The Boron Letters
Gary C Halbert
Summary
Life and marketing advice from one of the world's great copywriters
Rating: 4/5
Notes
Try things at least twice
Depend on yourself
Fast, ideally one full day a week
Nothing is impossible for a man who refuses to listen to reason
Rely on your own strength instead of someone else’s compassion
Money, especially big money, is most often a by product of enthusiasm
You must learn what people want to buy and dot his by observing what they buy
If you want to be a top notch marketer, you have to know how it really is not how people think it is
Constantly look for groups of people or markets that are starving for a product or service
Sell to your existing customers to make big profits
When assessing customers, look for recency, frequency of purchase and large unit of sale
Sell people what they want to buy
Most of the world’s work is done by people who didn’t feel like getting out of bed
Be skeptical of what people say or surveys, look at the numbers
A lot of money can be made by making offers to people who are at an emotional part of their lives
Customize the copy for exactly each person you send it to
When you get stuck, keep moving. Move your body
Personalize emails by adding in the exact day/time with a catchy email heading
Make ordering even easier and convenient for customers
Add ‘please reply’ at the bottom to get more engagement
Remember AIDA:attention, interest, desire, action when selling
Grab the reader then give interesting facts and ideas
To create desire, describe the benefits of the product once he has it
To get the person to act, you must be very clear on what you want them to do (do it now)
To write well, use simple common everyday words, short sentences and short paragraphs (ask questions once in a while and answer them yourself)
The layout of your piece should catch the attention of your reader but not in a way that causes him to notice the layout
You can do a better selling job when at first it doesn’t appear like you;’re trying to sell
You never get a second chance to make a first impression
HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired - never make a decision if you are any of those things
Keep on keeping on
Read your writing out loud
Always find a market first, then concentrate on the product
It doesn’t matter how much you learn if you don’t use what you’ve learned
Attach something to a letter but make sure it fits in
Pay attention to yourself and when you are off, drop out of sight and do what is necessary to strengthen yourself
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Make Something Wonderful
Steve Jobs
Summary
The life of Steve Jobs in his own words
Rating: 5/5
Notes
Make something wonderful and put it out there
‘You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear’
When you’re a stranger in a place, you notice thing you don’t otherwise (Jobs after India trip)
Whenever you start with nothing, always shoot for the moon. You have nothing to lose.
You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times
Never be afraid to fail. You never achieve what you want without falling flat on your face a few times
We are never taught to listen to our intuitions, to develop and nurture them. But if you do pay attention to these subtle insights, you can make them come true
Creativity equals connecting previously unrelated experiences and insights others don’t see
Believe that some of what you follow with your heart will come back and make your life richer. And it will. And you will gain even firmer trust on your instincts and intuitions
Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.
The journey is the reward. The reward isn’t in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s in crossing the rainbow
To find A+ talent, if experienced, look at their track record and results
The world we know is a human creation and we can push it forward
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do (read whole ad ‘here’s to the crazy ones)
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit - Aristotle
Hire people better than you are
You can’t plan to meet the people who will change your life
It’s impossible to connect the dots looking forward, but they make sense looking backwards so you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future
Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you
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