Hi, folks...
I've published this little e-rag of mine for coming up on 16
years, and I don't think I've ever sent out a copy-and-paste
affiliate email before. Or anything close to one, for that
matter.
If I'm going to say something, I do it in my own words. Not
that there's anything wrong with pre-written emails, mind you.
But who wants to get the exact same email from a dozen people?
Thing is, this is a story no-one can tell but Marlon. It's his
story.
I first met Marlon Sanders (I call him "The Professor") back in
2000. We hit it off from the start, but really only got to be
friends a year or two after that. (That's a whole other
story.) Thing is, I know what he's saying here is true. And I
know that what he's telling you will help you get a lot more
out of life. And not just in business.
If this story doesn't show you what's really possible, I don't
know what will. No matter where you're starting from.
With that... Heeeeeere's Marlon!
------ Marlon's Email ----------------
I just swallowed half of some pill.
A metro something or the other. It makes your heart
consume less oxygen.
If you wake up in the morning, it´s a good day. If you
know what your name is, it´s a better day. I learned that
when my mum had Alzheimers. Fortunately, I was able to
help my dad get her the medical help she needed to get her a
little pill gave her a lot of her memory back. At least she
always knew who I was.
So I guess as time goes on, sometimes you pay for the sins of
your youth. Not that I had those kinds of sins. Actually,
unbelievably, I didn´t.
My sins were of a different sort. The kind of sins that
eating way too many State Fair 6-pack corndogs drowned in
mustard causes. The kinds of sins you get from making your
"good" meal of the day the one at the $1.97 Burger drive
through on Greenville Ave. in Dallas.
Or the ones caused by the late night Taco Cabana drive
through to get the chips and cheese. See, today, I can sit down
with my laptop at Starbucks, or a creek, swimming hole, beach,
Starbucks or anywhere type out words, click send and have money
within minutes.
It´s a hecka feeling to be able to do that. Can you
imagine what it´d be like if you had a bill to pay to sit
down, spend 15 minutes typing some words, hit a button and have
the bill paid within 15 minutes?
Or have $120,000 in sales come in one month. Or $10,000
and $20,000 days.
Can you imagine writing at Starbucks and getting $750 for
every page you typed out. There are 300 words on a page so
that´s $2.50 per word.
Or deciding to vacation in Hong Kong and Thailand with 4
days notice? Well, it wasn´t always like this.
I remember now.
My dad said I had to go. I had to leave. Bless his heart,
he really regrets it now. Not that I blame him. I mean for gosh
sakes.
It was 1982. I´d just spent way too long in college
getting 3 degrees. The oil market had gone to hades in a
handbasket. I didn´t understand why when I interviewed for
jobs, people were laughing at me -- because they weren´t
HIRING! They were laying OFF. The only job I could get was one
selling on 100% commission "retirement programs" which were
actually whole life insurance.
But I was young and naïve then. I loved sales and
marketing. But had no natural ability or understanding for
either. Nope.
Nada.
I was more a thinker and a performer. I did magic shows
starting in the 7 th grade. About drove my poor momma
crazy hauling me around to perform and children´s birthday
parties.
I laugh about it now. I even had rabbits in the show and
hamsters. My poor mum! Have you ever seen the mess rabbits in a
cage make, especially when cared for by a seventh grader with
no knowledge of rabbit-raising? Whew!
And I was a thinker. I won my high school chess
championship. And me and the Cambridge Springs offense
were a pretty potent force. When you destroy someone on
the chess board, it´s an intoxicating feeling. I once
wiped the chess champion of Oklahoma off the board in a
devastating attack that had an entire chess team standing
around the board with their jaws dropped. Ted Gross. An
amazing 16-year old that I´m sure went far in life,
although we long since ago lost touch.
Where was I to go or stay in 1982 when there were no jobs
in Oklahoma City to be had? Well, I could´ve been a
counselor in a prison I guess. That´s about all I was
qualified for.
Robert K. My best friend. He´d high-tailed it to Dallas
when the oil market crashed went bonkers because Dallas
had jobs. He lived in an apartment off 635 with cars in
the parking lot on blocks. I told him I was just visiting
for 2 weeks. But it was longer than that.
I had this dream, this vision of being a copywriter of
direct response sales letters. Because in 1978, a few
years before, I´d read this book by Benjamin Suarez.
He learned how to do this thing called sell via direct
response. And a guy named Gary Halbert had taught him to
write letters that brought in thousands of dollars on
demand.
On particular letter brought him $78,000 almost overnight. That
story stuck in my brain like super glue and I couldn´t get it
out.
I had this goal. To be a direct response copywriter. I
didn´t know exactly what that meant. Never met one in my
life. Not sure Dallas even had one. But that´s what I
dreamed of with every cell in my body.
There I was. Dallas, Texas. I´d walk in for interviews.
Boy, it was brutal. For one thing, I was never on time.
Let´s just say in Oklahoma City they didn´t have traffic
like Dallas. I´d never seen a parking lot of cars that was
supposed to be a highway before.
I´d never been driving 70 mph and then notice that all the cars
in front of me are at a dead stop. How I´m alive today, I don´t
know. My guardian angel worked overtime many a day.
There were no jobs for direct response copywriters in
Dallas in 1982 or 3. Not that I knew of then. Not that I
know of now. There was one company in San Antonio, Texas
who hired `em. It was USAA insurance.
I´ll never forget sitting in the sandwich shop across the
street eating a sub. I´d never tasted anything like that
in my life. They didn´t make `em like that in Oklahoma
City.
I don´t know what the guy said or asked during the
interview. Whatever it was, I had all the wrong answers.
Somehow I paid some bills and managed to get out on my
own. As I recall an mlm company hired me to write their
company newsletter. The Dynasty System in Arlington,
Texas. $18,000 a year.
That was a lot better than the timeshare sales jobs I´d
been at on 100% commission. Or the smoke-drenched
telemarketing rooms.
How was I EVER going to be a direct response copywriter?
There were no jobs doing it. No one KNEW how to do it.
There were only several books on it. You had the Ultimate
Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy, which is actually a sales
pitch for Dan´s writing services but virtually no one I´ve ever
talked to is savvy enough about marketing to even realize that.
If I was marketing smart in those days, I would´ve written a
book too.
You had Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. You had Vic
Schaub and few others. I subscribed to Jerry Buchanan´s info
marketing newsletter and bought anything by Dean Dax Duvall I
could find.
It´s what pisses me off about people today. They bitch,
moan, whine and complain about all the "gurus" selling
them stuff. Well try having NO GURUS to learn from or only 3 or
4. And try having virtually no courses or books to buy or learn
from. How would I ever learn to be a copywriter? Or a speaker
or consultant, the other things I´d heard about from some dude
named Steve Nowlin who sold a course I bought.
One day a thing came along called AOL. Aol, Prodigy and
Compuserve. I had this 386 computer my dad bought me from
the Dax catalog. And an ink jet printer, which beat the
thing at typed on at my writing job that would only show
you 1 line of text at a time but beat the crap out of
manual typewriters.
I started placing free ads on AOL. I´d bought resell
rights to these books that would be "dropshipped" for me
for 50% of the profits. I wrote up my OWN sales letter and
mailed those suckers out when people responded to my ad. One
A-hole (forgive the language) wrote me back and said it wasn´t
good enough and go back to school. I don´t know if he meant
college or learn more about writing sales letters.
You have no idea how much that hurt at the time.
Who was this jerk who had the gall to write something like
that? Apparently it was some smug person who was better at
direct response than I was.
All I knew was what I´d read in a few books. It was the
school of hard knocks x trial and error. I was living out
of a 600 square foot apartment on Spring Valley Rd. It
wasn´t all bad. I had 3 movie theaters close by and 2
shopping malls. But the walls were thin and dogs barked
all the time.
Depressed. Yeah. I don´t even remember all my feelings
then. Only that it seemed somewhat hopeless. I´d thought
more than once about suicide.
I don´t know if you´ve ever wanted something so bad you
could taste it. But by then I´d sacrificed years of my
life trying to learn how to be a direct response writer, a
speaker, a consultant.
And I had jack to show for it. I had too many corn dogs,
too many microwave burritos, too many burgers and fries
for days, weeks, months and now years.
Sometimes there´s a price you pay for success... for
following a dream, a goal, a vision that drives you. I´m
an idealist I guess. Somehow I was determined.
My ads on AOL got responses but my letters cost me a
fortune to mail out and didn´t come back with money. My
car smoked like a bomb. No, really it did. And I had a
date with a model once. The Kim Dawson agency was the big
one in Dallas and still is. That´s who she worked for.
She was 6 feet tall. Gorgeous. The valet guys were
laughing at my car when I got out .. until she stepped
out. Drop dead stunning.
But that was our only date. One day it happened.
The thing that eventually changed everything.
It was 16 sheets of paper. 16 sheets I still own. They´re
beat up, water stained, torn and tattered. Marked up all
over them.
But have them I do.
I don´t understand people online. They complain that they
tried something for 30 days and it didn´t work. Try years
and years.
They complain that something costs $20 or $50. Try $500 or
$5000. I mean, when you really want something, when it almost
means life or death to you to get it or not get it...
When it´s what you got to know, to do, to have, to be.
Whatever price it is, you pay it.
On those 16 pages were 11 words.
Without those 11 words, I might still be running Podunk
ads, not making crap, driving a smoke bomb car, depressed
to no end, having never accomplished anything, never
travelled anywhere, never meeting the incredible people I
have, never tasting food in the Phillipines, the sugar
sand in Roatan, body surfing in Australia, eating noodles
in Hong Kong, driving the twisted streets of Bermuda,
sucking down coffee in the parking garage in Seattle,
speaking in Wembley arena where rock stars perform. I´d be
nothing. A nobody. Maybe I´d be doing magic for birthday
parties. I don´t know. Remember my friend I moved to Dallas to
stay with?
Well, he wasn´t lucky like me.
We had that in common you know.
That drive to achieve. The need to.
But it wasn´t happening for him. The last I heard he´d
tied a rope around his neck and it broke. He was in
counseling. We were best friends.
I don´t think he made it. If only he could have hung on 5
years, I could have shown him the way out. When I listen
to Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf, I always
remember him. That was his favorite song. We used to
really crank that puppy up.
So at the end of my ezine sometimes I publish a little
Irish Blessing about May the rode rise up to meet you. May the
wind be at your back. And until we meet again, may God hold you
softly in the palm of his hand. That poem is for many. Some
friends along the way who didn´t make it.
I wish anything I could have told him then what I know
now. That I could have shown him then what I know now. I
think I have an obligation, a duty, to share this before
it´s too late. Before the sins of my youth, of my vision,
of my goal catch up to me.
The greatest sales person who ever lived, Ben Feldman
said, "No man has a lease on life. One day you walk out
the door and you never walk back again. Can you guarantee
me you´ll wake up in the morning?"
Ernest Bud Weckesser. Dollars In Your Mailbox. He
originally wrote the headline in that ad: I Have To
Tell You This Before It's Too Late.
I think he got it from Joe Karbo. One of the founders of
modern day info product direct response.
16 pages. 11 words.
Set my life in a new direction.
Want to know what those 11 words were? If you do, then go
here:
http://talkbiz.com/needtoknow/igottatellya
Until then,
Marlon Sanders
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