut it down. So when I finish all the other steps above, I trim down my copy by 10%. I start by cutting out worthless adjectives and adverbs. Next are the complicated phrases that could be simpler. And then I will take out entire sentences or even paragraphs to meet my 10% quota.

#7. Boron sandpaper

I don’t know if Gary Halbert was the first to suggest reading your copy out loud. But his Boron Letters was the first place I saw this advice. And I still stick to it.

So there you go. Hopefully it can help you if you’ve got a hairball on your hands as well.

And if you need more ideas for pre-processing and post-processing your copy, maybe you will find some help here:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Avoiding the Facebook ban hammer through Personal Power

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This summer, one of my clients ran into some trouble with a Facebook ads campaign.

The product they were advertising was a plastic ball, filled with ceramic beads, which you’re supposed to throw into the washing machine and use instead of detergent.

I was in charge of writing the advertorial, so I wrote a first-person confessional with the headline:

“How I wash blood stains out of my clothes WITHOUT laundry detergent”

Facebook didn’t have a problem with my blood-stained headline. They also didn’t have a problem with the questionable product (I still don’t understand how or if it works). But they did have an issue with little things like:

* The use of words like “magic,” “crazy,” and “trick”

* Specific claims such as “it saves me hundreds on laundry detergent”

* Before-and-after pictures of clothes washed with this breakthrough technology…​​

In short, Facebook didn’t like anything that gave this ad the unpleasant but familiar odor of an old-school infomercial.

But wait a minute.

Maybe that comparison is not really fair.

Because right now, I’m hand-copying a very old and very successful infomercial.

It’s for Tony Robbins’s Personal Power tapes.

This infomercial looks like a segment from 60 Minutes. It opens with Tony and Fran Tarkenton, a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback, boarding a helicopter, and then flying around Southern California.

Once they land, Tony and Fran go inside a fancy house, smile and nod at each other, and chat about the good results people are getting from Personal Power.

The rest of the infomercial is punctuated by lots of testimonials, most of which are saying, “This system works really well, and it’s helped me.”

When you get the chance to buy the tapes, there’s no massive price anchoring, and there’s no “But wait, there’s more!”

If all this is starting to bore you, that’s kind of the point.

Because this infomercial was pretty classy, really not sensationalistic, and would have fit in perfectly into a Facebook advertising campaign today.

(And like I said, this infomercial was immensely effective. It helped launch Guthy-Renker Corporation, which at that time was just an experiment between a couple of guys, and now has revenues of over $2 billion a year.)

The point of all this?

Maybe these Facebook compliance requirements don’t have to hamstring sales…

Maybe direct response copywriters have just gotten into too much of a Gary Halbert and John Carlton groove…

And maybe there are plenty of other effective ways to sell stuff without !!! and crazy/amazing/jaw-dropping before-and-after.

Or maybe not.

But if you get the Facebook ban hammer, it’s something to keep in mind, and maybe something to comfort yourself with.

Anyways, if you need help with writing Facebook-compliant advertorials that still make sales, you might get some ideas here:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

The copywriting commandment that top copywriters all violate

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Q: You go back to the same actors frequently?
A: I have to. It’s a tax thing.
— Christopher Guest on the Charlie Rose Show, 2003

In my opinion, Christopher Guest is one of the most talented entertainers in history.

You know who I’m talking about.

He acted, sang, and played guitar as Nigel Tufnel in This Is Spinal Tap (“This one goes to 11”). He also directed and wrote Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman. He even had a role in The Princess Bride, as the soft-spoken but sadistic Count Rugen.

In spite of all these achievements, Christopher Guest is even more impressive in real life.

For example, he was interviewed on Charlie Rose some 15 years ago.

He was subtle and funny in almost every second of the live interview.

That’s rare.

Because most comedians, even the ones I love the best, are a big disappointment when they have to improvise.

They don’t have the same delivery.

They don’t have good punchlines.

They are simply not very funny, especially when compared to their stage or movie persona.

And this is yet another connection between the world of comedy and the world of sales copywriting. Because one of the biggest and most sacred sales copy commandments is:

“Write like you talk!”

Sure, this is good advice for people who are terrified of writing.

Or for those who are used to writing in a nonsense, corporate tone (“Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion…”)

But “write like you talk” is not something that top copywriters actually do themselves.

Don’t believe me?

Go on YouTube and find some video of Gary Halbert speaking.

See how slow and ponderous the man was. It’s nothing like the crisp, funny, energetic writing in his newsletter.

And that’s not a coincidence.

Top copywriters make their copy more than “just how they talk.”

I won’t give away the secrets of the trade here.

Suffice to say that most copywriters, just like most comedians, simply aren’t that persuasive or funny in real life.

We’re not all Christopher Guest, unfortunately.

Fortunately, there is a simple fix.

It’s called hard work and unrelenting toil.

In other words, if you’re not naturally an incredible storyteller or an irresistible salesman, you can still write top-level copy.

And all it will take are dozens of passes over what you’ve written the first time around, until you revise it into something that really pulls.

Of course, there are checklists and shortcuts that can make your job easier. And if that’s what you’re looking for, then you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Claude Hopkins and Gary Halbert meet over a barrel of whiskey

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Back in a village in 19th-century Michigan, there lived an influential man.

He was the leader of his community.

Head of the school board.

Couldn’t read or write.

Here’s his secret to achieving influence in spite his handicap:

Following a ship wreck some years earlier, a large barrel of whiskey washed ashore Lake Michigan.

This man found the barrel, and he put it in the corner of his living room.

He was generous with the whiskey. Folks started dropping by his house. They would sit on soap boxes next to the barrel and discuss local gossip.

In time, his house became the headquarters of the local community. And he became the leader.

I read this story in My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins.

It made me think of something I’d heard in a long-lost recording of another influential marketer, Gary Halbert.

Says Gary: marketing is a process, not an event.

In other words, when businesses buy (or luck upon) a big barrel of whiskey…

They often use it to throw a one-day party for the whole village.

The next day, everybody’s groggy, but a few villagers say, “Bro, that was awesome.”

A week later, however, nobody remembers or cares who threw the big party. And all the whiskey’s gone.

It’s better to keep the drip of whiskey coming, evening after evening…

All the while listening to what folks are saying as they sit around your living room…

While gradually gaining their respect and trust, and nudging them towards seeing you as the village elder.

That’s a process.

Of course, you need to start somewhere. Such as by sending out invitations to your whiskey barrel that get the attention of whiskey lovers within a country mile of your living room. And if you want to see one effective way of doing this, check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

The “1-2 punch in the gut” and other proven sales letter ideas

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Here’s a bit of a copywriting history lesson:

The great Gary Halbert was famous for a lot of things, including his “grabber” letters.

That’s when he would include a physical tchotchke — a dollar bill, a coin, a little bag of sand — at the top of his sales letter.

It seems old Gary got this idea from a much older master of direct marketing named Robert Collier.

I’ve mentioned Robert Collier before for his insight that “it is not the copy that counts so much as the scheme back of it.” In other words, the idea behind the letter is more important than the words you use.

The “grabber” is one example of that. Here are a few more, taken from the Robert Collier Letter Book, a classic on effective direct response and sales copywriting:

#1. The one-two punch in the gut

This is when you simply hit readers with benefits. For example, when selling shirts through the mail, Collier would emphasize that his shirts were 1) cheaper and 2) fit better and were of higher quality, because he could cut out the middleman and stock more designs and sizes.

#2. A common infomercial appeal, made more convincing

Every infomercial ever barks at you to buy “while supplies last.” Collier used this same scarcity appeal, except he would make it more convincing — by giving a legitimate reason why he had only limited stock. Example: “We’ve only got 1000 of these books because that’s all the estate of the author would allow us to print.”

#3. “The most effective appeal ever”

According to Collier, the most effective sales appeal was telling buyers that the price is going up. This could also be tied into “while supplies last.” And of course, it’s all the more effective if you can give people legitimate reasons for why the price is going up, rather than simply claiming it.

#4. The fire sale

​With various offers and various letters, Collier would explain a super-duper discount by saying he was selling slightly damaged goods, or leftover inventory that didn’t justify a full marketing effort. In other words, he’d give people a legitimate reason WHY a sale is happening, rather than just discounting the price.

#5. The Ben Franklin

Simple: ask buyers for a favor. “Would you mind looking at this new bag we’re considering selling? And could you let me know what you think before the season starts so we know whether to sell it or not? And if you like it, I’ll let you keep it for a special, low, introductory price.”

#6. The grabber

That’s the idea Gary Halbert swiped from Collier. Collier himself attached dollar bills, but he also included samples of cloth (when selling socks or coats) or even samples of the product itself (when selling fake pearls).

#7. The Kaiser Wilhelm lead

This is a simple current affairs tie-in. Collier used these extensively to sell books. For example, talking about the fate of Kaiser Wilhelm at the the end of WWI in order to sell world history books. Today, the equivalent might be to use the latest Trump outrage to sell earnest textbooks about psychology.

So that’s 7 Robert Collier “schemes back of the copy.” Of course, Collier had a bunch more of these.

In case you want to find them all, his book is definitely worth a read-through.

The only issue is that many of the copies of his book (including Kindle versions) are shoddy OCR scans with terrible spelling mistakes and horrendous formatting. They almost make it impossible to read the great content inside.

Occasionally, quality used copies become available, and they can sell for $100 or more.

But I just checked on Amazon, and 4 used copies of the paperback version of the Robert Collier Letter Book are available right now for around $20 each.

They probably won’t last long at this price… so better act while supplies last. If you want to grab one for yourself, here’s the link:

https://amzn.to/2JrYzs6

John Bejakovic

7 Batman rogues for evil sales bullets

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Ken McCarthy has said that the fundamental, no. 1, can’t-do-without-it skill for being an effective copywriter…

Is the ability to write a good bullet.

And Ken should know what he’s talking about.

He was a successful direct mail guy, before becoming a successful internet marketing guy, before running some very big and expensive copywriting and marketing seminars and influencing generations of millionaire marketers.

All right, so let’s say Ken’s right and bullets are important. So how then do you write a good, or rather evil, bullet?

Well, lots of different ways.

Below I’m giving you 7 different templates, which, for my own enlightenment, I paired up with top villains from Batman comic books (some of the connections are obvious, some less so):

[#1 The Riddler]
Are you younger than 34? Here’s why you are at a disadvantage when it comes to writing bullets… Plus, the 5-minute daily habit that will help you write bullets on command. Page 79.

[#2 Ra’s Al Ghul]
The one element every bullet must have (besides a benefit or a warning). Used correctly, this activates the most powerful motivation for buying, according to legendary copywriter Gary Halbert. Page 10.

[#3 Two-Face]
The popular NPR show that doubles as a school for writing killer bullets. Page 108.

[#4 Poison Ivy]
How to write twice as many bullets in one-third the time. No stress or swipe files required. Just a simple shift in preparation — inspired by a jungle plant, and recommended by marketing genius Perry Marshall. Page 70.

[#5 The Joker]
How to write a killer bullet without having access to the product. A secret technique, used by irrational, violent psychopaths, that can also help ethical copywriters. Page 25.

[#6 Scarecrow]
When putting a big benefit in a bullet can backfire. This one mistake can ruin your whole sales letter. Page 44.

[#7 Catwoman]
Why you should never start your bullet off with a number. Plus a better way to get readers hooked when your product offers a 9-item list. Page 78.

And there you go. A rogue’s gallery of 7 evil yet effective bullet formats.

What, that’s not enough?

Quite hungry you are.

Here’s a bonus one for you then:

All successful sales letters need bullets, right? Wrong. Here are the cases when bullets can actually hurt conversions. Send me an email for details.

6 sneaky ways to use reciprocity in marketing, part 1

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A few weeks back, I wrote about the essence of the con game:

“It’s called a confidence game not because the con man gains your confidence in order to cheat you. Instead, it’s because he gives you his confidence.”

Today, I want to share some stories of big-name marketers who have used this simple idea in sneaky and subtle ways:

#1 Ask ’em for advice

Claude Hopkins came to a bakery and asked to talk to the owner. Hopkins was selling Cotosuet, a kind of early margarine. The price of Cotosuet was higher than the competition. The baker knew this, and he was raring for a fight.

But Hopkins didn’t say anything about Cotosuet. Instead he took out a drawing of a pie, which his company was planning on using in advertising. He asked the baker for his opinion of the pie drawing.

As the baker started giving feedback, Hopkins kept putting his own drawing down. The baker went on to praise the drawing, and eventually got convinced this is the perfect drawing of a pie. He said how his business would prosper if only he had these pie cards as his advertisement. Hopkins offered to give him a bunch of cards with the pie drawing if he would only make an order of Cotosuet. Which the baker did.

#2 Ask ’em for a favor

Robert Collier was selling coats by mail. After a time, the usual appeals became exhausted. So Collier sent out out a new letter, along the following lines, which again pulled in heavy sales:

“Will you do me a favor? We have these new coat designs. We want to gauge demand for them. As one of our best customers, would you try it out and let me know what you think? I’ll send it to you right now for free if you just send me your size. And if you decide you want to keep the coat, you can have it at a special low price.”

#3 Make damaging admissions

Gary Halbert ran ads selling his book How to Make Maximum Money in Minimum Time. But he didn’t kick off the ad by talking about his sparkling Rolls Royce or his cliff-side Malibu mansion. Instead, he wrote:

“My name is Gary Halbert and, some time ago, I was dead broke. My business was almost bankrupt and I couldn’t even pay the rent. Actually, I wasn’t just broke, I was desperate. [He then had a money making idea, and…] I was living in Ohio at the time and my friends laughed at the idea. They thought it was a big joke. They said I was a dreamer and that I had no ‘common sense.’ In fact, one guy said I was just a nerd and that my idea was so silly, he felt sorry for me.”

This ad apparently did very well for Gary, and it launched an entire industry of “amazing secret” headlines.

I’ve got three more of these reciprocity examples, but this message is already as long as a bushy tail on an old fox.

So I’ll continue tomorrow, along with some conclusions and warnings if you do decide to use any of these ideas.