Have you read what is arguably the greatest book ever written on marketing and copywriting?
And do you read it every year because it’s so deep and dense that you get FAR more out of it with each successive reading?
Good, then today’s post will add to the brilliance of Eugene Schwartz’s magnum opus, “Breakthrough Advertising.”
The book is worshipped in direct marketing circles and the recommendation by the cognoscenti is NOT to read it until you’ve toiled for a year or two in the marketing trenches—without that experience, it’s often over the heads of the newbies.
But what many entrepreneurs don’t know is that Schwartz gave a number of teaching presentations to the hot-shot copywriters at the biggest direct marketing companies of the day—like Rodale and Phillips publishing.
So today we’re going to dig into a few highlights of the training talk that Schwartz gave because it has many insights you won’t find in his books.
The Key to Gene Schwartz’s Extreme Productivity
So what’s the big secret to Schwartz’s incredibly prolific output?
A timer.
Here’s what he says about this ridiculously-simple device:
“This is a timer. It is the most valuable thing I ever bought in my life. I go nowhere in the world without a timer. Whenever I do anything, I press in “3, 3, 3, 3”. That means 33 minutes and 33 seconds. I then press the start button. Now we’re going to speak for 33.33 minutes.
Now, why do I do this? Because I don’t think anyone can work for a very long period of time without interruption. And if you do, you exhaust yourself too quickly. When a posse used to chase a criminal out West where I come from, Butte, Montana, the horse thief would ride for an hour, and then he’d get off and walk the horse for an hour, and then he’d get on the horse again and ride. And the posse would ride for an hour behind him, get off the horse and walk an hour, and then ride.”
It’s an amazingly useful strategy, especially when you’re tired, feeling distracted, or when it seems like a good idea to mindlessly surf the net or watch YouTube videos.
You just commit to the 33 minutes, which anyone can handle, set the timer, then focus intensely for a short sprint, and watch your productivity soar.
Here are a couple more secrets to making this strategy work for you:
“When I press the start button, I can do anything I want. All willpower is dissolved. I can do anything I want as long as it relates to the piece of copy in front of me. I can ignore it. I don’t have to touch it. I don’t have to look at it. But I can’t get up from the desk, and I can’t do anything except ignore or relate to the piece of copy. I am not trying to write a wonderful ad.
I am not trying to earn an extra million dollars. I am not trying to do anything. I have no goal whatsoever as to what that particular piece of copy is going to do for me. All I know is that I’m going to work on the copy, and I have no responsibility to the client, the copy, the prospect, the market, myself and my future except to work.
So finally, after a good deal of looking around – I can’t get out of the chair now, I am trapped in that chair for 33.33 minutes, I get bored. So what do I do? I start reading the copy! As I start reading the copy, the copy says to me, “Oh, hey, aren’t I beautiful? Why don’t you pull me out and put me on top? “Or, “Why don’t you change this phraseology? It’s extremely ineptly put. Why don’t you put it into advertising terminology? “So what happens is that I begin to get into it. And within about five minutes I am working on the copy, making the ad from the copy. Okay. No block, because I am really not doing very much at that time.”
Keep Your Finger on the Profitable Pulse of Your Target Audience (Low Culture Means Big Money)
This was a shocker when I first heard it.
He reads what?
Because despite the fact that Gene Schwartz lived a very sophisticated life in Manhattan and had one of the largest modern art collections in the world, he came from humble beginnings, living a very ordinary life growing up in Butte, Montana.
And the way to keep in touch with the desires, needs, aspirations, wants, and dreams of that audience?
Read everything, including the lowest of the low—like Weekly World News and the National Enquirer.
And this coming from the man who hobnobbed easily with Manhattan’s upper crust?
Here’s what he said:
“I don’t know how many of you read the National Enquirer every week. I don’t know how many of you go to every film that makes over $100 million and see every one of them. You cannot lose touch with the people of this country, no matter how successful or how potent you are. If you don’t spend at least two hours a week finding out where your market is today, you are finished! You will have a career of three blazing years and be finished.”
And… he has more recommendations for knowing your market.
For instance… LISTEN!
In other words…
“Talk little, listen much. So go and get in touch with your people. Don’t lose that. Talk to every cab driver you meet. Speak to everyone you can. Be the best listener you have ever met. Talk little, listen much. That is your market talking.”
But don’t just listen, READ:
“One hour a day, read. Read everything in the world except your business. Read junk. Very much junk. Read so that anything that interests you will stick in your memory. Just read, just read, just read. Subscribe to Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair. Get all the very low stuff. Low culture makes big money. Got to remember that! There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use.”
One more insight about reading, especially the lowest of the low, like Weekly World News, because there’s something deeper going on when you dig into this:
“I don’t know whether you are advocates of the Weekly World News. You’ve got to read that because it shows the extent of people’s ability to believe.”
Three More Hot Tips
Here are three more glimpses into Schwarz’s brilliance:
Copywriting is simple writing
“I also just want to quickly throw that into another dimension. I guess you all supervise or work with the copywriters. And you all write copy. You all speak copy. You’re all trying to sell somebody something – if it’s only a raise or going out on a date, or having somebody do what you want them to do.
Copywriting – as well as all effective writing – is simple, transparent writing. It is not literary writing. The surest way to know that something is failing as copy is to have someone come in and say, ‘God, that was great copy! Oh, I love the ring of that sentence! And that phrase you put in there moved me!’ Uh, uh! What happens is that you want them to come in and say, ‘Good grief, am I in that much danger?’ Or, ‘Is there really a way that I can have sexual congress five times a day?’ That’s what you want.”
Are You Failing Enough?
“Copywriters are crazy. And you want them crazy. They go for the big kill. And I would rather flop badly and succeed greatly than I would coming in with that little five percent boost. A very good copywriter is going to fail. If the guy doesn’t fail, he’s no good. He’s got to fail. It hurts. But it’s the only way to get the home runs the next time.”
Who Are You Writing To?
“You are not writing to a private person. You are not writing to a bunch of people. You are writing to a number of people who share a private want. Remember that. If they don’t share the want, they are of no use to you. If there aren’t enough people that share the want deeply enough to spend the fifty bucks for a newsletter or $30 for a book, they are of no use to you.
You are writing to a number of people who share a private want, and you are addressing them as if they were the only person in the world. What is the most powerful word in advertising? Not “free!” “It’s “you!” And yet so many times you see “these symptoms appear.” How about “your symptoms appear?” What you are talking about is you. The person who has got this piece of paper in their hand and is on the other side of your copy. You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you. If it doesn’t have the word “you” a hundred times, I really don’t like it very much.”
You can’t go wrong learning from a legend like Gene Schwartz, so I highly recommend you Google… and buy… his books and the training videos of his lectures at Rodale and Phillips Publishing.
In the meantime, implement these tricks and techniques… and happy selling!
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