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Old July 28, 2022, 07:30 AM
Dien Rice Dien Rice is offline
Onwards and upwards!
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3,357
Default What makes their writing more compelling than the writing today?

Hi Gordon,

I definitely have an affinity for what they call "old school"... In many ways, I feel it is better and more effective...

Even the writing was better.

There's something about sales and marketing books written, for example, in the 1940s and 1950s, compared to most books today... There's something seemingly more "readable" about them to me...

What could it be that makes it so?

Here's a passage from Elmer Wheeler's "Tested Sentences That Sell" (chapter 6)...

~~~~~
THE STORY OF BARBASOL
I was asked by the Barbasol Company, in the person of F.
B. Shields, president, to find a good “Tested Selling Approach”
to use on men shopping in drugstores and at toilet goods
counters.

Going to Sears, Roebuck & Company in Cleveland to set
up our field word laboratory, we soon discovered there were
146 statements that could be used in approaching a customer,
yet one came to the surface as best. It was:

“How would you like to save six minutes shaving?”

This is a surefire leading question, for what man could
reply, “Not interested - I love to hang around the bathroom
shaving!”

When the man asked how he could cut his shaving time, he
was told:

“Use Barbasol - just spread it on - shave it off - nothing
else required!”

Sales in this Sears store increased one hundred and two
percent, with only one negative reaction. A man with fuzz on
his face said, “My gracious, it only takes me three minutes to
shave anyway!”

This answer gave us an idea, and the single-sentence sales
“opener” was changed to, “How would you like to cut your
shaving time in half?” When this even more basic approach
was used at William Taylor’s store in Cleveland, sales
increased three hundred percent, according to reports from
Richard Roth, vice president.

And here is further proof that once a sentence or sales
appeal is basic, it will sell as high as seven out of every ten
people on which it is used properly. The same sentence was
sent to Benson, Smith & Company Honolulu, and in three days
sold fifty-one out of seventy-eight people, or the entire product
on hand!
~~~~~

I just picked this story at random - there are a ton of them... Somehow, I feel if this research was presented in a book today, it would be dry and boring and put the reader to sleep...

We've lost something we need to get back!

Okay, I went off track a little... But what is it that makes such writing more compelling than most of the writing today?

Best wishes,

Dien

P.S. Gordon, your stories have the same "compelling" quality...


Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonJ View Post
I really don't know how today's followers measure success, some think that guys like Russel Brunson/Frank Kern are the greatest marketers of all time.

OK.

So, where do guys like Ben Suarez fit into their thinking? OLD OLD school? OLD methods?

A question was asked in a very popular guru group who was the best direct response marketer of all time? Well, a spurious question at best, but what are the metrics and parameters for measurement?

So, I say this. Show me your best and compare to Ben Suarez, 50+ years of continuous success, with several BILLION dollars in sales, of thousands of different products, employing thousands of people over the years and is still CRUSHING it today. These followers of gurus love to talk about crushing it.

I think SCI and all of its parts and pieces easily make more in a month than most revered gurus of IM do in a year.

Now, I may not be a big fan of the man himself, for my own reasons...but it is hard to argue against the very VISIBLE success in direct response marketing he has made.

Who knows, maybe Russell and Frank will still be at it 30 years from now?

Hard to get excited these days about the latest guru and his many minions of followers. Good for them.

Not so good for me.

I need to hang out more in other groups, like with only one other member...oh wait, I do that here.

Gordon
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Last edited by Dien Rice : July 28, 2022 at 08:11 AM.
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