MICHAEL: Oh, I want to get into a little about the history of you and your father, and I want to start building some credibility with your father; there are a lot of people who have no idea who he is. So let me just start with this question. Barry, was your dad a genius at this advertising game or was it something he worked hard at?

BARRY: Well, he would probably not want to be called a genius but the answer is, yes and yes. He clearly was, in my opinion and that of many others, an advertising genius and he also worked like the very devil. So he was an extremely energetic and productive, hard working individual.

MICHAEL: Where did you guys grow up? Where were you born?

BARRY: I was born in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. I grew up along the north shore and then from around the 6th grade on, in Park Ridge, a northwest suburb.

MICHAEL: Well, do you know what your dad was like as a young man? Where did all this influence come? What was your grandfather like?

BARRY: Well, his father had died when he was about 14 and he actually became the support of his mother and sister as a teenage. So I never knew my grandfather on that side. On my mother’s side, my grandfather was an entrepreneurial kind of a guy who had made a lot of money, lost every bit of it in the depression. In fact, it had gotten so bad that my dad was having to subsidize my grandparents on that side for awhile. But then, my grandfather came back real strong and one of the five possessions that my father had, and that I now have, is a set of the 1911 classic leather- bound Encyclopedia Britannica’s, considered the finest information source on things at the time it was published of anything even in existence today. And my grandfather educated himself by reading that encyclopedia. So when he passed, it went on to my dad and I now have it. But basically, my mother came from a family, had six brothers and was the only girl. My father had the one sister.

MICHAEL: So as a young man he was quite energetic, and your grandfather dying when Clyde was 14, being forced into that role where he had to get off his butt and get moving, do you think that had a lot of influence in his early days?

BARRY: Of course, back then he had jobs before and after school and, of course, in the summer. If you want to know another story that illustrates a principle we all can use today, he got a scholarship to Cole College in Iowa, a small liberal arts college, and somehow ended up in his Freshman Year taking the Men’s Glee Club on a tour. It was very successful. And then the head of the Girl’s Glee Club said, gee, would you take our Glee Club on tour? So he ended up taking the Girl’s Glee Club on tour as a freshman. Well, I don’t need to tell you that his grades suffered. His scholarship was not renewed and so at 18 or 19, he was out in the world with one year of college and on his own. He went to Des Moines, the big city in Iowa, and he was sitting at the lunch counter having a bowl of beans and wondering, what the heck am I going to do? I’ve got to get a job. And he heard two fellows next to him talking about a job that they knew about and one of them was going to go and have an interview. My dad overhearing this thought that sounds pretty interesting. He wolfed down the rest of his beans and got right over to the place where that interview was going on and got hired. As we know, nothing happens until we take action, so he acted. He was a man of action. And the man was as Traveling Editor for the Merchants Trade Journal, the trade publication for retailers. And so he was traveling around the country and his job was to go into successful retail businesses, a variety of different kinds, and interview the proprietor and find out what was working and all of that, and then write it up and submit it to this magazine. There is the foundation.

MICHAEL: So how many years was he doing this?

BARRY: Not a whole lot. The main thing is, of course many advertisers even forget to ask for any action in their ads, which is foolish. Sometimes we end our ads saying obey that impulse, respond now. Well, he obeyed the impulse to wolf down his beans and go get that job. So taking action is the core principle in success in advertising and selling and in life, I believe. From there, the next thing he was, was an advertising agency in Galveston, Texas. And there chiropractic was just really getting going then and they didn’t have a very good reputation, that people didn’t understand it. And he sold the Association of Chiropractic, the chiropractic association, that they ought to tell their story in a national magazine. And so they said that sounds like a good idea but how are we going to do that? We don’t have any money. He said I can get you the money. So he developed a program that was mailed to all the chiropractors that were members of this association and said let’s pony up, fellows, and then we’ll write some ads and we’ll run them in the Saturday Evening Post.

MICHAEL: Do some coop advertising.

BARRY: Yes, the chiropractors were paying for it, the association, and that turned out to be the first kind of therapeutic advertising ever done in the media in the United States. Then he moved on and got interesting accounts and ended up in San Francisco with a leading advertising agency at the time called Honan Cooper working on regional and national accounts. One of the accounts that was most interesting was the Californian Incorporated. People today may find it hard to believe, but back in those days California was advertising to try to get families to move to California. Another agency, a big national agency, Honan Belding had half the account and Honan Cooper had the other half and they would do ads and they were direct response kind of ads because they all had coupons and the sponsors counted the coupons so they knew which was working. And my father developed some ads and was able to keep the exact count and they blew the other agency’s ads out of the water. And I still have in the files the specific counts of every one of those ads and how many leads they brought in.

MICHAEL: Do you know how many different California ads there were?

BARRY: There were a lot of them.

MICHAEL: You know, I think I have some of those California ads. I remember reading those, they’re powerful.

BARRY: So he was there and as a bachelor living in San Francisco. San Francisco wasn’t known for what it is now, but I mean just a glorious city and a great time. Everything was going well when he got a call from a friend of his that he had worked with, I skipped a lot; he worked for an agency in Chicago also, which is where he had met my mother as a matter of fact. But this friend from Chicago said, Clyde there’s a great job in Chicago that I’ve applied for, didn’t get, but you seem to be real qualified for and he described the job and said why don’t you contact them and see if you can get an interview. He did and the company happened to be Butler Brothers.

MICHAEL: Now, who was Butler Brothers? I’ve heard the name.

BARRY: Well, at that time they were the world’s biggest wholesaler of goods for variety stores. You know, the kind of stuff that you would sell in what used to be Woolworth’s, now it would be like K-Mart and that kind of stuff.

MICHAEL: Okay, did they have retail locations?

BARRY: No, they didn’t own them. They just sold to retailers.

MICHAEL: I got it. Through the mail?

BARRY: They had representatives and they put out catalogs. But Butler Brothers said come on back, we’ll interview you. Well, then there were no airplanes so he took the train back to Chicago and interviewed. Well, the story went, his boss in San Francisco said, Clyde, go ahead, by all means if you get the job, great. If you don’t come on back and forget about it and carry on here. So he had the blessings of his boss. Well, he got the job. That was actually then, during the real depression. He played a major role in helping Butler Brothers and their dealers somehow muddle through and survive all that.

MICHAEL: I have notes that he set up a 1,000 person advertising and marketing department.

BARRY: That’s correct. They were doing not only their own catalogs to sell their goods to the stores, but they were doing flyers and things for the stores to mail out to the public. So he ran a big department.

MICHAEL: How many years was he there, do you know?

BARRY: He was there from, I think, around 1930 until around 1934, something like that.

MICHAEL: Was he ultimately appointed to something there?

BARRY: He was the Director of Advertising.

MICHAEL: So he was THE MAN when it came to advertising for the largest wholesaler in the world at that time.

BARRY: I believe in the world, certainly in the United States.

MICHAEL: I’ve also got some notes here that his job was to annually produce seven big catalogs that sold merchandise to hundreds of variety stores. So part of his job was to develop these catalogs?

BARRY: Develop them, and he converted them from the typical kind of thing that would just show a picture and say Ladies Bloomers come in packages of six and so on, to have selling headlines and some selling copy with every item.

MICHAEL: Tell me about the transition from that job to when he published his book called The Seven Keys to Retail Profits and how that all came about.

BARRY: Well, that happened during the time he was at Butler Brothers and it became published by McGraw Hill and it became the best selling book having to do with retailing. One of the reasons it became a best seller is my father knew how to promote it. He did basically all the promotion. He got hundreds of testimonials from merchants that had been using this stuff that Butler Brothers had been putting out and he got it from newspaper and advertising agency people and they put that into brochures and used those as part of the advertising. And basically handed McGraw Hill the stuff that all they had to do was print it and mail it, so it got far more promotion that most business books would. And went through seven printings, I believe.

MICHAEL: Do you have all those promotions still?

BARRY: Yes, I do.

MICHAEL: Was this book foundational material that was also used in his later courses?

BARRY: Well, that book had more to do with merchandising than with advertising. There was very little advertising content in it. It was primarily on merchandising a variety store. And it built not only on what he’s learned at Butler Brothers but of course from his earlier foundation with the Merchants Trade Journal.

MICHAEL: Ford Motor Company . . . tell me the transition from Butler Brothers to Ford.

BARRY: Well, when he was at Butler Brothers, E.B. Butler who had founded the company was a man that my father became friends with and had the highest amount of respect for him. Butler was an extremely high caliber, fine human being. In fact, for those interested in the history of Chicago’s lakefront, which is one of the great of all major cities, it’s known for its miles and miles of beautiful beaches and public lakefront and parks. E.B. Butler was one of the principle participants in what became known as the Burnham Plan to convert the lakefront from rail yards and stuff like that into this beautiful public space. E.B. Butler was one of the architects of that. That’s just the kind of guy he was. Well, Butler died and the individuals that took over Butler Brothers were quite the opposite of Butler. They were not as broad gauge, they were more grasping, they had less of a humanitarian approach to things. Quite honestly, my father who was always an outspoken person, soon found himself at odds with them and he left the company. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Now, bear in mind, he had a son at that time, namely me. He had a wife and tat was in the dark days of the depression and he had no job.

MICHAEL: What year was that?

BARRY: This would have been probably around 1933, 1934. And I don’t know how the lead came, but he was well known because of his work at Butler Brothers and the success of this book, The Seven Keys to Retail Profit. In any event, he was able to interview with the advertising agency, N.W. Air, which had the Detroit Motor Company account.

MICHAEL: Was Air, at that time, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world?

BARRY: Yes, but he went to Detroit and what they were interested in was, they were interested in selling more Ford cars. They had this Ford account, which was a huge account. He ended up with them, and it ended up that he was making more money than the head of the Detroit office, but that wouldn’t fly if the head of the Detroit office knew it so they were basically paying him less and sending him a separate check from their headquarters. But they wanted him that badly, which was quite a tribute, particularly in those days. And what he did there was he developed for Ford Motor Company a sales training program. First he developed a concept. He sold it to Ford Motor Company and then he developed the sales training program that was implemented in every Ford dealership in the country. And it was basically a phonograph record with a little ding and then a film strip that would show the next graphic.

MICHAEL: What do you mean a phonograph record with a little ding?

BARRY: Well, the phonograph record would have audio on it. And there would be a film strip with a video. And then when the little ding came, the next video went on.

MICHAEL: Do you have that?

BARRY: I think I may have that some place.

MICHAEL: So this is a sales training program for Ford Motor Company for all their dealers to show them how to sell cars.

BARRY: That’s right, to show the salesmen how to sell automobiles. Also, in addition to that, he developed and wrote the big color manuals or portfolios that they had in all of the showrooms. Now you go into a showroom and they give you a big glossy brochure with pictures of the car, not a whole lot of information. In those days, they didn’t give the customer a brochure, but they had in the showroom a very thorough and comprehensive, in effect booklet, maybe 100-200 pages with all the pictures of all the models, all of the options, all the technical features. He approached that, first, on the sales training thing; turned everything around from features into benefits. He stressed the benefits rather than the features. And the same thing in this manual, this all happened. And 1935 was the only year that Ford outsold their big rival, Chevrolet, for many years prior to then and up through 1939 or ’40, when they stopped making cars because of World War II and well on into the 50’s after World War II. So that had a tremendous impact.

MICHAEL: Did he help write some of the space ads that went into the newspaper and magazine publications to sell the cars that year?

BARRY: No, I don’t believe he did anything to do with the media advertising. It was the sales training program and this big full color spiral bound book they had in the showroom.

MICHAEL: Do you have a copy of that?

BARRY: Yes, I do.

MICHAEL: Okay, and it’s pretty amazing. Would that have been for the year models either 1934?

BARRY: It was 1935 Fords. And I believe he did the same thing for ’36 Ford also. Buying a new car back in those days, in the depression, was a pretty big event. And they were basically the salesman, some of the dialog as he listened to salesmen and knew how they talked, and they would get the hood up and say, well, she sure is powerful. Got 8 cylinders in there, and talk about some of the features like that. But didn’t talk about how quick starting this car is and how even in the cold of winter, turns over right away. You never have to worry about getting started. How smooth it purrs as you drive down the road, and the ventilation system is letting fresh air flow in under the cowl and translating it into benefits. So he developed that whole system for them. So after he left, and he was doing this for N.W. Air, and James O. McKenzie, the founder of McKenzie Management Consulting Firm, which is still a top flight consulting company in the United States today. McKenzie’s headquarters, I believe, were in Chicago. McKenzie had obtained Marshall Field and Company, then the premier quality department store in Chicago, as a client. And McKenzie wanted Clyde to join them in Chicago as a part of McKenzie. And after negotiations and so on, he accepted an offer with McKenzie & Company and went back to Chicago and analyzed what needed to be done to get Marshall Field and Company really ticking on all cylinders. And I remember in particular they were concerned about one of their suburban branch stores and whether they should close it down or not. If they didn’t close it down, what would they do to keep it, turn it around and make it profitable? The same kind of things that goes on today. He did that and then McKenzie was asked to become Chairman of the Board of Marshall Field. As Chairman of the Board, he had become aware of how poor retail advertising was in general and for Marshall Field’s in particular, and he persuaded my father to leave McKenzie and take over the advertising at Marshall Field’s.

MICHAEL: At that time, what was Marshall Field’s? Were they a retailer or wholesaler?

BARRY: Marshall Field’s was the premier prestige retailer. I guess the Niemen Marcus, so that’s how he got into retail. In the 30’s there was nobody competing for awards or looking for the plaudits of their peers by getting a trophy at a big dinner. The whole bottom line was, by God, we’ve got to sell merchandise. We’re going to go broke if we don’t get more people in here buying more stuff. The emphasis was on selling, not on branding or not on image or not on looking beautiful or anything like that, although one of the contributions Clyde is know for copy, one of the things he did for Marshall Field’s was to go out and locate and hire some of the, one in particular, top flight free lance illustrators to improve the image of the graphics of the merchandise. So not to discount the importance of graphics in advertising in any way. But they were pretty awful, both ugly in terms of graphics and in type and very little copy in those days.

MICHAEL: How long did he stay with Marshall Field’s? Do you have any idea?

BARRY: He was there until the late 30’s.

MICHAEL: Making great money.

BARRY: Doing well, yes. He was very fortunate. He had always been able to do well, even throughout the depression, which was quite amazing. In any event, World War II got going and a massive war bond drives were used to finance the war, selling defense bonds or war bonds. All of the merchants, the department stores and the big independent or specialty stores on State Street were part of what they call the State Street Council. And they would have big promotions which they all participated to sell war bonds. And so the military would come in, they’d bring in artillery and tanks; there’d be entertainers and it was a big event and all cities had something comparable, and all industries. The whole country was united in selling bonds to finance World War II. Clyde developed the print advertising for the war bonds campaign in Chicago. He got a top flight illustrate to illustrate him. You have a copy of his advertising course.

MICHAEL: Yes, is it in there, the war bond ads?

BARRY: I think one of the war bond ads is on the cover of Part 8. And they’re very emotional type of copy.

MICHAEL: I’ve got it in front of me.

BARRY: I guess it was in mid-1942. And it was not just buy war bonds to support the troops or something, but these ads that made them so unusual, and they were copied all over the United States, was the powerful emotional appeal in those ads. We know that people buy through their emotions; that emotional appeals work far better than strictly rational appeals. Make the emotional appeal and then use reason to back up and justify the emotions. But these war bond ads were high emotion. They were tremendously successful.

MICHAEL: I have some books that are available called All American Ads. Have you heard of those? All American Ads of the 30’s; All American Ads of the 40’s, of the 50’s, of the 60’s, of the 70’s. This publisher has taken and reprinted in full color these big volume books of all these fantastic ads and I remember seeing in the 30’s these type ads. One in particular written by Bruce Barton, but these are very powerfully written.

BARRY: Right, Bruce Barton, of course, was one of the really all-time advertising greats, and again, a terrific human being.

MICHAEL: Do you know how many different war bond ads there were?

BARRY: I don’t know how many of this particular campaign. I think he did the ads of two campaigns, but of this campaign, I have several of them and I think I probably have the full collection. I’m not sure if there were six or eight.

MICHAEL: How much did it raise? Do you have any idea?

BARRY: It sold $84 million of bonds in July, which doesn’t sound like much now but that’s when a suit of clothes might cost $25. So it was big money in those days. It was widely copied through the United States and even in England.

MICHAEL: Very good. Who were some of your father’s mentors? Who did he study other than his experience around retail, was he studying other mentors? Did he spend a lot of time in the library?

BARRY: Well, he had studied Claude Hopkins, Albert Lasker, he had studied one that most people don’t know of today, Walter Dill Scott, who became the president of Northwestern University. That’s the end of Part One with Barry Badell. Please continue to Part Two. Here is another tip for you and it has to do with swipe files and I’m going to hand you a lifetime membership of a swipe file you can not beat. IF you go over to my web site, www.hardtofindads.com, you’ll find a free resource waiting for you with over 800 hard to find ads. Now, these aren’t pretty, fluffy ads that you’re going to find in Madison Avenue at all the advertising agencies; these are hard core, copy intensive, direct responsive ads. Ads including Gary Halpert, a huge collection of Brian Keith Voiles entire best collection of ads that you can download. Ads by Eugene Schwartz; ads by Gen Suarez; ads by John Carlton that you can view up close; you can read the text and you can use to develop and create your own direct mail promotions. So get on over to www.hardtofindads.com. That’s h-a-r- d-t-o-f-i-n-d-a-d-s dot “com”; you’ll be glad you did. Part 2

MICHAEL: Did he respect Claude Hopkins work, that you know of?

BARRY: Absolutely, of course!

MICHAEL: I don’t know if I told you this. I have what I believe is one of the largest collection of original Claude Hopkins advertisements; about 60 of his original print ads. We have a web site where we sell it. It’s called www.claudehopkinsadvertising.com and I had a researcher search all the microfilm of all the newspapers back from those ages and we pulled up and referenced and compared it with his story of My Life in Advertising and his other book trying to match up what he talks about in My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising and came up with all his car ads, like five different ads from Schlitz, the Rio and everything he talks about in his book. It’s a great collection.

BARRY: You sell a product that reproduces these?

MICHAEL: Yes, I sell a product. It’s 100% digital product. They’ve all been scanned in; they’re in a PDF format. There’s a sales letter up on www.claudehopkinsadvertising.com that tells the story and describes a little bit about Claude Hopkins. We had a joint venture partner who wrote a study guide that goes over all the philosophies of what Claude taught. And then you use the ad examples to follow along. It’s a nice little product.

BARRY: I’m going to go check that out right after this phone call. In fact, I’m writing right now www.claudehopkinsadvertising.com.

MICHAEL: I’ll email you the link; you can download it.

BARRY: Okay, do that.

MICHAEL: Now, it’s a pretty hefty file. You’re on a dial-up and a PDF is quite large so you might want to just be forewarned. It may take a while to download but you’ll get it.

BARRY: Great, thank you.

MICHAEL: You’re welcome. Okay, so he respected Claude Hopkins, Albert Lasker, obviously a great ad man and closely associated with Hopkins. Hopkins headed up his agency for so long. Okay, and Walter Dill Scott. Anyone else that were mentors of him?

BARRY: My dad got into this back around 1919 or thereabouts. A lot of these people were about that same era. During the years as time went on, he was an admirer of David Ogilvie, another one of course John Caples. Incidentally, I don’t know if you know but I’m fortunate enough to have one of my ads in a couple of Caples’ books.

MICHAEL: Oh really! Which book?

BARRY: Well, I know it’s in Money Making Advertising.

MICHAEL: Okay, and which ad was it?

BARRY: It’s a little real estate ad. The real estate ad, just a classified ad, is called “Neglected Junior Estate”. That’s also in my dad’s course.

MICHAEL: Okay, how did that come about?

BARRY: I don’t know. I don’t know how it got in Caples’ book. But that ad has been in the book put out by the leading real estate guy in Australia; it’s been reproduced everywhere and that’s part of my ancient, past life. But Caples is another one that my dad was very simpatico with.

MICHAEL: Let’s get into, at ‘42 your dad wrote the advertising classic, How to Write Advertising That Sells. So that was after the war bond experience.

BARRY: Well, it was probably right about that time.

MICHAEL: So how did this How to Write Advertising That Sells come about?

BARRY: Well, the interesting thing is, my dad never graduated from college and yet he was invited to be a guest lecturer on writing advertising copy at Northwestern University School of Commerce.

MICHAEL: Where is Northwestern located?

BARRY: The University is in Evanston, Illinois but they had a School of Commerce, or I’m sure they still do but it might be named a little different; but they had a downtown campus in downtown Chicago. And he taught an evening course there on copywriting which is pretty amazing for a guy who never even got out of college. But he discovered that there were no books that really covered copywriting in an academic way, in a systematic way, and so he decided to write one, which he did. And that’s how How to Write Advertising That Sells came into being. Then later on, a second edition was produced in the 1950’s that was used in that college class and quite a few others, but it also became again, a McGraw Hill business best seller through a number of printings and was purchased and used by people in advertising agencies, companies, mail order. It was and I think probably still is the most complete book on how to think about copy, organize your materials, and write advertising that really does sell, of any book out there now or then, ever really. There a lot of great books on advertising, but in terms of a systematic approach to from where you start to getting the final ad that sells, I believe this is. It’s 600 pages, so it is extremely thorough.

MICHAEL: Okay, it says tried with the first person named to the Retail Advertising Hall of Fame.

BARRY: That organization still exists. The Retail Advertising Conference is the name of the organization, and it was started by a fellow and his wife in Chicago, Ralph and Harriet Hineman. They ran a first rate art service for retailers and they got the idea of bringing leading advertising practitioners to be a faculty for a conference, which they would invite advertisers to pony up money and attend. And this Retail Advertising Conference became and still is a very important organization amongst retail advertisers. And at some point, they decided we ought to honor somebody every year and start a Hall of Fame like the Baseball Hall of Fame or something like that. Their director said, okay that sounds like a great idea. Who are we going to put in as our first one? And they came up with a list of several luminaries. There was a man named Ken Goode, who had written a book on retail advertising.

MICHAEL: Yes, I’ve heard of him.

BARRY: Bernice Fitzgibbons, who is probably the best known retail advertising manager ever. She was the Gimballs or Macy’s, I believe it was Macy’s. There was M. Ziklemian, who was a great rival of my fathers; he was a graphics person. He’d been advertising manager of Montgomery Ward’s; a great retail advertising consultant. They were bitter rivals for years and in the later years of their lives became fast and best friends.

MICHAEL: What made them rivals?

BARRY: Well, Ziklemian was a terrific speaker. He was a little bitty guy with a deep bass voice like this, and a tremendous speaker – good writer. But almost exclusively oriented towards the art and the graphics end. And Clyde was of course very much in the copy and the selling side of things. And they would sometimes be on the same programs and irritate each other. But anyway, Ziklemian deservedly was a very prominent consultant and widely recognized and Clyde was widely recognized having been at Marshall Fields and the fair and the author of this book. And I can’t remember right off hand whether there was another individual or not. But anyway, they sent out to all of the member stores of this Retail Advertising Conference like a ballot, which is the one that should be the first one? And Clyde got more votes than all of the rest of them combined. So he was the first person elected to be a member of the Retail Advertising Hall of Fame.

MICHAEL: What’s the Nicholas Cup?

BARRY: I don’t know if that exists anymore.

MICHAEL: I have here it’s a tribute to persons having made the greatest contribution to advertising education, that your dad was awarded that; the National Retail Merchandise Association.

BARRY: That was awarded by the honorary fraternity for advertising people in Universities. And they did give that to whoever had made the greatest contribution to advertising education. Because I know he did get recognized for that.

MICHAEL: Here’s something for you. What was the first professional fee Clyde ever received for over $25,000?

BARRY: That would have been the classified ad writer that he developed and sold to Ford Motor Company. Incidentally, talking of copywriting, the big trade journal today and for many years is Advertising Age for which Clyde wrote a column for many years. There was another for a long time, very popular trade magazine called Printer’s Inc. In there, the publisher of Printer’s Inc called Clyde among the top ten copywriters in the country and nowhere near the bottom of that list, so he was not only a great teacher, but a practitioner. He was not saying I can’t do it so I’ll write about it. He actually did it and systematized it and wrote about it.

MICHAEL: Did he love teaching?

BARRY: He did. He loved to share his knowledge and nothing made him happier than a student or somebody that followed his method successfully. And he became good personal friends with many of his successful students.

MICHAEL: And then in 1965, he published his now legendary marketing training course Advertising Mastery or How to Convert White Space Into Advertising That Sells. How did this come about?

BARRY: Well, earlier he had developed this course right after the war, World War II, around 1946, that was sold at a very high price including personal services to newspapers and department stores.

MICHAEL: Do you know how much, ballpark?

BARRY: Well, I have copies of the contracts and it varied by newspapers depending on circulation and department stores by number of people in their advertising department.

MICHAEL: You’ve got to give me an example of one.

BARRY: Well, to make it meaningful, we’d have to convert it into today’s dollars. But back in ’46, ’47, ’48, if I remember the typical contract ran only in the neighborhood of $6,000 or $7,000 but you jump that forward to today and you’re talking some pretty serious money.

MICHAEL: So a newspaper publisher would pay in today’s term maybe let’s say $20,000.

BARRY: Oh, way more than that. It would be I’m guessing, in terms of the dollar today and the dollar back then, it’s probably 10 to 15 to 20 times more now.

MICHAEL: Okay, so a newspaper would pay possibly 10 to 20 times the amount of an average contract maybe being around $6,000 back in those days. And they would get this course that he developed.

BARRY: But it was a course on advertising that sells. Then in the early ‘60’s the newspapers were struggling a little bit and he developed the idea for a refer course, it’s called a short course in advertising that sells. And he wanted to get it into more hands so he sold a concept to what was then the Newspaper Advertising Executive Association, later became the International Newspaper Advertising Executive Association. I think later on they threw the word “marketing” into it. But anyway, they would sponsor it and make it available to all of their members.

MICHAEL: Did they pay him a fee to create it?

BARRY: No, he got their commitment to do it; then he actually created it and created the marketing materials, most of them, and then they sold it to hundreds of newspapers across the United States and Canada. Of course, the idea was each staff member of the sales staff would get a copy so if a paper had 30 sales staffers, they would buy 30 plus a copy for the executive, a copy for assistant advertising manager, maybe for the classified, and so on. So there were quite a few copies sold. Clyde had the right to print up extra copies to do with as he chose in other areas. So he did print up extra copies for his own personal use.

MICHAEL: Tell me the story of the rusty staples. What is that and what does it have to do with this course?

BARRY: It has to do with not the actual copies that went to the newspapers but the ones that he had the overruns printed for himself. They were printed in Chicago and he had the extra copies stored; the printer was to warehouse them. And unbeknownst to my father, the printer moved them from the warehouse adjacent to his plant to some other location. Meanwhile, my father was never one that likes to do the same thing over and over again and he’d finish one project and then he was basically off to do something else. So he never did develop a real plan to market the extra course that he had printed. They were just there and then he moved on to other things. So they sat there. And meanwhile he had moved to northern California, I was in Santa Barbara. After awhile with my dad, the house in northern California was bigger than he and my mom wanted and they came down to Santa Barbara with the idea that he and I would somehow get involved in business together. Meanwhile these extra courses had been sitting in a warehouse in Chicago. So in Santa Barbara, we found some inexpensive place that we could store the courses and arrange to have them shipped to Santa Barbara. And we were going to figure out then how to do something with them. They arrived and got unpacked, nicely stacked up in the warehouse here in Santa Barbara, and we went to get some boxes and open them and we discovered that the staples . . . now you realize this is not this one big bound book. There were 14 different manuals, 11 x 14 inches in size. Each of these 14 manuals, which contain a total of 15 lessons, were saddle stitched. And the staples had turned rusty and left rust marks on these courses. And so he says, I refuse to let anything go out under my name that isn’t in perfect condition. This is not up to my standards. We’ll just think about it. And then they’d languish a little bit and he got in touch with the printer. And the printer, I don’t remember all the details, but said oh well, it’s not my fault. I put them in and sold that division where that warehouse was and somebody else has them and it’s got nothing to do with me; something like that. So they got the person under whose auspices they were stored and there was a good deal of talk about a law suit being filed. And the guy said, we can see your point of view. We don’t want to see a law suit; that wouldn’t fix the ones you’ve got and it would be bad for us; we wouldn’t like that. Tell you what; it was at this point this printer had bought some high speed offset presses and was doing printing for a number of local weekly papers into the suburbs around Chicago. He said we’ve got these new presses and how about if we, in training our people on the presses, we re-print these courses at no charge to you. You keep the bad ones with the rust and we’ll also replace at no cost a whole new set of these new ones. My dad said, okay that’s fine. So that’s what they did. Those were done and shipped out to California. So now we had the ones with the rusty staples and then the new replacement copies.

MICHAEL: So the rusty staples; these were in different parts and each part had a staple in it.

BARRY: Each part was saddle stitched and I think had two or three staples down the binding edge. But meanwhile, my dad and I had talked about maybe we could sell the rusty ones overseas or something. We’d put a stamp on them or a sticker that said that these were damaged and could not be sold as new but they’re for export only, or something like that. And we did sell some like that into Australia and Great Britain. My dad refused to allow them to be sold in this country. Well, at some point Jay Abraham became aware of these. I had met Jay before and we talked and exchanged some ideas, and he was vaguely aware of these courses. But then at some point, one of his associates had heard about them and said, we teach the importance of the old masters and classics and so on. I wonder if Barry still has any of those courses and they got in touch with me. I said yes, and had some. And we both agreed we didn’t want to send anything out with those rusty staples, so Jay’s people got busy and decided that if we trimmed off the bindings with the staples and the rust marks on the paper and packaged them up, maybe put a little new material in the front, a nice cover, maybe a nice coil binding, our clients would love to have these. There’s a lot of material in there not available anywhere else and it’s really timeless. And I thought that was a terrific idea.

MICHAEL: So the ones he bound were the original ones with the rusty staples . . .

BARRY: . . . that had been trimmed off, that’s right. And they thought the name ought to convert white space into advertising that sells made a lot of sense to the newspaper people it had originally been created for, but to a broad range of entrepreneurs, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. And so they wanted to rename it and I came up with the name of Advertising Mastery and then the subtitle, which I don’t have a copy in front of me – do you have a copy in front of you right now?

MICHAEL: Yes, I do.

BARRY: What is the subtitle?

MICHAEL: Advertising Mastery: The Time Tested, Perfected and Practical Advertising System proven to slash costs, multiply results and optimize profits for every business, product service and profession.

BARRY: Right, well I wrote that, by the way. And to indicate that it is for a very broad range of interests. In other words, if you’re interested in really understanding what makes advertising work and have confidence that you can do it all the time, this is invaluable material. The Abraham people thought was a great subtitle and so they embossed it in gold in a leatherette type of cover and this all happened sort of at the same time. But you know, we’re used to selling high priced packages; we want to make this a bigger package. What about that How to Write Advertising That Sells book? I said well that’s been out of print. McGraw Hill finally let it go out of print, but I have the rights to that, the copyrights, and they said why not reprint that and include it also? And I said I think that’s a terrific idea. I get requests for that and don’t have anything to sell them and they sell for quite a bit of money. I’ve seen them advertised on www.ebay.com and www.amazon.com for really substantial amounts of money. So Jay said, we’ll do it; we’ll print up some as a test. This was before the whole package is marketed, and so he had a local printer print some up in the same size as the original, a standard 6 x 9 or whatever. And they liked that idea and so it was reprinted in hard cover, 6 x 9, with the same sort of burgundy cover, foil stamped in gold. And that was packaged with the Advertising Mastery course, and that was the package that he and his associates sold under the Advertising Mastery title.

MICHAEL: When Jay promoted them, did you get some feedback from the people who bought the course and the book?

BARRY: Yes, a bunch of testimonials came directly to me. It was very well received.

MICHAEL: Tell me about the index in this course.

BARRY: Alright, the way we have this course available now is as originally produced; not the ones with rusty staples, but the ones that were printed up to compensate for those. Under the title, How to Convert White Space Into Advertising that Sells there are 14 (8 ½ x 11) manuals, each in two colors. And the last one is a double lesson; parts 14 and 15 are combined into one manual. And it’s a double size one. It includes at the back its index. The index is a topical index like you look under benefits or you look under caring conviction and things like that and it’s very useful. But as we thought about marketing it to a broader range of people, we thought some people might be interested in going right away and seeing I’m interested in all of the furniture ads, or somebody might be saying the first thing I’d like to look at is what they have here in the way of food ads or restaurant ads or men’s wear ads or automobile ads; and another one might be saying I wonder if there are any ads in there from Marshall Field’s. So we came up with a complimentary index that further indexes it by advertising and by category.

MICHAEL: And where is that?

BARRY: That’s a separate booklet.

MICHAEL: Okay, it’s this yellow booklet here in the back.

BARRY: I believe 8 ½ x 11. That’s the reason that was created.

MICHAEL: So you’ve two indexes here.

BARRY: Yes, the one is bound in as part of the original course. The other is basically a supplementary thing.

MICHAEL: So it’s a massive volume, but with the indexes you can find anything you want. I’m looking in the bound-in index under the letter “f”, so you’ve got factors affecting ease of reading; facts of life – advertising; fail – ads do because of lay-out; if I don’t speak fast; why ads fail; failure – a carpet ad; failure – to tell enough; failures – layout common; false teeth; farm ad; fashions change.

BARRY: Yes, and another use for that is, somebody may have gone through it when they first got it and studied the course and later on went I remember there was that ad about false teeth in there; where was that? So there you’ve got it right there in that index.

MICHAEL: Very nice. You’ve got each part in this course has the part, the content, and at the end you have a test.

BARRY: A self test.

MICHAEL: Why was it designed with a self test?

BARRY: It was to get the people involved so they could test themselves on how thoroughly they were grasping that lesson.

MICHAEL: Okay, so this isn’t some course you’re just going to read through like a book. This is a serious study course.

BARRY: This is a course that the real student will go back to again and again and it should be not filed away in a book shelf full of other marketing and advertising material, but as a reference. It’s almost like having Clyde right next to you in the same office. You have a problem and you can ask him a question. And there’s your answer.

MICHAEL: Do you know how many different examples of ads are in here?

BARRY: In the total course, there are 600 ads reproduced.

MICHAEL: And are some of these ads very successful ads; winning ads?

BARRY: Absolutely! The ads are in there to illustrate the particular points of that lesson. There are some pretty bad ads in there and they are critiqued as to what’s wrong with them. Then there are good ads that are successful ads that have utilized the principle and then there’s this commentary explaining this. Some of them are before and after examples; so you see before and then after. All of the ads have at least a brief commentary on the good or bad points and some of them, actually quite a few, have specific sales results; actual sales figures.

MICHAEL: I saw one in relation to the Honda Motorcycle ads. Does that one ring a bell?

BARRY: Yes, I think that was from Eureka, California, if my memory is correct. I don’t even know right now what part it’s in. Do you have it in front of you?

MICHAEL: I don’t have the specific part. It had like six layouts; he was a distributor for Honda Motorcycles. There were six layouts of his new advertising that he produced as a result of going through this course.

BARRY: That’s right. That advertiser had mainly been advertising on television and the newspaper wanted him to advertise in the newspaper. And the newspaper made up the ads for that advertiser. And the advertiser ran them and they were so successful that they discontinued the TV. And that’s how my dad conceded the course to help newspapers go out with real selling ideas and advertising that would sell rather than going out and saying why don’t you advertise in our paper? And the people that studied this, now these were not professional advertising creators, in this Honda case. It was not an advertising agency that did those; it was not the Honda dealer that did those; it was some guy that had taken this course, and had learned to use these principles. So just imagine how it works for the guy who’s not interested in writing ads for everybody but is only interested in writing his own ads. You can devote a lot of time, or as much time as is necessary to perfect his own advertising.

MICHAEL: How about the story about the guy in Nashville who sold refrigerators?

BARRY: Oh, Joel Morris. That’s a great story. Joel Morris was a guy that ran a chain of credit-type furniture stores in and around Nashville, Tennessee, And my father, and later myself, had done work with the furniture association, National Home Furniture Association, and Joel I think was on their board of directors as one of their most colorful and successful members. And he bought into this system and began to run this kind of advertising; the kind that my father taught and that I do, and began to have big increases in his business. Now this was before my father and I had started Basic. I was working at that time as advertising manager for the Wilson McMahon chain of furniture stores centered out of Santa Barbara, California which came to be regarded as the most successfully, best run small city chain of furniture stores in the country. And I always called these techniques direct-response techniques applied to retail. The ads that I did for them looked more like mail order ads than retail ads. But in any event, I had developed ads for a television set or a washing machine and a refrigerator; it was a large illustration with 20 or 30 call-outs on each side of it, each call- out listing or naming a specific product point or benefit. And then some general copy at the bottom of the ad. And those ads sold appliances like you just wouldn’t believe. And I was, at that time, exchanging ads but I had not met him at the time, with Joel Morris who knew me through my father and vice versa. And so Joel just basically copied that ad, with full permission of course. It worked in Nashville, Tennessee the same way it worked in Coastal California. That’s the story of that ad.

MICHAEL: I have here some notes that this ad, using some of the ideas or using that ad, sold in one week a car load of refrigerators. It won top awards, does that ring a bell?

BARRY: That illustration, I believe is in the course. Anything in there about results you can take to the bank. Joel became a great friend. I spent time in his home down there in Nashville. And his brother-in- law started a big warehouse type, a Levitz-type store in Nashville. And Charles Prince is it. You don’t have a copy of 131 furniture ads, do you?

MICHAEL: No, I do not. Is that a product you move? Alright, go ahead.

BARRY: But in there, when we were running this copy department, advertising service for one store in the city, we developed an unbelievably effective ad for selling leather sofa’s and chairs; leather furniture. Well Charles had in this new store, a little leather gallery.

MICHAEL: What’s a gallery?

BARRY: Oh, that’s like maybe one manufacturer will have, depending on the manufacturer, a great many pieces or in this case, maybe six or eight sofa’s that are all displayed together with a selling sign of some kind. The showroom installed a leather-mades gallery in a prime location just inside the main entrance. Kick off advertising consisted of a full color page in a beautifully printed color circular on slick paper. Photographs of the merchandise were luscious. The merchant, that was Charles Prince, had high expectations but his hopes were quickly dashed. Despite his beautiful ad, results were almost nil. Perplexed, he called us for counsel. We told him that beautiful pictures alone can’t sell furniture, or anything else for that matter, any more than beautiful merchandise can sell itself. Sell, in person or in print, requires words. Not words for the sake of words, but the right words that fill stores with ready-to-buy prospects. Anyway, this is part of the commentary in this book. Then, what’s interesting, we told him to run this genuine leather ad that we had written as part of this copy department service, so he ran a vertical half page ad, black and white and regular run of paper, and this time he had immediate sell-out. Fourteen sofas, two love seats, five recliners, six chairs with ottomans. The same merchandise; the same prices, but with professional salesmanship multiplied instead of just having pictures.

BARRY: That’s what it did for him.

MICHAEL: You have a collection of furniture ads?

BARRY: This is one manual called 131 Stress Reducin’, Recession Bustin’, Profit Provin’ Furniture Ads. It’s all oriented towards furniture stores. A mini-course in what makes a good furniture ad and the criteria. Then it reproduces 131 outstanding furniture ads, some of them from way back right up to the time this manual was published in 1982.

MICHAEL: And a lot of these, you worked on and your father worked on.

BARRY: A good many of the ads were produced by Basic. My father may have worked on some of these, it would have been mainly myself and Jim Alexander and the copywriter we had at the time. They’re all analyzed in depth. I didn’t give you the whole analysis of that other ad, but they’re all analyzed in depth; the copy is big enough to be easily read and a great many of them have specific sales figures.

MICHAEL: Can a furniture store survive without running advertising in the newspaper? It is standard; I don’t know much about the furniture retail trade, but that is their standard way of selling, isn’t it?

BARRY: In some markets, the dominant furniture store might be primarily a television advertiser.

MICHAEL: That’s true.

BARRY: You know, it’s hard to lie down an absolute rule. For most advertisers, the newspaper is still the logical medium because it reaches most of the solvent families in the area, and to get on television with a lot of frequency, you’ve got to have a pretty decent budget. And if you are going to do other than semi-institutional ad, that means doing a lot of different commercials which can add up to money. But television is a wonderful, wonderful medium for the stores that can afford it or for an organization that has stores in areas that could not be easily covered by one newspaper. It’s a wonderful medium for a store that has attractive showrooms where they can actually show the showrooms far better than they could in any newspaper ad or circular. In working with furniture, we point out the strengths and the weaknesses of all media. All media have great strengths; all of them have weaknesses or limitations. Usually a media mix is the optimum way to go.

MICHAEL: Okay, I’ve got the table of contents on all the different parts in the Advertising Mastery course. Can we briefly touch on some of the topics here and talk a little bit about them? How to convert white space into advertising that sells. In that, part one is title “The Advertising’s JoBarry and you have a description there: “the best advertising is always a marriage of interesting writing or imaginative approach and of sound selling technique. Mastery of the creation of this dual-natured advertising that sells is not arrived by chance but by study; a rational academic approach.” Is that how your dad took on advertising?

BARRY: Yes, by academic approach, he did not mean theoretical. He meant a studious approach. You don’t advertise by the seat of your pants. You want to be a professional, effective advertising, a creator of effective ads, you do it with the full body of knowledge at your command that you have mastered the underlying framework of the necessary ingredients to a successful ad. You wouldn’t want to go to a surgeon who says why don’t we cut it here today and see what we get; gee, we’ve never done this before; this is creative. You wouldn’t feel real happy about that. Retail advertising is so often just thrown into the paper at the last minute with no thought. National advertising is, I hate to say it, but primarily created by extremely talented and brilliant creative people, that don’t understand or maybe don’t even have an interest in selling. What they’re looking for is something creative. Here’s another thing. This is not a rare example. In 2002, Sears Roebuck paid $1.9 billion for Land’s End. You’re familiar with Land’s End? Great catalog success. And Sears thought their selling to the kind of customers we’d like to sell to; they’ve got good merchandise just a little higher grade than ours. So they put little Land’s End boutiques in their retail stores, but then their advertising, they would advertise in the color supplement in the Sunday papers the same way they advertised before with a picture and no copy at all. Well, you read a Land’s End ad on a pair of slacks or a pair of shorts or men’s shirts or something, powerful selling copy. Well, now Sears is disappointed with their Land’s End sales. Now they’re trying to sell Land’s End for $1.2 billion. They learned nothing – nothing! They didn’t even realize why Land’s End was successful except their merchandise must have looked pretty good. And then they don’t learn a thing about how Land’s End is selling it. They screw it up. And you take Federated Department Stores buying Robinson’s May. They want to save money on advertising and yet neither one of those stores has any benefits to any of their ads at all. Macy’s are selling maybe jackets or suits for men. They don’t talk to you, MICHAEL, or to me; they say for “him”.

MICHAEL: Well, here’s part two and that brings up a good point; this six foundation truths. There’s only one language of advertising; it is the universal language of the prospect – what do I get out of it.

BARRY: Exactly! The only thing the prospect cares about is what’s in it for me. I don’t really care about you; I don’t care if you’ve got a new arrival of a whole bunch of spring stuff. How does that affect me? Is it going to look good on me? Is it going to make me feel good? If I’m a young gal, is this going to really flatter my best points and make the guys really lust after me? What’s in it for me? There may be exceptions that I don’t know. But I don’t know any retailer that is using literally any benefits in any of their ads whatsoever. Certainly none that I see in the Los Angeles Times.

MICHAEL: Part three – the raw materials of all good advertising. Can you talk just a little bit on that part, what someone’s going to learn?

BARRY: Those raw materials are benefits and selling points, or others might call them features. Essentially we teach that regardless of whatever business it is, or whatever you’re trying to sell, people buy only in the hope or the expectation of gaining or realizing a benefit; or of avoiding a loss, which in itself is a benefit. Now, if advertising is professional salesmanship multiplied by the circulation of the media, and if people buy only to gain benefits and yet there are no benefits in your ad, is that good selling? Impossible! And yet most advertising today, national, local, other than in direct response, it’s like you were going to go to jail if you put a benefit in your ad. They do not exist in ads. Secondly, the product points or features; they do a wee bit better job in putting those things in. Maybe three or four bullet points with features. But many ads omit most of those. Now just piling on a lot of benefits, if you don’t support them, back them up with the features that make them possible, pretty soon sounds to be as David Ogilvie put it, flatulent puffering. But if you marry benefits with supporting product points and speak the language of the prospect, appeal to his or her self interest, and start with the most compelling and work your way right through and come up with a strong action close, then you’ve got a pretty darn good chance of selling quite a bit of merchandise if that’s your objective, or of bringing people in to buy if you’ve got that kind of a location, or of getting them to fill in the lead generating coupon if that’s your ambition.

MICHAEL: Give me two examples of features and benefits for let’s say this course; How to convert white space into advertising that sells, that would be a good example illustrating what you just said.

BARRY: Sure; if you get this course and study it, you will know more about what makes advertising sell and how you can make your advertising sell and bring you more money for less cost consistently than anybody else in your field or in your community. And that’s because the course was written by a master student of advertising that accessed millions upon millions of dollars worth of results tested advertising; compiled the common denominators into a system that takes you step-by-step from how to think about advertising before you even start the ad right down to the final pitch to get the money. You have it all right there and it’s authoritative; it’s not available any place else, although there are many other advertising books and so on that are useful. But nowhere else is an entire proven tested system laid out for you step-by-step that will enable you to turn what would normally be an advertising expense into a money generating power.

MICHAEL: Okay, I’ve got a little riddle. What’s the easiest way to cut your advertising expense in half?

BARRY: Double your response.

MICHAEL: That’s right.

BARRY: The same dollars get twice the response. It’s just like cutting your advertising expense in half.

MICHAEL: Can you double your response without extra money?

BARRY: You can often double, quadruple, or make it ten times, or in the case of some people that got no response like the leather sofa guy I was telling you about, from nothing to whatever number. I mean, how do you multiply zero? The increase you can have is infinite.

MICHAEL: It brings me to part four of the course, and that’s the Great Headline Ingredients. Can we talk about that?

BARRY: Sure; first of all, the importance of the headline. We know that if the headline does not immediately capture the attention and interest of the targeted reader – the person that we’re trying to sell – they’re not going to read the body copy. The headline is the entrance or the gateway to the ad so you have to have a compelling ad that reaches right off the page and grabs your prospect by the collar and says, hey this is important to you; it’s of interest to you, pay attention and read on. That’s the purpose of the headline. If anybody was to determine to say if the headline is so important, I’m going to spend $5 million to find out what makes a good headline, they would come up with what in this course are called the five proven great headline ingredients. There are really, as far as I know, nobody has ever come up with any others. So if your headline includes one or preferably more of these five ingredients, you’re on the way to having a good headline. We’ve already talked about self interest; that people love themselves and they buy because of self interest. So headline ingredient number one is mention the prospect; that is the person you’re writing to and/or an interest of the prospect. An example of the prospect is when you would say “you” or an implied you. Look like a million dollars in the newest spring fashion colors. The “you” is implied when you say look like. A headline with an interest of the prospect is often used when selling medical treatments or things like that. For instance, one that has run for many years over and over is in big bold type, backache? If you’ve got a backache, you’re going to see that ad. If you don’t have a backache, that has no interest for you whatsoever. So you have to know your prospect and try to write a headline that either speaks to the prospect or an interest of the prospect. Second ingredient, since people buy for no other reason than hoping or expecting to gain a benefit, if you advertise a benefit in your headline, a benefit of interest for whom you’re trying to reach, that of course is speaking to their interest. Third one is the use of “news” to the point. Why do people watch the evening news? Why do they buy Time magazine and Newsweek? Why do they buy newspapers? Because they’re interested in the news. So we know that people are interested in the news so if we can use that in our advertising, we’re making our advertising message newsworthy. There are a variety of ways to do that. One can be by using words like “new” or “here now” or “at last” or “finally” or “just arrived” or something of that nature that would tie in with the universal interest in news or what’s new. Another thing that’s useful is tie-in with the news or with something that’s in the news. Just as an example of all people, the 99 Cent Store and their Los Angeles Times ad recently right after the Oscars, the headline was “It’s not $1,000,000; it’s 99¢, Baby”. You know that Million Dollar Baby had just won the Academy Award. A pretty smart tie-in with a news event. So whenever you can use news, it’s a good idea to do it. Fourth headline ingredient, the one that inexperienced, or people unfamiliar with what makes advertising sell are apt to use is curiosity. Curiosity is not good unless it is used directly in a pertinent way. An example would ask a question. Are you ashamed of the weeds in your lawn? Are you making too little money for the long hours you put in? The fact that it’s a question is curiosity, but it’s directly tied to the prospect. And then, of course, you need to answer that as you get going in the copy. Another way you use curiosity is to say five quick steps to increased advertising results. Well, five steps; what are those five steps? And the person would want to read to find out what they were. And the fifth headline ingredient is to mention the product favorably; to use favorable adjectives. Just right off, we’ve talked about that Buick Lacrosse ad; if they had said instead of just Buick Lacrosse, if they’d say, “the all new, six cylinder turbo-charged, Buick Lacrosse”, if that was the case, would be better than just the label Buick Lacrosse. It would mention the product favorably. They don’t even think enough of their product to do that. You know, mentioning self interest; Nordstrom’s is one of the great department stores. They started in the shoe business. There was a full color ad in the other day shows 90 pairs of shoes. The headline is “We love shoes”. Well, goody for you; who cares; so what?! That’s speaking the language of the advertiser; not the language of the prospect. If they would say, “you’ll find the shoes you love that flatter your feet at Nordstrom’s”, and so on, then they would be talking the language of the prospect. So I’ll give you a challenge, MICHAEL. You go through the San Diego Union for a week or a day or whatever, see how many ads you come up with that meet any of the headline ingredients. See how many you come up with that have any benefits at all.

MICHAEL: Let’s go on a little bit. In the course, there’s part four, part five and part six, part seven all related to body copy. Talk a little bit about body copy and how important it is in these different parts.

BARRY: Well, body copy is where the real selling gets done. It’s the right words and enough of them that do the selling. If somebody walks into a car showroom and the merchandise is there and you have a very nicely attired gentleman or a very spiffy, beautiful woman standing there next to it, just looking but not saying anything, there’s not any selling taking place, is there? It takes words to sell. Anybody that has sold anything in person knows that you can’t sell without words. The same thing, because advertising is simply a form of selling, is true in advertising and maybe even more so. Because the prospect is not in the presence of the merchandise or the service. So the words have to do the selling; have to present the information about the product or service in a way that the prospect will be motivated to buy or at least get up out of his chair and decide to go to the store or go find a pair of scissors and tear out the coupon. We should also be saying that so much of this transfers directly to the Internet where your web site, if it isn’t using words powerfully to sell, you might as well not have that web site. It isn’t going to make you any money. I suspect that’s one reason why so many of the Internet entrepreneurs have bought this course. Because they are keenly aware; they’re interested in selling and they don’t have a store that people are going to stumble in to out of habit or because they’ve got a great location. Their words are going to have to drive people to click on that “order now” button and give them the credit card number. So learning how to sell with words is absolutely essential and this course is probably the place that teaches it in more depth than any place else available. When you know the formula, you just go from step A, B, C, D. We talked about the headline being the gateway to the ad, that determines who’s going to enter, so once you’ve got them into the ad, you want to immediately (to mix my metaphors here), you want to set the hook. A lot of advertisers will change the subject when they start their copy whereas the thing that you want to do is immediately expand on that which got them into the ad in the first place. So you expand on the idea of the headline that sold them on starting to read the copy. And then you want to whet and sharpen the desire of the prospect for whatever the service or the product that you’re offering. So what you want to do is add conviction; carry conviction; make your benefits believable.

MICHAEL: Let’s do another example related to how to convert white space into advertising. Because it will illustrate this point. Can you come up with anything that would fit that part: the body copy – carry conviction – being believed?

BARRY: Well, one of the best ways to carry conviction in terms of the course is the sheer weight of the caliber of the testimonials and what the testimonials say. We probably have literally more file drawers about this method and about this course and the results achieved by advertisers that are very happy in all fields. Testimonials are one of the most powerful and believable ways of adding conviction. Another way of adding conviction is a money-back guarantee. Being the advertiser takes the risk that the customer is really not taking a risk at all. Try it out; if you’re not happy, no harm – you’ll get your money back. That’s another important way and I think the money back guarantee was probably Sears Roebuck. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. So ads generally should use that technique if at all possible. At Costco in their big sign in their store, if at any time you’re not satisfied, bring it back for a refund. It takes a lot of the worry about making a purchase. The farther away a customer is from the source of that purchase, for instance somebody buying by mail order or buying over the Internet, carrying conviction is of utmost importance. Certainly an awful lot of claims are being made in Internet copy, but if there’s not an awfully strong believability factor, people can slip away.

MICHAEL: Alright, how about the last part . . . asking for action and business?

BARRY: The whole purpose of the ad is to get people to respond; to fill in a coupon, pick up the telephone, come to the store, or click the buy now button. So often sales ads, the majority of the ads even, general ads don’t ask for any action. They just tell whatever story they’re going to tell and then turn around and walk away. Which is without asking people to do something, more likely they won’t. So if you’ve got them and they’ve read your ad or read your copy and they really desire it, and you have convinced them that what you say is true, that they don’t have to worry about it, you’re going to deliver what they’re buying or ordering, then what you’ve got to do is tie it all together and get them to make that commitment. And to do that, it’s important to realize that if they don’t do it right then, they’re probably never going to do it. They’re not going to remember your next ad. You’ve got to close the sale now. And you do that by telling them specifically what to do and how to do it. If it’s a direct response ad, you say pick up your pen, check the coupon and mail it in. Also effectively, in direct response, is when there’s a finite quantity. We only have 37 of these, or we have a limited number and the first edition will be gone and when they’re gone, that’s it; there won’t be any more. Other ways that sometimes are effective in getting action would be in a direct response kind of situation, for the first 100 only, throw in an extra added bonus. Stores frequently have sales that are for three days only. The retailers, in their brilliant wisdom, have one day sales. You see them all the time. One day sale, Saturday, special hours; starts Friday 9:00 am until 5:00. So it’s really a two day sale advertised as a one day sale. At least there’s a limitation on it. Of course, in retail nobody believes anybody anymore anyway. I asked a lady once years ago in Robinson’s, when is this sale going to end? The lady looked at me like I was crazy. She says, how long are you planning to live? So those kinds of actions often times don’t carry much credibility.

Hi, it’s MICHAEL: Senoff again, with www.hardtofindseminars.com. This is the end of Part Three. Please continue to Part Four. Here is another bonus I want you to know about; extremely valuable. If you go to another site of mine called www.executiveaudioinstitute.com; that’s www.executiveaudioinstitute.com, altogether, no slashes, you’ll see a site with nothing but all my audio recordings, all in downloadable mp3 form. Now these are the same recordings that I have on www.hardtofindseminars.com in the audio clip section, except I will offer you the reprint rights to all of these audio recordings. In other words, I’m going to hand them to you on a silver platter. If you have a web site, and you need something that generates traffic, I will set up a custom site for you and you can send your visitors to my collection of audio recordings ad a bonus. You have here thousands of dollars worth of audio content on some of the best interviews on the Internet. You have hundreds of transcripts that you can print out and share with your customers. I’m not going to charge you a dime for it. I’ll even build you a custom site. All you have to do is put a small deposit down but it’s refundable once you introduce it to your list. Go on over to www.executiveaudioinstitute.com and read the first part. You’ll see a link. If you want the reprint rights to these audios, it will explain everything there. I think you’re going to find this extremely valuable. It has taken me years and years to build up this collection; to get them all edited; to put the transcript. I’ve invested tens of thousands of dollars in this collection and I want you to have it. Go check it out; www.executiveaudioinstitute.com. Part 4

MICHAEL: So let’s talk about, Barry, part eight. We have here “Write for Easy Reading”. Why is writing for easy reading important today?

BARRY: We know that we hear a lot about advertising clutter; that all media is bombarding the poor consumer and by consumer I’m talking about business persons, too of course. Television, radio, direct mail, magazine ads, newspapers ads, coupon booklets; on and on it goes. So many critics say nobody has time to read advertising. There’s just too much of it. And the fact is that people in general will not pay attention to most advertising. They will pay attention to advertising that addresses their needs; that speaks the message of the prospect; what’s in it for them. However, if the advertisement is written in a dull and boring way, if it’s written like a college text book that’s difficult to read, unpleasant, people are going to quickly put it aside and move on. They’re not willing to strain and struggle to read the message that somebody has paid for them to be presented in front of them. So it’s very important to avoid obstacles of easy readership. Easy readership really means the use of short, everyday words, although words with punch are very good; but it means avoiding long multi-syllabic words; long ponderous sentences; long gray paragraphs not broken up with cross ads, which are in effect, miniature headlines. So basically if you want people to read the message that you’re paying for, you’ve got to make it easy and inviting for them to read; not erect obstacles for them to jump over.

MICHAEL: What do they say the average education of the average American is? Now we’re talking about reading for the masses, right?

BARRY: Sure, for the masses, but even the MBA graduate that’s reading advertising; he or she are deluged with reading material and they do not want to read dry, dull, difficult, hard to read material.

MICHAEL: Here’s something in chapter seven, vitally important rules – writing for easy reading. One says start with a bang and involve the reader. Two – be enthusiastic; use short words and sentences. Three – be direct. So in this course it really gives you all the rules right here on exactly how to do it.

BARRY: Now, be direct, writing in the second person, present tense. For example, that’s talking about you. In contrast, I think we mentioned earlier in the interview, Macy’s when they’re writing ads for women, they don’t write much copy but they’re addressing her directly. When they’re writing for men, they talk about him as a third party. In other words, even if it’s men’s suits or men’s jackets, they’re assuming apparently that the man is not reading it but it’s for some woman writing about him, which is ludicrous.

MICHAEL: Part nine, communicating through layout in type. Is this being done very poorly in today’s newspapers?

BARRY: Oh yes, and magazines and often in direct mail as well. The whole purpose for advertising that is intended to generate sales, to generate leads, to generate store traffic is to sell. It’s not to create a lovely, petty picture. So the purpose of the layout really is to enhance the words; the selling copy; the selling message. Too often, however, layouts and graphics do exactly the opposite. They will oftentimes obscure the words that somebody has paid a lot of money to get a good copywriter to write. We see that increasingly as a problem as more and more people in the advertising business have mastered some computer skills; PhotoShop and other graphic software programs. And the people that have done that have grown like fungus. They have no understanding in many cases, of the purpose of the layout. What is the layout intended to do? So they will erect all kinds of graphic devices that they feel are pretty or dramatic and appeal to them but that blot out and obscure the sales message, thereby diminishing the readership of the ad and of course if you diminish readership, you slash results.

MICHAEL: Let me ask you this; do you think you’re better off with no layout or no graphic or no photo than a bad one?

BARRY: Absolutely not! Research shows that a photograph or an illustration in an ad is viewed at least fleetingly by virtually everybody leafing through the newspaper or the pages of a magazine. The illustration communicates a message in a mere fraction of a second and the brain says, yes this looks interesting, I’ll look into this. Or it has no interest at all and they move on. So the right illustration can be a huge asset in capturing the attention of the prospect, the logical reader, for that ad. However, if the illustration is irrelevant, then it may capture fleetingly the attention of the wrong prospect but miss capturing the attention of the one the ad is directed towards.

MICHAEL: How about people who use illustrations to trick the reader to stop and then the ad has nothing to do with the illustration. How do people respond to that?

BARRY: That’s the kind of person I was talking about. As soon as they realize it’s not for them, they move on. Meanwhile, the ad that it wants to attract never even started to read the ad anyway because the illustration didn’t grab them by the shoulder and say, hey this is of interest to you.

MICHAEL: So if we were to compare an ad with an illustration that is unrelated to the advertisement and the product, comparing having that or no illustration at all, what would you choose?

BARRY: You’re giving me a choice like have you stopped beating your wife? I would work to get a good illustration. Now, there’s always an exception to every rule and that’s why it’s important to know the rules before you set out to break them. In some kinds of ads, advertorials for example, you don’t need always to have an illustration. Sometimes the headline, if it’s set in big enough type, becomes the illustration. In some very small ads where space is extremely limited, I think we mentioned earlier in the interview, particular ads that are appealing to a narrow segment of the market like somebody with a backache, you run the word backache in 48 point extra bold type that takes up two columns of a two column ad, that headline set that way itself is an illustration that selects the target audience for that message.

MICHAEL: We talked earlier in the interview about your father’s rival when he would give these seminars. Do you remember his name and was there anything that he was saying that your father agreed with? Because it reminds me of when I would study Albert Lasker and Claude Hopkins in the earlier days when they were so set on copy was the thing that was doing the selling job, but later he changed his opinion on that and found that illustrations did help improve the selling of his advertising.

BARRY: Right, yes, they were sometimes on the same platform at meetings, for example sponsored by Associations. My dad’s seminars were basically where he was the show. But the other person, a very fine and respected practitioner for many, many years and also an early inductee into the Retail Advertising Hall of Fame was M. Siklemian. His clients were primarily large department stores all over the world and he was trained as an artist, and a darn good one by the way, and his emphasis was primarily on the graphics in the ad. A lot of white space, very compelling, attention getting, relevant graphics. Generally a minimal amount of copy. Sometimes he would grow discouraged as he looked out and just saw a sea wave of ugly advertising. But my father, as I mentioned earlier, when he’d become Advertising Manager of Marshall Field’s, sought out the absolutely best illustrators in the country to illustrate those ads. So there wasn’t that big a difference overall. I think the main difference was that Sik operated mainly from talent and artistic background and his own personal experience, which is the way most advertising practitioners do work by the way; Clyde, in addition to having talent and experience, was a lifelong student of advertising; constantly reading and studying; constantly taking advantage of the opportunities to do A/B split run tests (before and after) and who continually tried to isolate those principles and ingredients that seemed to be universal contributors to advertising that consistently produced maximum response. And he continued to develop and refine and hone all of that information and material into a system that incorporated graphics and copy and of course strategy. So I think that was really the main difference between them. And as I said earlier, in their later years, they became extremely close and fast friends.

MICHAEL: How about some tips on type; type styles, readability of types; what are some of the mistakes advertisers are doing with the type in relationship to the types and the size and the indexes and any tips on that?

BARRY: That’s extremely, extremely important, MICHAEL:. We use the expression “type talks” and by that we mean it has to communicate. Oftentimes, graphic designers in a strong desire to be “different” will select a trendy type style for a headline or even for the body copy that is in vogue at the moment but that greatly handicaps the readership. And again, the whole purpose of type is to be easy to read; to make it effortless to communicate. You asked about type styles and so on. Generally, for a headline, an advertiser can use either a seraph or a san seraph type; when there are comparatively few words a san seraph is fine. For body copy, a seraph type such as Times or Garamond or something like that that has the seraph greatly facilitates readership. A lot of copy in a san seraph type like Arial or Helvetica or something like that, you tend to lose your place. Studies show you lose readership if you run body copy in a san seraph type.

MICHAEL:: So if I have a web site or if I’m writing a long copy sales letter, or page, you think as a general rule, I’m better off with Times rather than Arial?

BARRY: In print, by all means. Now on a web site, that’s not true. On a web site, often Arial or good clear san seraph type is easier to read. One of the reasons is that the resolution on the screen is not as clear as black on white in the magazine or newspaper or direct mail piece. So a san seraph type like Arial can be very effective and easy to read in comparison on the screen; particularly as the type gets smaller. Another thing that’s important whether it’s on the Internet or in a direct mail piece or a print ad is to avoid printing type of any kind over a background that obscures it and makes it difficult to read. For instance, the very last thing you want to do is print black type over a gray background. Research shows that black on white or black on yellow or a light cream are the easiest to read.

MICHAEL: Which one’s easier; light cream or white, do you know?

BARRY: I think basically white is number one and yellow is number two. Another thing to be avoided, particularly in body copy, is reverse type – white type on a black or out of a color background, which cuts down readership by about a third. And yet graphic designers seem to be enthralled by large chunks of black or colored blocks and they seem to view the type as just something they’re required by their jobs to get in.

MICHAEL: How about just for a headline of an ad where it’s black with a white reverse and then the rest is . . .

BARRY: That can be fine, particularly if it’s not a long headline.

MICHAEL: How about any advice on Courier, the old typewriter font?

BARRY: Yes, Courier in a direct mail piece, a letter; the closer it can look to typewritten type, the more it gives the impression that it’s written personally, that it’s personal, it is easy to read. Courier also can work on a web site if the type is big enough and broken up with cross heads.

MICHAEL: What size is big enough – 12 point, 10 point?

BARRY: That’s difficult to say on the web site because it depends on how the reader has the screen. Of course, if it comes through big, the viewer can always click and make it smaller, but the main thing is when the site is being designed for the typical screen, it should be very easy to read without squinting.

MICHAEL: Any other interesting facts about type that you want to share about this subject?

BARRY: Certain of the types that graphic designers like to use have very round, like the O’s are very round; then a C and a D and a B all almost look interchangeable. So if that’s fairly small and the reader’s trying to read in a hurry, it’s sometimes confusing as to what the letters actually are. And anything that slows down the reader is likely to cost the advertiser readership of that ad. Because people just will not struggle to read advertising copy. If it becomes difficult or there’s too much to read on this publication, they turn the page.

MICHAEL: Barry, can you talk a little bit about layout. Is there anything on layout that’s important to know?

BARRY: Very much so.

MICHAEL: What does layout mean?

BARRY: The layout is basically the graphic plan, the roadmap, that the elements of the ad arrange by gradation and sequence to encourage readership. They basically intend to take the reader from attention right on through the ad, right down to the ordering or the place where they act. So readership shows that the illustration normally catches the eye first. If the brain in a slash of a second says, yes I’m interested in this, people will read the headlines, and if the headline sets the hook, then they’ll say yes I’m interested and begin to read the body copy. So there’s a logical sequence that people are accustomed to reading. Many graphic designers in an attempt to be a little different will start out by putting the type at the top and the picture down below. Well, that cuts readership of that ad by about 50%. People look at the big picture and then turn the page. We’re not taught to read from bottom to top; it’s just the other way around. So any devices that interfere with readership should be avoided if you want people to read the selling message.

MICHAEL: So a picture should always be at the top of the ad over the headline for better readership.

BARRY: Let me put it this way; it should almost always be at the top of the ad. Sometimes, depending on the size of the picture or the size of the type, it can be alongside a headline; in some cases it can be just below a headline if the picture is smaller and the headline is very large and bold. But generally, starting with the illustration at the top so it’s the first thing seen, and then the headline is the next thing, would be the way to go. On some ads a little larger sometimes the picture and the headline can be taken in in one glance. In the course there are examples showing different ways to lay out an ad for easy readership.

MICHAEL: How about a sub-headline – is that part of the easy readership pattern?

BARRY: Yes, a caption. Again, readership shows that the caption under an illustration has higher readership than body copy. So if the picture has gotten the attention, if you can use three or four lines of a caption to explain the illustration or to convey the main message of that ad, that’s a very wise thing to do.

MICHAEL: Part 12 discusses follow through. Can we talk about what we’re going to learn in the course under part 12 for follow through?

BARRY: Sure, and that’s a very important consideration. The examples in there are primarily how a retail store prepared for a major event. The advertising that they used and then how they followed through in the store to fully capitalize on the advertising. It’s very common, sadly, to walk into a store and say I’d like to see the so-and-so that was advertised and the salesperson says, huh? They don’t know what was advertised. Stores often do a miserable job of informing their own sales people about what is on special; what it is that’s drawing the people into the store. Let me give an example that sort of illustrates how this might work. Some years ago when we had a monthly creative service sold to one furniture store in its city, I was calling on the general manager of a very important business, and he was just absolutely enthralled with the service and was on the verge of buying it; he really wanted to buy it. But as a good manager, he wanted to bring his sales manager in and get his opinion. So he brought the sales manager in and the sales manager just didn’t seem enthusiastic. He didn’t say no, but the general manager said, well Joe you don’t seem very enthusiastic. Don’t you agree that these ads are stronger than we’re running or that we could run ourselves? The sales manager says, no doubt about that. Well then, what in the world would be your objection to getting this and putting it to work? The sales manager said, if we run ads like that and people read them and come in, our customers are going to know more about our merchandise than our own sales people. And of course, the point is that the ad should be strong enough to sell and the sales people should be informed about the ads, should read the copy not only so they know what’s being advertised but because they’ll pick up good selling ideas that they can use in their personal sales presentations. I can go talking on the retail level but it applies on other levels as well. If a store is willing to spend money for an advertisement in a newspaper circulated over an area of 5 or 10 miles or more in the hopes of bringing somebody in, you would think that same message would be worth circulating to the people walking by right in front of the store, wouldn’t you? And yet, you seldom if ever see the advertiser having a blow-up of the ad in the window or right where it can be seen by passersby. That would cost maybe $10 to do and reach perhaps, depending on location, scores to maybe hundreds of people a day carrying the same message where they can just turn and walk right in, the same message they’re spending to try to get people to get up off their sofas and into their car and downtown and into the shopping center and park and get into the store. That’s crazy. But it’s commonplace. A department store, or just about any kind of a retailer, a jewelry store, in effect let’s just take it down to let’s say somebody in a service business . . . a carpet cleaner, for example. A carpet cleaner typically comes in, does a nice job, gets a check, thank you very much, goodbye. From my experience and that of a good many friends, the typical carpet cleaner never sends a follow up mailing saying it’s been six months since we cleaned your house; it’s time to get your carpets cleaned again. You’ve got a lot more dust and dirt and mites and all that kind of stuff in there. If you call within the next two weeks, here’s our special offer. That just doesn’t happen. No follow through. Another very inexpensive, almost free way to follow through for any kind of business that serves the consumer in the home, whether it’s a carpet cleaner or an appliance repair person or whatever; in the case of a carpet cleaner, to attach a little sticker to the handle of the vacuum cleaner in the house with their name and phone number.

MICHAEL: That’s a great idea.

BARRY: Or for the appliance service repair person, to attach a sticker to the control panel of the washing machine. It’s just a matter of thinking, what we call total selling. How am I going to get the absolute maximum value out of having made contact with this customer, or client as the case may be? And the answer is, it’s important to look at all possible ways to follow through. Now in the business to business arena, oftentimes people will spend a lot of money, companies will, on a large expensive exhibit booth. They’ll spend money to have their sale staff attending that booth, hotel expenses and so on. They’ll have a fish bowl out there to collect business cards and then basically fail to follow through. It’s very expensive when they spend money to get a lead but don’t follow it up. Same thing in business to business advertising in trade journals. They will manufacture, will run an ad, they’ll get a lead, weeks go by, the enquirer has never received the literature. And often when they do receive the literature, all it is is a brochure in an envelope with no sales letter and no kind of personalization. It’s crazy. And then when you’re talking about people like ourselves that are in the information business, and presumably a lot of your people that are subscribers to your news list understand the importance of the back end, of capturing the name and then continuing to do everything possible to follow up mailings or emails or whatever is appropriate, as the case may be, to try to get them to the web site, to try to get the order, to close the sale, or if it’s lead generation, and that would be the case in lead generation. And then once you have the customer or the client, then you want to continually develop products that they can be sold to so they can be sold again and again and again. It costs an awful lot more money to get that client the first time than to sell them repeatedly with attractive offers after they’ve already become a satisfied client. All of that would fall under the category of follow through.

MICHAEL: Here we have Part 13, Standard Rules, Minimum Checklist and How to Use Them. What’s this about?

BARRY: This chapter here is probably worth $1000 conservatively, just on its own right. Because it contains virtually the sum total of all of the research into what makes advertising sell and how to go about constructing an advertisement based on access to tens of millions of dollars of response tested advertising and case studies before and after's and all other kinds of advertising research. So there it is, all in a very concise logical order from how you start your planning before you even think about writing the ad right on through to every element of strategy and graphics and layout, copy right down to the action.

MICHAEL: So this is the actual summary of the entire system, basically.

BARRY: Yes, it is.

MICHAEL: Okay, and how about the last part, Conclusion, Self Tester and then we talked a little bit about the index.

BARRY: This takes the principles that have been illustrated throughout the course with a great many retail ads and expands it and includes a great many national ads showing how the same principles work for all categories of businesses regardless of whatever industry they’re in. Then there is also found in a self test, which reviews each of the 15 lessons. It affords the student that is really serious about mastering this material an opportunity to go through it, fill in answers to the questions and see how much of it they have really gotten and mastered or where they maybe need to go back and re- study it a little bit.

MICHAEL: Is there also a small section on classified advertising in here?

BARRY: There really is, and incidentally that’s a very important type of advertising for a great many businesses. Some businesses get started just by running classified ads. Other businesses, for instance I’ve had major furniture accounts that ran television, radio, print advertising, but also regularly use classifieds to generate at very low cost, traffic to buy odds and ends, close-outs and things like that. This does tell how to use these principles and boil them down into effective classified ads. When we’re talking about improving your advertising, we’re really talking about real money. Too many advertisers think of paying advertising bills as simply writing out a check to the media at the end of the month. Whereas if they had to think of it in terms of reaching into their wallet or going into their cash register, it’s the message that gives the value of that piece of paper. And the same thing is true in advertising, whether you’re buying space in a magazine or a newspaper or whether you’re buying the space in a direct mail piece. It’s the message that gives it the value. And it’s up to the advertiser that is serious about maximizing profits to learn how to evaluate and create hundred dollar messages time after time after time. And that’s what this program teaches in depth.

MICHAEL: Okay, wonderful. That’s a great illustration. Let’s do some question and answers from some of my students. The first question I want to ask you is, your father put this course together before the Internet was even around and you had a lot of interested copywriting students and advertisers who are using the Internet as a medium to sell products and services. Can this course help me with advertising and selling on the Internet? Is it all interchangeable?

BARRY: Yes it is an enormous help to anybody selling on the Internet and that’s why, despite the fact this was published back in the 60’s, we’re selling probably more copies today to Internet entrepreneurs than to any other category of business. That’s because people putting up web sites, certainly the kind of people that are members of your list, are interested in selling things, not just having an image web site. They soon realize that if they don’t have darn good selling copy that communicates a powerful selling message, their site is not going to produce click now on the order form. So they’re motivated to learn how to write compelling, selling messages. This is certainly the prime source in an organized way to learn to how to write selling message regardless of what product or service you’re selling.

MICHAEL: Here’s a question from Alvin Tann of Manila. Hi, MICHAEL:, thanks for giving us the opportunity to ask questions and listen to experts in the copywriting industry. Barry, how does an untested rookie advertiser or copywriter gain the confidence, and more importantly the credibility, to approach paying clients?

BARRY: I take it this is somebody that maybe wants to start out as a freelance copywriter? Well, the first thing that I would suggest is that he convince himself through study that he understands the principles. Next, I would suggest that he take a typical ad and heaven knows, in Manila like in all major cities, that newspaper there (I’m not sure if it’s the Manila Times, but the major daily newspaper, their local magazines), and to select some ads in categories that he’s particularly interested in or where he feels he has a background that he would like to work in that industry; take a couple of their ads and revamp them. If the graphic elements are good, make copies, use the same essential graphic elements but set up and ad, write an ad, and typeset it so it’s like a before and after. And then make an appointment with the owner of that business and go in and say that he’s a student of the advertising masters that are concerned only with getting results and based on his studies, the advertising that this company has been running, although attractive and no doubt as effective as anybody else’s, his research has led him to believe that this type of advertising would produce better results for the same advertising cost. And get into a discussion like that and ask if the advertiser would like to try this ad as a test. He may find it a good idea to let him test one without charge or he can say if my ad out pulls the other, pay me so much and let me continue to create your ads. The main thing is to demonstrate that he is a student of advertising. Quite frankly, anybody that has mastered this course will be able to talk more intelligently about response advertising than any media representative or any advertising agency representative in the city. Then of course he wants to begin to collect actual before and after results and case histories and get testimonials and he’ll be on his way.

MICHAEL: Very good. Here’s a question from Nadar Anise. Some copywriters suggest revealing the offer in the beginning of a sales letter or ad, especially if it’s very powerful or has a strong guarantee. Do you recommend that and if so when is that a good idea?

BARRY: Excellent question. In an ad often the offer is the main reason that you are running that ad. In retail for example, you always want to have the offer which would include the price right up there as part of or adjacent to the picture and the headline. In direct mail, if you’re selling a $500 course or something like that, you don’t want to start out telling them here’s a $500 course right in headlines. What you want to do is really write an incredible headline and sub- head, maybe a couple of sub-heads and talk about the benefits that they’re going to get if they read this letter and obtain the product and then sell the product and really not reveal the price and the terms until the person is pretty well sold that that’s what they want. In other words, that would come near the close and near the bid for action; talking about the price and the bonuses and if they’re offering split payments and things of that type.

MICHAEL: Barry, what was the most successful direct mail campaign in which you were involved? In your opinion, what contributed to its success and why was it successful? What steps did you take in creating it? Bob Paroski.

BARRY: I’ve been fortunate to have had a number of pretty successful direct mail campaigns, but the first one I think was back when I was in the mail order business. It was my second job out of college in Chicago. I worked with this mail order company, precision equipment company, and they sold industrial equipment by mail, mostly drop shipped, all over the United States. The owner of the business, Walter Heibe who was a brilliant guy, he was a high school math teacher that started the business literally on his kitchen table and when I joined him it was a multi-million dollar business. He realized that getting customers the first time was important, but once you had customers, the follow up mailings, the back end, was really the sweet spot. So understandably he wanted to find a way to rapidly increase his customer list, his client list. Then he would send those people his catalog more frequently. So we devised a plan we were going to test out mailing jumbo post cards, each one with one product at an incredibly attractive offer. We had a series of four of those and over a seven month period we mailed out these jumbo post cards all of them asking, these were not lead generation. Each of them had a cut-out coupon and asked for payment or the extension of credit, which mailing to businesses was a common way to do it. But asked for a specific order. In seven months we doubled the customer list that he had developed over the previous nine years. So that really gave me a taste of how satisfying it is from a creative person’s point of view to see your efforts and your words generate piles and piles of orders and accomplish a really major objective. More recently, ongoing a very simple one-page letter that was originally written for furniture stores has since been adapted for other types of retail businesses and service businesses would be what we call a preferred customer letter or a client reactivation letter. Simply one page, black ink on white paper, 15 cents in the mail first class, that has consistently brought returns of from $8.00 to as much as $17.13 per letter mailed out to customers. I don’t know of any legal way to print money much faster than that. And that has been used by several hundred businesses all over the planet and continues to be used as we speak.

Hi, this is MICHAEL: Senoff with www.hardtofindseminars.com. This is the end of Part 4. Please continue to Part 5. Here is another bonus resource for you. And it’s about a section on my site that has about 15 hours of audio interviews with copywriting experts, including Brian Keith Voiles, including Carl Galetti, including Eugene Schwartz. You will not find this content anywhere. It will take you to an entire collection of audio recordings, MP3 downloads, and transcripts of some of my best interviews on the subject of copywriting. You’ll be able to play them, download them, print the transcripts, and it’s a collection you will not find anywhere else. If you want an education on copywriting, you will not find anything better than this. Part 5

MICHAEL: Here’s a question from Nadar Anise. Some copywriters suggest revealing the offer in the beginning of a sales letter or ad, especially if it’s very powerful or has a strong guarantee. Do you recommend that and if so when is that a good idea?

BARRY: Excellent question. In an ad often the offer is the main reason that you are running that ad. In retail for example, you always want to have the offer which would include the price right up there as part of or adjacent to the picture and the headline. In direct mail, if you’re selling a $500 course or something like that, you don’t want to start out telling them here’s a $500 course right in headlines. What you want to do is really write an incredible headline and sub- head, maybe a couple of sub-heads and talk about the benefits that they’re going to get if they read this letter and obtain the product and then sell the product and really not reveal the price and the terms until the person is pretty well sold that that’s what they want. In other words, that would come near the close and near the bid for action; talking about the price and the bonuses and if they’re offering split payments and things of that type.

MICHAEL: Barry, what was the most successful direct mail campaign in which you were involved? In your opinion, what contributed to its success and why was it successful? What steps did you take in creating it? Bob Paroski.

BARRY: I’ve been fortunate to have had a number of pretty successful direct mail campaigns, but the first one I think was back when I was in the mail order business. It was my second job out of college in Chicago. I worked with this mail order company, precision equipment company, and they sold industrial equipment by mail, mostly drop shipped, all over the United States. The owner of the business, Walter Heibe who was a brilliant guy, he was a high school math teacher that started the business literally on his kitchen table and when I joined him it was a multi-million dollar business. He realized that getting customers the first time was important, but once you had customers, the follow up mailings, the back end, was really the sweet spot. So understandably he wanted to find a way to rapidly increase his customer list, his client list. Then he would send those people his catalog more frequently. So we devised a plan we were going to test out mailing jumbo post cards, each one with one product at an incredibly attractive offer. We had a series of four of those and over a seven month period we mailed out these jumbo post cards all of them asking, these were not lead generation. Each of them had a cut-out coupon and asked for payment or the extension of credit, which mailing to businesses was a common way to do it. But asked for a specific order. In seven months we doubled the customer list that he had developed over the previous nine years. So that really gave me a taste of how satisfying it is from a creative person’s point of view to see your efforts and your words generate piles and piles of orders and accomplish a really major objective. More recently, ongoing a very simple one-page letter that was originally written for furniture stores has since been adapted for other types of retail businesses and service businesses would be what we call a preferred customer letter or a client reactivation letter. Simply one page, black ink on white paper, 15 cents in the mail first class, that has consistently brought returns of from $8.00 to as much as $17.13 per letter mailed out to customers. I don’t know of any legal way to print money much faster than that. And that has been used by several hundred businesses all over the planet and continues to be used as we speak.

MICHAEL: Here’s a question from David of St. Petersburg, Florida. Barry, are there past successful advertising concepts that you father may have shared with you that are not being utilized in advertising today?

BARRY: That’s an excellent question. Incidentally, my brother lives down there in St. Petersburg; great area, I like it down there a lot. My father never really shared concepts with me. He made his materials available for me to study and of course I learned a lot at his knee growing up. This course includes some of the ads that I have actually written in the course, but I don’t think he shared any hidden secrets that have not bee published. The thing is that just about no advertisers today outside of the direct response field are aware of or utilize 5% of them. So again, somebody that understands this material can quickly learn to create by far and away the most effective ads in his or her category.

MICHAEL: Okay, I have a question for you. At the very end of the course is a little baby sitting at the typewriter. Is that by any chance you or your brother?

BARRY: I wish it was me because I’d be a lot younger than I am, but actually that’s my son. He didn’t go into advertising but he grew up a terrific kid and he’s an investment banker now.

MICHAEL: Wow, that’s your son! It’s a great picture; it’s a great last page of this course. A final few words to you who have accompanied me through this course. Very good.

BARRY: What it basically says is that most people doing ads are as unknowledgeable as that little baby. But there’s no need for that to be the case.

MICHAEL: Very good. Here’s a question from James Kettington. Barry, I’m under the conviction that long copy can sell better than short copy under the appropriate circumstances; however I’ve heard repeatedly not only from marketers from CEO’s as well, that when top level executives get business letters all they want is bullet points and brevity. What is your experience in writing letters for top level executives and when it is best to use short copy and long copy with this demographic?

BARRY: That’s a really good question. I think nobody really wants to read long letters unless the letter is solving an important problem for them. Top level executives of course are extremely busy and safeguard every moment of their time and I certainly wouldn’t just send out a cold letter that’s very long to a top executive. I think depending on what it is that you’re trying to sell them, determines to a large extent how long the letter should be. For instance, if you’re trying to set an appointment where you would like to see them, there are a number of techniques but a long letter would not be one that I would recommend. Often when you’re trying to reach the top level executives if there’s a fairly small number that you’re trying to reach, you can do that by sending an expensive mailing. Something perhaps in a large box that’s going to get beyond his gatekeeper. An example from some years ago is that the advertiser mailed a cover for an expensive chafing dish and told why they wanted to see the executive and all the executive had to do was have the secretary return this card and then when he came to see the executive, he would bring the chafing dish itself. Well, that was successful in breaking through the clutter; breaking through the barrier; and impressing the executive enough that a high percentage did respond and sales people were able to get in and make the personal visit. If you’re trying to reach the top executives, you need to maybe step outside the box a little bit.

MICHAEL: Here’s a question, Barry, from another James. In the 40 years you’ve been in advertising and copywriting, what is the single biggest change you’ve seen and how has that affected you and your clients?

BARRY: I don’t want to sound cynical because I’m not but I think that the greatest change that I have seen is the deterioration of the selling quality of the messages themselves. We’ve seen back in the 50’s the whole big buzz word was image, image, image. And we used to say the best image is a cash register that is ringing constantly with happy, satisfied customers. In more recent years with the advent of computers and graphic software programs and so on, in print advertising, there are an expanded use of graphic devices and things that actually cut down the communications quality of the ads and the diminution of selling ideas and selling copy. And in the big national advertising the emphasis to a large extent has been on brand building rather than on selling. You see it even for instance in the automobile industry as I think we mentioned. Car makers, particularly American car makers, are in dire straights and yet even in their national advertising they do practically nothing to sell the vehicle or give reasons to go into the dealers. It’s not helping their brands, either.

MICHAEL: Here’s a question from Joseph Nekasio, from Long Beach, California. Barry, beyond having an irresistible offer, it is my belief that what makes or breaks a sales letter is having a process that makes it easy for people to buy from us. What specific recommendations would you make to make the process super easy for the prospect to buy? Example, how can we get out of our own way so that the reader has absolutely no obstacle in the purchasing process?

BARRY: Well that’s an excellent observation and I completely agree with the gentleman. By getting out of the way so the reader can complete the process, I think that it means that when the reader is ready to order, you make it very easy for him. He does not have to figure out what to do. For example, a good order form essentially restates the offer; what he’s going to get, what it’s going to cost, what the guarantee is. If it’s a fairly expensive item, what the financing options are. So all the reader has to do is tick the appropriate box on the payment method that he or she wants to utilize. It can also mean providing ordering options to suit the convenience of the customer. Generally I’m in favor of having multiple ordering options. For instance, it can be by mail; it can be by telephone, which can be answered 24/7; it can be by sending in a fax; it can be by going to a web site and ordering. Payment options can be check with order, or credit or debit card. And in an expensive item, breaking it up into split payments. Dan Kennedy has talked about, in some of his experiences in the past, selling to professionals; chiropractors, dentists, people like that, where some of them were pretty well maxed out on their credit cards, they greatly increased the number of sales by enabling people to split the total amount on as many as three or four credit cards. In other words, our job as sellers is to let the customer buy the way it’s most convenient and easy for that customer to buy. And not erect barriers.

MICHAEL: There’s been a lot of talk in the direct mail industry; some people swear that if you only give the customer one way to order, preferably by telephone, that you increase the response compared to giving them multiple ways. Is there some research to back up that your dad did on ordering from direct mail? Anything that you could cite or remember?

BARRY: I think Gary Halbert has said in his experience at least on some offers, that he’s had the best results simply using an 800 telephone number. And he’s cited reasons why and that is that many people like to talk to another person and of course they can do it any time of the day or night and they don’t have to find a pen or they don’t have to go to any effort at all. They have to simply pick up their telephone and order. It also has the advantage of reducing indecision. Sometimes when there are too many options, people can’t figure out which option they want to take and so they take none. I think that applies more to when there’s too many merchandise options rather than ordering options, however. Other than Gary’s statement that in certain tests that he has run, the phone option being the only one is the best, I have not seen evidence that that is the case. But if you have a single product, it certainly would be one of the things you could test. None of us know the answers to everything and that’s why testing is so important. I would encourage you, if you’re selling an expensive product or something like that, to experiment multiple ways of ordering versus the telephone.

MICHAEL: That feeds right into this next question from Chris Wulfolk of Derby, Kansas. His question is, Barry, on the first mailing to a list, what would be the most important and useful item to split test. Is it the premise of the piece, the offer, price or urgency or something else? Thanks.

BARRY: Let’s hope that we’ve got the right list here. Sometimes you want to test the list if it’s something that’s going to go to a great many people. If it’s more of a niche product and there aren’t a lot of lists available, then you’ve got the list that you’ve got. It is what it is. Then as far as the most important things to split test . . . I think probably the first thing I would test would be the offer itself and maybe the second thing would be the price of the offer. I think that’s what I would test first, and then secondly I would test price.

MICHAEL: You bring up something very important and that is look at the list, your market. And that probably takes precedence over both those.

BARRY: In many cases, if your universe is small, you mail to everybody. There aren’t lists to test. So you use the list that’s available. What you do want to do is match your message to the list. You want to address the people and show that you have some kind of rapport or expertise or knowledge in the area that is compatible with those names that are on that list.

MICHAEL: I’ve got a question for you, a situation that I specifically have a question for. I have a list, the universe is probably about 10,000 names, and I have 5,000 names and it’s testing an offer for an information product to a group of stock market type investors. And I want to test the list. What would you recommend the amount of names I should test? I want to test it as inexpensively as possible.

BARRY: Let me see if I got it. There’s a potential universe of 10,000. You already have . . .

MICHAEL: I’ve got 5,000 because that was the minimum but I don’t want to mail out to all 5,000.

BARRY: You’ve rented the list. And the list is 5,000.

MICHAEL: Yes, how should I test how many that’s going to give me some inclination of whether it’s going to be successful?

BARRY: Well a statistician might disagree with me but I think if you’re going to test two different things or the offer or what is it you’re going to test?

MICHAEL: I’ve got a long copy sales letter so I want to test the mailing piece.

BARRY: You’ve just got that one mailing piece. And have you mailed to this category before?

MICHAEL: Not yet.

BARRY: Are you trying to get a direct sale?

MICHAEL: It’s a direct sale. It’s a $600 product; I can make money at 1%.

BARRY: If you can get 1% on a cold list for a $600 product, you’re doing really, really well. If that was the case, 1% of 1,000 would be 10, if I’m correct. I would think then to minimize your testing cost I would test 1,000. If I got one order, that would be statistically discouraging. That would let you know that maybe there are some things you need to revise and then test again.

MICHAEL: So 1,000 or 500? What about 500? I was thinking of testing 500.

BARRY: 500 . . . 1% would be 5 orders then, is that right? You could do that.

MICHAEL: Okay, because I’ve heard to get a statistical sample of a list, you’ve got to test 5,000.

BARRY: They’re talking about a larger list with a huge universe.

MICHAEL: You’re probably right.

BARRY: You can’t do that. Well, you can but if the universe is 10,000, you can’t spend all your money testing.

MICHAEL: Let me ask you this. Would you test it in the name geographically or just like if I pulled out 500 names from the list in California?

BARRY: Is this a product that would sell nationally? I would do every 10th one, or whatever.

MICHAEL: Thanks for the advice.

BARRY: And you may find that certain regions are more receptive than others but I think that’s what I would do.

MICHAEL: Do you know of what regions just from your experience are more receptive to . . . I guess that’s too specific.

BARRY: My guess, of financial offers, I would think where the money is.

MICHAEL: Yes, New York City.

BARRY: Probably.

MICHAEL: Here’s a question from John Palma of Seattle, Washington. Barry, my question is, how would someone go about being your shadow for one year; to sit at your feet and truly learn from a master? Having studied a number of courses I think the missing link to being a really great writer today is that we don’t have a lot of opportunity to work and interact with someone on a daily basis to really learn not only the mechanics of copywriting and advertising, but the thinking nuances that goes on in the process of writing copy. I think of some of the greats in the past and many times they worked in the same agencies together. You had interaction with your father as well. Regards, John Palma.

BARRY: The gentleman is absolutely correct. There is merit to associating with and bouncing ideas off of like minded people. And that’s the reason, in my opinion, for the success of a lot of Boot Camps is you get a lot of bright people that are like minded and have the same basic base. So each one knows what the other is talking about. And then the ideas are sparked and they fly and that’s very, very helpful. It’s very difficult when you’re in isolation to keep motivated and to evaluate your own ideas and all that. The other thing is, if you are somewhat isolated of course, is to listen to tapes; to read books; to study courses; to try to farm some kind of a master mind loop of like minded individuals. And if you’re writing ads or direct mail for your own business and you have some doubts about it, you want some other expert opinion, many consultants, my self included, will do critiques by mail or by phone. Sometimes that’s a pretty good idea.

MICHAEL: Here’s another question from Clifford Ferguson of Kensington, Maryland. Barry, should a copywriter make claims about a product if it is included in the product literature, for example, a book, if there is no data to support the claim? Eugene Schwartz has argued that it is okay to make claims in the advertisement if the information comes from the book being advertised. If the claim seems dubious and there’s no way to prove its merit, what are the ramifications if a customer challenges the claims after the product has been sold? Is the refund guarantee enough to stay out of the legal trouble or should there be a disclaimer in the text? Many trading programs and systems are sold that require investments of time and money after the product is sold. If the program does not live up to its claims and the customer has invested much more money that the cost of the program or the book, is there an obligation to the copywriter or to the seller if the litigation occurs?

BARRY: Wow! I’m no legal eagle. I disclaim any attempt to be practicing law here. Generally if you’re a copywriter, in my opinion, you don’t want to work for a client that you think is seriously ethically challenged. It’s just that, life for me anyway, is too short to deal with the kind of people that recently acquitted accused Robert Blake referred to as commode scum. There are plenty of those kinds of people selling or trying to sell expensive financial schemes and products. That said, if you believe you are dealing with a responsible and ethical advertiser, the copywriter has no obligation or no way really to test or do the research to validate the claims that are made in the book or the system or the manual that is being sold. And I think would feel that he could use those things that are in the product. Now on financial products, of which I seem to receive many offers, perhaps and probably it is a law that they state very clearly that these are not actual results from my own account but from dry trading or from reconstruction of the figures. Because there are many variables. That needs to be clearly stated. It also should be clearly stated that even if the individual selling the material has achieved these results, in real time, in actuality, that there is risk involved in any kind of an investment. And clearly the author cannot guarantee your results. You may make money, you may lose money. So you want to cover your bases and anybody advertising financial products or products claiming to be able to show somebody how to be able to make a ton of money should be very careful to know the law and be in compliance with it. Now, not being a lawyer and not wanting to offer legal advice, that’s just the best opinion that I can offer.

MICHAEL: A couple more questions: here’s one from Craig Sherry of Lusty, Maryland. Barry, how do you determine where in a piece of copy to place each type of information?

BARRY: I think the way that’s done is that you follow an outline or basically the skeleton. For example, you want to have all of the elements that are to go into the mailing piece listed so that you have a list of all of the things that have to go in there. You want to have made up a list of all of the features or the product benefits. You want to have established a list of all of the benefits and you want to kind of arrange those in descending order so that you emphasize the strongest ones that are going to appeal to the greatest number of the readers. Then you follow a traditional formula. Attention – how are you going to attract attention? Well, you attract attention through headline and illustration and you move through the desire and you use the copy and information to hone and whet desire. And you go right on through. I guess I left out interest and desire. And then what is often left out is conviction; the believability factor. And you build that in and then you build in action – the close; the call to action. The time where the rubber hits the road.

MICHAEL: Okay, here’s my question. Of all the copywriting formulas, you got AIDA, Attention-Interest-Desire-Action. You’ve got AIDPPC, that’s Robert Colyer, Attention-Interest-Description-Persuasion-Proof- Close; you’ve got Earl Buckley, IDCA, Interest-Desire-Conviction- Action; Victor Schwab, AAPPA, Attention-Advantage-Prove- Persuade-Action; Henry Hoke, PPPP, Picture-Promise-Prove-Push; Dan Kennedy, PAS, Problem-Amplify-Solve; or any of the others including Badell’s guidepost, (1) always say quickly the best thing you can say; (2) follow a route; (3) be lucid and clear; (4) be believed; (5) be complete; (6) sell, sell, sell again; (7) print it as clearly as you think it. Which two would you choose as the most effective way to plan a sales piece if your life depended on it and you only had two shots at it? Neal Phillips from the U.K.

BARRY: There’s a great deal of merit in each of the ones that you mentioned. Certain elements, even though the words may be slightly different, appear in all of them. I believe the one that Clyde has, Attention-Interest-Desire-Conviction, which is missing from the AIDA formula and Action, pretty much provides room to incorporate all of the features of all of those other formulas. I appreciate the gentleman that asked that question. He says if your life depended on it. When I sit down to write an ad, even today, to get myself cranked up and into the mood, will say if all of the money I was going to make next month was going to come from this ad, what am I going to do to make this ad as strong as I possibly can? Because if it’s not successful, I’m going to go hungry. With that framework in mind, you not only think about it and write the best headline, you don’t write the headline once, you may write 10 or 25 or more headlines before you come up with the one you want. In fact, I believe Brian Keith Voiles, who’s a brilliant copywriter, one of the best, I think he says he writes as many as 250 headlines before he’s satisfied. So you work on every aspect of that ad or letter to make it just as powerfully compelling as you can. Then you set it down, you wait a day, and then you maybe read it aloud and see how it sounds. Finally when you’ve done the absolute best that you possibly can, you go ahead and you run with it. Invariably as soon as you’ve done that and you see it in print, you think Oh God, I could have fixed it up better even by doing this or that. But the basic thing is you want to be in the mindset that everything is riding on the success of this ad or mailing piece.

MICHAEL: Well, you bring up Brian Keith Voiles and I have a 2 ½ hour interview with him up on my site which he talks about how he creates headlines specifically; that’s at www.hardtofindseminars.com and it’s also on my www.executiveaudioinstitute.com site. It’s an incredible interview.

BARRY: I know Brian and I’ve heard one of his teleconference interviews and I’m going to go to your site and listen to that one. He’s a beautiful human being and he’s a real student of the business and is extraordinarily talented.

MICHAEL: Great! That brings me to a question specifically. If you say you’re getting ready to write an ad like your life depended on it, and you look at it in terms if all the money you had next month was going to depend on this ad, how important is your research come into before you write an ad for a client? How much preparation and research are you going to do? What’s your process for doing that, I think all important step, before you write a word of an ad?

BARRY: That’s a very good point. You really need to do research to know who the target audience is; who are we trying to reach here. Oftentimes the client can provide pretty good information. Are you talking about if you’re a copywriter going to do it for a client or if you’re in business going to do it for your own business?

MICHAEL: Let’s say you’re a copywriter; you’re going to produce advertising for a client.

BARRY: For another client?

MICHAEL: Yes, how do you do it? What’s your process with the research?

BARRY: I have developed a form that I require the client to fill out in some detail about his business, his product, and the customers that he wants to reach. I ask for samples of previous mailings. I ask for copies of testimonials. I ask for, in some cases, permission to actually speak directly with clients or customers to get their opinions; their reactions; to see exactly how they respond to what it is that makes them want to respond to this product. I do all of that. Perhaps look at trade journals if it’s a business client. Get information about who the chief competitors are; how this product is superior; how it’s priced in comparison with the other. Find out as much as I can. Then with all of that information, make my outline and list the benefits and product points and so on.

MICHAEL: Do you create your advertising by writing it out on paper or do you type it?

BARRY: I use the computer. Some people say and it probably makes a lot of sense for the first draft, to just get a legal pad and write; don’t edit; just write. I know the basic order in which I want to present information but I tend to do a semi-edit as I go along. And so I find doing it on the computer for me is a lot faster. I can transpose a paragraph real quickly that way, for example. I make may major adjustments as I go along and then what I’ll do is print it out and then I’ll begin to make adjustments with a pen and then go back and make those adjustments and print it out again and try to read it in the form and as the target customer would read it.

MICHAEL: What order will you do things? When will the headline come compared to the body copy?

BARRY: That’s a good question. Some people say write the copy and then pick the headline out of the copy. I believe and Clyde believed that that’s a very bad idea because you want to start the ad with the very best selling idea that you can. Then once you’ve got the favorable attention of your prospect, you don’t want to change the subject and start talking about something else. You want to immediately expand on that which attracted the interest in the first place. Whereas if you pick the headline out of the body copy, what would follow is probably not what would be expanding on the headline. You change the subject and nothing will turn somebody off faster than say, gosh I’m really interested, then starting to read, and find that the subject is changed right away. So I strongly believe you start with the headline.

MICHAEL: I’ve got another recording on my site; it’s a remake of a Eugene Schwartz speech, at www.hardtofindseminars.com. It’s really incredible and he talks about a very effective way and method in working is to use an egg timer. And when he sits down and writes he can do nothing but look at the screen and start to write. And he writes in increments of 33 minutes and 33 seconds at a time. That’s all he does is write, or either looks at the screen, works with the copy, and he works in small segments like that. How do you handle when you’re writing a piece? Do you work in small chunks; do you take breaks; do you knock it all out? And what time of day seems to be best for you when you write?

BARRY: What you’ve just done is brilliant. The 33 minutes 33 seconds; that’s very interesting. I sometimes will do it for just 30 minutes because I find that breaking it into small bites where I’m required to sit there and not allow myself to get involved in anything else until that time period is up tends to work the best for me. Also, I think it helps to overcome writer’s block which all writers at some time or another have to experience. And if you’re sitting there and that screen is in front of you and you know you’re not going anywhere; you’re not going to do a thing for 30 minutes, pretty soon you get tired of looking at that blank white screen and at the very least you can begin to start writing headlines. Even if they’re completely off the track of what you’re going to eventually end up with, once you start that creative process flowing, then the dam is broken and it seems to come quite easily. I do feel it’s important, at least in my case, to have a discipline of being forced to focus.

MICHAEL: Here’s another question and this is from Marco Abtrontay, I believe; he’s from Italy. He says he’s tried to contact you before but he never heard back from you.

BARRY: That’s not true because he’s bought a bunch of my stuff. Maybe he contacted you awhile ago, I don’t know.

MICHAEL: Here’s the question. My question is, Barry, what is the best and least expensive method to quickly increase sales in a slow economy; you know, money aren’t so much during recessions, either for business owners and customers. A simple postcard; a sales letter with a brochure, a small classified ad for a two to three step process, advertorial on a local newspaper? I know all four is the best but with a budget of $2,000 I don’t think it’s possible. God bless you and yours, Marco.

BARRY: Marco runs a mattress store in an Italian city of around 150,000 and he’s an independent and his location is far from the best and he’s got tough competition from national chains that run color ads, some of them do television, and are in better locations. So he’s got a real struggle and yet he’s a good merchant and he’s done quite well. The quickest way in a tough time, any time in my opinion to generate revenue quickly is to go to your database, to your customer list, construct a really attractive offer and mail it out to your customers. A lot of people on the Internet can do that with an email. And a retail store generally would send out a mailing to the customer list or information provider. But go with a terrific offer to those that have already bought from you. In terms of the best media, I’m not sure that one media is any better than any others just because times are tough. In Marco’s case, because he cannot afford television and he cannot afford great big newspaper ads, I have suggested to him (and he sells higher end products, by the way) that he develop a little consumer information type booklet on how to select the right mattress so that you will get the sleep that you want and wake up feeling good without a backache and so on. And offer that in small space ads; in effect using a two-step process. Along with that booklet would come an attractive offer on his bedding. That isn’t just for hard times or recession times; I think it’s an effective way when you’re faced with the disadvantages of much more richly endowed competition. So I have given him that suggestion and hopefully he’ll follow through on something like that.

MICHAEL: Okay, very good. Alright, Barry, that wraps it up.