The SWIPES Email

Edition: Friday, March 8th, 2024
​An educational (and fun) email by Copywriting Course. Enjoy!

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🎤 Listen to this email here:

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Swipe:

This is the exact letter that made Gary Halbert a millionaire in 1971.

It was one page, sealed in an envelope, selling them a “Coat of Arms” picture and report based on their last name, and it peaked at making 20,000 sales per day (and these were physical mail orders) 😮

This particular letter was sent to every "Macdonald" in the phone book across the United States:

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For $2.00 (in 1971) this is what was sent back to you:

1.) A coat of arms picture of your family last name, you could then frame it if you liked. Like this (without the frame, it was just sent to you on paper):

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2.) A small report explaining the coat of arms:
(h/t to @eston_esau for taking this pic of this in his grandpa's house)!

Pretty neat that he made many millions of dollars with this one promotion, customizing it to every last name in the phone book.

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Wisdom:

Here's two quotes I really love:

This is a quote about having a goal you're working towards:

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This one is about building confidence, and that it comes from having a bunch of smaller experiences of success:

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Interesting:

A cool pattern I've found with regards to reading:

10 pages of a fiction book at night helps me go to sleep.

10 pages of a business book in morning helps me wake up and have my brain thinking about work.

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I've noticed I read too much fiction in the morning, it's exciting but then I don't really wanna do work. So this hack is pretty neat!

The current business book I'm reading is this: Read Write Own

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The current fiction book I'm reading is: The Three Body Problem.

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Apparently the Three Body Problem just came out as a movie or TV trailer....AND I'M PURPOSELY NOT WATCHING THE TRAILER SO I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT'S ABOUT TO HAPPEN!

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Picture:

Hey check it out I got one of those 100k subscriber YouTube plaques!!

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I put out 2 long-form videos or interviews per month, and one short form video everyday.

If that sounds up your alley then give me a subscribe!

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Essay:

I've been thinking of buying a Tesla Model S, and wanted to try it out for a multi-city, mulit-destination trip, so I rented one with the specs I wanted off Turo (I would’ve preferred a black one but couldn’t find that with my specs).

I'm not a big car guy....the reality is I want one main thing: Full Self Driving so I can get around without paying attention.

Almost all my friends have variations of Teslas, and the only one I really love the look of is the Model S:

Like I said I just want FULL AUTO DRIVING.

That’s it.

That’s the killer feature to me.

The experience with FSD after 3 days of a lot of driving is: It's definitely kick ass, but not fully there (yet). It's still kinda jerky at times (I notice this a lot more when a passenger is in the car), and 2% of the time it freaks out and scares the hell out of passengers.

My Pro’s of the Tesla Model S:

• Stupid fast. Like….so fast you don’t really need all that speed. It’s unreal.
• Everything is controlled by phone, it’s kinda neat to cool the car or heat it up remotely, or just not have to have a key (just your phone) to operate everything.
• You can see all the cameras from the phone app..it’s like having an 8-camera security system wherever you’re parked!
• FSD (Full Self Driving) is amazing….I have some gripes with it, but it’s an awesome safety feature to have, and is really relaxing to drive on.
• FSD is so good at directions, if I was ever in doubt of which freeway or exit to take, FSD nailed it every time.
• I love + don’t love that everything needs to be controlled from the screen. Like changing directions of the air vents requires a few clicks to do.
• The FSD feels good having it as a backup driver for safety, and is nice to sit in slow traffic with it on and not pay much attention.

My Con’s of the Tesla Model S:

• For passengers the Full Self Driving is kinda jerky when slowing down….even with “Chill Mode” on the way it breaks sometimes is like a bad Uber driver.
• You kind of have to babysit the FSD….it definitely does the job, but you’re not totally doing nothing, you still have to pay some attention.
• It’s a total lane hog. On the highway the Tesla will very frequently try to move into the left lane then just stay there, which is a huge pet peeve of mine.
• The yoke steering wheel looks cool, and is nice for visibility (you can see right over it which is neat), and for the most part feels good….but the buttons stink. The turn signals are not intuitive, and you have to reach your thumb to touch them each time. Same with the horn or lights, definitely not in an intuitive spot.

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Hope for the future of driving:
​I frequently go back and forth between Austin and Houston for family stuff, and I think of the countless hours of driving I’ve done that could’ve been used for something more productive or fun.

I wish I could do work, or read, or listen to podcasts AND take notes while driving….currently you can just passively consume information in a car and not much more.

My goal is that I can drowsily hop in the car, fall asleep, and safely wake up in a different city. This seems roughly ~5 years away.

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Splurge:

I love local-business marketing, and I saw this in a neighborhood while driving in Houston:

It's a simple A-Frame (much like my Shoe Hospital Experiment sign) this window cleaner puts out in front of a house they were cleaning.

A great way of drumming up business is letting people in the neighborhood know you're helping out one of their neighbors.

If you're a service provider like this, spend the $150 to get a nice A-Frame made and stick it in front of your service sites!

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Hope you enjoyed these Friday tid-bits!​
​Sincerely,
Neville Medhora

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P.S. Checkout some member wins from this month alone:

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P.P.S. If you want to see results like this too, jump on board:

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