2005 - 09-15-05

There's more, but that's all I can think of
off the cuff right now. And, believe me, those
characteristics are enough to eliminate 99.999% of all
people you might want to team up with.

Okay, now let's get down to business: Over
the last few years (since I first began putting my
newsletters online) my readership has expanded in an almost
scary fashion. I'm not sure of the exact number but, I think
my newsletters are now read by English speaking people in
approximately 90 countries besides the United States. I
think it's fair to say almost every copywriter and
everybody else of significance in the direct marketing world
is reading my newsletters with insanely rapt attention. They
not only read them, they print all of them out. They bind
them in books. They send me thousands of
emails of praise. And, many of them, it seems, are hesitant
to make a marketing decision without first finding out...

"What
Would Gary Think?"

This is all great for the ego, but
it's also insanity. Mostly, when people are wondering "What
would Gary think?"... all I am really thinking about is
the overwhelming difficult problems (at least difficult
for me) of how to get my laundry done and one of my shirts
ironed.

But, the larger point is, somehow I have
become possibly the most "connected" person in the direct
marketing universe. And, more importantly, I have found a
very tiny handful of people who have all (and sometimes
more) of the characteristics I described earlier above.

Let's talk
about a vision: Let's envision you have written a great
sales letter, newspaper ad or some other type of advertising
copy, and you send it to me.

And, let's suppose I read it and make a
judgment that, if tested, there's a good chance what
you have written will become a success.

Then,
let's suppose I deliver your precious piece of work to one
of the tiny handful of people I believe to be the
Dennis Haslingers of the New Millennium. Your piece will
then be tested and tested rapidly. If the test works
(meaning it makes a profit), the person who conducted the test will put
up all the money needed to run with your promotion faster
than Lance Armstrong can pedal a bike on a downhill slope.