How to write a letter that can make you rich

Good morning. It's a big, big day today. I'm very excited because something arrived yesterday in my mail. The Gary Halbert Swipe Files, Volume 1. Now, this video is how to write a letter that can make you rich.

And I look at all of the things that I've been doing in my journal as a reflection on all of the things that I have been able to create. Like as we go through all 30 years of this, I've shared with you so far, the biggest successes, the biggest things that have had the biggest financial impact on me is being able to create words that can be packaged in a way that helps business owners, realtors, as the way that I was doing this mostly in the late 90s, the time I'm writing all these journals convey a message to people who are about to sell their home or about to buy a home or about to do anything.

And the through line, if I trace this back, this is the perfect time to introduce Gary Halbert because it goes all the way back to Claude Hopkins, who we talked about in My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising. The through line of that is Claude Hopkins all the way through to the greatest marketers that you know of all have branched from the Claude Hopkins school all the way through to Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy and Gary Halbert as the big three.

In the early 90s, when I first started learning marketing and everybody that you know now, all the people that you would consider the top marketers, whether they're doing VSLs, whether video sales letters, whether they're doing email marketing, whether they're doing AI stuff, now it's all firmly rooted in the ability to put words on paper, and I say on paper, meaning getting words out of your head, putting them into a format that can be delivered through all of these different formats.

You know, in the 90s, we had postcards and print ads and sales letters. That was the way that you could get in front of people. And now there's so many ways to do that, including social media. But any of the things that you're doing, whether it's video, all are just a delivery device for the words. The words that are conveying the message that you want. And that's what writing is really about, is compiling the message into a way that you can distribute it. One of the things that I learned specifically from Gary is that's carried through all of these years for me is this approach of writing to one person at a time.

I think I even did a video about what I would do if I only could write one letter and no matter what, no matter how big you're hoping something can go. And you know, by the way Gary is responsible for, may still be the most single most mailed sales letter ever in the history of direct mail for a coat of arms. And that approach, if you read anything that Gary has written, he has the ability to make it seem like he's only talking to you. And that's carried through. You know, when you look at all the great copywriters, Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, John Carlton, all of these people will point to, to this ability to communicate with one person at a time.

And that's where all of these other skills that we've been talking about, all the other skills that we develop are based on this ability to understand why people do what people do, why they, how they think, how they process things, and how to present your message in a way that, that one person is going to be led. That's really what it is. Leadership led to taking an action that's going to have a transformational benefit for them. So I look at the things when I went through the process of what if I could only mail one letter. One of the things that, that Gary did, and it's how he came up with actually the coat of arms letter was ultimately his process was if I could only mail one letter.

He forces you to think about really writing in a way that one person feels like you're making direct eye contact with them and you're conversationally leading the conversation through a progression of taking, starting with what they know and then leading into where they should be able to go, where you can lead them. You're kind of painting that picture of the future. So that's why we always say start where people are at the moment. So when I wrote the initial, if you're going to sell your house in the next six to 12 months, what you do right now can make a difference of thousands of dollars.

That is the message. That's the core of getting the attention of the person that I want to have that conversation with. Now that that person is looking at you now, you need to be able to show them, build out, prove your, your work that this is something that they should do. And all I wanted them to do was get the book on how to sell your house for top dollar fast. That's maybe one of the most used things that I've done. Now we haven't, you're going to see in upcoming journals there are things that we haven't even touched on yet that have been the biggest things that I've ever done.

But it's all rooted in that same idea. And to this day, that skill of being able to take your pen I always used to love because Gary would say and talk about copywriting as the greatest job in the world, that literally he could do it on a beach, do it any, even on the moon. He would say all he needed was a pen and a piece of paper and he could make a transformational message that could solve any problem. Joe Polish and I always joke about this, but he would say any problem in the world can be solved with a good sales letter. And I think that that's, that's true.

That's the skill that is going to make the biggest difference for you. So how would I start with that process? I think I'm sharing with you in these videos some of the, the greatest things that you would need in order to get that mindset to be able to write those letters and develop the technical ability to do it. And it starts with getting familiar with the canon, I guess, you know, with the, the, the basics of this going all the way back to reading My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising, reading David Ogilvy on advertising, reading the, you know, all the great how to write a great print ad, all of those things.

Breakthrough Advertising, everybody. Any modern master copywriter would have basically the same 10 books on their base curriculum. The things that you need to know. And then we've talked about layering on top of that the human understanding, the psychology, behavioral psychology, and things like Robert Cialdini's book Influence, How to Argue and Win Every Time by Gerry Spence, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. All of those things to get you a deeper understanding of the way people think and the way to present words to those people in a way that moves them to action. So the simplest thing to do, that's why I always start with a letter.

And I even looked up the definition of a letter because I think what the real thing is. I don't want you to get caught up in that. It's only a direct mail letter. A letter is a communication to one person. And that is what I'm talking about. If you can imagine one person and write the letter exactly to them, that leads them through the whole process to come to the conclusion that the very best thing they could do is do whatever you say to do next. That's the magic of how to write a letter that can make you rich. Stay tuned and we'll keep digging it up.

Every idea that I've had, every dollar that I've made over the last 30 years has gone through my brain, through my pen, onto a piece of paper in my journal before it went out into the real world. And if I can turn people onto that activity as a driver for what to do, what to think about, what to ask yourself to draw out, what the next most valuable action is for you and how to find the most profitable things that you can install in your business, I'm all for it.

So this Friday at 1pm, I'm going to do for the first time a 50 minute profit finder workshop. And you're going to join me live on Zoom. And we're going to go through a 50 minute exercise. Bring your pen, bring a notebook or piece of paper and I'm going to guide you through a thinking process that will help you identify where the lowest hanging fruit is in your business and maybe some fruit that you didn't even know was there.

But I'm going to show you where to look for it. So it's free. It's for you. It's Friday. At 1pm this Friday. Just watch.

Just go to 50minuteprofitfinder.com and I'll get you all the details and hopefully you can join us then. Friday 1:00pm.