The Greatest Sales Copy Ever!

No Exceptions, the Greatest Sales Copy Ever!

For the worst product ever!

As a part-time copywriter and a full-time internet marketer, my job is to write online sales copy that sells my products and my client’s.  I’m always on the lookout for new ways to write more effective sales copy.  And that means I’m forever studying every scrap of good sales copy that crosses my desk.

When I find a great sales letter or page, I copy it to my swipe file. I talked about using a swipe file in my previous posts on copywriting. Go read them if you don’t know what a swipe file is. When I’m ready to begin writing a new promotion, I pour through that file for inspiration and ideas. I’m firm believer in Not reinventing the wheel, but simply improving it.

Over the weekend, I found the greatest addition for my swipe file in the 25 years I’ve spent in the marketing business.  In fact, this promotion is so ingenious; so brilliantly conceived and so artfully written, I feel compelled to give you a copy for your swipe file. When I say “give” that’s exactly what I mean – no charge.

This is a massive 143-page sales promotion that makes every other marketing copywriter look like a rank amateur; a hack, a dufus.

What makes this sales letter so amazing is that the product is the worst I’ve ever seen. It is worse than Bass-O-Matic, worse than the Velvet Jones Online Ho Training course. However, by the time you finish reading this remarkable piece of sales literature, you will be tempted to believe it’s the best thing since canned beer.

To accomplish this Herculean task, the writer or writers (I suspect it was created by a team of the best in the business) pull out all the stops:  Evil straw men … paralyzing fear … unharnessed greed … indignation … moral superiority … plenty of graphs and other proof … the desire to see justice done at any cost … advocacy … the whole nine yards.

Be careful as you consider the sales techniques used in this huge promotion, though:  The writers also use every illegal, immoral, unethical and misleading trick in the book. Tactics that have could land copywriters, advertisers and their clients in prison.

They grossly misrepresent their product.  They promise results that no similar product has ever produced.  They even advocate – seriously – that you, the reader, become an accomplice to outright theft.

Nevertheless, although this sales piece appeared online for the first time last Thursday, it’s already working like gangbusters and I honestly believe it will ultimately result in vast fortunes changing hands.

So, if you’ll just click the “read more…” link below to continue reading, I’ll  give you this all-time best promotion right now, for free.

And I’m also going to give you five valuable lessons we can all learn from this shining example of great copywriting …

Just download it here. And then read it and come back when you’re done.

That’s right; it’s the budget Barack Obama and his copywriting team wrote to sell you on Obamanomics, the new budget.

And it’s an absolute masterpiece of copywriting.  Because President Obama, Senate leader Harry Reid and House leader Nancy Pelosi – Washington’s unholy trinity …

Or if you prefer, “The Father, the Son and … Holy Cow!” …

Or in the apocalyptic Biblical terms preferred by the economic conservatives, “Lucifer, the Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon” …

… have a product to sell you.

Specifically, they need you to buy into policies that will ensure their party’s political success for years, possibly decades to come. Very similar to President Johnson’s Great Society programs that stole from the productive members of society to support and entrap people in poverty for decades. The Constitution provides for “equal opportunity” not “equal outcome”.

They need you to fork over up to 70% or more of everything you earn to enrich their constituents and reward those who contribute to their political campaigns. It’s all about POWER.

They need to sell you on supporting them – or at the very least, doing nothing; shutting the fuck up — while they forcibly, under pain of imprisonment for tax evasion or, if you resist arrest, under penalty of death …

1. Steal enough money from your boss so that he’s faced with the Hobbs choice of paying you, or his mortgage (Guess what?  You lose!) …
2. Steal so much money from investors that they have to sell stocks they own just to live and pay taxes – and by doing so, crush what’s left of your stocks, 401K retirement fund and college savings plan …
3. Steal more money from you and 1.9 million other innocent couples who earn more than $250,000 combined each year (or who hope to) to help offset $3.2 trillion of new debt Obama plans to rack up …
4. Steal even more money from you and other consumers by slamming U.S. manufacturers with taxes and carbon-use fines that will be passed on to you in higher prices and make U.S. products uncompetitive overseas – all under the excuse of reversing “global warming” (which, according to the World Meteorological Organization, actually ended all by itself more than a decade ago), and …
5. Destroy the buying power of the mere pittance you’ll have left by borrowing and printing enough counterfeit paper dollars to pay the rest.

And then they want you to just smile and take it up the a** while they give your money to …

• Your deadbeat neighbor: The guy who dug himself into debt to buy a bigger house, a newer car and to take those dream vacations you can’t afford.  Now, he needs you to pay his mortgage and send his snot-nosed, bratty kids to college.…
• Failed CEOs of dead but won’t lay down corporations and banks: The guys with hundreds of millions in the bank and who live in 25,000-square-foot mansions, get to work in chauffeured limos and zip around the world in private jets.  Now, they want you to bail their greedy ass’ out. …
• Other wealthy CEOs and union bosses: You know, the guys who contributed to the Unholy Trinity’s political campaigns.  They need your money so they can get rich selling all kinds of crap they couldn’t sell without government help and continue to make large contributions to their PACs …
• Stupid people: Morons who got knocked up in eighth grade, fried their brains on crack and alcohol, do nothing but inhale cupcakes and watch TV all day and who’ve made a gazillion other idiotic, short-sighted, weak-minded, self-destructive decisions all their lives.  Now, they need you to pay their rent, grocery bills, utilities and give them spending money for more booze, crack, meth, crank, heroin and all other poisons they just can’t stop killing themselves with.

Most of all, Obama, Reid and Pelosi need you to help them destroy the three foundational principles that made this country the richest nation in the history of the world:

Personal Incentive: The notion that if it’s miserable to be poor and glorious to be rich, more people will work harder to become rich.

Personal Responsibility: The idea that the quality of your life should be determined by the quality of the decisions you make.

The Right to Property Ownership: The sacred principle that says you have a right to own what you’ve earned. And, give it or not to whom you choose.

You probably think I’m exaggerating.  In fact, even the usually over-confident U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which represents companies that employ nearly 90% of all Americans), says Obama’s budget blueprint will destroy the very foundations of the U.S. economy.

According to The Chamber, the product promoted in Obama’s sales letter…

“appears to move in exactly the wrong direction. More taxes, heavy-handed regulations, and command-and-control government will not hasten recovery.

“You don’t build a house BY BLOWING UP ITS FOUNDATION.”

So … you’re a copywriter.  How much lipstick would YOU need to pimp a pig as ugly as this one?

Relax – it can be done.  Even a product this horrendous can be sold if the copywriter’s on his game.  Especially if your prospects are too stupid to think, to apathetic and lazy to read, or live in Never-Never Land from a drug induced stupor.  And Obama’s new budget proves it.

So what can we learn about superior copywriting from this remarkable document?  Let’s take a quick look …

Lesson #1:
Have a catchy headline

The title of Obama’s budget – “A New Era of Responsibility:  Renewing America’s Promise” – is brilliant.  It oozes indignation, outrage and revenge without specificity.

More importantly, it spreads a wide net:  Liberals will think it means “Bush, the Republicans and the evil rich will now be held responsible.”  Conservatives might think it means, “The liberal big spenders will now be held responsible.”

The subtitle is also beyond the pale; implying that supporters will win a powerful benefit; that they will realize the American Dream.  Of course, that’s a fraud on so many levels, it boggles the mind and makes bllod shoot from eyes.

Unless, of course, your idea of the American Dream is …

• To have the top 20% of income-earners pay 90% of all income taxes while 55% of the country pays zero.
• To define a husband and wife earning $125,000 each as rich — despite the fact that they’re also trying to pay the mortgage, save for retirement, put kids through college and help their parents in old age.
• To turn those “rich folks” into tax slaves — laboring 50% … 60% … 70% or even more of every workday for those that practice and pass-on generational poverty values to their kids.
• To create a future of sky-high interest rates caused by record federal borrowing and sky-high inflation caused by record federal printing of money they don’t own or worked for.

But no worries; unlike the rest of us, Obama and his copywriting team are NOT required to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s requirement that promotions avoid misleading language.

They’re politicians.  They wrote the law.  And it says they can lie through their teeth and suffer no consequences under the law.

Lesson #2:
Create a common enemy

Obama begins his revival-tent sermon with a scorching rebuke of his favorite demons – the tiny handful of greedy Wall Street executives and lenders who contributed to this crisis.

If, however, you are poor or middle class and are actually guilty of sloth, imprudent personal choices and/or wildly irresponsible financial decisions, the president says it’s not your fault.

To the contrary:  Not only should you be absolved from any personal responsibility for your laziness, foolishness, ignorance and greed … you should be rewarded for your poor judgment with trillions of dollars in giveaways – all at the expense, of course, of your more prudent and productive neighbors.

This is copywriting at its pinnacle. Establish your spokesperson as the prospect’s advocate and champion by creating a common enemy; a straw man, a.k.a. greedy CEOs, responsible for your prospect’s ills.

Relieve your prospect of any responsibility for being fat, sick and/or broke.  It’s not his fault he has heart disease, lung cancer, psorasis of the liver, acne, hemorrhoids or drug sores. Even the crabgrass in his untended lawn was probably sown by someone else – most likely one of those dastardly corrupt CEOs or one of the “evil rich” and their minions.

Also:  Check out the section in which the copywriters skin Bush alive for handing Obama the largest federal deficit in history – and then proceed to show how Obama will more than double it.

Again; brilliant copywriting:  Once you’ve said that it’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault, pretty much any argument you make is likely to get you huge brownie points no matter how silly and stupid it is.

Lesson #3:
Use fear to suspend logic

OK – so now, we’re getting into the meat of the promotion – the rationale for the product:  The reasons why we should buy Obama’s plan to bankrupt us.

This is a crucial part of the promo; because the president’s budget is based on two assumptions that any conscious being would immediately dismiss as patently ridiculous …

Assumption #1: If you give mountains of money to those who have demonstrated a woeful lack of financial responsibility by amassing unpayable debts, they will suddenly become financial geniuses and entrepreneurs capable of creating millions of new jobs and bolstering the Dow Jones Industrial Average all by themselves.

Assumption #2: If you confiscate mountains of money from those who have demonstrated sound financial judgment, they will somehow still find the resources and the incentive to continue risking everything to create millions more new jobs without benefiting themselves and their families.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can easily see how ridiculous this premise truly is …

Let’s say, for example, that you have two 16-year-old twins; we’ll call them Chris and Kris.

Chris’ friends think he’s rich.  In fact, he is living beyond his means.  He quickly spends his weekly allowance, then borrows or steals every penny he can to buy DVDs and video games that instantly become worthless – have little or no resale value — the minute he leaves the store.

Now, after years of irresponsible decisions, Chris is worse than broke; he owes hundreds of dollars to every fool who ever loaned him money.  If it wasn’t for the free food, shelter and clothing his parents provide, he’d be starving, homeless and naked.

Kris is Chris’ polar opposite.  She saves every penny she can – for a car … for college … for a rainy day.  Kris doesn’t live nearly as well as Sam does. When she must spend money, she invests monumental time and effort to get the best bargains possible.

And as a result, she already has a couple thousand dollars saved up and a bright future ahead of her.

Now any thinking parent would know precisely what to do about this situation:  Absolutely nothing!

A wise parent would simply allow Chris to suffer the consequences of his foolish actions, hoping he’ll learn a valuable lesson.  A mature parent would beam proudly as Kris enjoys the benefits of her thrift.

But Obama’s budget does just the opposite:  It punishes Kris for her thrift by confiscating large pieces of her allowance — and it rewards Chris for his inane foolishness by giving Kris’ money to him.

Is this how you create successful children and is it how you build a successful and productive society?

Of course not.  This is what you do to discourage behavior that creates wealth and to reward behavior that creates only debt and constant and continuous poverty.

Here again, Obama and his copywriters have done a stellar job; employing the pitchman’s version of the Jedi Mind Trick — the single most effective tactic for making sure your prospects stop thinking and simply nod in dumb agreement:

Once you’ve got them on your side by establishing the advocacy of your spokesperson, you scare the hell out of them.

Because panicky people don’t think.

Look at the first chapter after Obama’s personal introduction:  “Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities.”  Every chart, every paragraph, every word is carefully crafted to inject the prospect with heart stopping fear and white-hot panic.

Because if your product is lousy, the last thing you want your prospects to do is think about it.  Only fear has the power to cause otherwise rational human beings to accept this kind of absolute nonsense as a viable “solution.”

Lesson #4:
Use envy to close the sale.

Turn to page nine and take a look at some of the best class-warfare copy ever written.

See?  The rich are getting richer.  And that’s bad.

Now notice the facts Obama and his copywriters studiously avoid mentioning – like how they are actually rewarding the TRULY evil rich – CEOs of our biggest banks and automakers – with hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts and handouts.

Notice also that the copywriters never mention HOW most of the rest of America’s wealthy people – the honest majority — became rich:  The fact that most millionaires and billionaires amass wealth by creating innovations that make our lives better, richer, more rewarding, healthier and longer.

Notice there’s no mention of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Jerry Yang, Larry Page, Sergey Brin or anyone else who’s made a good living by making our lives so much better.

Nor are there any references to to Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffet or any of the other financial whiz kids who have helped so many investors prosper for so many years.

And of course, the copywriters who created this brilliant promotion also avoided any mention of the thousands of celebrities, sports stars, musicians and other artists; each of whom earns a king’s ransom each year in return for making our lives more enjoyable.

Also, note that the copywriters carefully avoid mentioning the fact that the “evil rich” create millions of jobs in their own companies — and then create millions more by investing their personal and corporate wealth in new technologies and enterprises.  Or that without them and the industries that rely on them, the vast majority of their constituents would starve.

Also missing:  Any mention of the hundreds of billions of dollars America’s 400 billionaires, 2.6 million millionaires and 1.9 million families earning over $250,000 a year voluntarily donate to charity.

To Obama’s copywriters, these good people simply do not exist.  Instead, only the truly evil rich – the ones Obama is bailing out – are named.

Why?  Because Obama and his copywriters are smart.  They know that no pitchman worth his salt ever raises an objection that they can’t totally obliterate in the copy.  If they even hinted at how much better our lives are because of these successful people, it would reveal the lie to their entire premise.

So instead, they simply smear everyone who has sacrificed, saved, invested, slaved long hours and taken enormous personal risk to build profitable companies or careers with the same brush they use to slander corporate CEOs:

A couple dozen Wall Street CEOs and a few hundred lenders screwed up, so the entire top 5% of the working population – NINE MILLION honest entrepreneurs, business owners and wage earners, investors – must be publicly raped.

Envy is one of the most powerful motivators known to man.  Show your prospect how much better other people are doing; promise to give them their reward and closing the sale is a cinch.

And of course, there’s a larger lesson here – copywriting lesson #5 as Obama and his copywriting team see things …

Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

If Obama’s world-beating promo – and the fact that he’ll get most of what he wants — proves anything, it’s that …

If you know how to write great copy …

Have a charismatic pitchman …

Scare the bejesus out of your prospects, and …

Leverage their emotions to short-circuit their brains …

You can sell the majority of the American public pretty much anything.

You can convince them to pay their flaky neighbors’ mortgages and put their snot-nosed, bratty kids through college.

You can convince them to sacrifice their retirement, their kid’s college fund and take food and medicine out of their aging parents mouths to save corrupt, fabulously rich CEOs.

You can convince them to sell themselves, their children and their children’s children into lifetimes of tax slavery.

You can even convince them that you are not a crook.

Because, as everyone knows, the guy who sticks a gun in your ribs, screams profanity at you and demands the $100 in your wallet upon pain of death is clearly a common thief.

But if he’s a good looking guy with a great smile, a gift for speechifying and six-pack abs …

And if he uses the power of the U.S. government to mug you to the tune of tens of thousands; perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars — not just once, but every year for the rest of your life …

You do NOT call him a common thief.

You call him “Mr. President.”

So tell us:  What marketing lessons does Obama’s copywriting masterwork teach you?

What will you say when your kids or grandkids ask, “What did YOU do to fight back when Obama destroyed my chance for a prosperous life?”

My conscience is clear.  I’m screaming my outrage from the rooftops. Can you say the same?

Plus, at least once each week, I personally tell Obama’s handlers exactly what I think at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

I also went to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm to get my senator’s e-mail and I give him an earful every few days.

And, I went to http://www.house.gov/ where I can also share my opinion with Pelosi as well as my personal congressman.

If you care about the kind of country we’ll pass along to our kids, you may want to do the same.

If you were planning to leave one of those inane, brain-dead, knee-jerk responses accusing me of being a Republican, don’t waste your time. Yes, I’m a Republican because the GOP is suppose to represent conservative values and methods. In truth, I’m a conservative regardless of party affiliation. If tomorrow the Democrats and Republicans switched platforms and ideologies, I’d be a Democrat tomorrow. I beleive in and follow the principals of our founding fathers and the Constitution, not a party affiliation like so many dunderheads do.

And, yes George W. Bush pulled some boneheaded stunts. Like teaming up with Ted Kennedy to produce an oversized federally controlled education system, just to mention one. And, he didn’t use his power of veto on many bills that should not seen the light of day. However, he also managed to keep terrorists from attacking us again on our soil after 9-11-01. So, save your breath and fingertips, I readily and adamantly admit to being a conservative.

Instead, please DO weigh in on the copywriting techniques you spot in Obama’s amazing sales pitch. You’ll find the Comment block at the bottom of the page.

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