From:
Los Angeles, California
Saturday, 10:20 A.M.
March 5, 1988

     I don't want to get mushy here but I would be truly remise if I failed to acknowledge all the generous and heartfelt feedback I received from last month's letter. You know, I don't think anything I've ever written has generated so much honest emotion right from the very soul of my readers.

     Thank you all.

     O.K., enough of that stuff. Now, sharpen up and pay attention. Listen: did you ever wonder if maybe you're overlooking something very important in your advertising?

     I bet you are. You see, if you're at all like most people, there is a huge and vitally important advertising concept to which you never give a second thought. This is a secret so powerful that just being aware of it can hype the effectiveness of your sales campaigns almost beyond belief.

     Don't worry. You're going to know all about it before you finish this issue. However, I think it'll be best if I sort of "sneak up" on it for a couple of pages rather than give it to you cold. That's the best way, I believe, to make it stick in your mind forever. Anyway, a clue to this secret lies hidden in the following four items of interest:

     ITEM #1: A guy buys a beer joint that's doing a good business in a blue collar neighborhood. His first move is to decorate the joint and give it a little class and to lower his prices.

     Can you guess what happens? It's quite simple. He loses most of his customers!

     ITEM #2: People in a slum moan and bitch about their living conditions. The government steps in, tears down the slum and builds shiny, new apartment buildings into which the ghetto folks are allowed to live rent-free.

     What happens? The ghetto folks spray graffiti on the walls, use the elevators as toilets and, in general, trash the building.

     ITEM #3: A guy who has never broken 100 is shooting a round of golf. After the first 9 holes, he notices he's doing exceptionally well and has only used up 36 strokes. And, if he keeps this up for the next 9 holes, he'll shoot par for the first time in his life.

What happens? On the back 9, he reverts to his normal game (and then some) and finishes the course in 103 strokes.

     ITEM #4: A self-made Cuban with good self-esteem has all of his property and wealth confiscated by the Castro regime.

     What happened? The Cuban moves to Miami, starts a business and, within a short time, becomes prosperous all over again.

     What does all this suggest? Actually, these little mini slices-of-life tend to confirm one of Halbert's Major Laws Of Marketing which is:

HUMAN BEINGS WILL DO
ALMOST ANYTHING TO REMAIN
IN THEIR COMFORT ZONE!

     Have you ever heard about the hierarchy of human needs? Maybe you studied it in sociology or psychology. Anyway, according to what you learn in college, the #1 human need is survival. After that comes sex. Then, further down the line is the need for an extended family, a need to contribute to society, etc.

     I beg to differ. As usual, those college guys have got it wrong. I'll agree that the #1 need is for survival but #2 is not sex. No sir, #2, just below survival, is the need for humans to remain in their own comfort zone. Not only that, sometimes this need is so strong, it actually eclipses survival.

     An example: remember my issue on grabbers, those little devices you attach to a letter to grab your reader's attention. Well, there is more than one kind of grabber. For example, many restaurants keep a quite different type of grabber on hand. It's like a huge pair of plastic tweezers and it is used to grab chunks of food that get stuck in a customer's throat.

     You see, many Americans, because of haste or denture problems, are often not able to properly masticate a mouthful of meat. So, when they try to swallow, the meat gets stuck in their throat, blocks off their air supply and, if not removed promptly, causes them to die of suffocation.

     This is no laughing matter. It actually happens quite often. But, you know what? Whenever it does happen, often the suffocating person will be more worried about being embarrassed than he will about dying.

     Same thing with heart attacks. Ask any doctor. Often a poor soul in the throes of cardiac arrest will say something like:

"Excuse me, I hate to bother
you but I think I'm having
a heart attack."

     Very polite. Very eager not to make waves. Very concerned about not being too much of a bother to anyone. Very concerned...

ABOUT NOT DOING ANYTHING
THAT WILL MAKE HIM
PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNCOMFORTABLE!

     Now, when you ask someone to buy your goods or services, you are asking him to disrupt his comfy routine. And, if what you're selling is new to him, you're asking him to do something very uncomfortable which is to make a decision that will alter his lifestyle.

     And listen, it is just as uncomfortable to alter your lifestyle up as it is to alter it down. You see, in a word, the thing that's most psychologically uncomfortable for humans is...

CHANGE!

     Any kind of change, good or bad. Which means you must use great skill in order to sell someone a new product or service. Most direct response advertisers don't acknowledge this. What they do is, they act like all their prospects are "already pre-conditioned" to buy their wares.

Which just ain't so.

     Look, if you're a dope dealer and you walk into a room full of strung-out junkies, you can get away with a simple pitch like...

Hey scumbags! You
wanna buy some heroin?

     And that's the way all too many folks in our business approach

     their would-be-customers – as though they were already eager for what they're selling.

      Let me tell you something: the average American is subjected to some 1,500 sales pitches every day.

HEY SCUMBAG! YOU WANNA BUY SOME HEROIN?	HEY YOU!  HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO GET TIME-LIFE AT HALF THE NEWSTAND  PRICE!
HEY DUMBO! YOU WANNA BUY SOME GOOP THAT GROWS HAIR ON BALD HEADS.	ARE YOU FAT? OUR NEW PILL LETS YOU EAT LIKE A HOG AND LOOK LIKE AN ANOREXIC!
BUY PRODUCT X, IT'S CHEAPER	BUY PRODUCT Z, IT'S SMALLER

 

BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY!

 

     And so on. No warm up. No dignity. No simple respect. No sales savvy, whatsoever.

     Believe me, there is a far better way.

     Listen to this: it has been proven that music really does have the ability to elevate our mood. However, if you're in a sad mood, what you shouldn't do is start right out by listening to happy music. No. What you do is start out with music that matches your current mood and then, little by little, you elevate the mood and the beat of the music by degrees until your mood is where you want it to be.

     If you don't, if you instead start with super bouncy music being played to a super depressed person, then the mood of the music and the mood of the person will be so far apart they will clash and you will not achieve the desired result.

In other words, if you want to warm up a room full of people, you achieve better results by gradually turning up the rheostat then you will by setting the room on fire.

     Let's talk about tugboats. Hark unto me. When a tugboat goes out to rescue an ocean liner, the main thing the tugboat captain has got to do is get the two vessels connected with a huge steel cable perhaps half a foot thick. But how? How do you get half a ton of steel cable from one boat to another in the middle of a raging sea?

     The answer is simple. What you do first is, you take a thing sort of like a high-powered harpoon gun and you shoot a skinny, lightweight nylon or silk rope across the bow of the ocean liner. Then the guys on the ocean liner start hauling in the skinny rope which is attached (maybe 40 yards later) to a thicker rope which, in turn, is attached to an even thicker rope which is attached to a skinny steel cable which is attached to a thicker cable and eventually those ships are both connected to...

THE BIG FAT CABLE
THAT SAVES THE DAY!

     I'm sure by now, my point is obvious. What I'm saying is you'll generally do better if you try to "reel in" your prospects than you will be shouting at them like some demented banshee. I've said it before and I'll say it again...

YELLING IS NOT SELLING!

     Now, let's try and apply what we've learned here. Many years ago when I was selling the Americana Encyclopedia door-to-door, I was told to dress in a suit and tie, walk right up to my prospect's door with my briefcase in hand, knock loudly, grin like hell and paw the ground with my feet like a bull about to charge a red cape.

      Standard sales technique.

      But it wasn't for me. Nope. What I did instead was, I didn't carry a briefcase, I didn't wear a suit and tie and I didn't act like an adrenalized positive thinker raring to bust that door. I generally went to the door dressed in slacks and a short-sleeve dress shirt, rang the doorbell and then turned my back and...

WALKED AWAY FROM
THE DOOR!

     So, what my prospect would see when he or she came to the door was a neat young guy with his back to her admiring the roses or the lawn or something. And then, the prospect (generally a woman) would say, "Yes?"

      And I'd turn around and say, "Oh, excuse me, I was looking at your roses. Listen, maybe you could help me, I think I've got the wrong house."

      "Sure. Who are you looking for?"

      "The Mergatroid family," I'd say. "I've been asked to get in touch with them."

      "This is the Mergatroid family," she'd say. “You've got the right house."

     "Oh, good! Listen, can I come in and talk with you for just minute?"

     "Why sure. Come on in."

      Do you see the difference between the two approaches? The first way tenses people up. It immediately puts them on guard. The second way takes the threat out of the situation. It puts them at ease.

      Remember this:

WHEN YOU WANT PEOPLE
TO TUNE IN TO YOUR SALES
PITCH, YOU'VE GOT TO START
BROADCASTING AT THE FREQUENCY
TO WHICH THEY ARE ALREADY LISTENING!

     This proven principle has many applications. It suggests your direct mail advertising should be a low-key (but compelling) personal letter and not a drooling, high-gloss brochure.

      It says your ads should look editorial and non-threatening. It says you should mail postcards and invite people to call and listen to a recorded message.

      Which is a lot less scary than talking to a live person.

      It also means you should maybe consider doing more two-stepping then you do now. For example, I'm now in the process of expanding my subscriber base to include a lot of small business owners who are not usually well versed in the ways of high-impact direct marketing.

     And, one of the ways I'm trying to rope these people in is to start by running a small display ad in the business sections of daily newspapers like the Los Angeles Times.

Here's what the ad looks like:

     This then, is my harpoon shot carrying my skinny little silken cord across the bow of my target. What happens next is, when they call in, we capture their name and address and they receive a letter (reprinted below)which is the thicker rope attached to my silken

     And, what's inside the sealed envelope referred to in my thick rope letters? Aha! It's nothing less than my 8-page hard-sell steel cable subscription letter.

     Now, don't you think this approach has a better chance of working than me running an ad for marketing neophytes that screams out
something like...

HEY, STRUGGLING BUSINESS PEOPLE!
YOU WANNA SPEND $195.00
TO LET SOME EGOMANIAC
TEACH YOU HOW TO ADVERTISE?

It's no contest. No contest at all.

You're sitting in "Solomon's Seat". Is my wife right, or am I?

	Sincerly,
	Bill Carroll