Dec 04

He
then asked me, "Do you think you can do better than this?"
I replied, "Yes, I could beat this letter if I was in
a coma."

So,
I wrote a sales letter to compete against the one he had shown
me. My letter did exponentially better than the other one. But
to me, it wasn't much of an accomplishment. You see, the letter
Jay had shown me was poorly written, thematically flawed, and
in general, what I considered to be a very amateurish, clumsy
effort.

After
writing that first letter, I started writing sales letters for
financial products on an almost assembly-line basis. I wrote them
for coin dealers, Agora Publishing, KCI Publishing, Phillips Publishing,
and others. These were companies that mailed tens of millions
of sales letters a year.

It
was such an easy gig for me, I could almost sleep through all
of the "work" I was doing.

But
That Was Soon To Change!

One
day (when I was living in Oakwood Garden Apartments in Burbank,
California) I read a sales letter (it would turn out to be the
first of many) written by a man named Gary Bencivenga. As I read
that letter, my heart sank.

His
sales letter was so well crafted, so impactful from a sales point
of view, I knew if I had to compete against this guy, it would
no longer be like shooting fish in a barrel.

This
guy was good! In fact, he wasn't just good, he was unbelievably
good!

Throughout
the years, Gary created a steady stream of some of the best sales
messages ever written. But I think even beyond his outstanding
writing ability, his understanding of human psychology is truly
exceptional.