As David Ogilvy famously said, “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.” He knew that talking down to customers, patronizing them, or doubting their ability to make sound decisions would just hurt a campaign.

KEY TAKEAWAYS While this chapter didn’t talk about how to write great copy (see the recommended reading at back of this book for that information), you now understand why the final 20 percent of the 41/39/20 rule is so critical. Your copy and creative shape how your list experiences your offers and are how you connect with them in a meaningful (and

Once upon a time, back in the dark ages called the 1990s, one of the greatest copywriters of all time, Gary Bencivenga, wrote a lucrative front-end promotion for BL/P that we called the survey package. By “front end” I mean it was to attract new customers who were mostly unfamiliar with the newsletter and the brand. The survey package was a fairly

I would add that “loving everyone” in the context of not expecting the same percentage of love in return will ensure that you never feel beholden to anyone else; and you won’t think anyone else owes you anything either.

But the customers I dealt with in the past and the ones I deal with today always know one thing: they can count on me (and whoever is on my team) to be proactive and reliable.

But I slept well every night over these past four decades in business, knowing that I was overdelivering for my customers, vendors, and partners, and feeling secure in my integrity and the integrity of our company.

Customers might not be knocking down your door, but when you make the effort to reach out with no reservations or ulterior motives, you’ll get great results because they value hearing from you.

We all know that no matter how close we are to certain people, it’s easy to fall out of touch. And if some of those people are particularly complacent, it can be even more challenging. Often if you don’t reach out, you won’t hear from them. They’re not proactive enough to make a first move, so you have to lead the way if you want to stay in touch.

Dan Sullivan promotes a concept I love around building an abundance mind-set as opposed to a scarcity mind-set. He shares that the scarcity mind-set is characterized by envy, guilt, and anger, which keeps you small and limits your ability to grow. The abundance mind-set, the mind-set of always giving 100 percent, is characterized by gratefulness,