The superstar lineup of The Titans of Direct Response!

The superstar lineup of The Titans of Direct Response!

Okay, it’s Monday afternoon and I’m just now getting my legs underneath me from Titans, that I feel I can give you an adequate recap.

While I thought I might be able to turn around and offer this PLUS Mailbag Mondays today, I’m not thinking so. We’ll resume with your regularly-scheduled programming tomorrow, and Mailbox Mondays will be back next week…

Titans Takeaway #1: It fulfilled on the “once in a lifetime” promise 100%…

I don’t like to exaggerate. I’m not going to tell you it was 110%. Out of 100% possible, it was 100% actual.

Those of you on my list who were there (and there were many), you know this already.

A quick anecdote… At the end of the first day, Michael Fishman, the only speaker at Gary Bencivenga’s retirement event besides Gary, was given a mic to offer his “top takeaway so far.” This was it. This coming from someone who was at Gary’s event, and who is involved with a ton of events. He agreed that it was unparalleled, and would never be repeated.

Titans Takeaway #2: ALL the Titans focus on strategy and mindset first…

There’s a private Facebook group for Titans attendees (a group of Titans in their own regard — multiple $100-million+ direct marketing companies, for example). And as the event was wrapping, I posted this thought in the group…

“Biggest takeaways? Every Titan focused on strategy and mindset first. Want to be one? Probably something to emulate.”

I write a lot about strategy and mindset. (Including some lessons shared from the stage at Titans which I’ve known for years and that have helped me build my career to this point.)

Sometimes I feel guilty not writing enough about tactics and things you can take away and implement today.

But that’s not what will make you a Titan.

What makes you a Titan of direct response or any industry is getting your head right, and getting your strategy right. From that comes everything else.

Titans Takeaway #3: The difference between a good copywriter and a great copywriter is “forgetting the rules…”

This is something I talk about in my letter for my Advanced Direct Response Copywriting Workshop (Early Bird offer expires TODAY!). Dan Kennedy started his presentation with a list of maybe 40-50 rules that you need to know to get started as a copywriter.

And yet, ALL of the best copywriters I’ve asked about this (we’re talking folks who count their lifetime sales totals in BILLIONS) throw those rules out the window.

YES, you need to learn them fast to get started.

But as soon as you internalize them, you need to move past them.

You need to know what they represent, and integrate that into a conversational, person-to-person writing voice.

And instead of thinking about stupid rules like “How long should copy be?” “What’s the best headline formula?” “What’s the best way to write a guarantee?” and so on… You need to be getting under the skin of your prospect and your market… And speaking to them like someone who knows them better than they know themselves.

How to do that? Well, it’s something I can’t cover in an email (and that I’ll cover in my workshop), but part of it is…

Titans Takeaway #4: Negative emotion copy trumps everything in terms of response…

Something from the VIP tour of Boardroom’s offices, where we saw much of Marty Edelston’s art collection. This is a guy who built a direct response publishing company to over $100 million per year. One of his biggest motivations to greatness was overcoming negative emotions stemming from childhood experiences.

I know so many people who’ve become great on that emotion, it’s ridiculous. If negative emotions can drive an entrepreneur to create a hugely-successful company, they can certainly drive response to your offer.

Of course, not everything needs to be doom and gloom. And sometimes negative emotion is as simple as asking “Why haven’t you achieved everything you wanted yet?” Or telling the story of two young men, only one of which would go on to achieve incredible success.

But while not everything needs to come from a point of utter despair, every marketing piece you want to drive massive response should touch on the negative emotions resident in your prospect’s mind, and how your product relieves them from that angst.

Dan Kennedy presented a TON on this, but you’ll have to get the DVDs to get all the detail. It’s also something I’ll be going into great detail on in my workshop (and was already talking about BEFORE Titans, already had in my presentation notes BEFORE seeing this talk from Dan).

Titans Takeaway #5: Media is largely irrelevant…

Greg Renker, co-owner of what I think is the world’s largest infomercial company, spoke there. Fred Catona, whose radio ads made Priceline.com a $20 billion company nearly overnight, spoke. Many of the world’s best direct mail folks were there. The Titans of internet marketing, too.

Any talk of media was in passing, and either a detail of a story, or a side note.

Media doesn’t matter.

At least, not in the way folks who call themselves “Internet Marketers” or “Direct Mail Marketers” would think.

What matters are direct response principles… Get the lead, get the first sale, stay in contact and sell more, build revenue streams through continuity, and so on… On top of that, get the message right so it attracts and converts your core audience…

How you do that may differ slightly from media to media.

But the fundamental principles NEVER change. NEVER. And I don’t care if you’re going into mobile marketing, virtual reality marketing, or whatever comes next. The fundamental principles you learn today about how to do “selling multiplied with media” — Claude Hopkins’ core lesson — will work for life.

Titans Takeaway #6: “Good, better, best — never let it rest; ‘til your good is better, and your better is best.”

Apparently the internets think basketball star Tim Duncan made this up. Marty Edelston had been using this quote for years. I’m finding some attribution to St. Jerome, at the beginning of the Latin church, in the fourth century. Wherever it came from, there’s power in them words.

The Titans became that way by setting out their intentions in the beginning…

Focusing on how they could achieve great things for themselves…

How they could become the best…

And then they focused on that for their entire careers…

Sometimes in a single field… Sometimes moving from field to field to field, industry to industry to industry, always applying direct response principles…

Titans Takeaway #7: If you’re writing copy, you have to dig deeper than anyone else to find the big idea…

Parris Lampropoulos writes 1,000 “fascinations” (bullets) from which he pulls 1 in 4 to go into the final copy. David Deutsch has a similar number.

What you’re always looking for in writing copy is, as David said, “Getting it to the ‘WOW’” — that point where your target prospect reads the headline and says, “WOW! I’ve gotta find out more…”

That comes from thorough, almost obsessive research. That comes from knowing your product and your market better than anyone else.

That comes from — dare I say it? — WORK!

Take all the research your client gives you… Take all the research you can do yourself… And then do a little bit more…

To get the results nobody else is getting, you have to be willing to do what nobody else is willing to do.

Titans Takeaway #8: Gary Bencivenga’s talk was too powerful to repeat here…

Okay, you know I gotta do this to you. Some things, I’m just not sharing. Sorry.

I want to reinforce the value of being there.

Titans Takeaway #9: The “fellow attendee” benefit was as big as the content benefit…

This is why live events are so powerful. Forget what you learn. YES, you can learn a lot of it in a book.

What matters even more is who you meet. And YES, I know this sounds self-serving. But there’s nothing like showing up at an event like this, and meeting and having conversations with everyone there.

If I were to tell you who all I’m emailing with after this event, you’d hardly believe it.

Dozens of top marketers who I wasn’t necessarily on their radars before this could become business partners down the road. Or at least, clients.

Titans Takeaway #10: Copywriting and direct marketing are becoming commodities…

This came straight from Perry Marshall — who also offered up a solution to the commodity trap for direct response copywriters and consultants…

But what you need to know is that if you’re having trouble getting paid as much as you think you should be paid, there’s a reason…

And you have to find out how to differentiate yourself…

Because with the internet, not only can everything be measured (you could always measure)… But now it’s EASY and AUTOMATIC.

That means you need to be able to generate results… And not just generate results, but generate results above and beyond what you can get from simple testing…

Titans Takeaway #11: You get rich by solving problems…

There were so many speakers who made this point, it’s silly…

If you want to make a lot of money, you have to solve problems.

Whether it’s in your copy, or in the offer you make to clients… Vanilla Ice was on to something… “If there’s a problem, yo I’ll solve it…”

Everybody has 99 problems. Make it 98, and you can make a good income. Make it 90, and you can make a great income. Make it 80, and you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams of avarice.

Titans Takeaway #12: “Who” is critical…

Who you align yourself with will change your life.

Your partners. Your customers. Your friends. Your teachers. Your mastermind partners.

“Who” is everything.

Titans will continue to show its face in the rest of my career…

I didn’t realize it, but some lessons shared from the stage were already behind my biggest successes.

Others were simply reinforcements of recent lessons I’ve been learning and applying.

And yet others were total breakthroughs.

No doubt, after Titans nothing will be the same.

And as a result, you’ll probably hear more from Titans making its way into my writings in the coming weeks and months…

And if you’re smart, you’re also clicking the link below to sign up for MY workshop in November.

Let me put it bluntly…

You can either choose greatness, or not. If you do choose greatness, you’re going to thrust yourself into every learning opportunity, and immediately walk away from it with a dozen lessons to apply (I wrote that and then realized I just delivered a dozen lessons) that will make you 10X what you spent to learn, if not more…

It will pay off… Because almost any expense put into writing better copy will pay off, as long as you walk away with the intention to focus on making it so…

Many of the most impactful lessons from Titans were already in my “before” writing copy section of my presentations… How to get your mindset, strategy, and big idea right…

But then I’m going to break it all down into the tactical of how to actually sit down and crank out winning copy…

And then what to do to after you’ve written the copy, first to polish it and make it shine, and second to make it make maximum sales in the marketplace…

Oh yeah, and you’re going to learn the biz of copywriting too — how to actually get paid at it.

Click here to sign up now…

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr

Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets

PS — This is going to sound egotistical, but it makes a point so I’m okay risking it. There’s a reason I was chosen to write the sales copy for Titans — the biggest direct response event of the decade. There’s a reason the room was packed, and so many attendees were in such awe of the copy (many told me it only took them a page or two to sign up). There’s a reason Brian Kurtz gave me not one, but maybe 8 or 9 plugs from the stage.

Yes, I learned a lot at Titans. But I was already using some of what Gary Bencivenga taught in his presentation (among others) years ago, to be well on my way to my own “Titan” status.

This is part of what you’ll learn when you join me in November. What are you waiting for? Register right now.