Sales Come First

I’m writing this article because I thought it was about time to share some of the great resources I use all the time.

And I’ve got cheap (ie Free) stuff, and I’ve got stuff that costs several thousand dollars. And all of it’s great value if you get it. The problem is that to do marketing and copywriting right, you have to always be updating your knowledge. Putting more tools in your case, as it were.

So I’m going to give you a lot of free, or at least inexpensive things to grab:

First, the websites. These are cool because they’re free and I check many of them daily.

www.thegaryhalbertletter.com -The ultimate free resource in my opinion. Gary used to spill his wisdom on this site regularly and it’s widely considered to have the best collection of information anywhere. Plus its a great read. Gary had an incredible life and knows how to tell a yarn. Put an hour aside and check it out.

www.makepeacetotalpackage.com – Clayton Makepeace is one of the world’s top paid copywriters and his (and his contributors) blogs are superb.

And of course http://www.marketingbullets.com/index.htm by Gary Bencivenga. Gary’s one of the top copywriters in the world so subscribe for his rare (but incredibly insightful) articles.

www.hardtofindads.com and www.hardtofindseminars.com are sources of great ads written by the masters, and downloadable interviews.

And here are some inexpensive books. Well, how about I give you the authors…

Dan Kennedy – Dan is the master at business building, so grab anything he’s written. His Ultimate Sales Letter is the ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ of the marketing world. And his No BS series are eye opening.

Maxwell Maltz wrote Psycho-Cybernetics. The easiest way to explain it is the instruction manual for your brain. Should be read several times (at least).

Anything by Claude Hopkins and David Ogilvy. Some of these can be found free, especially Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. I recently bought My Life In Advertising and Scientific Advertising in one book for about 20 bucks.

Think And Grow Rich is a freebie but a classic, as is Acres Of Diamonds. Actually, Acres of Diamonds is one that really influenced me and if you want to make more money, then reading this will turn a lightbulb on for you. Seriously.

And this one is essential reading: http://www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com/ Many people haven’t heard of Drayton Bird. He’s a direct response genius.

As far as courses go, you can buy courses at all sorts of prices.

Here are a couple, but you’ll have to jump on Google and do a bit of research for yourself.

Alexi Neocleous – Advertising Secrets. It’s a manual, and I think it’s about $300. It was one of the first formal things I read on copywriting and I read it twice in 4 days. I don’t know who sells it, and I’m not promoting it for anyone so just Google it and you’ll find it. Pure gold.

Brett McFall’s Ad Camp. This is one I can help you with. 2 days with Brett McFall, and it’s a well structured course and goes through every component of writing sales copy. Costs $997 and get in touch with me if you want more info.

Robert Boduch has a whole package of stuff, including really simple books on writing all sorts of advertising. Dirt cheap, way too cheap in fact. So go find him and just get it. Don’t even think twice.

If you’re in mailorder get Jim Straw’s book on mailorder. It’s straight from the 80’s, possibly even the 70’s but the advice is better than anything else I’ve read since on mailorder. Even if you’re online this book should be a classic. It’s about $50 . He’s got all sorts of goodies so check them out here: http://www.businesslyceum.com/ And he’s a really lovely guy too.

One last person to mention is Pete Godfrey. Pete’s a mentor of mine, and a fantastic copywriter and marketer. Go to www.petegodfrey.com and see what he has on offer. And as way of testimony, I not only have most of his courses, but I’ve actually got 3 of his courses in front of me on my desk right now, and they get used all the time. He’s got a great deal on his Sales Letter Workshop at the moment. It’s worth getting for the swipe file alone.

OK, over to you. What do YOU recommend? I’d love you to share because you’ll help everyone out, and promote that person too.

Next week I’m going to tell you how to swipe (that means ‘ethically steal’) sales copy. Done right it’s a great shortcut…but I said ‘done right’. I’ll tell you how to do it properly.

All the best,

Hugh

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>