If My Life Depended on One Letter, Here's Exactly What I'd Send

What if you could only mail one letter and you had to get a response or you were going to be beheaded? That's an interesting thought, but that's the kind of thing that Gary Halbert used to talk about. And I remember the first time I heard this because here it is, November 1996. That's the first time.

I had been a subscriber to the Gary Halbert newsletter and I you know I mentioned if I look at the the you know it's kind of the big three of people that I was studying then was Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert. And what's really very interesting to me as I'm looking back at this is connecting all the dots. Like I see the through line of a thought that was planted back here that has all of these uh legs. Even just in the relationship things.

Like I look at I was so fortunate that I got to meet and know and be friends with Gary Halbert. Eventually you'll hear about some of those stories, but the I think about what that all led to. Like that was my introduction to John Carlton who was you know once I was vetted by Gary Halbert. Now that gave me an entree into the you know elusive world of of John Carlton who we've become really great friends.

And John Carlton introduced me to uh to Kevin Rogers and I've gotten to know Paris Lampropoulos. So my entree into this whole copywriting world, all these roads if we take them all the way back start with those big three. But Gary Halbert in particular was very influential and I tell this story I'm not kidding at least once a month I will at a breakthrough blueprint or at a lead generation or lead conversion workshop or on a podcast one of the things that I'll ask people is that provocation. That was something that that Gary had is what would you do if you had to you could only mail one letter you had to get a response or you were going to be beheaded and I thought you know the the way he described it was he was in Ohio and he was you know fascinated with running ads and mailing letters and particularly mailing direct mail letters and he would come up with these ideas and he would mail letters and sometimes they would flop and sometimes they would win but the way he tells it his wife at the time became pigheaded Lee his words insistent that the lights be on at all times.

So when he had to make a choice of paying the electric bill or paying for postage his wife became insistent that it was the lights that got paid but this line of thinking he really was very um thoughtful about the way that he intentionally went about developing his mental model his model of behavioral science and how people act and what he's learned over all of that time that when he got himself to that spot of what would he do if he only could mail one letter he thought okay the best things that people know direct mail is that first of all, you should mail bulk mail to save money. You could mail, you know, bulk was like way less expensive than mailing first class. That you should use teaser copy on the envelopes. That that's, you know, a way to kind of sell your message and he thought to himself, "If my life depended on this, what has to happen?

Number one, I have to pick somebody who is likely to buy." So, that that is an interesting thing just in list selection. You would want to make sure that you're not mailing to people that you know for sure are not going to buy. If you can eliminate people in advance, that's a a good thing.

Second, what he said, "If my life depended on it, there's no way I would mail bulk mail because with bulk mail, if you mail something and they've moved, then it's not going to get delivered to them. The number one thing that has to happen is that your letter has to get to the person and get in their hands." So, he, by thinking that through, thought, "Well, first class mail is going to get to the person or it's going to be forwarded to the person or there's going to be some instruction on a forwarding address or or what to do." So, that was his first decision.

Then, let's say that the letter gets delivered. Now, the next most important thing is that the letter has to get opened. So, when he looked at it that what he wouldn't want it to look like junk mail. His uh Gary Halbert very famously created the concept that people sort their mail over the garbage can.

And what they're doing is they're sorting their mail into the A pile and the B pile. And the B pile is all the things that are not important, not for them, things that are that can be set aside without importance. The A pile is things that are important, bills or things that are personally addressed to you, birthday cards from your grandmother. Those are things that get in the A pile and get opened first.

So, his idea was, "If my life depended on it, I would want that envelope to look like it is only intended for this person. Like I'm only mailing one letter." Soon as you tip people off, which is all what all of these direct mail things, as soon as they see an indicia or they see your logo and they see your your teaser copy or all of these things, it tips people off that this is a mass mailing. This is mailed to many people, not just to one.

So, he thought, Okay, that would mean that I would hand address or type address the address and name right on the envelope. Not I'm not going to put a label. I'm not going to put a I'm not going to put a window envelope. I'm going to make sure that this looks like a personal letter directly for them.

I'm not going to use indicia or a thing. I'm going to use a real stamp and probably two or three stamps, so it looks like you know, you're crystal clear that this was mailed to just one person and maybe even the stamp is a little crooked. So, it doesn't feel like it's been just like you would do if you were mailing one letter. Now, if you take it mailing first class in an envelope that looks like a pile mail, he wouldn't put a logo or anything like that on the envelope just in the return address portion just a discreet address as a return address.

No company name maybe even just the name of your name as the sender. But, there it is you've reached the first two jobs you've gotten it delivered and you got the letter [clears throat] opened. Now, the next most important thing if your life depends on it is that you've got to get the letter read. So, when people open up the letter and you look at the you open up the envelope, it should look like a letter not a bunch of brochures flying out or a bunch of advertising material is the letter is the thing that you need to draw their attention to the headline of the letter so that they read the headline and the whole point of the headline is to get them interested in reading about what the letter is.

Now, Gary would also often talk about putting grabbers on the letters. He was the one who popularized the dollar bill letter and he would attach a dollar bill to the top of a letter and then open up the letter and say, "Dear Josh, I as you can see, I've attached a dollar crisp dollar bill to the top of this letter. Why have I done this? Two reasons.

Number one, because what I have to talk about involves money and I thought it would be relevant and I needed some way to get your uh attention. And here's what it's about." And just go on and then tell the story. And then in the PS, he would say, "Oh, and that dollar bill, that's yours to keep.

You can do with it whatever you want. But what I hope you do is that you frame it. And when people ask you what that is, you say, 'That's the first dollar that I made from my relationship with Gary Halbert.'" Now, that is a master class in mailing.

That's a master class in all the things that need to get done in order to treat your mailing with the importance that it has. You know, if you want to maximize your response, a great way to think about it is if you wouldn't do this if your life depended on it with one letter, then why is it in your Why are you doing it in the mailing? There's no money in saving money. There's no money in trying to cut corners or make things more efficient, not when your life is on the line.

And I thought, man, that that level of thinking has was very impactful to me. And as a matter of fact, like where I constantly mail things with grabbers. We literally just in the last uh 60 days did a mailing with a big stack of uh prop money, like hundred-dollar bills in a big band with a one-page letter. And now the great news is that we're living in a world where you can mail a one-page letter with a QR code or a URL, and people can go and get the rest of the story.

Um but that level of thinking, what would you do if you only could mail one person and you had to get a result? That's the level of thinking. And by the way, that's the approach that led to the nine-word email. Imagine if you could only send one email and you're speaking to one person and you had to get a response from that person.

What would you do? So, I just love like um it's so rewarding going back through these things and seeing the genesis and the through line of where it all comes, and I can't wait for you to hear some of the stories that come in future years as this relationship develops, and my application of all of these things gets up greater and greater.