Razvan Rogoz

“FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER!
I don’t know about you, but I enter all those darned magazine company sweepstakes. I go for the Reader’s Digest sweepstakes and I buy my weekly lottery tickets—after all, as a character in the movie Let It Ride said, “You could be walking around lucky and not know it.” In a lot of years, though, I have gone winless. The guys with the balloons and the giant-sized check have not shown up at my door. So the headline FINALLY—YOU ARE A SWEEPSTAKES WINNER! got me. I read that letter. And if you send a letter to every one of your customers with that headline on it, every one of them will read it. What should the letter say? Here’s an example, courtesy of the late, great copywriter, my friend Gary Halbert: Dear Valued Customer:
   I am writing to tell you that your name was entered into a drawing here at my store and you have won a valuable prize.
   As you know, my store, ABC Jewelry, specializes in low-cost, top-quality diamond rings and diamond earrings. Well, guess what? The other day we got in a small shipment of fake diamonds that are made with a new process that makes them look so real they almost fooled me!
   Anyway, I don’t want to sell these fakes because they could cause a lot of trouble for the pawnbrokers around town. So I’ve decided to give them away to some of my good customers whose names were selected at random by having my wife, Janet, put all the names in a jar and pull out the winners.
   So, you’re one of the winners—and all you’ve got to do is drop in sometime before 5:00 P.M. Friday and you’ll have a 1-karat “diamond” that looks so good it’ll knock your eyes out! Sincerely,
John Jones P.S.: After 5:00 P.M. Friday, I reserve the right to give your prize to someone else. Thank you.”
― Dan S. Kennedy, The Ultimate Marketing Plan: Target Your Audience! Get Out Your Message! Build Your Brand!

“Once you stop focusing on all the things you can’t do, you may start to be amazed by what you can do.”
― Alex Korb, The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time

“Hemingway reminds us that while it is certainly possible to be destroyed—by life, by the enemy, by a bad break—no one can defeat us. That’s our call. That’s in our power. And it only happens when we give up. The only way to lose is to abandon your courage.”
― Ryan Holiday, Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave

“My “10 Smart Market Diagnosis and Profiling Questions” What keeps them awake at night, indigestion boiling up their esophagus, eyes open, staring at the ceiling? What are they afraid of? What are they angry about? Who are they angry at? What are their top three daily frustrations? What trends are occurring and will occur in their businesses or lives? What do they secretly, ardently desire most? Is there a built-in bias to the way they make decisions? (Example: engineers = exceptionally analytical) Do they have their own language? Who else is selling something similar to their product, and how? Who else has tried selling them something similar, and how has that effort failed?”
― Dan S. Kennedy, The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales.