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But that - "and don't give me any back talk" really got to
me and I feel a little bit cowardly for not calling him on
that. And that may have been satisfying for my ego and my
pride but it would have been really dumb.

By the way, I want to maybe surprise you a little at this
point by telling you that everything in this letter has a
lot to do with creating better ads and DM pieces! And don't
even try to guess why at this point because I'll explain it
before I am finished.

Meanwhile, back to my story: As I was saying, there was a
lot of things I didn't do and I'd like to talk about why I
didn't.

The first reason I didn't get tough with this guy is I was a
little scared. Not much, because I am in very good shape and
I am a…

So, I think you'll agree I did the right thing but, I'll
tell you, my ol' ego is having a hard time of it.

And, let's talk briefly about why I didn't explain to him a
more mature way he could have handled the situation. One of
the big reasons is:

I Am In Prison!

And, here doing time with me, are a lot of people who would
not be here if they were capable of handling an emotionally
charged situation with any kind of maturity.

So, what does all this have to do with writing sales letters
and ads? It has, as I promised you, quite a lot and here…

But I did write the letter to you and then I took a walk and
I went to my "thinking spot" and I plotted out my schedule
for the month of July.

And this morning what I did is I did 8 long miles of
roadwork on the hill. That's 10 laps. In the beginning I
walked two to…

And what else did I do? Well, I have sat down and written
this letter to you all about the event.

So, anyway, I still haven't gotten to what this has to do
with writing a good sales promotion or, a "good anything"
for that matter so, here it is: What I am doing, Bond, by
all this writing…

Please remember this word: HALT. HALT stands for hungry,
angry, lonely and tired and you should never make a decision
when you are any of those things.

What should you do? What I did. Write, run, walk, talk, jog,
etc.

But be careful who you talk with and write to. You see, it
should be someone who realizes that all this must be
considered as "time out babble".

You see, Bond it really doesn't matter much what the
"content" of this letter is. What matters is that I am going
through the "process" of writing it. And it is…

You Don't Have To Get It Right...

You Just Have To Get It MOVING!

And now, in closing, let me tell you another true prison
story. It is about another encounter I had that was very
different than this one. You see, in the event I just
described my roommate wasn't trying to "bulldog" me or shove
me…

But this other one was different. You see, we have this
black guy here at Boron (never mind his name) who is very
strong and very loud. He lifts weights all the time and he
is forever yelling (more prison talk - unprintable).

Well, as it happens, one evening I was playing pool and
there weren't enough pool cues to go around. So what happens
is this black guy comes into the pool room (where everybody
but me is black) and starts running his mouth and while I'm
racking the balls he snatches my pool cue and informs me
that that…

I walked over to him and it got real quiet in that pool
room. It got even quieter when I put my hands on his
shoulders and my face right in front of his and said to him
eyeball to eyeball:

"Look my friend, here's how it is. This

is my stick and you ain't taking it."

And then I took the stick away from him and resumed playing
pool.

God I Hate This!

I Love You And Good Luck

Dad

# Boron - Chapter 21

The Boron Letters - Chapter 21

Monday, 11:24 AM

July 2, 1984

Dear Bond,

Here I am again sitting down to write and not knowing what I
am going to write about. Yesterday was the hardest day I've
had here so far. Nothing special happened, it's just that I
started really longing for my freedom…

I'm tired.

Oh well, kids in Africa are starving so let's get started. I
still am stuck to let's see. Hmn? Maybe it's time we talked
about propositions. Propositions are very important. They
are the "deal" you are offering. For example: One deal might
be that if you buy one item you get another item free…

Propositions are very important in DM and MO selling and a
very important ingredient in making your propositions work
is the "reason why". In other words when you say in effect,
"Have I got a deal for you!" you need an explanation
as to why you are offering this good deal.

You see, if you don't have an explanation, your "deal" won't
be believable and you may not get the sale.

Here are some common explanations for good deals:

"I'm going out of
business."

"I just had a fire and
I'm having a fire sale."

"I'm crazy." (all used
car dealers)

"I owe taxes and I've
got to raise money fast to pay them."

"I've lost my lease and
I've got to sell this merchandise right away before it
gets thrown into the sheet."

"I've got to make space
for some new merchandise that is arriving soon so I will
sell you what I have on hand real cheap."

And so on. All of these explanations work and that's why
they are used all the time. However, there is a far more
compelling "excuse for a deal" and if you can find…