“I was sitting in a park today when I spotted a leggy girl in a blue dress, walking with a certain sashay. And so I ran after her. I stopped her, ready to give her a compliment. But once I was there, face to face, I was no longer sure she was a girl. I wasn’t even sure she was a she. She was taller than I was, and stronger in the shoulder and jaw department. When she started to speak, my suspicions deepened. Therefore, I started looking for ways to gracefully exit from this situation — not so easy to do, because my new blue-dress acquaintance seemed pleased with me and ready to talk.”
I did eventually get out of there and get to the apartment I’m staying in, where I started to read about copywriting. Specifically, I started to read about a way of structuring your stories so they keep readers reading. It’s a simple technique called ABT:
AND – that’s your setup of the story
BUT – that’s where the conflict or complication happens
THEREFORE – that’s the outcome or resolution
If you’re a diligent duck, you can go back and see how I ham-fisted those conjunctions into my park story above. Or just take a look at this next short story:
“An immigrant from a developing country arrives to the US, learns basic English, AND decides to become a professional copywriter. BUT his initial results are underwhelming and he doubts whether he can succeed. THEREFORE he develops his own unique copywriting system, which causes his sales jump 10x, making him the most successful copywriter at a major direct marketing publisher.”
Like my blue-dress adventure above, this immigrant story is true. It is the story of Evaldo Albuquerque, who over the past few years has been the most sellful copywriter at Agora Financial.
I read about the ABT technique in Evaldo’s short book, The 16 Word Sales Letter, in which he lays out his unique copywriting system.
I haven’t finished the book yet, so I won’t give you my opinion. But Bill Bonner, the founder of Agora, says, “This is the book I’ve been waiting for.” And Mark Ford, a master copywriter who helped grow Agora to the size it is today, says, “I’m going to recommend this as a must-read to all my copywriting proteges.”
And that’s that. But maybe you don’t know where to find Evaldo’s book so you can see if it’s for you. Therefore, here’s the link: