Elegant Solutions

# Elegant Solutions

Dear Friend
& Subscriber,

Today we are going to examine what I call
"Elegant Solutions".

A true story: When NASA began launching astronauts
out into space, it was discovered their writing pens were useless once away from
the earth's gravity. Without that gravitational pull to force the ink down to
the writing surface, the pens were simply inoperative.

To solve this problem, NASA hired Anderson
Consulting. It took Anderson Consulting ten years and $12,000,000 (yep, that's
12 million dollars) to come up with a
solution. But, by Jesus, they got the job done! They devised a pen which worked
at zero gravity, upside down, under water, on practically any surface (including
crystal) and, in temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 degrees
centigrade.

When the Russians started their space program,
they had this same "useless pen" problem. Did they spend ten years and
$12,000,000 to get an answer to this dilemma? No. The Russians came up with what
I call an "Elegant Solution"... they solved it by...

Using A 5¢ Pencil!

Speaking of interesting facts, I use a hardback
copy of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of
the English Language which has over 300,000 entries plus 2,000 maps,
illustrations and specialized supplements. It takes up an enormous amount of
space on a bookshelf and is so heavy, it could be used as an emergency anchor if
I had it with me whenever I am using one of my boats. (I don't care who you are;
I bet my dictionary is bigger than yours.) In any case, this monstrosity of a
book has six different definitions of the word "elegant". The one I
think best describes an "Elegant Solution" is... a solution which is
gracefully concise and simple and admirably succinct.

Another example of an "Elegant
Solution": Years ago, in another lifetime, I worked in the credit
department of Standard Oil of Ohio. It's cold in Ohio in the wintertime and
Standard Oil sells a lot of heating oil. The way you would get it from them was,
to first fill out a credit application and, if the application was approved,
your heating oil would be delivered to you every week or every month as needed.

Standard Oil soon discovered they were spending
more money for the credit reports than they were losing to deadbeats who didn't
pay their heating oil bills. The solution? They continued to require people to
fill out credit applications but, credit reports were never ordered. It's true
Standard Oil had to eat a little money from deadbeats who didn't pay for their
bills but, it was only a tiny percentage of the money they would have had to pay
to get credit reports for all the applicants.

A different Standard Oil story: They also had many
large commercial accounts and, the credit worthiness of those accounts were
checked out before credit was extended to them. This was done by getting a
D&B (Dunn & Bradstreet) report on each of the companies. There were all
kinds of formulas anyone could use with a D&B report. They could analyze
total receivables to total debt, net worth versus liabilities, yearly income
versus yearly payables, to name only a few. Matter of fact, Dunn &
Bradstreet even had a school for the employees of Standard Oil to teach them how
to read the D&B reports.

Anyway, Standard Oil kept track of all the
employees in their credit department to see how accurate their judgements were
in approving or denying credit to these large commercial accounts. You know who
the most precise person of all was? Me. Why? Because I never went to Dunn &
Bradstreet's school and I never learned to use any of their formulas.

So how was I able to figure it out? It was quite
simple. At the bottom of each D&B report, there was a paragraph titled
"Summary". These Summaries could read something like this:

Summary

ABC Corp. is well managed, has a positive cash
flow, and low debt. Its employee turnover is remarkably low. Demand for their
product and services is steady and increasing. Overall, they look like a solid
company with a good future.

That's all
I would read. In that scenario, I would stamp "approved" on ABC
Corp.'s credit application.

On the other hand, sometimes a company's Summary
could read along these lines:

Summary

XYZ Inc. is poorly managed, overburdened with
excessive debt and lacks the inventory to fill their current and previous
orders. There are 14 pending lawsuits against them and their CEO has just been
indicted for sodomizing a farm animal.

When I read something like that, I'd stamp the
application "rejected".

Think about it: I had the highest accuracy rating
of all employees... yet... I didn't even understand how to read, analyze or
interpret D&B's credit reports. All I did was read the Summaries which
provided me with a ten-second capsule of what Dunn & Bradstreet themselves
thought about any particular company. And that, my friend, is another example of
an "Elegant Solution".

Let's try one more: Years ago, a black man worked
in a factory located in the Northeastern United States. He was a janitor whose
tools were a broom, dustpan, mop, rags and cleaning fluids. As time passed, he
needed more money.

Even though he was the lowest-paid employee, he
came up with an "Elegant Solution" which made his "take-home
pay" higher than the other employees... even higher than the company's
owner. How was this janitor able to do it?

His "Elegant Solution" was going from
department to department and selling raffle tickets to the other employees for
his paycheck. By the time he collected all the raffle ticket sales, his
"take-home pay" was considerably more than anyone else's in the
company. He'd sign his paycheck over to the winner and the janitor went home a
very happy man.

Try this on for size: A while back, a big direct
mail company desperately wanted the names and addresses of every buying customer
they could get their hands on. So, they had an "in-house" contest to
see who could come up with the best idea which would encourage all vendors to
collect the names and addresses of all their prospects and customers.

The big direct mail company's creative people came
up with many sophisticated ideas to get the vendors to capture the names. Do you
know what the winning idea was? Simply this:

Pay Them!

A story I've told before: As a rule of thumb, a
personalized letter (with the salutation "Dear Mr. Last Name") would
pull 300% more in orders than a standard letter which started out "Dear
Friend," or "Dear Resident," or "Dear Occupant."
However, in the late 1960's and the early 70's, the cost to type such a
personalized letter was enormous. If I remember correctly, it was nearly $10 for
each letter.

Then computers came along and made it possible to
create what looked like an individually-typed, personalized letter. However, few
people knew how to do this... so... computer-generated letters were still
enormously expensive.

Then along comes Sir Gary of Halbert with a killer
"Elegant Solution". I said to myself, "Self,
why don't you get phone books from all the big cities in the United States and
extract, for example, everybody who has the last name 'Clarke'. Then, just type one
letter with the opening 'Dear Mr. Clarke' and also personalize it several times
throughout the body copy with a 'Mr. Clarke' here and there."

I continue this conversation with myself, "After you finish typing that one letter, take it to a printer and
tell him you want 1000 of these letters printed up. While the printer is doing
his thing, you get 1000 envelopes typed to all the Clarkes from those phone
books."

But I wasn't finished yet, "And
Gary, once you get the 'personalized' letters from the printer, you fold and
stuff them in all the envelopes which contain the names and addresses of all
those 1000 Clarkes. Put a live stamp on each one and drop them in the
mail."

My version of a "personalized" letter
cost about a penny... as opposed to... a computer-generated, personalized letter
which cost profusely more.

Looking back on it, it doesn't seem like much of
an idea, does it? But, it was an "Elegant Solution"... because of
which... over 600 million letters were mailed... and... at an increcible profit.

Other times, an "Elegant Solution" can
be short, simple and to the point. Follow along closely to yet another true-life
story. I recently received a letter from one of my subscribers. Due to my
misplaced sense of couth and kindness, I am going to eliminate his name but,
here's his letter, word-for-word:

Dear Mr. Halbert,

Wow! You are one passionate guy who has found his
calling and is living it! I don't know how I found you but I've read your
newsletter archives and I see one thing: There are people who have a job or a
career or a calling. You live, eat, and sleep and exude passion for headlines
and copy. So, of course, you are the person to ask.

I am a residential architect. I have the idea to sell my
house plans via the web. My wife says, "You want to sell plans and there
are a million other sites out there? How are they going to find us? How are you
going to drive people to our site? How are you going to compete with the
well-established ones? How are you going to find out what house plans sell the
best? We only have 200 house plans. It's a lot of work and too big of a risk.
Your houses are regional (Northeast) and they are not great designs."

In the scope of it, she raises a lot of good points
which I was aware of but, excitement overtook me. So, I switched to "How To
Design Your Own Home CD". Then my wife says, "Fine, that's ok, but you
can only sell it for $15.95. Do you know how many you have to sell for us to
make money?"

As you can see, I am an expert on homes in the
Northeast. But I need an expert like yourself. I don't mind hard work, I
just want to go in the right direction.

So how do I ask for help?

Thank you very much,

Peter

I read his letter several times. I decided I
wanted to help "Peter" so I gave a lot of thought as to how I should
answer him. I sent him a fax which contains, what I consider, a brilliant
"Elegant Solution". My fax said:

Dear Peter,

There is no way I or anyone else can help you
with your marketing unless you are willing to divorce or murder your wife.

Gary C. Halbert

You know, I can hear a bunch of you laughing at my
advice... and... I must admit it is somewhat humorous. But, you know what else?
It's dead on correct.

There is no way in the world "Peter" is
ever going to achieve any of his dreams as long as the most significant person
in his life is a woman which should be thought of as "Negativity On
Steroids".

Often, my seminar attendees bring their wives with
them. Not always, but usually, I feel sorry for these men. The real
reason these wives are there is to "protect" their husbands from
becoming too excited or too enthusiastic about doing something which will make
him (and her too) a lot of money. These wives feel it's their job to hold their
husband's feet to the ground and make sure he never makes an attempt to fly
toward his dreams.

Of course "Negativity On Steroids" is
not limited to females. Whenever I'm in a brainstorming session and everyone's
hurling out one idea after another, inevitably, some guy pops up and says, "Let me play the Devil's Advocate. What if this (always a bad
thing) happens?"

You know what I do at that point? I very bluntly
insist I will no longer continue brainstorming if that particular person is
allowed to remain in the room. Why? Because the people I've just described, the
"Negativity On Steroids" type people, are in my opinion, the worst
kind of criminals in all humanity. I identify them as...

"Dream Thieves"!

There is nothing more valuable a person can steal
from you than your dreams.

Thank God not all "Dream Thieves" are
successful. If they were, we wouldn't have electricity, radios, televisions,
automobiles, telephones, computers, cell phones, or any of the luxuries of
civilization we have today. No, "Dream Thieves" would still have us
living in dank, dark, freezing caves trying to convince us how
"dangerous" it would be for us to leave that miserable environment...
and... go out into the warm, inviting sunshine.

I think stealing a dream should be a capital
crime. Because...

Without Our Dreams...

We Are Nothing!

Let's switch gears and explore something which could be
considered the opposite of an "Elegant Solution". We're going
to discuss here what you should do if, deep in your heart, you want your company
to fail.

Say you and your Evil Twin decide to create a company, and you
want it be dysfunctional and you want it to screw up everything it touches. Your
Evil Twin goes out to recruit all the people who will work for this company.
When he's finished you ask him, "Okay
Evil Twin, are all these individuals criminals and/or screw ups?"

Your Evil Twin replies, "Yes.
I know they all are criminals and/or screw ups... but... only 65% are
documented. That just means the other 35% haven't been caught yet."

He continues, "Look
at this: I've got 535 people to work for us. Seven have been arrested for fraud;
19 for writing bad checks; 71 of them have such lousy credit, they can't even
get a credit card; another 8 were handcuffed for shoplifting; 84 ended up in
jail for drunk driving; additionally, 29 were arrested for beating the living
shit out of their wives; 3 others did jail time for assault; and 14 have been
incarcerated on drug-related charges. That doesn't even take into account the
117 others who previously owned businesses which they forced into
bankruptcy."

He finishes by telling me, "Look
bro, I've selected 535 people to work for us and 352 of them are scumbags who
have been caught. That's almost two-thirds. So you know damn well, catching the
other 183 is just a matter of time. The entire bunch make...

"The Perfect
Group Of People To

Screw Up Everything
They Touch!"

And the Evil Twin was right... because... what I described with real
numbers (they are not fake) are the people who make up the United States
Congress. These are the folks who are telling us how to run our lives.
Just think how much more efficient everything is now: Whenever we feel like
being financially sodomized, misled, lied to, having our money stolen from us,
deceived, being led into a war, taxed unfairly, cheated, and so forth, we
have...

One Stop Shopping!

Enough!

There's another side to this coin: There are millions of good,
honest, creative, hard-working Americans with positive attitudes. These
are the people who make the world work. And do you know where you can find
them?

At A Gary Halbert Seminar!

As you know, in just a few, short weeks, I'm putting on a
seminar titled "All The New Secrets I
Have Discovered About How To Write Sales Messages Which Produce Huge And
Automatic Profits!" That seminar already is sold out and there's no
room left for anyone else to attend. I hope you are one of the lucky few who
signed up in time... because... there is nothing as thrilling as being in an
environment filled with enthusiastic, optimistic, problem-solving-oriented
people who are listening to a
benevolent, world-class genius (me) illuminate for them one "Elegant
Solution" after another.

You know, my seminars would be worth attending, even if, there
was no training given. Sounds odd, doesn't it? Let me explain: I know the world
is chock-full of people categorized as "Negativity On Steroids" so,
each of us need as much contact as we can get with people who are the polar
opposite of that toxic mindset. Just being in the same room with these
positive-thinking people causes the "Peters" of this world to do the
right thing... which, of course is...

Murder Their Wives And

Get On With Their Dreams!

What if you weren't quick enough to get in on attending my
seminar? Fortunately for you, I've made arrangements to have it all recorded on
audio and video tape. These audio and video tapes will be your opportunity to
get as close as possible to the enthusiastic, optimistic,
problem-solving-oriented people listening to the benevolent, world-class genius
illuminating one "Elegant Solution" after another.

You'll get a sales letter in the near future offering you a
chance to buy the tapes of this seminar. But, I've got a deal for you right now.
It's almost like an IQ test. If you call
Rhonda at (305) 534-7577... or fax her at (352) 861-1665... or e-mail me at
nosexgary@aol.com... today... and
say you've got to have the tapes as soon as they are ready for sale (it'll
probably be just before Christmas) I'll let you have the entire package at a 50%
discount.

Onward. As you already know, I am always looking for
"Patches of Light". These are the bright, sparkling moments of life
which make everything worthwhile. I had one recently and I'd like to share it
with you.

My next-to-youngest son, Kevin, is not nearly as loud, outspoken
and uncouth as his father or his other brothers. Kevin is a polite, introvert
who walks quietly through life, enhancing the lives of other people. He's a
high-demand, world-class photographer. Until recently, I never had a chance to
see for myself how good he really is nor to observe him working. I saw Kevin
become a completely different person once he put his "photographer's
hat" on.

As you know, there is a website on the Internet which features a
new picture of my Costa Rican girlfriend every day of the year. It's located at www.SirianCalendar.com.
And because of Kevin, the pictures which now appear on that calendar are
thousands of times better than the previous ones.

That's because Kevin was recently visiting me in Florida and he
performed a minor miracle in capturing Sirian on film. He knew the exact words
and psychology to get the best out of her, the best out of the makeup artist,
the best out of his assistant and, without creating any ill feelings, to get his
own father (me) to stay the hell out of the way so he could work his magic. In
any case, it is Kevin's pictures which now appear on the SirianCalendar website.

An important comment: I know some of my readers are pigs and
some of you are prudes. I want to tell you up front, this website is not for
people who fit in either of those two categories. The photographs of Sirian are
not nearly as explicit as those you will find in Playboy, Penthouse or other "girlie magazines". On the
other hand, they are much more sexy and sensual than the photos you would find
in the swimsuit edition of Sports
Illustrated. So, if what I've just described appeals to you, go to the site
and have a look for yourself. On the other hand, if it doesn't appeal to you,
you should stay away from it.

The truth is, there is no real commercial reason for the
existence of the SirianCalendar website. It's just something she and I both
enjoy doing. One other thing, if you ever do need a good photographer (and I'm
talking about a really good one) call
my son Kevin. His number is (323) 851-8275.

You know, I really love that kid.

Sincerely,

Gary C. Halbert

Gary
C. Halbert

P.S.

Did
you know Joe Polish was recently arrested for committing
sodomy? Luckily, I was able to help him out. I got him a
good lawyer who got the charges reduced to
"following-too-closely".

Oh
shut up! That was a joke, you humorless twit.

P.S. #2

Oh hey.
If you are coming to my "All The New Secrets I
Have Discovered About How To Write Sales Messages Which
Produce Huge And Automatic Profits!" seminar, be
sure to book your room immediately. Call The
Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa at 1800-950-0086 and
be sure to ask for the "Halbert Room Rate".

Peace.