The Boron Letters: Chapter 3

Back at it with chapter 3 of Gary Halbert’s famous Boron letters.

Quick recap: he’s one of the most successful copywriters in history. He went to prison for mail fraud. While in prison, he wrote 26 letters to his son, teaching him everything he knew.

Chapter 2 had Gary adjusting to life behind bars. It showed how important it is to understand your reader and what point they’re at in the sales funnel.

Sprinkled in with a great lesson about not letting any room for doubt into your life.

But that was last time. This is chapter 3.

Before we get to the summary and the takeaways, as always, take out a pen and paper and write the letter out by hand. 

TL;DR of the letter

Gary recaps his three lessons he’s given Bond so far.

• Road work (running, jogging, or walking an hour a day). He's got a favorite hill at the prison camp for road work.

• Fruit - three pieces every day. He eats one before road work.

• Some bran type cereal every day. Not sure if he can get this in prison.

Then, he moonlights as a dietician. Eat a bunch of veggies every day. Prepare them the night before. Snack on them from time to time like a rabbit. Drink milk. Eat meat. Secure yourself some protein powder.

It’s a lot.

He senses this, so he changes the subject to how he’s, when you get down to it, just writing a book with these letters to Bond. What a book this will make some day!

Slap on some thoughts from other books and he’s in business.

And - guess what - he closes the letter on health AGAIN. This time he’s using the precious last few sentences to say how important it is to pump some iron. Probably to look tough to the other inmates.

So…why?

Takeaways from Gary Halbert’s third Boron letter

I’ll say it.

Health is important.

Gary could spend all his time on direct response marketing.

The sales funnel. The slippery slope. Knowing your customer. Understanding their motivations. Finding out where to sell, etc etc.

Nah. F**k that. Talk about health and fitness.

He even starts to enjoy prison.

Enjoy it!

Because he can be healthy there.

You can spin this into some writing lesson.

About how he gets the most important information out there first. Or because he knows Bond can start eating fruit faster than he can make sales calls.

Point is, above all else, health is important.

Until next time.