The Boron Letters

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3 Sentence Summary

While serving prison time for tax fraud, Gary Halbert wrote a series of letters to his son Bond meant to impart hard-earned life lessons and career advice. Those letters were later published into what is now considered the definitive book on how to write persuasive copy. The letters begin with some advice on health and relationships, but the bulk of it focuses on teaching practical direct marketing and copywriting techniques.

5 Key Takeaways

1. Mind follows body. A regular exercise routine is not only good for your health, but also clears your mind to set you up for a productive day.
2. Find a hot market first. Only then should you begin to look for a product to sell.
3. A good writer makes things perfectly clear. Use simple words, short sentences, and many transitions to make your copy flow.
4. Get their attention. It doesn’t matter how good your copy is if nobody bothers to read it.
5. Use specific details and emotional descriptions. Both will increase your reader’s interest in what you have to say and boost your credibility.

The Boron Letters Summary

Exercise

• Road work is walking, jogging and running. And, in my opinion, you should do about one hour of road work every day of the week except Sunday.
• I believe the best time to do your road work is right after you get out of bed.
• The best groove to get into is to get out of bed (early), wash your face, brush your teeth, use the bathroom, etc., and then, eat a piece of fruit (I think a banana is the best) and then hit the street!
• It [road work] cleans you out, it settles you down and it gives you a nice glow that will stay with you throughout the day. It will also make you more clearheaded and improve the quality of your thinking.
• Writers need a strict routine that gives them the best possible chance to be in a pretty good mood for work.

How you feel affects how you think.

Perseverance

• Try things at least twice.
• Just the second attempt at anything hard will be much easier. Not a little bit but by A LOT. It is true of almost everything, not just sports.
• Everyone wants to climb the mountain, but the big difference between those at the top and those still on the bottom is simply a matter of showing up tomorrow to give it just one more shot.
• As someone once said, “Most of the world’s work is done by people who didn’t feel much like getting out of bed.”
• You Don’t Have To Get It Right… You Just Have To Get It MOVING!
• And, one of the most important things I can teach you is to just do it! KEEP ON KEEPING ON!

Nothing is impossible for a man who refuses to listen to reason.

Avoiding Negativity

• When it comes to accomplishing things, most people fail to even try. There is no benefit in dealing with people who have nothing but negative things to say.
• Sometimes there is no use wasting time and energy fighting established beliefs by arguing, and it is better to just silently go about proving or accomplishing your goal.
• When most people tell others of any plan to make money, they are met with instant negativity. Once you set out to actually do something which may elevate your status, many people will tell you it can’t be done, it isn’t worth it, or remind you of all the pitfalls they can think of.
• For anyone who thinks their friends and family will support them no matter what their goal is, tell them you plan to open a restaurant. They will tell you more than 90% of new restaurants fail within one minute. They will never say, “a lot dumber people than you have opened great restaurants, so go for it.”
• Most people think the hard part is finding positive people, but that isn’t true…No, the real trick is to cut out those that hold you back.
• Never, ever encourage people who drag you down to hang around.
• One of the things I have learned here is how precious the good times and the good people are.

Goals and Planning

• Going over and over plans is a good way to make sure everyone is on the same page and remembers small things.
• Write down your goals and go over them every day, not just once a year.
• Sweat the details.

Confidence and Self Reliance

• The first thing I want to say is that a fat, sloppy, or skinny and weak body tends to broadcast to the world that the owner of that body is lacking self-respect.
• Defensive behavior invites aggressive action.
• Rely on your own strength instead of somebody else’s compassion!
• It is important to know that often, self-reliance is the real motive of great businessmen and not money.
• It doesn’t matter how much you learn if you don’t use what you learn.

Decision Making

• Please remember this word: HALT. HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, and you should never make a decision when you are any of those things. What should you do? What I did. Write, run, walk, talk, jog, etc.
• You know, kiddo, you can’t always control what happens to you in life, but you do have a lot of control over your responses.

Passion > Profits

• Money, in my opinion, especially big money, is most often a by-product of enthusiasm.
• The money is where the enthusiasm is. Please remember this!
• When hiring, always look for the most enthusiastic person, not necessarily the most qualified.

Market First, Product Second

• You must become a “student of markets.”
• The first and the most important thing you must learn is what people want to buy.
• The way to deduce what people want to buy is to simply observe what they DO buy!
• And, if you want to be a top-notch marketing man, you have to know how it is. How it really is. Not how people (or you) wish it was or how they think it is. No. You must become a “student of reality.”

• Constantly be on the lookout for groups of people (markets) who have demonstrated that they are starving (or at least hungry!) for some particular product or service.
• Be honest with yourself. The more honest you are with your true self and others, the faster you will see what really motivates people.
• Be on the lookout for ads and direct mail pieces that you see over and over. What this means is that whomever is running the ad has hit a nerve. And, a good way for you to make money is for you to hit that same nerve, only do it better.
• Truth, my good son, can be determined NOT by how people use their mouths, but rather, how they use their wallets.
• The mistake is finding or developing a product FIRST and then looking for a market to sell it to. This is backasswards. You Must Always Find A Market First… And Then Concentrate On A Product!
• A guy with a new product cannot always find a hot market for that product but a guy who has uncovered a HOT MARKET can always find a product to fill the needs of that market.

Who’s Your Best Customer?

• The best list of all is your own customer list!
• Nothing will add to your bottom line as fast as selling something new to your existing customers and sourcing new prospects.

Other Characteristics of “Hot” Lists

1. Recency (most important): The more recently a person has purchased (by mail) something similar to what you are selling, the more receptive he will be to your offer.
2. Frequency: The more often a person buys a particular item, the higher his desire for that type of production service.
3. Unit of sale: Once again, we have a guideline that just plain makes sense. After all, a person who recently paid $100 for a bottle of diet pills is probably a hotter prospect for diet-type products than a person who has only paid $10 for a bottle of diet pills.

Copywriting

• When you get stuck or emotionally jammed up one of the ways to get yourself unclogged and flowing again is just to keep moving. Run. Walk. Jog. Write. Do the dishes. Or whatever. But don’t sit around waiting for a flash from Heaven.
• Write from start to finish in one sitting so your different moods on different days don’t seep into your copy and make it disjointed.
• After the initial copy dump where I pound out all my thoughts for a sales letter on a keyboard, I re-read whatever I wrote and apply the “so what” test.
• In your attempts to stand out, try and fight any urge to sound like a cliché and use phrases that a reader could finish on their own.
• Describe in detail what it looks like when happy customers receive the benefit of your product.

• Use simple common everyday words.
• Write short sentences and short paragraphs.
• Use “transition” words and phrases to make your writing flow smoothly.
• The key is to go through many edits……….cutting everything out until….cutting any more would be cutting something the customer would like to know.
• Ask questions once in a while and then answer them yourself.

• And so on. God I love to write “And so on.” Kurt Vonnegut uses it quite often and he is one of the best writers I’ve read.
• A good writer is one who makes things perfectly clear. He makes it easy for the reader. Easy-to-understand what he is saying, easy to keep reading.
• A little one-word transition sentence like “onward” can keep the flow going.
• The very best writing goes unnoticed.
• You can make your copy easier to read by the judicious use of parentheses.
• Read your copy out loud. What happens when you read your copy out loud is that you will verbally stumble over all the places that are not smooth. Then, of course, what you do, is rewrite the rough spots and read the copy out loud again.

Eye Relief

• When a person first looks at something you have written it should be something that looks inviting to read.
• This means wide margins, a certain amount of white space, double spacing between paragraphs, short words, short sentences, short paragraphs and an attractive, inviting layout.
• Whenever you write an ad it should look, in so far as possible, exactly like a rave review written by a reporter.

Make A Good First Impression

• Most of the time, a person will never alter his original impression. Most of the time he will simply “edit” all new info that comes to him and “process” it in such a way as to validate his original opinion.
• Make sure your promotion has a “crisp” look about it. In other words, the layout should be clean, there should be a lot of contrast, and it should look easy and inviting to read.
• If you use pictures they should be, as a general rule, of an upbeat nature.

AIDA: The Proven Sales Formula

The structure of your letter should be as follows:

1. Attention
2. Interest
3. Desire
4. Action

Attention

• Getting attention is CRUCIAL. If you don’t get it, your letter or advertisement will never be read.
• However, as I told you before, you must get the right kind of attention. If not, your reader will be insulted and angry and probably won’t become a customer. So, always remember that your attention grabber needs to be relevant. It needs to tie in naturally with your letter.
• A good way to get someone’s attention is to call them by their name.
• Put news in your headline.
• Promise a benefit in your headline.
• Do both of the above in the same headline.

Interest

• Start by feeding him interesting facts. Like how much money there is to be made by investing in Maui real estate. By telling how much sand (cubic tons) is on the beach where we got the sand in that baggie. By telling how this is one of the best beach front investment opportunities in Maui. By telling how many pretty girls there are around. By telling the specific kinds of fish you can catch right off the beach. Etc.
• Another simple way to get a reader interested is to tell their story by telling your story with the problem your solution solves. The key is to switch to talking about them as soon as things get better in the story.

Desire

• What we do to create desire is we describe the benefits our prospect gets if he buys our product or service.
• Now, in the case of an investment-orientated offer, what we have to offer is the prospect of making money. At least this is our main attraction. So, what’s let’s do is let’s help him to picture in his mind the benefits of having more money. Don’t think it’s not necessary. Remember, you must always do even the obvious. Here then, are some benefits of having more money:
  • New car – impress your friends and family, ride in comfort and luxury
  • Nice house – comfort, luxury, and status
  • Peace of mind – no worries about bills or financial emergencies
  • Vacations – money lets you travel the world, go where you want when you want
• Describe the benefits emotionally.

Action

• You must be very clear, very specific about what you want him to do. Lead him by the hand and take him exactly where you want him to go.
  • Tell him where the order coupon is.
  • Tell him to fill it out.
  • Tell him to enclose the payment.
  • Tell him how much to send.
  • Tell him who the checks and money orders should be made out to.
  • Tell him to use the envelope.
  • Tell him the envelope doesn’t need a stamp. (If it doesn’t.)
  • Tell him to put the envelope in the mail.
  • And, above all, tell him to do all this RIGHT NOW! TODAY! Tell him what he will get if he hurries and tell him what he will lose if he delays.
• Sometimes I devote as much as 25% or more of the entire ad to closing.

Copy Good Copy

• What happens when you actually write out a good ad in your own handwriting is that the words, the flow, the sentence structure, the sequence of information, and everything else about the writing of that ad becomes a part of you.
• This isn’t just an empty experience. This is a way of internally imprinting on your mind and body, the process of good writing. If you do this often enough, you will soon have a deep “inside out” understanding of what it takes and what it feels like to write a good piece of copy.

List of “killer” promotions to copy

• Tova Ad
• How To Burn Off Body Fat Hour By Hour
• The Beverly Hills Diamond Ad
• The Original Family Coat-Of-Arms Letter
• How To Collect Social Security At Any Age
• How to Get What the U.S. Government Owes You
• The Famous Dollar Bill Letter From The Robert Collier Letter Book
• The Amazing Blackjack Secret Of A Las Vegas Mystery Man
• The Original Astrology Today Ad Written By Ben Suarez

Direct Mail Marketing

• A time-dated communication carries considerably more weight than one which is not.
• Describe where you are and what you are doing as you are writing the letter.
• Quite often (most often) your letter will arrive when your prospect is busy, when his mind is on other things. Therefore, you need to work hard to make reading your letter pleasant, easy-read, interesting, and unconfusing.
• If you can get a person who is not going to order to agree, in his mind, to write and tell you he is not going to, then you will get more orders… You see, what happens sometimes is that a person who is getting a pen or pencil and a piece of paper in order to write you and tell you “No” will sometimes start thinking like this: “Well, you jerk. I’d kind of like to get in on this deal anyway and now that I’ve got the pen and paper I may as well go ahead and order.”
• Although I like my letters to be personal, in most cases, I also like them to be “businesslike personal”. And, that’s why part of the package should be typeset and maybe contain some photographs. You see, this adds an air of stability to your promotion. It makes you seem like a real business.

Selling

• One key question every business owner should ask is “how can I make it so ordering is even easier.” Many great burger stands went out of business when the competition across the street added a drive-thru.
• Reduce price options. Ideally, you want to offer first-time buyers three price points.  
  • The Cheapo Option Which Has What You Need
  • The Deluxe or Mid-Priced Option With Some Bells and Whistles
  • The Supreme Package With Prestige Service
• The buyers then go to order and are offered an upsell AFTER they have put in their payment info. Usually, simple statements like “Others who bought this also enjoyed…IMAGE & LINK TO NEW PRODUCT.   After they have purchased, you can then sell them more products.
• Propositions are very important. They are the “deal” you are offering. For example: One deal might be that if you buy one item you get another item free… Another very common “deal” or proposition is: “If you buy right away you will get a big discount.” And another is: “I’ll give you a discount if you buy more than one.”
• A very important ingredient in making your propositions work is the “reason why.” In other words, when you say, in effect, “Have I got a deal for you!” you need an explanation as to why you are offering this good deal.
• If you don’t have an explanation, your “deal” won’t be believable, and you may not get the sale.
• An extraordinarily effective excuse for a deal is: I Am Offering You This Deal Because You (By Virtue Of Some Unique Circumstance) Are So Special

Believability

• One way to increase believability is to give exact details.
• Instead of “most car owners” write “77.6% of all car owners”. Instead of “you can lose lots of weight” write “and the average reported weight loss over a 31-day period was 37.5 pounds for men and 26.3 pounds for women”.

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