Michael: Before we get into this, you were telling me how you went broke, so I want you to tell me that story first. How is it that you went broke?

David: I went to Chicago, and I was really good at writing about computers. By now it was the mid 80s. The San Francisco Bureau Chief job opened up after 40 years; one person had been sitting on this job.

Michael: San Francisco Bureau. What is that?

David: The Bureau is like the field office for reporting. So I had been in the Chicago Bureau, and I didn't really like living in Chicago that much. It turned out there was a job opening in San Francisco, and that would be like the top reporting job in San Francisco for the news service. So, I applied for it, and I got it. I thought "Oh, well now that I'm living in San Francisco instead of Chicago, life's going to be wonderful." And it turned out that life was exactly the same because it was the job, and it was the people I was working with that were making me feel the way I was felling, or maybe it was something inside of me, but it certainly wasn't the city I was living in.

Michael: How were you feeling?

David: Lousy, terrible. I mean I was smoking my self to death, drinking as much as I could to numb the pain.

Michael: Were you doing the same thing in Chicago?

David: Oh yeah. Well, in Chicago it’s called antifreeze, but yeah, pretty much. So you know I heard of this book called Do What You Love, and the Money Will Follow, and I thought "Oh, I'm not loving what I'm doing." So, call this magical thinking, I don't know, I said "I'm going to quit, and I'm going to do something else." I didn't even know what else I was going to do. I thought everyone had it better than I did. It was not a moment of clear-headed thinking in my life. So, I quit and proceeded to go deeper and deeper into debt, using up all my savings, and run up all my credit cards. I started a business in the early 90s where I was teaching people how to do public speaking, which is sort of odd because I didn't know myself.

Michael: How old were you when you quit that job at the San Francisco Bureau?

David: 32

Michael: How long were you just kind of drifting around?

David: I'd say five, six years.

Michael: Okay, so you went through your savings and you were just screwing around.

David: I was looking for something. Yeah I mean I was making an effort. I was doing whatever freelance writing, consulting, coaching, or whatever I could pick up, but I just didn't have a lot of focus.

Michael: Okay, so give me the scoop on Gary Halbert. How is it that you met him and ended up down at his seminar?

David: I was in this business with another guy, and we were teaching people public speaking. I got this newsletter. You know in those days he was turning $200 a year for the newsletter, and in order to increase subscriptions he would allow people to gift somebody else six months of it and gave me a coupon. Actually, my business partner got this newsletter, but you know he wasn't a writer and I was, so he gave it to me, and I read it. This is the first I'd ever heard of it. It had this cover letter that so and so has gifted this to you, and then there was a newsletter, and I read it. I read it over and over again. I thought I'd never seen anything like this. I was floored. The next one came and the next one came. I said "I don't understand what he's doing, but whatever it is, I want to do it." When people come into direct marketing from being an outside sales person, they get introduced to people like Dan Kennedy and others. They realize "Oh, this is a way of getting prospects to call you, eliminates the need for cold calling, and is much more efficient." I was looking at it more from the point of view of being a writer and thinking "Wow, you can make a lot of money doing this." So, that I think was when I first started to put it together "Oh, I could make a lot of money writing this way, and this is really cool what he's doing. This looks like a lot of fun." I had no idea how hard it was. It was very, very hard at first.

Michael: So, you got his pitch for the Hurricane Andrew seminar?

David: Yeah, and that was an interesting pitch. There were sort of two sides to Gary that I don't think many people have talked about. Everyone knows he's this copywriter and wild man, maybe sort of on the edge, but I also feel like there was this very humanitarian, almost spiritual, side to him too. Maybe that was just part of his pitch, I don't know. But I always felt that. The pitch for the Hurricane Andrew seminar was come to this seminar, it’s free, and all I ask at the end of the seminar you write a check to the Red Cross for whatever amount you think the seminar was with. I mean I didn't have two nickels to rub together. I don't know how I got there. I went there with a buddy, we roomed together. He's a mailing list broker, so he was sort of in the business. I knew him from my Mastermind group.

Michael: How many people were there? You remember? Packed?

David: Yeah, it was packed. There were a few hundred people there I think. It was in Key West. That was definitely a turning point in my life in a very big way. I remember one of the things Gary made us do is go to this shop and buy these baseball hats with a grey ponytail attached to the back of it because he said if you wear this, you'll look like the locals, which is preposterous but a really important lesson. In any kind of direct response letter, the person needs to think "Oh, this guy's like me. He understands me. He's one of us. He's part of my tribe. He's part of my group." Yeah, I got so much out of that letter. I remember sort of like a little snap shot in my mind that someone was talking, and I was writing as fast as I could taking notes. Carlton and Halbert looked over at me. I think they were worried that I was going to have a heart attack or something. I mean there was a look of genuine concern at how worked up I was getting.

Michael: Did they say anything?

David: No, but I've talked to Carlton about that years later because you know he and I are friends, and I've been his wing man at some seminars. He's done some hot seat seminars. He said "Yeah, we were going to have to call the EMT." I really got excited. Writing was something I did. You know there's a guy in Hollywood named Robert (inaudible) 08:08. He's a screenwriter, and he says "Writing is the hardest thing in the world, except for a writer, and then everything else is harder." That's sort of been you know the story for me that every time I tried to get away from it, it would just keep bouncing back to me like a magnet. So, I'd done it, but I was never really passionate about the copywriter. I got passionate about it. I really liked it.

Michael: Do you know how Gary Halbert died? I'm just curious.

David: All I know is what I read and that was that he died peacefully in his sleep in a hotel. That's all I know.

Michael: So, John Carlton was there. Ted Nicholas spoke there, David Deutsch. Was Joe Vitale there?

David: Joe was there, no. I was on a mission at that point. I realized the one missing piece of my education as a writer was persuasion and sales. I mean I had done some sales training and studied selling, but I hadn't really learned the bigger picture of persuasion, so I started going to all these NLP persuasion seminars all over the country throughout the 90s, and one of them was with Michael Hall. That was in Houston. I was in touch with David Deutsch at that point. He said "Hey, you ought to meet my friend Joe Vitale." I said "okay." So, I did and we really hit it off. We liked each other. I mean I just talked to Joe earlier this week. We've been friends for a long time. In fact, he was interviewing me for his Hypnotic Gold series. At the time we just met and because of the connection we made and, I don't know, the six years later that I came out with my first copy writing course, Joe introduced me to Mark Joiner, who was just starting up Aesop Publishing at the time. He said send this to Mark. He would actually digitize this I mean this is a cassette and workbook thing. It’s the late 90s right, early 2000. He said "He'll put this online. He'll sell it." So, sent it Mark and I remember getting this e-mail from him. He said David I'm only a half an hour into this, and I know that I want to do this. Well, thank you. That's great.

Michael: Now, what did you put together?

David: I put together something called The Money Making Copy writing Course.

Michael: Was this like your first product?

David: It was my second product really. Actually, my first product was one of the big attractions of copy writing to me. I put together this audio cassette called Let Your Clients Do Your Selling. It was about how to get referrals. This was in the early 90s.

Michael: Now, before you describe that, I want to ask you was the Halbert seminar, Hurricane Andrew, a direct influence that you need to create your own product and start selling it yourself?

David: No, I had already done that. My problem was I wasn't able to sell it in writing. I had to sell it over the phone for a $30 product. When I was broke, it was not a very efficient way to sell it.

Michael: Had you created product before you sat in Halbert's seminar and gotten his newsletter?

David: Probably after I had gotten the newsletter and before I did his seminar.

Michael: Alright, so after you got his newsletter, that was an influence for you to create your own stuff and sell it. Because he was always talking about creating a report and market it yourself. I heard that in the interview about that referral product, and you said that you just couldn't sell it or it wasn't selling?

David: Well, see the only way I knew how to promote it was with PR because I had been a reporter, but I didn't know how to set up an order page or how to do an order form through the mail. I didn't know anything like that, so people would call me about it, and they'd ask me about it. I think I'd get a check or take a credit card. It was incredibly inefficient. So, I needed a more efficient way to sell it.

Michael: Let’s go back to Mark Joiner. He's halfway through this product that you've created...

David: He's halfway through the first audio cassette. It was like a six or seven hour course. He says "Yeah, I definitely want to publish this." This was like a multimedia thing. There were sealed envelops inside that you'd have to open. There were flash cards and a manual and everything. He found a way to put all that online.

Michael: Now, had Mark already promoted Joe Vitale's book at that time?

David: I think so. I think that was how Joe knew Mark.

Michael: I think Mark promoted his book as I interviewed Joe, and he told me that story. How Joe had heard about this guy Mark. Mark said "I want to take your book and sell it online." Joe's like "What are you kidding me? Sell it online? What are you talking about?" Then he ended up selling like thousands of copies of his book.

David: Yeah, Mark's an incredible marketer. Mark had actually come up with a report on; it may have been on search engine positioning or something. He gave it away, and he had like a million downloads. This was like in the 90s and saying this is like awesome.

Michael: He must've had a humongous mailing list.

David: He has a strategic way of thinking and understands the internet really, really well and knows what to do.

Michael: Did he end up promoting your product?

David: Oh yeah.

Michael: What happened?

David: Oh, it changed my life.

Michael: Can you say how much stuff he sold?

David: I don't know, but we sold a lot.

Michael: Were you still broke at that time?

David: No, no. This was like seven years later. I was way past that. I was at that point a copywriter, and I was doing coaching, consulting.

Michael: For more information on David's copy writing templates go to www.DavidGarfinkeltemplates.com.

David: Not where I am today, but I was comfortable or more comfortable than I had been when I was going broke. We sold something like $60,000 worth of these courses in either the first week or the first month. I mean I had never seen anything like this. I didn't really personally experience the wonder of direct marketing until I went online. I mean I had already written a letter for somebody that was making them five million dollars a year, but I wasn't seeing any of that.

Michael: Alright, so you were only a coach and doing some copy writing for clients at that time.

David: Yeah.

Michael: How was the money in that in those earlier years?

David: It was from sort of hitting the bottom in the early 90s. This got progressively better each year.

Michael: How did you learn how to be a coach? Like you know did you have some training on it? How to approach a client, how to say here's what I'm going to do for you, how to negotiate the deal, do you get money up front. Did you make mistakes as a copywriter doing all the work before you got money? You know stuff like that?

David: Oh sure. Yeah. Well being a coach and being a copywriter are very different things, but I sort of made it up as I went along.

Michael: Did you take and coaching courses where you were a student on the other end of coaching?

David: That's interesting. I didn't do that until I was coached, and I just liked the model so much I sort of decided how it was going to be and read about it. I actually interviewed Bill Walsh once, you know the 49ers coach. But I didn't take a coaching course until a couple of years ago. I had been coaching for 25 years before I did it, and I'm really glad. You know once I learned about coaching, I started getting coached and I started coaching. I just think it’s sort of a natural thing for me. It’s like my personality, like writing and coaching. I often jump in without knowing what I'm doing and just do well enough or fail quickly and figure out what I'm doing and get better at it. But yeah, I didn't have any formal coach training until 2008.

Michael: If I was to mention like John Carlton, the first thing that sticks out in your mind. How would you describe his copy writing style?

David: He's really flamboyant, and he understands human emotions and the thought process that leads to a purchase as well as any human on the planet.

Michael: How about Ted Nicholas?

David: I don't know. Ted's extremely successful, and I don't quite understand what he does.

Michael: I just got an e-mail from him today. He's looking for like four clients, $100,000 a pop. He'll fly out; he'll turn around your business, write copy. Elite coaching platform. I've never seen anything like that from him, $100,000 a pop. He's looking for four clients.

David: Is he asking you to find them.

Michael: No, no, no. I'm on his list. It was an e-mail that came in this morning.

David: He constantly makes these huge deals. I don't know what kind of results he gets, but I assume that they're very big. I just don't understand what he does or how he does it. I don't doubt him. He's in a different wavelength than me.

Michael: Yeah. Well, I think he's got a very large business. He's got a green business, a nutritional company that he partly owns in Europe or wherever he is. Green powder type stuff that he's working the direct mail business in Europe. So, there's a lesson to all this. He said get off your ass, get out of the house, and go learn something and meet people.

David: Logic, prudence, and common sense would've said "Hey, I mean you don't have any money. Don't go to this seminar in Key West with this crazy guy who's been in prison and writes all this questionable stuff." My gut said "This is it, man. This is what you're going to be doing. Go for it." I listened to my gut, and it was inconvenient and risky and yet it was the right thing to do. I mean I connected with a lot of people. I followed up with a lot of people. I took some chances and I stayed with it. Wow, look what happened.

Michael: Alright, so tell me where you're at right before the big show here. This is Jim Edwards. How are you and what are you doing at that time before the Jim Edwards story? Give me a reference.

David: Yeah. So, this is 2002. This is after I've gotten the copy writing course online with Mark Joiner.

Michael: When he launched that thing, did it put you on the map? I mean tell me how that put you on the map.

David: Well, one of the things that Mark did that was very smart is he built up this huge affiliate base. I mean he did many things that were very smart, but this is the one that I'm very aware of. I probably took a more active role in promoting my product than a lot of people do individually. I not only created the product, which his people converted to online. I also wrote the sales letter. I wrote the sales e-mails, and I wrote a lot of content. Mark would call me up and say "Hey, could you put together three special reports today for our affiliates?" I said "Yeah, okay." I never, ever produced at that speed. But one of the things I remember very distinctly was that I had six articles about copy writing, all of which ended up with a link to this product. He sent them out to thousands and thousands of affiliates. Many of them posted them on their web sites.

Michael: Was your name all over them?

David: Well, they were by me. They were Six Secrets of Copy writing by David Garfinkel. One, two, three, four, five, six. Well, this was long before Google was sand boxing people or not listing duplicate articles. Recently in the last 10 years, things have changed a lot with Google. But at the time, each one turned out to be a separate page because it had my name on it. At one point, you would type in my name and it would be half a million search results. I mean there are other David Garfinkel's in the world. There's doctors and professors, and I'm sure there's garbage men, post men, and truck drivers and everything else. But the ones that show up on the web, there are other ones, but 99% of the David Garfinkel's were me. That was because of all of the content and copy I had turned out in a way Mark had distributed it and motivated his affiliates. I used to a have one liner that I'm famous on the internet, but the great thing is I can go to any restaurant in the country.

Michael: And no one will know you.

David: Except internet cafes and they're all over me, man. People know me at conferences, you know like at internet marketing conferences, but anywhere else I was just another person.

Michael: Do you like that?

David: Yeah, I did some work for a celebrity once. I'm not allowed to say who it was, but he's like instantly known. I talked to his manager and he said "He always has to smile because of his persona. He always has to smile in the airports and be nice to these people that are being jerks to him. When he starts to complain I say "Hey, you know do you like being seated quickly at restaurants? Do you like the free upgrades at the hotels?" That's not a life for me.

Michael: Who was Jim Edwards at the time? What's the big show?

David: Well with Jim Edwards, my trials and tribulations were sort of minor by comparison. He'd gone from this high flying realtor and financial guy to bankrupt. I never went technically bankrupt. He did, and he had like a best selling e-book at the time that he went bankrupt, and he was humiliated by the bankruptcy judge. He said "Well, some expert you are." I mean imagine that. They end up living in the trailer park and delivering newspapers in the middle of the night. So, he went from very quickly, very dramatically. He was also having huge health problems. He was having heart attacks at the age of 30. He was a real stressed guy, but he and Joe had written an e-book together, he and Joe Vitale. Joe and I were doing this interview series of experts that had written, you know were sort of on the fringe and on the edge and people who knew stuff but weren't well known in the public. He had this subscription called Forbid Secrets University. It was like you know all kinds of odd business stuff and some spiritual stuff.

Michael: How'd it go? Did you all sell some of them?

David: It went well you know. We sold a bunch of them. One of the people on one of the calls was Joe. I guess Joe didn't invite him on because he was a partner and coauthor. After one of the calls, Jim called me and said "We've got to do an e-book together." I said "What's an e-book?" He explained, and so we did. We did an e-book about marketing e- books, which actually was really good and still is really, really good, although it’s based on some outdated now. Not all the marketing techniques will work quite the way they did back when we did it.

Michael: But you had kind of known what an e-book was from the Mark Joiner situation.

David: Kind of, but my thing wasn't an e-book. Mine was a multimedia program. You know he took all the tapes. The thing about it was people could get this audio course online.

Michael: That was very unique back then.

David: Oh yeah, it was definitely the first one for copy writing and it was pretty unusual for anything else too. I mean we didn't even have MP3s. We used real audio, remember that. So, with Jim he asked me to do a product, and that further got my name out there. Jim also, he was a master of affiliate marketing. After he had gone through all that hell, he came back with a vengeance, and he did real, real well. It took him a few years, but he really came to become a big name, and so we did a lot of the same kind of things that I did with Mark, with Jim. We did a lot of articles, we had a newsletter, and we'd do affiliate offers for other stuff. You know I tend to be a homebody and I don't really like to go anywhere. He said "No David, you've got to go out there and meet people." Armand Morin was just starting up his big seminars at the time. I listened to Jim. I realized he knew what he was talking about. So, I went to big seminar in I guess it was 2004. Armand was here in San Francisco, and I made a lot of connections there. I met Mike Stewart, and we became buddies. I learned about audio and video from him. I remember just hanging out with Armand. I was a smoker at the time, and Armand--I guess he's still a smoker, I haven't seen him in a year or two--but is out there in the patio smoking. I said "Hey, I'd like to speak at your seminar about copy writing." He goes "okay."

Michael: Was this his first one?

David: Oh no, this is like his third or his fourth one.

Michael: Okay, yeah.

David: He said "okay." I said "But Armand, I got a problem." He said "What do you mean?" I said "Well, I don't really have a product to sell." He said "Oh, that's no problem." I said "What do you mean?" He said "Well what you do is you just sell a teleseminar series that you're going to do." I went "Oh, that's an interesting idea, okay."

Michael: For more exclusive interviews on business, marketing, advertising, and copy writing, go to Michael Senoff's hardtofindseminars.com. So let me stop you for a second because I thought back to Mark Joiner. So, that whole product Mark Joiner put together; did he own the rights to it, or could you not use that?

David: Well, he didn't own the rights to it, and I couldn't use it because it was dated.

Michael: So, it was dated already.

David: Yeah, I mean this is five years later. Things had changed. There was a lot more going on the internet, and I knew a lot more. I realized my teaching approach was not what I wanted to...you know I wanted to update things.

Michael: Alright, so that was a great idea. He says "You sell an upcoming teleseminar." You're like "Yeah, that will work."

David: Yeah, so what I figured out is people really didn't want to learn copy writing, they wanted it done for them. While I don't believe it’s possible to totally give people a done for them, what I did realize was possible was to make it a lot, lot, lot easier. So, I came up with programs where each portion of the sales letter, there would be templates. It'd either be fill in the blanks or it would be step by step guidelines on how to put a certain story together or what the elements of guarantee or what are the elements of an offer? I gave a talk. It was a terrible time slot. It was

like 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning that Armand gave me, but we got a lot of people in the room, and I must have sold a few hundred of them.

Michael: Like, when you sold it from the sold, did he have support people there to take the money?

David: Oh yeah, we had the order forms and everything. Armand has a good operation with people. Armand's really good at that. I remember Michael Fortin, who was a friend of mine at the time, said David I'm very proud to tell you I bought the first copy.

Michael: Oh wow, that's cool. That makes sense. What's the lesson? People want it done for them. How long did it take you to really realize that?

David: Probably about 10 years. I was so annoyed at how difficult it had been for me to learn copy writing that I was less concerned about the fact that people didn't really want to learn it and more concerned about how hard it was for those who did want to learn it. So, I was determined to make it as easy as possible, and I think I've pretty much done that. I mean I think I've come up with methods to take it about as far as you can. I did spend a couple years with a couple of good friends, including someone who knows a lot about programing and automations try and take my copy writing templates and automate them, put them into software, and we couldn't figure out how to do it. I'm not saying it couldn't be done. I'm saying we couldn't figure out how to do it. So, I feel like I've taken it as far as possible. Yanik Silver may have invented the ultimate way of the done for you with his Instant Sale Letters, I guess it was called.

Michael: You went eight times. You got more clients hanging out in the bar and the smoking area than you ever did as a speaker. During those years, where was most of your money coming from? Was it with clients doing their copy writing for them?

David: Yeah, I was doing a lot of work with clients. Some of them, I was getting royalties form them, some of them I wasn't. Some I was getting pretty big fees from them. So, I was making money that way.

Michael: You hear saying from Halbert and Carlton, clients suck. Do clients really suck?

David: Some do.

Michael: Give me a nightmare story about maybe a mistake you made with a client that could be a lesson for anyone who's going to work with a client could maybe possibly avoid? What's something that you overlooked that became a shitty experience with a client? Anything that sticks out in your mind?

David: I remember one guy. He was an heir to a famous family fortune, famous industrial company. I'm going to be really vague here so as not to identify him. He was selling a really expensive product, and he wanted me to do direct mail for him. Every time I got some where his vice president of marketing...I mean he was the one who hired me, but I always had to go through her, and she never had any say in hiring me. She was determined to make sure that whatever I came up with didn't work.

Michael: Had you gotten any money up front with this client?

David: Oh yeah I got paid for it. I wasn't getting paid just on results, but it was very frustrating, and she was constantly sabotaging me. One of the things I learned is you've got to have clients where you're dealing with a decision maker and not a committee, you know especially with direct marketing. The other time was when I worked for a fortune 500 corporation, and they wanted to do some direct marketing. They never mailed the letter. In fact, you just interviewed Ben Gay. I was whining to Ben about this whole thing. It was so frustrating. At one point, we had to get clearances for testimonials from their legal department, and there was this rush to get them the testimonials. So, I got all the testimonials, and they were in San Francisco. I couriered them over to the building, and I got an e-mail from my client's assistant saying "Thanks for getting us the testimonials. We'll be back in a couple days." I knew they were never going to mail the letter. I was talking to Ben about it. He said "Now David you don't understand. She actually accomplished her job." I said "What are you talking about?" He said "Well, her job was to get a direct mail letter written. She did that. Her job was not to get a direct mail letter mailed." I went "Oh, man. I don't want to go through this again." He said "Well, then you probably shouldn't work for large corporations." Those are examples of where clients suck. I've had more positive experiences than negative ones, and a lot of times it's because I'm pretty clear up front about how it's going to work.

Michael: What's the criteria? So, if you're going to take on a client. You know if you're going to say "Here's how it works." What are you basically going to say?

David: The first thing is that they have to be sales positive and they have to have a system to actually make money once they get a prospect or an order coming in. That probably sounds pretty ridiculous, but you'd be surprised how many people in business hate sales and think sales are evil. You wonder "Well what are they doing in business?" I'd say "Well, something other than making money." The other thing is even if they're sales positive, that's not good enough. They've also got to be direct marketing friendly. A surprising number of businesses think that there's something sort of icky about direct marketing. It’s sort of embarrassing or shameful. People feel that way. I can't help them. How can I do something for them that they're fundamentally against?

Michael: If they feel that way, there's a good chance they're not going to mail you piece.

David: Or they'll find some other way to screw it up and then blame you for it.

Michael: When you're taking on clients now or maybe even during those days at that time was a big incentive on maybe a royalty or percentage on what sold where it was critical that they actually mailed your work?

David: Oh yeah. That's how I work now. I'll charge 25 to 50,000 for a letter plus five to 10%, depending on the margin of what they're selling and how much of a role what I'm doing is going to play in securing the sale.

Michael: Is it five to 10% of a percentage of gross sales or per piece mailed.

David: No, I have friends who do that kind of thing. That's more of a publishing model or mass marketing model. I tend to work more in niche markets and more in B to B than consumer stuff. Yeah, if it where fundraising or subscriptions, then I might go to the pay per piece mail.

Michael: Have you charged $50,000 for a sales promotion?

David: Yes.

Michael: $50,000?

David: Yes

Michael: Do they pay you up front or like 50/50 or how do you work that out?

David: Yeah, sometimes they pay me up front. These days I was talking to a friend who said even Donald Trump probably couldn't pay you up front. So, sometimes there's payments, but you know when someone makes a million or a couple million off of a promotion, $50,000 is a reasonable based fee.

Michael: Like a $50,000 client, how much time involvement are you going to flock off for yourself to work with that client? I know it depends, but can there be some examples where you can obviously look at their direct mail police. Are you going against controls?

David: No, I mean usually I'm not. Usually, I'm helping them in a start up situation for a new product. Writing doesn't usually take that long. Writing might take two or three days. The research and the thinking can take weeks or months.

Michael: Well, what do you tell them when they say "How long will it take?"

David: We sort of set a deadline. Anyone who needs something in a hurry I send them somewhere else because I can write fast, but I can't write fast and make it work most of the time. One of the biggest issues is getting into the mindset of the customer, you know in terms of time. Let me give you an example of something that took a lot of time. I worked with Ann Sieg and her folks on a sales letter.

Michael: The MLM people?

David: Yeah. Well, what they do is they teach direct marketing to MLM people and they teach social networking. She’s also involved in MLMs directly, but I didn't work with them on that. I worked with them on their educational arm. So, they actually did a sales letter for a membership site, which I coached them on, and then I wrote a sales letter for an up sell. The up sell sold about one million dollars in two days. There was no hard cost. There was a lot of labor that went into it. It was a mentoring program. Network marketers as a rule are very different than direct marketers, internet marketers, internet entrepreneurs, and what I learned from her about her market place. That is that...well first of all, internet marketers and direct marketers are often very introverted and very un organization. It’s me and my outsourced contractors. That's the mindset of a lot of direct marketers. They don't have a company, an organization with a lot of staff. Network marketers are very social people. They love to talk to other people. Very extroverted. Very community oriented. Very, I want to be part of this thing. Very cause oriented. For a lot of network marketers, the ability to connect with other people and be part of something important is even more important than making money. For an internet marketer or direct marketer making money is much more important than the social aspect. This sounds all real simple and easy now. It wasn't. You know they told me that, but I didn't believe them because I'd never experienced anything like that, and I didn't see how you could possibly sell anything on that basis. I interviewed a lot of people and think about it a lot. It’s a very slow, creative, digestion, and sifting process figuring out what does your prospect really look like, smell like, think like. What's on their mind when they wake up, how they go through their day? Actually doing that in a market that you're not familiar with, that can take time. Now, of course if it’s a market I'm familiar with I can do things a lot more quickly.

Michael: You're listening to an interview on Michael Senoff's hardtofindseminars.com Yeah, that makes sense. How do you go about doing that research? You said you interviewed a lot of people. What's you method for digging out that research and creating that avatar?

David: I interview them on a conference line. I have a set of questions. I'll go deep. I'll ask questions. I'll ask them for examples. I'll listen for the assumptions, the beliefs, and the feelings underneath their answers. I'll have it transcribed, and I'll just ruminate on it for a while. You know you talk to enough people and you start to get composite picture.

Michael: That makes sense. Tell me the story about when you at Ted’s seminar and you went up against some Australian copywriter where you all did a split test. What's that all about?

David: Ted was doing this internet marketing seminar, and one of the things he wanted to do during the seminar was prove that internet marketing worked. So, he had this idea that we would sell. I guess it was videos or a transcript or something of the seminar, two people on his mailing list during the course of his seminar. So people at the seminar could see that these things really worked. So, he had the sales letter written. The copy was already written, but he wanted a headline. So, there was a guy in the audience. I won't mention his name. He's an Australian copywriter. There' many Australian copywriters, many good ones. This guy came up with one, and it just sounded a little hokey to me. So, I said well actually I've got another one and stuck my hand up and came up with a better one.

Michael: Do you remember what yours was?

David: Nope, I just remember it was better. We split tested it, and sure enough at the end of the seminar I got twice the response and twice the sales of the other guy.

Michael: What happened later?

David: Later I was speaking at an event in San Francisco where this Australian copywriter was one of the sponsors of the event. It was sort of hot in the room until I got in his presence, and I felt like I was in front of this polar ice cap.

Michael: You weren't thinking anything of it were you?

David: I could see it in his eyes.

Michael: That he was kind of pissed?

David: Yeah, he had a long memory.

Michael: Oh, I see, and how many years later was that?

David: Six years later maybe. You know if he can carry grudges...it didn't occur to me. I was so focused on the result, and I suppose I was focused on being the smartest guy in the room that it would never occur to me that it would come back to bite me in the ass.

Michael: So you were going to speak at that seminar.

David: Yeah, and it was awful. Everything went wrong. I didn't sell anything.

Michael: Did he sabotage you?

David: I couldn't say that.

Michael: Or was it more in your head?

David: Well, you know when you're about to speak you really want to go into a bubble. You want to go into a cocoon. You don't want to be in the midst of a lot of emotional darts and daggers. He was making sure that I was in the middle of that. Was he sabotaging me? I don't know if that's possible.

Michael: Alright, what's the lesson?

David: The lesson is sometimes it doesn't pay to be the smartest guy in the room.

Michael: Matt Furey. Friend, give me your impression of Matt Furey as a copywriter.

David: He's awesome. I don't think it’s possible for anyone else to duplicate him, and I think a lot of it is because he's Irish and he has this storytelling tradition in his heritage. That may sound racist, but I don't care. I revere the Irish storytellers, and I think that Matt is from a long line of storytellers.

Michael: Did you ever go through or get a hold of his e-mail copy writing course? He's done a couple.

David: I've heard that he's done that. Yeah, I don't know too much about that, but I know that he got a lot of money for that. Yeah, so Harlan Kilstein and Kendrick Cleveland were doing this unconscious persuasion seminar. I don't remember what year exactly. It was probably about 2003-2004. I attended as Harlan's guest, and I met Matt. He starts shaking hands with me, and the hand starts going higher and lower. I had this stunt pulled on me by a martial arts person where they sort of get you and then all of a sudden you find yourself on the ground in a half nelson or something.

Michael: When he was shaking your hand, it was going up your arm.

David: It was going like into a wider and wider arch.

Michael: Was he messing with you?

David: Yeah, he's a world champion martial artist. So, at one point I looked at him and said "What am I doing?" and he laughed because you know he was busted. We became friends right there. He invited me to speak at his seminar in Tampa a few months later, or maybe the following month or something, I don't remember. Well, I had a product at that time that I'd done with someone else, and it was on public domain. How to get public domain stuff and how to publish it and make money with it. So, I spoke about that and pitched the product. We sold a few, and I made a few bucks. It basically paid my expenses out there. It didn't make a lot of money. But I made three connections there, and one of them turned out to be a very good friend, a very long-term client, and I made two more really good connections as well with people at that seminar. You would think a guy tries to trip you up and humiliate you; you probably shouldn't do business with him. I mean that's the prudent thing to do right. But I thought no, he's just playing around. I don't think he means any harm.

Michael: You were talking about Matt?

David: Yeah, and it was a really valuable experience to go to that seminar, to see what he was doing, and to speak there. I made some great connections. Matt and I are no longer in touch, but no bad blood. Just move on. I guess the things is, it’s really important, and I see a lot of people who don't follow up on opportunities that could turn into something because there's no guarantee or there's no certainty of where it’s going to go. I know. Life's uncertain. You don't know what's going to happen anyway. What do they say? To win the lottery, you've got buy a ticket. I don't play the lottery very much. I'd like better odds than that. But these were better odds, but it was an unknown. I guess the lesson is follow through on opportunities because you never know where they lead to, but I knew where I wanted to go, and they helped me get there.

Michael: So, you're making okay bucks, but you're not at the big bucks yet?

David: Well, it wasn't like in a movie where one day all of a sudden the money starts pouring it. It wasn't like in Think and Grow Rich where all of a sudden this damn breaks. But you know at a certain point I started to command a bigger fee. I made people millions of dollars, and I started to have the confidence and the track record to charge more money. I started to make bigger money for my clients.

Michael: You had the confidence to charge more money because you had done it. Is that some times in people's head the only difference between charging very little, you know compared to charging a lot just that confidence level?

David: That's a great question. I'm going to sort of circle around to answer your question. There are a lot of people saying that there's a generation of people that has more self esteem than actual skills, and I think it’s possible to have...I'll make up a phrase here...premature confidence. I think you've got to earn it. To some degree, the old the old sob about paying your dues is true. I also think you've got to get underpaid and you've got to go through some experiences where you're giving more than you're getting before you get your due. I think there's some people who don't. It’s neither good for them nor for their clients because they walk in with a little bit of the imposter syndrome. You know the imposter syndrome. I'm afraid I'm going to get caught. I'm afraid I'm going to get exposed. So, I wrote a sales letter that made a company about 40 million dollars and I charged $300 dollars for it with no royalties.

Michael: Can you talk about what that product was?

David: Oh yeah, I can describe that in great detail.

Michael: Alright, how did you get the client?

David: My girlfriend referred them to me. They were a travel company in Phoenix.

Michael: Multilevel?

David: No, they were a business to business travel company. They used to move movie crews around the country, you know Summer Stock Theater.

Michael: So your girlfriend gave you a name of the boss?

David: Yeah.

Michael: You called them?

David: Yeah.

Michael: And went in and met with them?

David: Well, no. I never met them. It was all over the phone. What happened was they had a problem, and that was they were great at getting business by referral, but they had no idea how to market. They had gone to some fancy schmancy ad agency who had made them this very slick coated beautiful brochure. It was so nice; it probably could've hung as an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They knew to third significant figure what the response rate was when they mailed it because it was always the same, 0.000.

Michael: They couldn't understand it.

David: Well, they didn't expect it would work. They just wanted to find something that would. All they knew is they were hog tied, hand strung. They couldn't get new business. So, I put together a two-page direct mail letter, and it was you using Halbert's white mail approach with postage stamp and just a return address without the business name on the front. We got the mailing list...I don't think you can get these anymore because the DMVs won't let you, but at the time they were Lexus and Jaguars. We figured you know at that time a lot of entrepreneurs who had made it would buy one of those cars to show the world they made it and feel like they'd made.

Michael: You're listening to an exclusive interview found on Michael Senoff's

http://www.hardtofindseminars.com

David: What they could do is they could save money on tickets, and they could help people get real white glove treatment when they travel. You know for a lot of companies, travel agencies. This was when there was still margin in the travel business. So, it was a lot different then. They would make about 10% margin on their sales. So, the letter basically said "Look, I'd like to give you a champaign vacation on a beer budget. I know as an entrepreneur you really need a vacation. What we do is we provide first class service at coach rates. We'd like to do it for your company, but tell you what. Just to show you what your service is like, we'll do it for your vacation. You won't make any money on the deal, but you'll like us so much." This is not word for word. This is the essence of the letter.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. I've got you.

David: "You'll like us so much that you'll want to bring us into your company to work for you. We've worked for all these other companies just like yours, and we love working with entrepreneurs. So, if you would just allow us to have a 30 minute meeting with you, we'll give you a box of Godiva Chocolates just for your time."

Michael: Do you remember how many mailed the first time?

David: They mailed 25 letters at a time. They had to stop mailing them. They couldn't keep up with the appointments. Not only that, but once summer came around...you know how hot it gets in Phoenix in the summer? They would have had to carry the Godivas around on dry ice. So, it was a good winter strategy, but it wasn't a year-round strategy. They got so much business that they added five million dollars a year to their top line. They didn't want any more business. They were full.

Michael: Do you still have that letter, like in your archives, do you save it?

David: Yeah.

Michael: Have you ever put together a slide file of all your work?

David: No. I consider my work private for my clients. I do a lot of B to B stuff, and a lot of my clients don't want their competitors to see what they're doing.

Michael: So, we're talking about the big bucks.

David: So, I'm not going to talk about my piece with Ann, but we've made a lot of money together. I made them a lot of money. I think it was because I've joined a number of multilevels. I love products from multilevels. I'm not a multilevel marketer type. I'm not real social, and I don't like all of the organization and stuff. But we connected really well. We've become good friends. She was out here to speak at a conference of multilevels, she and Candace, her customer service woman. So, we got together and spent a lot of time together. Good friends, but that turned into one of the most profitable client relationships I've ever had.

Michael: I have heard of her. You know the only way I have heard of her there's a place on my site where people can get a free CD, and then I ask them how they've heard about me. I've looked at the responses, and it was Ann Sieg. Or, I'd look in my C panel and see where some of my referrals were coming. She's been referring people over to my site for a long time. I've never talked to her, but when you said you've done stuff with her...I don't know if you talk to her.

David: Why don't you interview her? She is a great person to interview.

Michael: Has she made it big in MLM

David: She's huge. She's broken companies, and when I say broken companies let me be really clear what I mean. She has gotten so many orders for companies they haven't been able to keep up. She is like a productivity machine. She's awesome. Through her marketing ability, and she's figured it out all through common sense.

Michael: Is she mainly MLM?

David: She's sort of two tracks. She works with MLMs in women's leadership and women's success, and she's also really into this whole attraction marketing thing. Softer version of direct marketing, social networking, info marketing. But, she's also quite an expert on paper clicks, she's done that. She is amazing. I'll be glad to introduce you.

Michael: Okay, I appreciate that. Alright, tell me about big Mike.

David: Big Mike just called me up one day and he said "Hey, I heard you mentor copywriters, and I'd like to find out what you do and how it works." That's sort of how he talks. I said "sure" and I told him.

Michael: So, what do you tell him? If someone calls you and says "Hey, I hear you mentor copywriters, and I'd like to know what you do and how it works."

David: The nickel version is I say "I don't really like to work with absolute beginners. I like to work with people who have some experience. There are about three of four simultaneous tracks going on. One track is I have a structured series of things that I insist that you do, and I ask you to do them exactly the way I tell you to. The second thing is I do what is called developmental coaching. It’s a little more free form. I'm going to work on opportunities for inner growth with you. This is where insights and breakthroughs occur. You know it’s not structured. The third thing I'll do is I'll work on your copy writing through actual things you're writing. We'll go over them, critique them, I'll ask you questions, I'll invite you to think differently. The fourth thing I'll do will be business coaching. We'll be helping you to strategize your own business, whether you're a copywriter or business owner and to think differently to help you get more of what you want."

Michael: Okay, so let’s talk about big Mike.

David: I think he heard about me from Perry Marshal or somebody. You know the thing about big Mike is my ideal client, or my ideal student, my ideal coaching client because he studied everything and he just went at it pedal to the metal. No regrets, no hesitations. There was no ready or aim, there was just fire. But he worked really, really hard. He became a world class copywriter. It took a long time. He's a very good speaker, salesman, and innovator. Writing was not initially his strength, but it was just a skill he had to learn. He did everything I asked him to do. He brought other guys on the call. It was interesting he brought on...this guy's very private, so I won't mention his name...but he has a staff writer working with him. This guy he as like and award winning journalist. He had a masters degree in journalism from a pretty good school. He went through what I went through learning to write copy. It’s such an emotional shift going from reporting and storytelling to a copywriter where you're being proactive.

Michael: Can you share what big Mike was doing? What kind of different....

David: Oh yeah. His company is called advanced nutrients, and they make hydroponics fertilizers and all kinds of hydroponics chemicals. They hired PhD horticultural chemists. I'm not sure that's exactly what you call it, but the plant scientists in terms of the plant biology and the growing, fertilization, everything. They're based up in Vancouver in Canada, but they're world wide. They have sales in 23 different countries, plants in three other countries, operations in three other countries besides Canada. So, this is a chemical manufacturing business. Very non-direct response oriented. The thing about Mike is he was determined to use every technique and every aspect of what he learned from me in his business, and it didn't always work. I mean he actually wrote something at his seminar where he hired a friend of mine, a very good platform salesman, to come in and sell stuff to store owners, and they hated it. You go to a lot of conferences and you're used to platform pitches. These guys were not used to it and didn't like it. So, he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and tried something else. He's actually publishing a magazine now called Rose Bud, just for hydroponics growing. He was an amazing guy. The thing about him is a lot of desire, a lot of vision, and a lot of follow through. That was so important. What I learned form him is that direct marketing can work any business, but here's the key, and I mentioned this before, the person at the top needs to think like a direct marketer in order for it to work.

Michael: He didn't hire you to write.

David: No, he did not. Actually, he hired me to write one thing, which was sort of a sales letter within a book that he wrote in another business that he had, but other than that I was his coach.

Michael: So, when you take him on as a client...I mean does a client pay like a monthly fee, a yearly fee. How do you structure that so like all the people who are selling coaching...

David: Basically, it’s a one time fee of $25,000 for 24 one-hour sessions plus some proprietary materials that I have. What I do is I put them on a phone bridge line and we talk. It’s all over the phone. It includes critiques of their copy, instruction, developmental coaching, and business strategy.

Michael: Okay, that's great. Do we have a lesson to this?

David: Yeah. The lesson is direct marketing can work in any business, but the person at the top needs to think like a direct marketer for it to work.

Michael: You're listening to an interview on Michael Senoff's

http://www.hardtofindseminars.com You've got your West Asia client.

David: Yeah, I've got a client, and this is a current client. I know that they're very particular about my not disclosing who they are.

Michael: But can you tell how you got the client?

David: Yeah I can. The owner of the company hired me many years ago to coach him in copy writing. Then he hired me later for business coaching. Then he heard I was doing something new, and he said I want to hire you for that. I was offering at a promotional rate. He said here, I'm going to give you $1,000 and I'm moving to Asia. This is not an Asia guy. He was actually a British guy. I'll let you know. Let me hold you to the price. Here's a $1,000. I said sure. I didn't hear from him for 10 months. I thought “Man, what happened? Did he die and he changed his mind? I e-mailed him a couple times and didn't hear from him. Well, finally I heard from him. He had been sick, and he was well. He started up these operations. When he started the previous 12 months he'd made about a million dollars. By the way, this is not like porn or get rich quick. It’s a very respectful business. It’s just I know that he doesn't want a whole lot of publicity. But, made about a million dollars a year with about a three person company. In the first three months we were together, he made a million. His goal was to expand to 10 million. I think he's going to do it, but he basically quadrupled his income. He made about 1.1 million in the second quarter of our working together. What he did, we had a coaching call Tuesday, and he told me that his customers love his products, but they complain about the marketing. They say "You know I love what you're doing, but your marketing is too aggressive." They're still buying it, but they're complaining. That's an interesting. You know, I mean there's lessons there. I mean one of them is watch what people do, don't always listen to what they say. I mean sometimes you've got to listen to what they say; especially if they're threatening to do something that's going to get you into trouble. But in this people say I really don't like your marketing. Yet, they may not like it, but they're responding to it. He's getting much higher response rates than when he was soft pedaling. So, I think the lesson is it's not easy and it's not always pretty, but you can achieve massive growth and still maintain your dignity and your integrity. I mean he's operating totally clean business. He has great customer service, bending over backwards, offering great deals, and some people find his marketing a little aggressive.

Michael: A lot of people, one comment from a customer could cause them to change their whole marketing. You know they really take it to heart.

David: Yeah, but he's getting more than one comment. He's getting lots of comments.

Michael: But it's like what Halbert says. Don't worry about senlling the hounds, worry about attracting the foxes.

David: That is great.

Michael: I know with some of my e-mail marketing at first you know it does kind of freak you out when you get something negative back, but you've just got to keep your eye on the big picture.

David: Yeah. I think I'm probably better suited to be a copywriter and a coach than a direct marketer. I mean I sat at my mastermind group last night, people were talking about getting this one or two messages and not getting thrown off. I said I got really thrown off by a message. I sent out some free content to my list, no pitch, no tease, just free content. This one guy writes back to me and he says "David, I guess you think your list is an ATM. Any time you need money, you just write to us."

Michael: Was that recent?

David: Yeah, and so I wrote back to him. I said "That's interesting that you would say that. I'm wondering why. I wasn't asking for any money at all." He wrote back to me and he said "I'm sorry. I was having a bad day, and I misread what you were doing. You're absolutely right."

Michael: Okay, you have all these clients and you hear about their businesses, some of them are making millions of dollars, and you've got the chops to write. I'm sure you've thought about it. Why don't I sell something through direct mail using my own copy? Have you considered it? Have you done it?

David: I don't know. I've thought about it. It needs to be the right product. I mean right now I've started a business where were going to be selling a lot of stuff. We're going to be selling instruments and assessments to people. It’s called The Value Drivers Institute. We're going to be licensing people that we are in the process of completing to help businesses get ready to sell. So, we'll be using some direct marketing, but it’s not going to be a typical mail order business. You know if you think of Carlson Learning with the Performatics test, things like that. It’s going to be a little different. So, one of the things I've noticed is I'm much more interested in creating, innovating, and teaching than I am in maintaining. So, I could definitely create a business, but I have to be careful about getting bored with retained business. I won't continue with something if it’s too boring. I think that's sort of obvious from my early life history when I kept jumping out of jobs because I didn't find them interesting anymore. My first info product was let your clients do your selling, and it was an audio tape about referrals. I think I sort of inadvertently or ironically achieved that because Ryan Dice had this marketing conference three weeks ago and at least four of my copy writing entering clients were there that I know. The West Asia guy was there and a guy from Washington State, a guy from New York, another guy from Washington State. A few of them were around in the presence of another guy who knew about me, and he was watching them. They were just like riffing, joking, improvising headlines and offers. It sort of depressed him a little bit because he knew that he couldn't do that. It was very hard and very slow for him. He's a really smart guy, a successful guy, but it was painful. So, he wrote me and said "Would you mentor me. I'd like to do what these guys do." So, we talked on the phone for over an hour. I said "Look, if you want to get to that point..." and he had some very specific things that he wasn't willing to do and things that he was. I said "Okay, well it’s going to be a lot of hard work. I can get it to the point where you can do it a lot faster and a lot easier." So he hired me for 25 grand. So, I'd love to say that happens to me every day, happens to me every week. It doesn't.

Michael: But your previous clients kind of referred him over in a way.

David: Yeah, yeah. I hadn't even asked him for referrals, and they didn't even realize they were doing it. You know one of the things that Bill Walsh, the 49ers coach, told me when I interviewed him...I asked him "Hey Bill, how do you know when you're being successful as a coach?" He said "Well, one thing I can tell is when the players are saying the same thing to each other in the field that I said to them in the locker room, I know I'm getting through to them." I've had clients tell me, including some of these guys "You know I can turn on the Garfinkel voice in my head." Wow, that's pretty cool.

Michael: If anyone's listening to this and they really want a way to short cut the copy writing process, I would definitely consider having a look at David's templates, and for more information on this you can go to www.DavidGarfinkeltemplates.com. For more interviews like this go to hardtofindseminars.com. That’s the end of our interview with David Garfinkel, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. For more information on David's copy writing templates, go to www.DavidGarfinkeltemplates.com. A Special Offer For David Garfinkel Templates Go to http://www.DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com I'm very excited to have Mr. David Garfinkel on the line with us today. David is widely known as the world's greatest copywriter teacher. He's taught a tremendous number of copywriters and entreprenuers how to write high converting copy quickly and without struggle. Beyond that, David is an expert at showing you how to make use of what we call a swipe file and something he calls copy templates. This will allow you to take your writing to a new level of effectiveness and really speed up the process. Now, we're not talking about stealing other people's copy, but we're talking about using successful copy in an intelligent manner to turbo charge your own writing. So, on today's call David and I are going to talk about what swiping is as far as it applies to copy. We're going to discuss the upsides and the downsides of swiping. David's going to reveal some solutions that he's come up with over the years for writing copy faster and without struggling that are sort of an evolution of swiping and that anyone can use to really ramp up their copy quickly. So, David, I want to welcome you to the call.

David: Thanks, Michael. It’s good to be here.

Michael: David, let’s start be defining what swiping is. In our conversation today, you said that swiping can have a real dark side and that it can actually be dangerous to the success of your sales letter. Can you explain what this dark side is that you're talking about?

David: How does jail sound? Yeah, the problem is that if you swipe the wrong way, you break the law. So, the short version is it’s extremely easy to do it wrong. See, there's this thing called copywriter infringement. Let me tell you a story. There was this newsletter publisher I heard of, and he's not a copywriter, but he's selling words on the page. He used to make all this money; he published this pharmaceutical industry newsletter. This is way before the internet. He made all of his money by finding out which people at which companies had made Xerox copies of his newsletter and then suing them for $25,000 an incident and collecting out of court because the copywrite infringement is a serious crime. So, most people do it that way. They think swiping means copy the words word for word. You can't do that. That's against the law. That can get you in trouble. When you take the words word for word, that's wrong. My friend, John Carlton, look at all of his letters that are out there where people have copied them word for word. You'll see what I mean. That's bad swipe.

Michael: So, tell me this. How can my listeners use swiping as a way to write their copy and letters faster and in a way that will get them better results?

David: Let me explain to you how it does work. The key to swiping successfully, Michael, is to understand what I call the DNA of a sales letter. To have a deep understanding of what the components of the letter are and why what you're swiping works. It’s not easy if you're going to start from scratch. In fact, it can take years to learn how to swipe a letter or even part of a letter properly. If you don't know what you're doing, not only can you get in legal trouble like that newsletter publisher I mentioned, since you can easily go over the lines from swiping to stealing, but worse than that, you'll write a letter that doesn't actually produce any sales. If your letter doesn't produce, you're really just wasting your time.

Michael: So, tell me this. How can my listeners use swiping as a way to write their copy and letters faster in a way that will get them better results?

David: I've thought about this a lot, Michael. I've read through tons of letters over the years and I found myself building a library that was actually more than just a swipe file. It was kind of evolution of a swipe file. Over time I created what I call copywriting templates. What's a template? A template is basically an example or a structure, almost like a fill in the blank that you can modify and use to write great copy really quickly. The key with templates is that you don't just swipe blindly. You understand the DNA of the letter and very particularly choose what template you want to use to get the desired effect in your copy. Basically, with templates you get the speed and the ease of writing that comes with swiping, but you also get to combine it with the benefits of experience of knowing what to use, what not to use, how to use it, what comes after it; all of those things that comes from experience in the guidance of how to swipe correctly and properly.

Michael: Before we started this call you and I were talking. We decided that you were going to do something pretty cool in order to show how these copy writing templates that you've developed actually work. So, you're going to actually use these templates right here on this call today to write a sales letter?

David: Yeah. It might seem like a bit of a tightrope walk. I admit it. But I think your listeners will get a lot of it and they'll learn a whole new way of addressing the blank page blues. The fun part of it is I'm actually going to describe how I developed the process in the sales letter that you and I write together right here on the phone.

Michael: But David, how would you use your copy writing templates to write a really powerful headline quickly without having to go through all these hours of brainstorming and struggling? How do we know we've got the right one with your templates?

David: Good question. You know and headline is absolutely the best place to start because a good headline can increase your conversion by an amazing amount. But most people start their headlines just like babes in the woods; just by blindly grasping at headlines with no real guidance. Top copywriters often write dozens of headlines before settling on one. While that's great and if you have the time, the skill, the discernment, know how to do that, I recommend it. Sometimes in the real world you don't have that time, especially if you're running a business or you're copywriting and you've got a lot of different projects you're working on at once. Sometimes you need to get your letter done lots more quickly. So, what I did is I went back through 100 years of tested headlines and I pulled out a number of universally usable headlines that could be used in many different industries. I call them headline templates. Now, this is different from swiping in that we're not just swiping a headline. We're basically breaking the headline down to its fundamental DNA and using that template to build a new, very powerful headline. Let me give you an example. There's this one famous headline that's done extremely well. It’s called the Lazy Man's Way to Riches. So, what makes this headline work so well is it feeds on the laziness of us all. Even, hardworking people want to be lazy some of the time and want to get something without really working for it. It's just human nature. But let’s take it further. Let's break the headline down to its fundamental core structure. So, really the template is the lazy blank, and in the blank you name your prospect. Lazy man, lazy woman, lazy person, lazy copywriter. Lazy prospect way to, and then there's a blank; a condition, a goal, or an end result. Something that they want that you can provide for them. I'll give you some examples. I know it’s pretty abstract. So, now that we have a DNA, we can use it like this. Let's say for a limo service; who's the prospect for, let's say an executive. What do they want to do? They want to look classy, get around town in style. So, you can say “The lazy executive’s way to get around town in style.” Or for a hair salon, we can say The lazy woman's way to look like a million bucks.” Now, let’s think about our product. We're selling the idea of writing better, writing higher quality, higher-converting copy more quickly. So, looking at the DNA we need to know our prospect. Who’s our prospect? In this case it would be someone writing copy who wants to learn to write copy more quickly. So, we say “The lazy copywriter's way to banish the blank page blues.” How about this? “The lazy copywriter's way to wealth.” Or even more on the nose, “The lazy copywriter's way to write cash sucking sales letters fast.” That's just one template. The lazy blank way to blank. Another famous headline is you don't have to be rich to retire on a guaranteed income for life. That's the basic proven headline. In the DNA, the underlying core structures, you don't have to be blank to blank. You don't have to be what people think they need to be to get a desired result that you, as the marketer, can provide that they thought they couldn't get. So, if our target was entrepreneurs who are afraid of writing, we could say “You don't have to be a natural writer to create high performance copy that sucks in cash like crazy.” What we're doing is breaking these successful headlines down to their core components, make them work, and then substituting in your own audience and benefits. Of course, I've come up with a whole lot more templates based off of many of the most successful headlines ever written.

Michael: Oh yeah. That's so much easier. You don't even have to really think. Because if you think it, if you dream one up and you get it wrong and you're not using something proven, that's going to cost you. You're not going to get anyone to read the letter. For more information on David's copy writing templates, go to www.DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com.

Michael: So, we've quickly written a headline using one of your templates. Now, one of the most important parts of your sales letter are the bullet points. In fact, a lot of top copywriters write their bullets, which are points of fascination or benefits that suck your reader in, before they write any other part of the sales promotion. So, how would one who wants to write a sales letter, how would they use your copywriting template to write bullets for your sales letter?

David: There are templates you can use for your bullets that are based on some of the most successful ads ever created. If you've read a lot of sales letters, you know these bullets really do come in various categories and types, but I don't know if anyone else has ever really quantified them before. So, let me tell you about some of the categories of bullets, and I'll even give you some templates in those categories. One bullet template is what I call the secrets bullet. We've all seen this before. People love secrets. So, it will start out in a few different ways. It could be the secrets of. It could be the secret to. It could be a secret method for. It could be the dirty little secret that so and so doesn't want you to know about, etc. For our example, we could say “The secret method that top copywriters use to cut their writing time in half that they don't want you to know about.” Or “The secret reason that some copywriters can crank out letters and hours while others struggle for weeks or months.” Another bullet template is what I call the tremendous benefit bullet. These are bullets that show the biggest bang for your buck. Again, we've seen them before. They're things like a little known move, less than 1% of all martial artists know this one; that a 105 pound woman can easily use to deck a 300 pound man in no time flat. What's the DNA here? It's a little known blank, less than X percent of this group knows that, that an unlikely person can easily use to get a big accomplishment in no time flat. So, for our product we could say “A little known trick, less than 1% of copywriters know this one, that even a rank newbie who's never written copy before can use to create cash sucking sales letters in no time flat.” More bullet types. Here's another type of template. Exclusive quality. How to, very popular. How to say goodbye the terrene of the blank page for good. Warning bullets. Shocking news bullets and more. Using these templates, we could write a whole bunch of bullets very, very quickly. Actually, using bullet templates can even be a great way to brainstorm a product. Just come up with the bullets and then create a product that fulfills them.

Michael: David, something that you and I have talked about quite a bit is the power of killer stories in your copy. How can one use your copywriting templates to include a powerful story in your copy?

David: Stories are very powerful, Michael. I totally agree with you. Stories used the right way, sell like crazy. The ability to insert a good story is the mark of a good copywriter. You know, Joseph Campbell said that we hunger for stories and when we don't have enough stories… You know Joseph Campbell, he was this professor that a lot of screen writers and film makers have studied. George Lucas supposedly built his whole Star Wars series on things he learned for Joseph Campbell. Stories are just amazing. What I did is I analyzed the kind of stories that I saw appearing again and again in good sales letters. There weren't that many different kinds. I found six of them and I created story templates that people can use. These are basically story maps that you can use to create a great sales story in surprisingly little time. Here's some of the story templates. Here's the herald story to introduce a new idea. Another one is the dissolver, to dissolve a prospect’s objections. There's another kind of story called the second chance story to show how a prospect's life will change because a product gave him a second chance after they'd failed. Alright. There's the awakener story. This wakes up your prospect to a need. This is particularly good when people don't know that they need your product or they're not totally focused on it. Then there's the ennobler story to show your prospect how noble, how special your product or your service is. So, for our purposes I think it’s best to use the herald. Like I said, the herald is a story used to introduce a problem and show how you overcame it. The idea is to get the reader to feel close to you and think “Well, if he can do it, I can do it to.” So, what's the fundamental DNA of a herald story? It’s these six points. Number one, this is the situation. Number two, here was the problem in that situation. Number three, here is why it was hard or impossible to solve the problem before. Four, here's what we came up with. Five, here's how we came up with what we came up with. It makes it easier to solve the problem. Number six, here are the results people are having with this new solution. Okay? So, for a templates product, how would we use this? Well, I think my own story, my evolution as a copywriter is pretty good for the herald story since I really did come up with this template system for myself to make my life easier so I could write more quickly. You know I was a professional writer as a journalist, a story teller, a reporter, but not as a copywriter, and there is a big difference between one kind of writing and another. The first time I wrote a good sales letter and got amazing results, millions of dollars for my client, but writing it sucked. It was like the most unpleasant experience. It was so hard, it was like letting blood. You know lots of people those days when I was trying to learn how to write copy, lots of people were talking about writing copy, but nobody was making it easy and fast. I wanted a system… I did not want to keep repeating that painful experience that I'd had.

Michael: So, that's… you're describing the problem right now.

David: Yeah. I'm in the problem and I think I'm also talking about why it was hard or impossible to solve it. Nobody else seemed to think it could be easy. They just offered hard solutions. So, I did all this research and I realized templates was the answer. Templates are a really easy road map for writing a story. It’s not like once upon a time there was a blank, blank, blank. It’s not quite that fill in the blank. But now when I have to I can write a great sales letter very, very quickly. I can even do it on the phone like we're doing right now. I'm not the only one who can do this. We've gone through all six steps. Here was the situation. Here was the problem. Here is why it was hard or impossible to solve the problem. Here's what I came up with. Here's how what I came up with makes it easier to solve the problem. Here are the results other people are having to solve this problem. The thing about these herald stories is you want your story to be true, but once you've got this map you find it’s really easy to discover these sales stories and then just plug them in quickly into the formula.

Michael: Now that's big time saving right there. Just give you a road map template. Now, you've got to make a connection with people and they've got to like you before they buy. So, when you're swiping directly from a sales letter, how would you use templates to create that feeling of emotional closeness? Do you include that?

David: Yeah. There is a whole category of templates I have, and I call it negative optism. Now, this is not negative optimism. This is not negative opt in. This is a word that was made up. Negative optism, a new word. I never heard anyone else talk about this before me. Optimism is easy, but what's negative optism? Negative optism is taking the negative feelings that your prospect has and using them in a way to create empathy to the optimal degree. So, basically what you want to do is show that you understand the emotional state of your customer. Now, I did a lot of research on this too and looked at a lot of sales letters. I did a lot of thinking. Okay, how are people going about doing this? How do you show that you understand how your customer's feeling? I came up with three different templates. First one's called sympathy, second one’s called shared anger. The third one's called depression or apathy. Let’s use sympathy for our letter. The purpose of the sympathy template is to show people you know how they feel. So, how do people feel about writing copy? Usually frustrated. I mean it’s hard. So, instead of like dancing around the subject, walking on egg shells, ignoring the elephant in the room, we attack it head on. We say something like this, using the template to come up with something like this. “It’s frustrating isn't it? Sitting at the keyboard, killing your back, staring at that mocking, blinking cursor, and waiting for the words to come that will make you mountains of sales. I remember when I used to have that problem. I was bankrupt and was desperately trying to climb my way out of debt. I knew that writing a sales letter was the best way to do it. It was a scary time but eventually I found a way to write great sales copy really quickly and to say goodbye to that mocking blank page, and I'm going to share it with you now.” Okay, that's one version.

Michael: That's beautiful. Because there’s not a beginner copywriter who probably doesn't feel that way.

David: Oh yeah. Thank you. It really does connect with people's feelings. I appreciate your saying that. So, let me give you another version of this using my shared anger template. Don't worry I'm not going to explode over the phone, but it is going to get a little raw. Here we go. “Doesn't it piss you off knowing that writing a great sales letter is the fastest way to make the real money you deserve but being completely unable to force yourself to pump out the high performing, high converting copy that you need?” Then, you'd go on. The idea is to get into the emotional state of your prospect. It usually fits one of those three templates, Michael, sympathy, shared anger, or depression.

Michael: I love it. That's great. We've covered how to use the templates to write the headlines. We've got templates for bullets. We've got templates for stories. So, what are some of the offer templates, or do you have offer templates in this package?

David: I do. So, first you have to think about what you're selling before you actually create an offer for it. To keep it simple, I've just created three offer templates. One is a physical product offer. Second is a service offer. The third is an information product offer template. The language and the appeals that you will use for each one are pretty different. So, today we're going to talk about the info product offer template for our info product copy writing templates. The DNA of this info product offer is; it’s in five parts. Number one, summarize the most emotional version of the need for your information product that you can. Two, describe the product and all the value that went into creating it. Three, review the key feature or features of the product. Four, review the primary benefit of the product. Five, introduce the bonuses that make the core appeal of your proposition even stronger. So, for example with our copy writing templates product, here's a complete info product offer using the five steps that I've just mentioned. There's nothing more frustrating than sitting down at the computer to write copy and just not knowing where to start or what to do. Even when you do get to writing, it’s often like pulling teeth and takes a really long time. Copywriting templates is a complete road map that will allow you to write high-converting, world-class copy without struggle and in astonishingly little time. When you purchase copywriting templates today, you'll receive in depth audio lessons in which I explain exactly how to use these powerful templates for profitable results, a complete copy writing templates workbook with tons of examples of the templates in action and complete transcripts of each section and a quick reference guide that you can right in your desk to access the templates in a moment's notice and to crank out great sales letters fast. Plus, you'll get all of these bonuses. Actually, I don't want to mention all of those right yet. But you get the idea that's how you put the offer together.

Michael: Alright what about this? There's one major component of good sales letters that we've totally missed, and that's subheads. There's a concept in copywriting circles called the dual readership path, which basically says that your subheads need to tell your whole story. So, prospects should be able to read nothing but the subheads and still get the basic idea and flow of the sales letter. How would you use your templates to integrate subheadlines all through your letter?

David: A subhead is; just to make sure everyone knows what we're talking about, it's a short bold-faced group of words that keeps the reader interested in reading the copy. I love subheads. Again, like with everything else, I spend a lot of time looking at different subheads I saw up there and came up with categories like the shock subhead, the emphasis subhead, the outburst subhead, the preemption subhead, the unique aspect subhead, the intrigue subhead. And preemption subheads are great because you're pre-empting a question or an objection in your reader's mind. So, for copywriting templates we might have a subhead that says "What kind of results have other's gotten with copywriting templates?" and then answer the question with student results. Or we could have a unique aspect subhead where we would say "How copy writing templates allows you to write great copy easier than you ever have before.” Then, of course we'd follow this subhead with copy that shows how it did.

Michael: Alright. Let’s talk about this concept. Risk reversal. What's the best way to do that and do you have templates for that?

David: Yeah. They're guaranteed templates basically. There are two types of guarantees. One is a straight up guarantee, and the other is a recap guarantee. So, in the straight up you simply spell out the terms of a guarantee. So, buy today and I'll back your purchase up with my rock solid guarantee. Thirty days after they reach your door, take them out, listen to the audios, watch the DVDs, try the templates out, write a sales letter, write a web page, write a paragraph, write a book, write whatever you want with it. If for any reason you don't think it’s worth way more than it cost you and you don't think it’s going to make you way more that it cost you, simply send it back. I'll buy it back from you. Now, that's a straight up guarantee. It’s pretty straight forward, wouldn't you say?

Michael: That is straight forward.

David: Yeah, but then there's the recap guarantee and to be perfectly frank, this one's a little sneaky. In this one you start by urging the prospect to test your product for the claims you've already made. You recap the claims and then you tell the prospect how to activate the guarantee. This one, say simply order copy writing templates today. Listen the audio lessons and put these powerful templates to work the next time you write a letter. If you don't agree that you've drastically cut down the time it takes to write a great letter and that you've eliminated the fear of the blank page, just ship the product back to me for a complete, no questions asked refund. I'm so confident you'll get tremendous value out of copywriting templates, like so many others had, that you'll have 30 days to return it and no questions asked, no hassle.

Michael: Out of those two guarantees what have you found over the years to be the most powerful and effective guarantee out of those two?

David: When there's a performance that your product is supposed to do or supposed to empower the person to be able to do, I found the recap guarantee works better because you're promising something, you're challenging a person to actually have those results and see if they can get those results. People start to visualize themselves cutting time out of writing a sales letter is one example. They think “Wow, how can I not try that? There's no reason not to.”

Michael: Here's something. This reminds me of like the law of contrast, and we've all seen it in sales letters. So, give me an example of a template that builds up the value of what you've got to sell and that kind of brings in that low of contrast into play. For more information on David's copy writing templates, go to www.DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com.

David: That's what I call my value builder template. Basically it has four steps. Start by showing the highest price that they would pay for, in this case, information. Show lower prices that are real that they could pay. Then set a value for what you're offering. Offer reduced price for a limited time. So, for copy writing templates I can say students like Mike Morgan, Finn Montello, Chris Haddad, and other current clients I have that you haven't heard of yet, they pay me $25,000 a year for one on one mentoring. Now, if you want to see me teach these skills, you know, in a group format, that's going to cost you $2,500 or more at a seminar. The regular price of copy writing templates would be $1,197. That's on the web right now. But if you act now you can get the full package for almost $500 off. Not only that, you get it in four monthly payments of only $177 dollars. Now, it’s pretty simple but you can see how this value builder template is useful over and over and over.

Michael: I like the contrast. That definitely builds the value and just makes you think "What an incredible deal." So, the close. How do you close a prospect using one or two of your templates for that?

David: My favorite way to close a prospect is with the take away. You spend your time in your letter making them feel like it’s there, that they have the product, and they take it away or you make it seem scarce. I've created a few take away templates that you can follow to create a real sense of longing for the product. For instance, limited quantity. I'd say “I'm only selling 20 of these” or a deadline. “This special offer is only good through December 7th.” Unknown availability. “I don't know how long I'll have it available before I run out in inventory.” Another great one is test price. I might raise the price. But for our copywriting templates letter here, we'll make it a deadline because deadlines have an almost magical effect on people. They really just spur action, especially when you've made them a special offer. Like I said, I'm going to offer you my copywriting templates for just $177 a month for four months, but only if you order by December 7th. If you order after that time has passed, then you'll pay the full $1,197 dollar price.

Michael: At a certain point in your letter after they've been through the headline, they've been through the story, you've built the value, you've done the bullets, and you've done everything else, your prospects probably start thinking about other options. They'll think “Well, why can't I get it somewhere else? Can I find it online for free?” And they'll start running through all the options in their head about other ways they can acquire and get the same results. How do you prevent that and keep them on your slippery slope of your sales letter without veering off?

David: Well, to solve that problem, Michael, I've created what I've called a choice of one template. The idea here to eliminate other options until buying from me is the only choice. The templates I use here, there's three different versions of it. There's the sole source where you can't get it anywhere else. There's the guru aura where you establish the superiority of the person who created the product, and then there's the alpha offer where you've put together a package that no one else can match. Well, for copywriting templates, let’s use a simple sole source choice of one. There are many ways to write great copy, but there's simply no other place where you can learn how to write great copy so quickly to get the results and to eliminate all struggle in the writing process. This is really the only option if you want to drastically cut the time it takes to write great copy quickly.

Michael: Alright, David. Let me ask you about this. At the end of the letter you see in a lot of copy writing circles or a lot of sales letters, they have the PS. So, in direct mail a lot of weight is given to this PS. I've heard maybe that the PS isn't as effective as it used to be, but I know studies have shown that after the headline the PS is actually the most read part of the letter. How would you use a PS template to take advantage of all the attention that the PS gets?

David: Yeah, a PS is great. Because a PS is great when you have a letter or when you have a web page. People will scroll to the end to look for their price, see who signs the letter, and then they'll read the PS. So, they're still pretty powerful. Yeah, you could use them a lot of different ways. The PS templates I recommend are the second headline where you basically use your PS to loop your prospect back to the top of the letter. So, for instance with our copy writing templates letter we could say “Give me a week, and I'll give you the ability to write copy ridiculously quickly and with no struggle.” Then there is the guarantee restatement PS. So example is “PS: Remember copy writing templates are guaranteed for 30 days after you receive the package. Unconditional guarantee. If you don't want it, just send us a note, and you can send it back.” Then there's the summary PS where you summarize your offer again. Then, there's a late breaking news PS template where you add in some powerful information. This is traditionally what a lot of people have done to increase their sales and actually there are quite a few others. Of course, I've also created a flow template that shows you how to weave all the different aspects of your sales letter together into one cohesive whole that actually sells. So again here are the templates we've used. Headline, bullets, story templates, negative optism, offer, subheads, guarantee, value builder, that's the low of contrast one you were talking about, take away, choice of one, PS, and flow. As you see, using these templates make it very easy to write a great sales letter fast. When I came up with these templates, Michael Fortin, who wrote the first online million dollar sales letter, Michael… all of them a swipe file on steroids.

Michael: We haven't given my listeners any way to get their hands on some of these templates. So, what options do my listeners have to pick up some of this stuff, and how can you make these available?

David: Okay, there are really quite a few options. One is spending hours and hours and hours digging through successful ads and pulling apart the successful DNA and then figuring out how each component works. That's what I did. You can do it the way I did it, but you really need to have a lot of copywriting experience to make the right choices and that's a lot of work. The second option is well yeah. I'm going to make this available to people listening to this on the call. This is where I offer you a really good deal on the copywriting templates and a special price that I've put together just for this call. Here's the short version and then I'll explain it in detail. I'm willing to offer 20 sets of this product, that's about what we have left in the warehouse right now, and you can find out about this offer by going to www.DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com. I’ll spell that for you. It’s D-a-v-i-d G-a-r-f-i-n-k-e-l T-e-m-p-l-a-t-e-s dot com. DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com. Now, let me tell you in detail what I'm offering you today. We have the templates. I've put together all the templates we've talked about plus an easy to use work book that you can keep by your desk and reference at a moment's notice. Plus, I've explained exactly why and how each of the templates works so you can always pick the right template for the right situation. I've also created a series of audio recordings in which I go into quite a bit of depth on each template category and how to use the templates for maximum profitability and speed. You also get complete transcripts of each recording so you can reference them at your leisure or you can review important materials whenever you want. And I'm also going to include a step by step DVD in which I explain how to get going fast with copy writing templates. This is the speed of implementation DVD that lets you hit the ground running, which I think is a pretty nice package. That's not all, Michael. I also want to load up your listeners with some bonuses that make this a really good deal. First you'll get two DVDs from a $5,000 a head copy writing seminar. This is a presentation I did at this seminar. In this DVD set I'll give you some rarely heard tips on how to supercharge your copy with copywriting templates. Even experienced copywriters will learn something great from this. Earlier on this call we talked about the dark side of swiping and legal implications. That's why I also want to give you a special bonus audio on how to make sure your template copy stays on the right side of the law. I interviewed a top internet marketing lawyer and he shares some really keen insights on how to do this the right way. You know my friend, John Carlton, and I were recently talking about the old copywriter slouch. That's where copywriters tend to get a curved spine because they're all stooped over from so much time at the keyboard. Well, I'm going to give you a special training disk from a doctor who's also a copywriter that shows you how to keep your energy level high as you write copy so maybe you can avoid the slouch. I'll also give you an interview I did with Perry Marshal called Insider Secrets of Google Adwords.

Michael: Can you reveal what the $5,000 copy writing seminar was?

David: Yeah. It was not my seminar. It was Harlan Kilstein's. I did a special two hour session where I talked about how to supercharge the emotional power of copywriting templates.

Michael: Alright. Let’s give my listeners the full URL, the web address again, and go ahead and spell it as well after you say it.

David: It’s DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com. D-a-v-i-d G-a-r-f-i-n-k-e-l T-e-m-p-l- a-t-e-s dot com. DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com.

Michael: Now, is this a physical package that's going to be sent in the mail, or is this digital or both?

David: Yeah, it’s physical, and it’s huge. It weighs 10 pounds. It’s normally the package that I sell for $1,200 when I sell it all and I take it off the internet. I really tend to keep this product off the market for long periods of time. But I'm putting it back on the market for your people because I know they're pretty savvy when it comes to marketing and copywriting. There's literally nowhere else you can get this right now. You can't get this copywriting education from anyone else. And there's no better way for you to learn how to write truly world class copy without the struggle. So, as a moment ago I said I normally sell it for $1,197, but for people listening today I'm selling it for just $177 a month and that would be for four monthly payments. Even better than that, as long as you're in the United States or Canada, I'll pay for the shipping. If you're outside the U.S., I'll basically charge you my cost in shipping. Remember, this is like a 10 pound package, it’s $59 shipping. But you know what; I really want to make this easy. So, if you want to take advantage of this offer, you can have it for just four payments of $177 a month. You really can't get a better deal than that. All you need to do is go to DavidGarfinkelTemplates.com

Michael: Thanks a lot.

David: You're welcome, Michael. Thank you.