Jeff Bezos

Gary Halbert’s second best copywriting tip

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On January 7 of this year, carried on the wings of Twitter, Elon Musk became the richest person in the world.

That was good news for the folks at Agora, who could now run the following promo about Jeff Bezos:

“World’s second richest man’s NEW world-changing disruption”

I don’t know about you, but this sounds more intriguing to me than:

“World’s richest man’s NEW world-changing disruption”

And I guess Agora’s readers agree. After all, Agora keeps mailing this second richest thing, even though Bezos is actually back to being the richest person ever, as of February 16.

My point is this:

When it comes to copy, superlatives and extremes are great. But they can become unbelievable, or simply tired. If that’s happening in your market, it can make sense to go to the extreme… and then back off 1%. Just like Gary Halbert did with the following bullet:

* Almost foolproof contraception: It’s over 99% effective but… so new… most people have never even heard about it!

You might wonder what this new form of contraception is. That depends, like Bill Clinton said, on what the meaning of “is” is. But I will tell you this:

The secret Gary is talking about is actually 100% effective. (I found that out by following Gary’s top copywriting tip, which was to study bullets by comparing them to the source text.)

And yet, Gary decided to cut down the effectiveness of his promise. Why?

Because round numbers seem less specific, and therefore less convincing, than jagged numbers.

So if your number is round (like 100% contraceptive effectiveness… or the world’s richest man), then take Gary’s lead. Find creative ways to rough up your promise and make it more believable.

And if you want more second- and third-best copywriting tips:

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How to make hard decisions with the “fluff minimization” framework

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“The framework I found, which made the decision incredibly easy, was what I called — what only a nerd would call — a ‘regret minimization’ framework. So I wanted to project myself forward to age 80. Now I’m looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have. I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this.”
— Jeff Bezos, speaking about his decision to start Amazon.com

One of the books that shaped my self-image the most is called Stumbling On Happiness.

I read it in my mid 20s. It made me trust myself even less than I had before then.

The book was written by Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard. The gist of it, as I remember, is this:

1) Human beings are terrible at predicting the future. We can’t predict what will happen, and we can’t even predict how we will feel if certain things do happen.

2) Human beings are terrible at remembering the past. To protect our current identity, we will warp our memories, forget unflattering things, and even invent stuff that never happened.

In other words, the kind of “regret minimization” fluff that Jeff Bezos talks about might motivate you…

It might even help you make a decision…

But will it be a good decision?

Will your vague and ghost-like projection of your future, cranky, and forgetful self… trying to sift among his warped memories of decades earlier…

Will he tell you anything useful?

Not in my world.

That’s what I want to suggest to you, too. Look elsewhere for help with making decisions.

For example, look at the third leg of Daniel Gilbert’s book. It might help you if you are trying to make a big, hard decision.

Gilbert’s advice is to talk to people who are currently going through what you want to go through. Ask them the reality of their lives now. ​​That’s the only hope you have of getting an honest answer… and minimizing all the motivational, inspirational, self-serving fluff.

Regarding fluff:

Project yourself into the future. No more than a day in the future.

Will your future self enjoy receiving an email from me?

Or will your future self regret not signing up for my daily email newsletter?

In case that exercise made your decision easy… and you want to see what my daily emails are like, click here to subscribe.