From:

North of Jewfish Creek

Dear Friend and Subscriber,

 

      I believe I am the best copywriter who ever lived.

       Maybe, since you read my newsletter, you too already believe that.  Even if you don't, I think you will change your mind after you read this message.

Here is why.

      Much of the direct response advertising I have created is so good it is part of history.  My work has been printed in dozens (maybe hundreds) of books.  I believe people will still be reading and studying my work 200 years from now.  No other copywriter on earth has "winners" that are equal to mine.  For example, I once wrote two letters for which I was paid...

 $5,250,000!

       You read it right.  That's five million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  For just two letters.  Do you know of any other copywriter who can match that?  I don't think so.

       Would you like to know the details of those two letters and why they worked so well?  Would you like for me to explain the reason those two letters pulled in almost 700 million dollars?

       You would?  Ok, then, I'll tell you all about those two letters later in this message.  I just need you to be a little patient.  You see, in the meantime, I want to share with you, something that was written about me several years ago.  As you will see, it's an article written by Blade Thomas who, for a long time was the advertising director of Entrepreneur Magazine.  Here's the text of the article:   
 

The Amazing Marketing Miracles Created By Sir Gary of Halbert!

By BLADE THOMAS
President, CTV

      LOS ANGELES- I first met Gary Halbert (often referred to as the "Prince of Print") when  I was the advertising director of Entrepreneur Magazine and hired him as an outside consultant.

      Entrepreneur Magazine is very famous and one of the leading business publications in the world.  Working there enabled me to meet some of the smartest businessmen and marketing experts on earth but, Gary Halbert stood head and shoulders above them all.  When I first talked with him, his ideas seemed a bit unusual to say the least.  However, he was extremely persuasive and I decided to at least test some of his suggestions.  Thank God I did!  Within days, he taught us how to multiply our sales, cut our refunds to almost zero and how to enormously increase our bottom-line profits.  Some of his "radical" concepts are still being used by the magazine today and still paying off like crazy.

Adventures With The
Borgnines!

 


      I later had the occasion to work side-by-side with him when he was hired by Ernest Borgnine and his wife Tova who, at the time, had a struggling cosmetic company.  Ernie and Tova were, at first, highly skeptical about the changes Halbert insisted they make.  But, that skepticism evaporated when he took their company, Tova 9, from $20,000 to over $800,000 per month in just a little over half a year.  You may remember the first major ad he created for them.  It ran for years and had one of the most famous headlines ever written.  It was...



The Amazing Facelift In
A Jar Used By
Hollywood Stars Who
Don't Want
Plastic Surgery!


      That ad brought in millions of dollars in sales but it was another ad Halbert wrote for the Borgnines which contains, I believe, the most powerful headline in advertising history.  Back then, Mrs. Borgnine wanted to begin marketing a new perfume called "Tova" (it's still on the market) and she wanted to do the "launch" at a friend's boutique in Beverly Hills.  Her friend was Candy Spelling, wife of famed TV producer Arron Spelling, and the boutique, by my estimation, would probably only hold a total of 150 people.  When Gary heard about this he went ballistic.  He informed Tova, if she was going to let him do the perfume advertising his way, she'd need a much bigger space such as... the entire bottom floor of the Century Plaza Hotel!  She gasped a little but, when she recovered, she let Gary have his way and wrote an ad that got 7,000 people to come to the Century Plaza on a weekday for a sample of her perfume.  If you've got even one drop of salesmanship blood in your veins, you don't need to read the ad to realize how he did it.  All you've got to know is the headline which said...



Tova Borgnine Swears
Under Oath That Her
New Perfume Does Not
Contain An Illegal
Sexual Stimulant!



      By the way, the "subhead" of that ad was "Wife of famous movie star agrees to give away 10,000 samples of her new fragrance just to prove it's safe to wear in public."  Personally, I'll never forget that ad.  It was my job to coordinate everything and the damn hotel was so jammed with people nobody could hardly even move.  And, get this: The only reason we didn't have more than 7,000 people at the perfume launch is because... the fire marshalls wouldn't let anybody else into the hotel!



A $30,000,000
Success Story!


      During Gary's stint in Los Angeles (his previous office was located at 595 Madison Avenue in Manhattan) he also worked with a number of other celebrities.  One was Geoffrey Scott of Dynasty fame (he played Linda Evans' "Krystle" ex-husband) and the ad he wrote featuring him brought in over 30 million dollars for Gary's client.  Gary also put together more than a dozen successful "infomercials" starting with "Can You Look Younger?" which sold the cosmetic products of Vikki LaMotta who was once married to boxer Jake LaMotta and the oldest woman ever to pose nude for Playboy.  (By the way, I hear she still looks great!)

      Gary also worked on a number of shorter (usually 2-minute) TV commercials and probably the most memorable is the one which featured Nancy Kwan who was the star of "The World of Suzie Wong," "Noble House" and many other famous productions.  Personally, I was especially intrigued with the work he did with frequent-Playboy model and B-movie queen, Becky LeBeau and I understand he currently has Margaux Hemingway (granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway) under contract to help promote his forthcoming book tentatively titled...



HALBERTIZING: How
To Get Everything You
Ever Wanted Even If
You Don't Deserve It!



      Another of Gary's interesting clients was George Zangas, a world-famous power lifter, who mailed a postcard Gary wrote for him which generated $1,000 for every $100 he spent even though he mailed it to the same list five different times.  As far as direct mail is concerned, that's where Halbert really shines.  One of his "killer" successes was an 8-page sales letter that doubled Howard Ruff's subscription base of his RUFF TIMES newsletter.  He also did a letter for CASI (Computer Amusement Systems, Inc.) That shot their gross up from $3 million a year to over $13 million per year.  He has created direct mail promotions for Personal Finance Newsletter, The Doug Casey Letter, Tax Avoidance Digest and Predictions.  And, the work he did for Robert Allen (he wrote the famous best-seller Nothing Down) helped Allen develop a seminar business that, I hear through the grapevine, ended up grossing $75 million per year!

      By the way, Gary's marketing career started back in 1968 when he formed a company called "Halbert's Inc." (it still exists today) which sold coat-of-arms research reports and hand-painted family crests.  The letter Gary wrote to launch that project has become the most widely-mailed letter in history and the company has since grown into an international, multi-multi million dollar operation. (By the way, Gary is still kicking himself for selling his « interest in that deal!)  Anyway, that letter and its derivative letters are still being mailed at the rate of hundreds of thousands per week even though...

 

 More Than Half A
Billion (500,000,000)
Of Them Have Already
Been Mailed!



      After Gary sold his share of Halbert's Inc., he formed yet another company called "Good News Inc." with offices in North Canton, Ohio and Madison Avenue in New York.  Primarily, that company sold "how to" self-help books like How To Get What The U.S. Government Owes You, How To Rob A Bank Without A Gun and other equally-intriguing titles.  Sometimes the profits from selling these books was astronomical.  For example, one ad Gary wrote for a book titled How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age ended up running in magazines with a combined circulation of 55 million.  One of these was Parade, a newspaper-distributed magazine, which, at that time, had a circulation of 17,546,168.  Halbert's ad cost for Parade back then was $33,214.37 and his gross from that one ad in that one magazine was $228,492.00 and eventually his company made over $1,000,000.00 net profit from just this one publication!

      Hey, how'd you like him to create a winner like that for you?

      Unfortunately, as good as Gary is at creating marketing successes, he's just awful when it comes to managing companies and, when they start to get big, he starts getting itchy to go  get out.  So, when that happened with Good News Inc., he sold out and moved to Los Angeles.  As soon as he got there, he took some time out from marketing to write a couple of investment books.  One of them was about how to make profits with U.S. postage stamps and it was titled Thank God Not Everything Printed By The U.S. Government Loses Its Value.  The other, Foolproof Features, was about how to make money trading commodity futures.  Aside from that, he remained "retired" just long enough to become excruciatingly bored and that's when he decided to take on a few clients and I met him and... the rest is history.

      If, by reading this article, you've concluded I'm a big fan of Gary Halbert, you couldn't be more correct.  But, it's not only me.  Halbert, who now lives in the Florida Keys has thousands of letters in his Key West office from grateful people for whom his work has generated untold amounts of profits.

      Halbert now publishes a marketing newsletter that goes to all 50 states and 29 countries outside the U.S. and is undoubtedly the most intensely read marketing publication on earth.  He stopped taking on any new clients altogether about four years ago but now, he says, he's looking for a few new challenges.  Ian conclusion, all I can say is this: If you've got any kind of product  or service to sell and, if you can get Halbert interested in working with you, you are absolutely crazy if you don't get in touch with him.

      One thing is for sure: Now that Gary is once again taking on clients, you can be sure his calendar will fill up in a flash!  So, if you have any interest whatsoever in working with the man I and many other consider "The Best Marketing Man Alive," I strongly suggest you get in touch with him instantly.  His office number in Key West is      and you can call anytime Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. East Coast Time.

      Anyway, I'd like to conclude by saying having the chance to work with Gary Halbert is one of the best things that ever happened to me and, if you end up doing business with him, you're almost certainly going to get incredible results and a marketing education you'll never forget!


 

         That article was written several years ago.  Since then, I've written many more killer promotions plus I have the most highly read marketing website on the internet.  My recent Alexa rating was 1610!  More people read the Gary Halbert Letter than read Rush Linbaug and Bill Onelly combined.  And this is true in spite of the fact that both of these men promote their websites to tens of millions people almost every day.

       Anyway, I am now doing something I haven't done for a long time.  As of right now, I am actively soliciting for a few new clients.  But, before I get cranked up and into a full bone pitch, I want to just ramble on for a few minutes.  Look, I recently got the results of a sales campaign I had written for a very famous person in the marketing and real estate business. You would know his name instantly but, for personal reasons, I think it's best I keep his identity confidential.

       In any case, the spreadsheet (Lord, I hate those things!) he sent me illustrated the copywriting I did for him pulled in 6-1/2 times MORE MONEY than anything written by any other copywriter he has ever hired. By the way, he's a multi-millionaire so he does have the money to hire the "creme de la creme" of copywriters in the entire world.

      I want to tell you about the last time I actively solicited for clients. I was living in Key West and informed the readers of my newsletter that, if they were willing to pay my fee ($15,000 upfront and 5% of the back-end sales my efforts produced) I would pay all their expenses to fly to Key West and put them up in a hotel at my expense, while we discussed their project. I also told them if they did this, they didn't have to guarantee they would become a client of mine... but... they at least had to be a "for real" prospect to whom price would not be a concern.

       Many of those people did become clients. And a few did not. But there was one guy I especially remember. Why? Because, in my opinion, he was guilty of fraud. After I flew him to Key West, put him up in the best hotel, and discussed his project at length with him, he said, "Everything sounds great... but... I think $15,000 for your upfront fee is too much to pay you."

       I did everything I could to hold onto my temper but, what I really wanted to do was leap across the table we were sitting at, wrap my hands around his neck, lift him up off his chair and in the air, choking him until his entire body was shaking and his legs and feet were dancing around like he was doing the "Funky Chicken".

       But, of course, I didn't do any of that.

       I simply ended the conversation immediately in a civil manner, took him back to his hotel and suggested he get an early flight back to wherever he lived. I think that man was genuinely bewildered by my sudden lack of zero interest in him and his project.

       See, it's no crime to not be able to afford the expertise of someone like myself. But, it is obnoxious to pretend you can afford someone like me... when... you flat-out already know you can't afford me... or... you are unwilling to pay the fees I charge.

      Look, I want you to understand something: I have untold thousands of rabid readers of this newsletter. But, this message is truly only directed at a handful of them. Maybe only one or two. It is only directed to what I call "PWM's" (which is an acronym for "Players With Money").

       Since it is my job to provide my readers with a learning experience, I'm going to do that by demonstrating how to do something I've never quite done before. Many copywriters have written to me complaining they couldn't get any clients. I always tell them, there's no such thing as a world-class copywriter who should be hurting for clients. All he should have to do is write a sales pitch for his services. And, he should then be flooded with more clients than he can handle. By the way, I wrote a newspaper ad once for Jay Abraham that, when it was ran in a single newspaper, brought him in 602 potential clients.

       Anyway, if I were someone else and I had to write a pitch for Gary Halbert's copywriting services(as I guess I am doing now) here are some of the points I would make:

 * Gary Halbert may have hit more "financial home-runs" for his clients than anyone else in history! These clients include Ron LeGrand, Robert Allen, Ernest and Tova Borgnine, award-winning actress Nancy Kwan, Vikki LaMotta and many others, too numerous to mention.

 * Gary Halbert's biggest home-runs have been written for himself or companies in which he had some sort of ownership. Everybody knows about the famous "Coat-of-Arms" letter, which may be the most widely-mailed sales letter in the world with more than 600 million copies mailed. That family crest letter built an organization that needed 700 employees to keep it going... and... 40 of those employees were needed just to make the bank deposits!

 * Gary wrote a sales letter for a diet product for Health Laboratories of America which was so good, it almost made skinny people buy the product! At one point, when the client had run out of diet-related mailing lists, on Gary's recommendation he got the compiled file of everybody in America who had a driver's license. Then, via computer, a simple calculation was done based on the height and weight information in that file. If it turned out a person weighed more than they should for their height, the client mailed Gary's sales letter to that individual. The client mailed millions of letters to that one file and made DOUBLE THE PROFIT.

 * Gary has written for the biggest financial publishers in the world, including Phillips Publishing, KCI, Agoura Publishing and many others whose name you would not recognize! Once he wrote a "penny letter" for Phillips Publishing. (That's a letter that has a penny attached to the front page as a "grabber".) Phillips Publishing mailed so many of those sales letters, they actually had to have the Denver Mint produce many more pennies than they normally would have and had to have them shipped in box cars directly to the Phillips facility.

 * When Tova Borgnine wanted to launch a new perfume, Gary not only created the winning formula for the perfume, he also wrote a newspaper ad that created the biggest perfume launch in history! His ad got more than 7,000 people to show up at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. The ad also produced unsolicited purchase orders from monster department stores like Federated (the biggest department store chain in the world), Filines of Boston, the May Company and a host of others. The event was also written up in "Time" magazine. The work Gary did for the Borgnines literally put their company on the map and jumped their gross from $20,000 per month... to... $800,000 per month!

 * Gary wrote an 8-page direct mail promotion for Howard Ruff that doubled his subscription base!

 * Another company hired Gary to help them raise money for their IPO and his full-page newspaper ad (which appeared twice in "Investor's Business Daily") brought in enough qualified investors to produce nearly two hundred million dollars!

 * Gary worked on the Nancy Kwan skin care commercials and made the breakthrough that enabled them to run profitably on TV for nearly two years!

 * Gary wrote a direct mail promotion for CASI (Computer Amusement Systems Inc.) that jumped their gross from three million... to... 13 million a year!

 * But, Gary also made millionaires out of many "Mom and Pop" small type businesses who had very little to start with!

 * Gary helped guys like Jeff Paul, Joe Polish and many others go from eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to become multimillionaires!

 * George Zangas (world-famous power lifter) mailed a postcard Gary wrote for him... which... generated $1,000 for every $100 he spent! And George continued to make these profits even though he mailed it to the same list five different times!

 * One of the marketers Gary admires greatly and who is world-famous is Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy got his start in marketing working for Halbert's Inc. in Bath, Ohio. At a seminar about a year ago, Dan was talking about a guy who said he couldn't make a profit with the ad he was using. Dan looked at the ad and thought it was spectacular. Dan then discovered it was Gary Halbert who had written the ad! Dan told the guy (and you can hear it on tape), "There's no way to improve this ad. It was written by Gary Halbert. If you can get Gary, and you can get him interested, and you can get him focused, there's no way in the world you're going to get a better piece of marketing copy from anyone else on earth." Dan then pointed out to this guy it was not the ad that was failing but, it was the way the guy was exploiting (actually lack of exploiting) the ad and his failure to set up a proper infra-structure and several other things he was not doing properly. NOTE: I have not quoted Dan word-for-word about what he said about that ad because I do not have that tape right now. But, I have related accurately the gist of his comment.

 * Gary's worked on 17 successful infomercials, wrote the two most successful direct response newspaper ads, has produced scores of highly-successful magazine ads, created several catalogs, developed phone scripts, etc.!

 * Many people say you should include testimonials in all of your sales pitches. Gary stopped collecting unsolicited testimonial letters more than a decade ago after he had already received over 7,000 of them! Now that he has the most widely-read marketing newsletter on the Internet, it would almost be impossible for him to buy enough ink cartridges to print out all the rave testimonials he gets on a daily basis.

      Okay, those are just a few of the points I would make about myself if I were writing an ad to pitch for clients. But, probably the most important consideration you should be aware of is... most of the time... I am not willing to take on any clients. But, I am a little bit "in heat" to work with a few clients now because I have just made what I believe to be is a truly gigantic marketing breakthrough. Everybody in marketing will know about this breakthrough a year from now... but... it will be old news by then. I believe it will work for years to come. But, I think the first people to use it are going to make money beyond their wildest dreams.

       You know, I could write a more compelling sales letter to you for my copywriting services. But frankly I'm tired of writing about myself and this half-assed, sloppy pitch is making me feel "funny". But, I do feel moved to tell you another story.

       I was recently contacted by a guy who said he had read each and every issue of my newsletter on my website and he was thinking about hiring me. He wondered if I would send him a portfolio of ads I had written for other people so he could evaluate whether or not I had enough talent to work for him. I was NOT polite with this guy. I told him something to the effect, "Look, if you've really read all my newsletters, many of which include examples of what I've written for other people, and you are still in doubt as to whether you should hire me or not, you are NOT a serious person." Actually, what I said was much more profane than that. But, I see no need to reprint it here.

       This deal is not for everyone. There are certain people who shouldn't even think about calling me in response to this offer. So please, if you fall into even one of the following categories... do NOT contact me.   

* I don't want to waste one single second with somebody who cannot afford my $15,000 upfront fee and/or thinks they are going to be able to hire me at a discount.

 * Also, I don't want to talk with anyone who has to check with anyone else as to whether or not they should hire me. If you have to check with your lawyer, your accountant, your spouse, your mommy or your daddy or anyone else, just assume it wouldn't be a good idea and don't waste my time.

 * My methods are unusual, to say the least. Don't expect me to slow down to a crawl just to make you comfortable. When it comes to money, I go right for the jugular and, if this takes you out of your comfort zone, you should look in the Yellow Pages of your phone book under "Advertising Agencies" and go ahead and waste your time talking to one of those brilliant Ph.D.'s who'll be happy to create a much more conventional (and totally unprofitable) campaign for you.

 * And, I'm not looking for anyone who has to scrape up the money to hire me. It puts way too much pressure on me to know someone has bet their entire life's savings on me producing a winner for them. And that, if it's not a huge winner, they and their family will be reduced to eating bark off trees.

 * Another thing, if you are hiring me to write a promotion for you, I will want to get a lot of information from you. But, you need to remember that once I have this information, I will write what I think is the best sales message and ask you to check it for factual accuracy. But, I will NOT change the sales pitch I have created just because you and/or your spouse (or someone else) thinks the ad would work better if it were written differently. There is an exception to this. If you, yourself, have written sales pitches (as I have) that have generated billions of dollars in profitable revenue, then I will be interested in what you have to say.

       Remember, I am only one person and I can only do so much work.  So, if you are at all interested in hiring me and becoming a client of mine ("for real"!) call me at (323) 851-8275. And, do it soon.  If I'm not available to take your call, simply leave your name and contact information (phone number and best times to reach you) and I'll return your call as soon as humanly possible..

       One last thing.  Actually, it's two last things.  First, I have a big advantage over every other copywriter.  See, my newsletter is the most widely read marketing publication on earth.  That means people all over the globe are keeping me informed of the latest marketing breakthroughs which I then use when I am crafting sales messages for myself or my clients.

       Secondly, as you probably know by now, one company hired me to raise money for their IPO and I nicknamed the ad I wrote for them the "Water Ad."  There's a good chance you've read that ad.  It's in the envelope that says "Water" on my website.  If you haven't read that ad, or even if you have... I want you to read it again.  That ad pulled in qualified investors willing to pony up in excess of 200 million dollars.  After you have read the ad, I want you to ask yourself if you think somebody besides me could have written that.  If you do know of someone you think could write an ad that powerful... 

Hire Them

Not Me!

       But, I don't think anybody else could have written that ad.  I also don't think you can find a better copywriter than me.  So, if you are interested in my services... and... if you can for real afford to hire me... call 323-851-8275 and leave your number and I will call you right back.  Or, if you prefer, you can e-mail me at nosexgary@aol.com.

 

      Either way, I hope to be working with you soon and I want to thank you for reading this long message.

      

  Sincerely,
 
 

Gary C. Halbert

 

 

 

      Peace.

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