In this first time tell all interview you'll learn how Brian Keith Voiles would come home dripping wet with sweat every day in overalls from stacking bricks for a living to becoming one the world’s greatest living copywriters.

Brian's ad writing techniques work – and his track record of "top-dog" clients speaks for itself. Brian has written for:

Ted Nicholas, author of "How To Form Your Own Corporation For Under $75"

Gary Halbert, author of "How To Make Maximum Money In Minimum Time"

Jay Abraham, marketing consultant and author

Robert Allen, Best-selling author of "No Money Down Real Estate "

You'll be super-glued to your seat as you hear in Brian's own voice ....

• How Amway was the pivotal turning point in his thinking even though he never made a dime in the MLM business. 
• You'll be amazed at to hear how Brian describes in detail how he was making $3200 a month working only three hours a day as a part-time janitor.
• Learn what Brian did to support his wife and three young boys in the early days living in a rented trailer home.
• You'll chuckle when you hear about the make and model of the nicest car Brian ever owned. 
• Get inside Brian's head as he describes what guided him to being a copywriter heavyweight.
• Hear his personal story of how a five dollar magic set changed the direction of his life and turned him into one of the best copywriters on the planet.
• $90,000 in 90 days, learn how a chance chain letter started a sequence of events that would introduce Brian to the world of copywriting.
• Feast your ears on the story about one letter that was pulling right about 36% and getting phenomenal results and learn how to get it for your own swipe file.  
• Hear Brian's true story of how he survived a deadly softball size brain tumor in the middle of his head.
• Hear exactly how Brian sold 3000 copywriting courses on his first major direct mail campaign.
• Hear why Brian thinks going offline with your product may be the best way to rake in big money with your product of service.
• Learn why Brian cuts and tapes hundreds of headlines to his wall before he picks “the one” for his client’s sales letter. 
• Learn how if your loaded with great testimonials and a risk free proposition, you can sell anything with the write copywriting skills.
• Hear what Brian does first before he writes one word of copy in any letter.
• Learn who to talk to in your research phase and who to record twice..
• Learn why recording your conversations will get you mouth watering sales copy.
• You’ll hear specific results and success stories Brian has generated for world-class marketers like Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, Ted Nicholas, Yanik Silver and more.
• Hear what to do when a client gets too lazy to mail your letter.
• Learn one legal clause to place in your contract to protect you before you write one word of copy for a client.
• Learn Brian's secret for generating headlines that smash controls and how to get them to pop into your subconscious at will.

Oh and one more thing. For all of you who don't believe in the power of a great sales letter, I have included proof that what Brian teaches works. The last recording is the story of Kyle from San Diego. Kyle is 21 years old and ordered Brian's Ad Magic course. He used one letter from the course and booked $4000 in orders. So what you say?  Kyle only mailed 28 letters. His cost for the mailing was less then $15.00.  Anyway, the bonus recording is all there for you to hear now. It's only about 15 minutes. More proof that if you have the guts to just do it, you can open your world to new opportunities beyond your wildest dreams. Go for it. If you have any questions for Brian or you would like consider and copywriting project, you may e-mail him

Michael Senoff Interviews Brian Keith Voiles Vol. 1


Brian: I can sell anything. The truth is, I can sell anything that I—first of all, I have to want to sell it; I have to believe in it. Second of all, if they’ve got testimonials that are decent, they don’t even have to be great and if they a risk free proposition, I can sell anything. Guaranteed, I can sell anything.

[MUSIC]

Brian: I hate calling anything that I do a gift because I have worked hard to master everything I have mastered. But I do think there was a piece of me that was to be a writer. My grandmother was a writer and she was a copywriter, too. She wrote radio commercials. Michael, if I had to sum in a nutshell what’s unique about Brian and in my copywriting is this deep compassionate empathy that’s truly heart felt for other people. And I think that’s what I took away from the brain tumor experience.

Michael: Had you ever had a job working for somebody?

Brian: Yes, I did. I had two jobs before that. One was in my teenaged years. I worked at a Mexican restaurant.

Michael: Bussing tables, cooking, what?

Brian: I was called a disher. I would take the food, put it on the plate, make it look pretty, and the people would eat it. But there was a little bit of cooking involved, but no recipes. It was just fry the taco.

Michael: How long were you at that job, the Mexican food one?

Brian: Six years. I started when I was 13.

Michael: That’s a long time.
Brian: Yes, I worked hard. All my other friends were out playing for the most part and they were all pretty rich. I come from a real poor, country background. I grew up in the back woods of Okalahoma. We just never had much. For me to get a five-dollar magic set for Christmas was a dream come true.

Michael: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Brian: I had one older brother that beat the holy living crap out of me all the time.

Michael: I’m sorry to hear that.

Brian: It’s funny now, but it wasn’t fun at the time. My dad basically ignored me and my mom was sweet, but she was always in a lot of emotional pain. It was just kind of…I’m not here to whine, just rough. My mom and day divorces. I think I was 11 or so. A year and a half later, my mom moved out here to Utah just on a whim.

Michael: Take the boys with her?

Brian: She took me with her and my older brother was really…he was just angry at the world, angry at everything. He stayed there and he actually was renting a house on his own and he was about 16, 17 years old. But anyway, I worked real hard to try to have some money. And then I got a really great experience. I served as a missionary for the Mormon Church over in Japan.

Michael: Really? How did you get that deal?

Brian: Well, you know, it’s a choice you make. When you’re 19, it’s not a requirement. It’s up to you whether or not you go on a mission and if you do, they’ll support you.

Michael: So, did you move out to Japan at 19?

Brian: Yes, I went to Japan and lived there for 18 months.

Michael: Were you with other guys doing the same thing?

Brian: Yes.

Michael: Was it fun?

Brian: It was. It was more fun than anything. It was more fun that it was missionary work…for me, anyway.

Michael: Now were you Mormon?

Brian: Yes.

Michael: So, is that the guy you see like they go out two by two on bicycles in the white shirts and kind of…

Brian: That’s right.

Michael: You were doing that in Japan?

Brian: Yes. And they have a language training center in Provo, Utah where you spend about six weeks doing your best to learn the language. And Japanese is not the simplest language, and the six weeks isn’t the longest amount of time you need. But what they found is they just throw you into it and you just tend to pick it up after about or four or five months once you understand the fundamentals and you keep studying your vocabulary. You look up words as people say them if you don’t understand them. It’s a great experience. It was really wonderful. To this day, I cherish those memories. I absolutely love Japanese food.

Michael: So, you came back and you were 20 1/2. And then did you come right back to Utah?

Brian: Yes, I came back and met a gal and got married right away—probably too soon. But, hey, we fell in love and I fell head over heels and we got married.

Michael: When you got married, what was your financial situation?

Brian: We lived in a mobile home. We had just shopped around for apartments and we just couldn’t see dumping money into something like that where the money’s just going down the drain. And so, somehow or other, we came up with the idea, well let’s find a mobile home. And we did, and we found an inexpensive mobile home park to put it in. And we did that. I got a job at Interstate Brick. And what I did, along with about six other guys, all day long was take brick off the kiln cars and stack them onto pallets.

Michael: Wow. And they were a brick manufacturer?

Brian: Yes.
Michael: So, these were like hot bricks coming out of the oven?

Brian: Exactly. Yes, and sometimes they were definitely were hot.

Michael: And how long did you do that for?

Brian: Let’s see I started in probably in ’83 and I quit in April of ’87.

Michael: What kind of money did that pay?

Brian: They paid some piecework rate, but it was the base of $6.50 an hour. And the piecework allowed me to usually make about $100 a day. But at the same time, first of all, I just knew I didn’t belong there. It just wasn’t the space for me. But I had a family to support. A friend of mine had introduced me to Amway. Now, I’m bringing this up. Amway was the pivotal turning point in my thinking.

Michael: Who introduced you to Amway?

Brian: A high school friend of mine. Here’s what appealed to me most Michael. They said that I could work 20 hours a week and make $5,000 a month. And that meant if I only had to work 20 hours a week to make $5,000 a month, I’m financially free. In my mind…please understand, I’m 22, 23 years old making $6.50 an hour; $5,000 seemed like a goldmine. And I only had to work 20 hours a week to do it. That is what sold me on doing it. And number two was the chance to get out the brickyard and to be my own boss and run my own show and make residual, permanent income working 20 hours a week for $5,000 a month.

Michael: I bet you couldn’t sleep that night.

Brian: I was so excited; I couldn’t believe it. I went out over the next year and I personally sponsored 36 people—two down-line legs—that I had driven down about six levels deep. But more importantly, I was listening to the Worldwide Dream Builders tape. There’s a gentleman by the name Bill Britt. I think Bill Britt started the Worldwide Dream Builders Association. And anyway, it was like a tape of the week club and there were all these Amway, successful Amway people telling their story on these tapes and how they do the business, etc. And I would go to work with a tape player and a headphone and I would listen to those tapes over and over, all day long. I was getting sales training over and over, all day long. I was getting inspiration over and over, all day long. And it just made my days slide by. It was wonderful. You know, I never made a dime in the Amway and the key mistake I made is I didn’t sponsor people who were at my ambition level or above. I sponsored people who were easy to sponsor because they were so inspired by my enthusiasm that they just lined up. But they had no drive or ambition of their own. That was one of the principles of the training that they taught. Sponsor at your ambition level or above, which is really a brilliant concept when it comes to network marketing because if you’re sponsoring people as ambition as you are; well, if you’re ambitious then you know you’re going to have success. But more importantly, I thank God for Amway because I would not have started down this path of working for myself. I wouldn’t even have occurred to me that I could be a business owner. I didn’t picture me ever being a business owner at that age. I had no clue what I was doing. I was just having a family and paying the bills. I mean we were happy. I mean we were happy, we weren’t rolling in the dough, but we had a lot of joy in our little home; a lot of happy memories in my life comes from that time period. And I worked hard. I came home dripping wet with sweat ever day in my overalls. But, those are some of the really treasured memories. One thing, when I was working at the brickyard, a friend approached me—a different friend—and he said, hey Brian, you know what. I’ve been cleaning carpets. I got this carpet cleaning machine and people have been paying me to clean some carpets. Do you want to come out on some jobs? I’ll pay you $10 an hour. I was like, wow, okay. So, I went out on some jobs with him in the evening and did some carpet cleaning. He paid me $10 an hour. And we did that…it wasn’t very often, maybe a couple of times a month. We did that on and off for like six months. Then six months into it he goes hey Brian, you know, I’ve got these office building that I’m cleaning these carpets for, but they also asked me if I could like empty the trash and clean off the desks and vacuum and things like that. So, we started up a little janitorial service. We got too many people; too many clients, do you want to take over…I’ll pay you $12 an hour to go at night and clean this place and that place. I was like yes I’ll do that. And so, I went and he trained me and showed me what to do with this office and don’t do this at that office. It’s just whatever the people wanted is what we did. And they were pretty big buildings. None of them were just little onesy, twosy; like an accountant’s office or something like that. And I got thinking about it and I thought…well, I didn’t consciously think this, but I had all this sales training from Amway. I thought about it and thought I bet I could go out and bet you anything I could get some of these deals for myself. And so, I asked my buddy if it was all right with him and he’s like, yes, sure, go for it. So, I did. I took one of the busiest streets in Salt Lake Valley. And I’m so proud of this Michael. I’ve got to…I am so proud of this. I had some business cards. I printed up 1,000 business cards for $15, Voiles Cleaning Service, it said on there. Put my wife’s name on there and put my name on there. And I went to 33rd South and 3rd West. I went all the way up to 23rd East. Now, we’re talking probably five miles, maybe eight miles. I walked on the north side of 33rd South and I knocked on every stinking door there was to knock on. Went in, suit and tie, introduced myself and said, who is in charge of your janitorial service? And I tell you; I went up the north side, crossed the street, after eight miles of door knocking, went down the south side, eight miles of door knocking. It took me about three and a half weeks to do this, and by the time I was done, I had $3,200 worth of janitorial services; little teeny offices that all the big companies wouldn’t even touch. Little teeny offices that were happy to pay me, oh yes, we need it so bad. The bathroom and we hate taking out the garbage and everything. I had $3,200 and they were all like little $60 a month deals.

Michael: That was $3,200 a month.

Brian: Yes, and my biggest job was $120 a month. Man, I couldn’t believe I had landed a $120 a month job.

Michael: That’s great, and it’s a residual, too.

Brian: Yes, and most of them were once a week. And so, I said well, do you mind if I come on a Tuesday night instead of on the weekend? And what I did is I got them all…they were all happy just to have me come. I had my whole week divided up. And what I did is I got up at 4:30-5:00 in the morning and I would go and I would clean the offices for that day and I was home by seven in time to help with breakfast and getting the kids off to school. So, I was working two and a half, maybe three hours every early morning doing janitorial. And I came home. And you know what, I was free the rest of the day.

Michael: That’s great.

Brian: Yes. Oh part of the story was, I got laid off. I got laid off about four months after I started this janitorial thing.

Michael: From the brick place?

Brian: Yes, the brick place had laid me off and they offered me the job back later, but I said no thank you. So anyway, they were really great. They paid their unemployment and they were a good company.

Michael: Do a comparison; the brick laying with your hard labor; how much were making a month and then let’s compare it to what you had going with your own business.

Brian: Oh, I was really happy to make $2,000 or $2,200 month in brick laying.
Michael: And that was from what time to what time?

Brian: I started at seven, so I had to leave at 6:30 and the work ended at 3:30.

Michael: And then the janitorial work, you were doing two and half hours in the morning…

Brian: Yes.

Michael: …and you were making around $3,200 a month?

Brian: Yes. Well now, on the weekends, I would have to put in a good three hours, maybe four—just on Saturday. I never worked Sunday.

Michael: And you got that all from hustling?

Brian: Yes. It was just a no brainer. When I look at it now, I just think well anybody can do that. Just pick a busy street and look for these little businesses that the big boys aren’t even going to go after. Don’t worry about window cleaning. I just did the basic stuff people didn’t want to do. They didn’t want to take out the garbage. They didn’t want to clean the toilet. They didn’t want to scrub the bathroom floor. They didn’t want to vacuum. They didn’t want to dust. And you know what, that’s all I ever did—common, ordinary housekeeping stuff that took no specialized training whatsoever. It was just no brainer stuff. Guess what…people don’t want to do it.

Michael: So, how long did you do the janitorial stuff?

Brian: I did that for…I was still doing it when I started my copywriting. What I realized after doing the janitorial for a month or two, I’ve got the rest of the day and I can’t handle any more janitorial work unless I want to start getting into employees and stuff like that. That was something in Amway that they shunned because they tell you; you don’t need employees. You don’t want employees because then you become a salve to the business. And so, that was something I knew I wanted to stay away from. So, I thought, okay we’re clipping along here pretty good. I got the trailer paid off. Bought a new car for my wife. A Honda Accel. It really was the nicest car I had ever owned. And I thought, well okay what am I going to do. And my wife one day said, well didn’t you make money with your magic before doing magic shows? I said well yes, I did five or six shows and made some money. She says, well why don’t you do that during the day. I’m like who is going to hire a magician during the day. And then it occurred to me that the elementary schools would. So, I just wasn’t afraid to get on the phone, Michael, because I did it with Amway. And I just got on the phone and I started calling daycare centers. I started calling, actually the elementary schools. I dressed up in a suit and a tie and I went to every elementary school in the Salt Lake Valley. Something…any professional magician would be either too elitist about…too good to do, or they’re just too freaking lazy, which most people are. I went to every school. And by the time I was done, I had gone to like 40 schools and out of 40 schools, I had booked like 18 shows. Admittedly, I wasn’t charging much because I didn’t know what to charge. I’d charge $50 for most of them and then later on as I was seeing success, maybe I should charge more. And it wasn’t a matter of market thinking. I wasn’t thinking about the market or marketing at all. I was just thinking well maybe I could get more money. I wasn’t thinking what the demand was or what the competition was charging. It was just a matter of hey maybe I could get more. So I just decided…I charged a few of those $85. I thought, man I’m making…I’m going to go to the school, I’m going to spend a half hour; I’m going to get $50 or $85. Do you know how much that is an hour? Holy crap, that’s $170 and hour. I was so excited I couldn’t stand it.

Michael: That’s great. And had you practiced magic when you were younger?

Brian: Oh yes. I friend gave me a magic kit when I was ten and from that point on, man, I was just hooked on magic; still am to this day. I don’t do shows anymore. When I speak at a seminar, I almost always do magic, but I’ll still buy the latest videos and some of the newest tricks and things like that. It’s just that addiction. Where I’m leading, though, is the magic is ultimately—I mean Amway was the paradox shift for me. It just changed everything from having a job to just—I had this programmed drive to be self-employed and that was the crux of everything that guided me to where I am. And then magic is what turned me on to marketing because I just wanted to succeed at it. And I thought how can I get more business? I just need more business. Again, I wasn’t afraid to get on the phone, but I was getting too many shows that was taking up phone time. So, I couldn’t be on the phone because you could only phone during certain hours. And if I’m not doing shows during those hours, guess what…can’t be on the phone generating business. So, I thought maybe I’ll advertise. Well, actually what made me think of that was from the pre-school shows I was getting birthday parties. Mom’s would call and say hi, my son saw you today and he just loved you. He said you were hilarious and do you do birthday parties? And, of course, I wasn’t going to say no, even though I’d never done one. And so, I said sure, I can do birthday parties. So, that’s what got me thinking well gee maybe there are other people out there that would like to have magician at their birthday. See, I’d never even heard of that. I’d never even heard of that…of having a magic show at your birthday party. I was really naïve about life in general. So anyway, I thought well maybe I’ll advertise, but where can I advertise for pre-schools. There’s nowhere. I can’t advertise for elementary schools. I don’t know what to do. And I thought, well I’ll just advertise for birthday parties. This is really the key turning point for me. There’s an advertising newspaper here in town called The Mailbox Shopper—really nice. It’s a good publication. People do get results from it now. It was a lot younger when I looked at it, but anyway, I had the guy come out—the owner—and he was selling me on this ad. And I said, well okay, I’ll think about it. But you know, I don’t know what to say in my ad. And he goes here’s some examples. And he shows me what everyone else is doing; here’s the name of the restaurant and they’ve got a little coupon here, buy one get one half off and their address and their phone number. So, I just thought, okay well I’ll do an ad that says magic shows. Put my phone number in there. Well, ultimately, I spent hours on this ad and I was so confused about what to do, what to do. I went to the Yellow Pages and looked at all the ads in there. And I looked at all the ads in all Mailbox Shoppers I could get my hands on. I even called several of the advertisers in Mailbox Shopper; hey does this thing work for you. Well, you know, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. That was just such a confusing deal for me. Ultimately, I decided not to do, but then the guy said, well how about this, how about if I let run this ad for half off and you come and do a magic show for my church. I was like okay, wow, there’s a deal. And so I did it. I did get two birthday parties out of the ad.

Michael: Do you remember how much the ad was for?

Brian: It couldn’t have been more than $100 because I was a tightwad. I wouldn’t have spent more than $100 on it. That’s two whole magic shows. That was my mindset at the time. I got two parties out of it, but I thought about it. Now, this is the one brilliant thing I did. I thought, now wait a minute, I spent $225 on this ad and I only got two birthday parties. Wow…that wasn’t a very good deal even though I had paid for half of my ad with a magic show. It still wasn’t a very good deal. That’s how I looked at it. I didn’t say I didn’t break even. And so, I just didn’t know what to do. Now, here’s what happened. This is fun to even think about for me. My wife and I did this chain letter thing. You’ve probably seen it—$90,000 in 90 days. We decided, oh let’s just give this a try. And so we rented a mailing list of opportunity seekers for $15 for a thousand. So, we mailed out all these chain letters and, of course, it was just dismal what happened. But what it did is it got my name on same mailing lists. I’ll be ever grateful for that doggoned chain letter. So, here comes this newsprint magazine chucked full of…

Michael: Money making opportunities?

Brian: And I was paging through that sucker. I saw an ad and it said, make more money in your business. Learn how to advertise and get results. Learn how to mail and get results. I was just blown away. I spoke to me, Michael, it really did. And it was an ad by Jeffrey Lant for his Money Making Marketing book.

Michael: Wow.

Brian: And right underneath it was an ad that spoke to me just as well for his Cash Copy book, and if you buy them both together, you save $10. So, I bit the bullet and I told my wife, I said honey—I went to her with everything, she controlled the money—and I said I have got to get these. I really think I can do something with my magic business if I get these books. So, we did; we got them. And I did not put those books down except to go do a magic show and go do my cleaning route. And I studied them. I devoured them. I took notes. I mapped out a marketing plan. I didn’t even know about direct mail—oh wow what a cool idea—except for our chain letters. I was oh that’s a neat…I could do a postcard. Oh that’s cool. I should just send a postcard instead of knocking on all these doors or phoning all these places. I could mail them a letter. Wow, what a concept. But for me, this was amazing. And those books really are good. They’re two of his finer work and the other books, I really love his How To Make A Million Dollars Publishing, Commissioning, and Writing How To Information. That’s the best, in my opinion, step by step how to create an information product book on the planet. In fact, I’ve got a funny little side story. I had bought…well this was a few years later…but I had bought Ted Nicholas’ how to publish how to book. I don’t remember what he called it.

Michael: How To Publish A Book and Sell A Million Copies?

Brian: Yes, that was it. I had bought that and it was expensive and love Ted. This is before I’d gotten to know him. But it was just terrible compared to Jeffrey Lant’s book. Jeffrey Lant was so precise and detailed in every little step. And I actually wrote…I sent Ted’s product back, and I actually wrote him a letter that said; hey I’m sorry I had to ask for a refund. But this just isn’t really very good. I don’t know if you know about this work by Jeffrey Lant, but it’s called How To Make A…blah, blah, blah. I said you really ought to check it out because it’s a lot better than yours.

Michael: That’s hilarious.

Brian: I said that to Ted Nicholas. Well, anyway, I mean really, Michael, I hardly slept for two weeks, and those books are thick. They are copy dense and they took a while to read and understand. I ended up buying every single thing I could from that guy.

Michael: That’s exactly what you needed. You had the answers in front of you in those books for your magic business. And did you start applying them to your magic business?

Brian: Oh, did I ever. One thing led to another. I got introduced to this guy—I don’t even remember how I found this…it must have been on some magic list and they rented my name or something. There’s a gentleman by the name of Brian Flora in Albuquerque, New Mexico and he has since passed away. Bless his heart. He had his second heart attack. He was pretty young. He put on this annual conference for magicians on how to market your business. And somehow I got an invitation to it. I was just bouncing off the walls with excitement to go. Before that, I had already been having success from using the Jeffrey Lant stuff. And what I was doing, I was just mailing elementary schools and the pre-schools. And I was having really good success with it. I believe in gifts, but I hate to call anything that I do a gift because I have worked hard to master everything I have mastered. But I do think there was piece of me that was to be a writer. I wrote stories as a little boy. I wrote stories about the Cherry family—I called them. And I had poems and things. My grandmother was a writer and she was a copywriter, too. She wrote radio commercials. Iva Simpson is her name and she…believe it or not Michael; this is so cool to tell. She was the lady that came up with word scrump-dilly-icious for Dairy Queen.

Michael: She was writing radio commercials during what year? Back in the 30s or 20s?

Brian: Oh yes, 30s and 40s, probably into the 50s.

Michael: Where was she living?

Brian: Back woods Oklahoma, Miami, Oklahoma.

Michael: That’s interesting. I had a guy on my list who just sent me…he was so gracious for all the audio recordings I had on my site…and he just sent me the CD of all these old radio commercials from the 1920s and 1930s.

Brian: No way.

Michael: I swear. Just last week and I’m going to put them all up on my www.hardtofindads.com site. They’re public domain. And you’ve got Puff Grain and Wheatberry; the same concept that Claude Hopkins wrote. And I was reading some research in a book called, Taken At The Flood. It’s the story of Albert Lasker with Lord & Thomas. That’s who Claude Hopkins worked for. And Albert Lasker…he wasn’t real sold on radio until he was introduced to it by a friend of his, and he saw Pepsodent sales, which was one of their accounts triple by sponsoring it with some of the soap operas that they had on the early radio stations. And he ended up owning and bought almost 30% of all the radio during that time. Lord & Thomas was one of the largest advertising agencies next to Jay Walter Thompson. They had Quaker Oats. They had…I’d have to look at this list, which are some of the companies Hopkins developed when he was working with Lord & Thomas. And some of these radio commercials match the same written campaigns that Hopkins established when he was working for Lord & Thomas. It’s fascinating. And to listen…

Brian: Yes, it is fascinating.

Michael: They’re all going to be up on that www.hardtofindads.com site for everyone to listen to. You’re so creative. I think your child-like and you’ve got that great imagination. The imagination is a gift.

Brian: Well, I work hard at it.

Michael: But you know how to channel it. You know what to do with it. Let’s continue.

Brian: All right. So, I was mailing these letters. I was getting good results, and I didn’t look at it in terms of percentages or anything. I just knew that if mailed out 100 letters to 100 different pre-schools that I was going to book 15 or 16 shows. That’s the only way I looked at it. Some of this just occurred to me logically, you know what, I mailed them a month ago, but they didn’t call me back. I think I’ll just send them another letter and say hey what’s the deal. I didn’t hear back from you. I’ve got a spring special going on. And I thought you guys would jump all over this, but you didn’t. And you really ought to take advantage of it. Look at some of the quotes I got from some of these other pre-schools.

Michael: And so, what happened when you mailed them again?

Brian: On any mailing that I would do again, I’d get another 10 shows like that. It was just…well, part of it was naturally, but then there was the lesson I learned from Jeffrey Lant was you’ve got to follow up seven times with these people; seven times is ideal. I didn’t just naturally occur to me, but the way I thought about it wasn’t from a marketing point of view other than seven times. All I knew is I’ve got to contact them at least seven times before I take them off the list.

Michael: Did you do all seven?

Brian: Oh yes. I mailed them seven times.

Michael: So, give me an idea. The first maybe pull in how many shows, second time, third time, fourth time, fifth time, sixth time…just to give me an idea from your experience just for the magic shows?

Brian: Well, the magic business is a wonderful thing because if a pre-school likes you, they’ve had you and they like you and they get a letter in the mail two months later…guess what…they’ll just call you and book you again because they have bad magicians come in—oh gee that was horrible. And they’re hesitant to hire another magician. But then once they saw me, they’re like oh that was awesome, that was great. And they were happy to have me back, but I needed to contact them. Sometimes they would call me and say yes, we have this special fair going on. Do you want to come and put on a show? But very rarely would people just call out of the blue in the beginning and schedule a show. I just did what Jeffrey Lant said. I just did it. I put it into action. And then anyway, I had this other magician friend in Atlanta that I had met. His name is John Cooper. He told me about this idea…well, actually before that, I’m giving you all the scoop. I’m just filling you in on all the details. Somehow I had met John when he was in Atlanta and he was a children’s entertainer and magician, too. And he said you know, Brian, I’ve been thinking about starting a fan club. I’m like oh come on, John. Fan clubs are for TV stars and fan clubs are for rock stars. They’re not for magicians like mucked magicians like me and you. He said, oh no, I’m really thinking about doing it. And so, we both put our thinking caps together. Well anyway, he ended up coming out with a product called How To Build Your Birthday Business. And it was six months later and I heard about this product. And I said, now wait a minute. Is that the same John Cooper? And it was. What he had done, he had come up with this idea of doing a fan club and he started selling it to other magicians. And I’m sure it wasn’t much of an income stream for him at the time. So, I called him up and said, hey dude, you’re doing that fan club thing and you’re selling it. And he’s like, yes, let me send you one over. And this was just beautiful. What I learned from John was to give away a color sheet at every magic show to every kid gets a coloring sheet. And it’s a picture of the magician and his bunny or whatever it is. But they get to color it, right. And on the bottom, John said put your phone number and offer them a free magic trick and you can just photocopy these little magic tricks that they could make out of paper somehow. And they’ll call you and they’ll sign up for the free magic club. And when they call, you’ve got to get their name and address; you might as well get the birthday. And the parents will call and they’ll sign them up and the kids will be excited about it. They want to get the magic trick. So, I thought about it and I thought, well I don’ know if that would work or not, but maybe I’ll try it. Well, in the meantime, I had gone over to friend’s house. She’d asked me hey will you come over Brian and make some balloon animals. My nephews and nieces are in from out of town. And it would just be fun. Well I go over there and start making balloon animals and she introduces me to her nieces and nephews and she says hey guys this is Uncle Brian. And they’re all like, Uncle Brian, hi Uncle Brian. Can you make me a sword? Can you make me a hat? Can you make me a puppy dog? And man it just knocked me on the floor. They kept saying this, Uncle Brian. And…

Michael: I remember this in your letters in your Advertising Magic.

Brian: And I became Uncle Brian that day. And it was a branding and I had a cartoonist put together a logo and a caricature of me. I became Uncle Brian. And that is when my magic business started to overtake—profit wise—the janitorial business. And I had a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law who would go out and do the cleaning for me on some of the bigger jobs and I would just keep the weekend routine. When I became Uncle Brian, I started using that. That was just magical. And what happened with the birthday fan club…here’s what happened. After I became Uncle Brian, I decided, you know what, I think I will do this fan club deal. But I’m not going to make them call me. I’m going to put a fan club application at the bottom of this coloring sheet. It’s a legal sized paper with cut-off application. And at the bottom of the coloring sheet portion, above the application, it said hey Mom or Dad, got a birthday party coming up for your son or daughter? Uncle Brian makes a great hassle free birthday party for you, and tons and tons for the kids.

Michael: That’s great.

Brian: Call today and gave my number. I was doing these pre-schools and elementary schools and I was giving out coloring sheets by the thousands. Every time I’d do an elementary school show, I’d get home and there would be six birthday party messages waiting.

Michael: Wow.

Brian: We’ve got a birthday party next weekend, can you make it, can you do it. And, of course, urgency creates demand, so I get to charge more. And anytime I do a pre-school show, I’d almost always get one birthday party from a pre-school show, too. Now, the other thing that happened is my mailbox got jammed with fan club applications. I started my own database, my own mailing list. I had the parents name, I had the kid’s names, I had their age, I had their birth date, and I would mail the hard hitting, but warm hard sell sales letter to the parent. And that letter was pulling right about 36%. I was mailing these out. I would even…this is so funny Michael, I even have kids send me their coloring sheets that they colored, write a note on the back…Uncle Brian you’re so funny. Oh and I’d even…and this was classic…I even had this little girl call me the week before Thanksgiving…Uncle Brian are you coming to Thanksgiving dinner? Can you believe that?

Michael: Yes, I believe it.

Brian: They loved me. It was good. I mean I really, really was. You have to be good to get that kind of passionate response from the kids.

Michael: That’s great. I bet you were having a great time with it.

Brian: I really was. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work. On Saturdays, I was doing 14 to 20 birthday parties all day and I was driving 90 miles an hour on the freeway to get around the Valley to these shows. Then I had this restaurant gig on the weekend where I’d go and I’d do magic at the tables. Patrons would get me corporate shows. I started selling myself as a trade show magician. And I had to do that by phone because I couldn’t figure out a way to do that…

Michael: Good money in that?

Brian: Oh yes. I did really good. I did probably 20 trade shows over two years. And I was getting at least $1,000 a day and each show is about…it was two to three days. So, those were God sent for my family.

Michael: So, you were always looking for bigger and better and more?

Brian: Yes. But I had to keep the elementary schools going because that’s how I got the message out. You’d pass out a thousand coloring sheets at a single show. What a great opportunity for marketing. But it’s disguised as a free coloring sheet. Plus the free gift, the $10 value when you sign up for the fan club. So, there was lots of incentive there. So anyway, somehow, I found out about this marketing seminar for magicians. So, I spend $395, which was a lot of money for me to spend, and I took a plane down to Albuquerque. And I want to tell you this because this is the turning point from brick stacking to janitorial to magic, and now we’re going into copywriting. And I was at the seminar and I had brought my birthday letters and my school letters. And the school letters had consistently pulled 15-20% return. Like I said, for every 100 letters I’d mail, I’d get 15 shows at least. And I brought the birthday party letters that were just blowing the doors off. I was booking so many birthday parties with that letter. I’d send it out about three weeks before the child’s birthday for the birthdays of April, or what have you, and man that was just phenomenal results. So, I took these letters down, and we’re talking, we’re talking. You’ve got to understand, I was like the class clown of the seminar. And I just loved it. It just all clicked. It went really well.

Michael: How many people were down there?

Brian: There were probably about 50, but some of them were couples.

Michael: How old were you now? Do you remember that?

Brian: I was about 28 or 29. At first I sat at the very front row, very center. I’m here to learn. And I started to realize that except for the guys that were explaining well here’s what I did to get business and here’s how it works and blah, blah, blah; I pretty much knew more than these people—other than Brian. I’m sure Brian Flora knew a lot more. He was brilliant, but anyway, I was way up front. Well anyway, I ended up in the back row making wise cracks, right. And I’ll never forget this and this is why it’s so…I just want to explain the details. We had an aisle down the center and to the left and right of this aisle were tables with about four chairs, five chairs per table. And I was sitting in the back on the inside chair to the right of the aisle; see a clear view of the speaker. There was another gentleman sitting in the front row on the opposite side of the aisle on the inside, just as I was—just the exact opposite. Now, this guy we all had a lot of respect for. His name, I think it was Thomas Alexander. This guy was well connected. We all knew it. We could all sense it. He lived in Hollywood. He knew Gene Roddenberry. In fact, he wrote Gene Roddenberry’s biography.

Michael: Who is Gene Roddenberry?

Brian: Oh he’s the guy that created Star Trek.

Michael: Okay.

Brian: So, we were like wow, this is the guy. This guy knows stuff. He knows people. He’s amazing. We just held him in this high esteem as a group. Well anyway, I shared these letters. Mr. Flora was talking about copywriting and I just raised my hand and said, you know what, I’ve got something here that I’d like to share with the group. And I held up my letters. And he goes, yes go ahead, Brian. And I held up these letters and I explained to them what was going on, you know, I was pulling 36% response, 15-20% response. And there was this silence because I said is that pretty good? And their jaws were just on the floor. And Brian goes, hell yeah, and everybody just erupted with laughter and cheering. There was like. You’ve got to be kidding me. I was just excited. Anyway, this Gene Roddenberry dude, right, forgot his name, I think it’s Thomas Alexander. Finally after all had kind of settled down and everybody’s like can we get copies of those and blah, blah, blah, and all that. We were all sitting back down. He looks straight back down the row at me and I could see this as plain as day and he says, well get out of the magic business and get into the copywriting business. There’s a hell of a lot more money you could make. And everybody laughed and laughed and laughed. And I didn’t laugh. I just went what…what are they talking about. So, I talked to him and he explained it. Yes, people will pay you to write their radio ads and their TV and well, obviously, you’re good at letters. People pay a fortune for you to write a letter for them. And so, my eyes lit up, and that’s the point that I really decided, okay I’m going to start selling this copywriting stuff.

Michael: What was the first thing you did when you got back?

Brian: I thought about it. I went through the Money Making Marking book from a copywriter’s point of view instead of a magician’s point of view. And I tried to make a plan. I tried to come up with who is going to hire me. And it was tough. It wasn’t as easy as magic. I just couldn’t see. And I thought well maybe with ad agencies at first. They don’t want my kind of copy. It ended up being a really, really tough way to go. An interesting thing happened. It was November ’91, I went to that seminar. And so I struggled to build a copywriting business on the side. By the time the next November rolled around, it was time for another seminar, which I did go to. I was doing okay. I was a copywriter. I probably brought in $800 a month more, but I was still doing magic shows. Let me backup two months—September I did a card deck card in one of Jeffrey Lant’s card decks. Now card decks were getting kind of stale at that point, but I thought—I didn’t know that first of all—but second of all, I thought what the heck. It’s going to business people.

Michael: And this is a card deck that Jeffrey Lant put together?
Brian: Yes. And I actually did a few other card decks, too. I did like two other ones. And had I done it a year earlier, I think it would have been wildly successful, but by then, card decks were just over used and people just didn’t have any attraction to them anymore. You used to find really killer ideas and deals in a card deck. Anyway, it got me some leads and it did close me some deals. On the cards—as a side note—I just put learn the ten most common marketing mistakes and how you can avoid them. I kind of touted myself as a copywriter/marketing expert, and the secrets we’ll share with you. And it did.

Michael: Had you heard of Abraham by that time?

Brian: Yes I had actually. Well, that was the other thing. At the seminar, I met a gentleman by the name of Millard Grub.

Michael: Oh yes. I know Millard.

Brian: And he introduced me to Jay. He was hesitant to, but he introduced me to Gary Halbert.

Michael: Was he a magician at that time? Was he doing magic?

Brian: I think he was a hypnotist. But he was at the seminar.

Michael: So, that’s where you first learned about Halbert and Abraham?

Brian: Yes.

Michael: At that seminar?

Brian: Well, it was from meeting Millard at the seminar.

Michael: Did you buy any of their stuff?

Brian: I bought everything.

Michael: So, you got all of Jay Abraham’s stuff?

Brian: I became a lifetime subscriber to Gary Halbert based on what Millard told me. I’ll never forget. He was just dying with excitement. He says, Brian, I’m not going to tell you this guy’s name, but every month his letter comes in my mailbox and I just fall all over myself to get to the mailbox and rip that thing open. And I just devour it from the moment I get it. This guy is a genius. And so I said sign me up. What was it…I think $2,400 on a credit card just to be part of that. Yes, so I kind of got introduced to that and I did the card deck. I had some copy business and I went to the next magic seminar and we had a good time. But by the time January had rolled around, the magic business had just fallen off. I don’t know why. I was mailing the same mailers, but it was just fading off and the copy business was magically picking up. Now, please understand, I was doing $350 copy job, $500. The most I had ever gotten was $850 for like a six-page sales letter.

Michael: Tell me a couple of them that stick out in your mind? The products or some of the jobs you were doing in the real early days.

Brian: One of them was for Joe Castro. I think it was InfoLink and it was long distance service. And that letter kicked butt. I wish that I could find it, but I can’t. He did incredible with that. And then there was a David Saunders who hired me to sell this software bundle. And I used the opening…I’m going to give you two pieces of software as a shameless bribe. Now, these aren’t pieces of junk software, blah, blah, blah. But I just want to give them to you as your gift for trying…and I think it was called Auto Map software. And it was a penny letter and it did great.

Michael: It sounds like a Halbert letter.

Brian: I copied it almost word for word on the intro.

Michael: So, you were devouring Halbert stuff and using some of the copy stuff that you were learning from him.

Brian: Yes.

Michael: They attached a penny to it?

Brian: Yes. They put a penny on it and everything. We decided to mail it in a window…the name showing through. And we thought between the window looking, it’s going to go in the “A” pile more than likely. It’s got a window and they feel the penny…they got to be really curious about this. So, and it worked like crazy. It worked like gangbusters.

Michael: Now, at this time in your copywriting career, you were just getting money up front. You had no idea about a backend or a residual or a piece of the action on any of that?

Brian: Well, I had heard it from Jay, but I didn’t see how to implement it. It wasn’t a concept that I understood. I didn’t get it. So, really if you look in the dedication in Ad Magic, Millard’s names is like right there up front because—only after my family—because really I wouldn’t be anywhere if it weren’t for Millard. He’s a wonderful, wonderful guy, too, on top of that—just a real blessing in my life. Well anyway, I was getting some copy business and the magic business had just shutoff like a faucet almost. It blew my mind.

Michael: What was it, the economy?

Brian: Yes, I can only assume that that’s what it was. But here’s what happened. I was still doing shows, magic show, but I was getting…probably most of my money was coming from these small little copy jobs. I became a copywriter in the Jeffrey Lant copywriting service thing that he offered for a while. I was getting a few small jobs from there. About that time, I decided I needed to get some new glasses because I had this spot on my eye. It’s kind of weird. It’s was like there was a booger on my eye and I couldn’t get it off…wipe it off…but I could see it and it was just weird. And it got to the point where if I was standing two or three feet of somebody, looking face on, having a conversation with them, the left side of their face would become invisible. I could see through it. It was really weird. So, I thought, man, I need some glasses. So, I went into the eye doctor and he checked my eyes. He gave me a new prescription. Just as I was walking out this little dark room they have, I said by the way, I got this little thing going on here. It’s like I got a booger on my eye and I can’t get rid of it. And he’s like oh really. Let’s have a look. So, he looks a little closer. He doesn’t see anything. He says, you know Brian; you ought to have that checked out. I’m going to schedule you an appointment at…oh what’s a medical eye doctor?

Michael: Ophthalmologist?

Brian: Yes, thank you. I couldn’t think of the word. So, he schedules me an appointment. So, I go over there and they do all these tests on my eyes, and they blow air in them and they shoot lasers and they test my peripheral vision; all these tests and stuff. They shoot this dye in my blood. Anyway, it was really weird. Finally, I came back three days later to meet with the doctor to see what his findings were. And he goes, well there’s nothing wrong with your eye, nothing at all. You have really good eyes, actually. I said well what’s going on then? He goes; well we’re really not sure. We’re probably going to have you take an MRI. I said, well what’s that? And he explained it to me. I said okay. I didn’t ask why. So, he goes, we’ll let you know. We’ll call you and let you know when that’s going to be. So, as I’m walking out his door and I start walking down the long hallway, he peeks his head of out the office and he said, oh by the way, most of the time when we see this, it’s a brain tumor.

Michael: Wow.

Brian: And he jumps back in his office.

Michael: Oh my God.

Brian: Thanks buddy. What a tactful way to deal with that.

Michael: So, you were pretty freaked out?

Brian: I was like, what? Okay, I don’t have a brain tumor. There’s something wrong with my eye, buddy. I didn’t say that to him, but that’s what I was thinking to myself. So, I went home and sure enough, I had an MRI done and they actually had me drive the pictures from the MRI up to the brain surgeon and have him look at them. They felt that it was that urgent. And as I was driving, I looked at the picture and said I wonder what that big old white thing is. And I could see it. It really didn’t occur to me that that was the tumor. But sure enough, I had a brain tumor the size of a softball in the middle of my head. And it had started to push on the optic nerve. They just said I had to have surgery immediately. And I did. That was rough, I tell you. I ended up canceling three or four dozen shows just to get through all that. And that’s not something you want to do when you’re self-employed, cancel business.

Michael: Absolutely not. Did you have insurance at that time?

Brian: I did, but they fought tooth and nail because I had just barely gotten it four months earlier.

Michael: Did the insurance cover most of it?

Brian: Actually, they hardly covered anything. They covered about 10% of the bill and I ended up having to pay…well, it was over $100,000; let’s put it that way. I was in the hospital for three weeks, 18 hours of surgery, and they said I actually died once. So, I have no recollection of it. I gained 120 pounds in the hospital.

Michael: Wow.

Brian: It was because the doctors had damaged the pituitary gland while removing what tumor they could. They got about 60% of the tumor. Overall, it was just a horrible experience to go through.

Michael: I’m sure.

Brian: What it did…to apply it to copywriting, it made me extremely empathetic for others. Michael, if I had to sum in a nutshell what’s unique about Brian and in my copywriting is this deep compassionate empathy that’s truly heart felt for other people. And I think that’s what I took away from the brain tumor experience. I mean I had on a certain level, a notoriety before the brain tumor, but I just think I gained so much depth and breadth, virtually, from going through that experience. At least that’s what I thought at the time. And looking back on it, I see that it