So this past weekend I was at a conference called “Titans of Direct Response.”
As you may know, the copywriting industry had some of it’s infancy in the the direct-mail industry.
Back in the days before the el interneto, people would send physical mail. So it was hella expensive to reach a large audience.
So if you wanted to broadcast your message to a large audience in the 1900’s, you could either:
- Advertise on the TV.
- Advertise on the radio.
- Advertise in magazines.
- Advertise through the mail.
There were a lot of advantages to selling through direct mail. For one you could TEST different advertising messages to smaller samples, like 1,000 people get mail with pictures, 1,000 people get mail without pictures, and then you can compare which set generated more sales.
The reason copywriters became so crucial back then, was it was EXPENSIVE AS HELL to test this stuff.
Not to mention back in the day it wasn’t so simple to get 1,000’s of letters printed up (today you can literally do it from a desktop printer and a laptop, but not back then).
So it may cost you $2,000+ to send out a single test to 1,000 people. Since so much money was on the line each time, it was crucial to have someone experienced in sales copy to be writing these letters so you could at least make your money back.
…..well the conference I went to this past weekend in Stamford, CT. had all the famous veterans from that industry.
What’s cool is those guys who cut their teeth on direct mail for years generally ALSO kill it when they move to the internet.
The one’s who’ve been around for a long time know that whether it’s direct mail, email, radio, or TV….it’s all about the human psychology behind the purchase. So they’re adaptable.
So some of the biggest guys in the industry were there including Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, and Joe Sugarman (I’ve read the books of every single one of these guys).
Price to get in: $3,500.
Chartered cars: $400
Hotel Room: $400
Flight: $500
Lessons Learned: Priceless.
Ripped-off joke from MasterCard: 100% :-P
NOW HERE’S NEVILLE’S PERSONAL THEORY ON GOING TO CONFERENCES:
You can pretty much watch ALL of the speakers I saw on YouTube for free. In fact you can probably get MORE information from each speaker for free on the internet.
So why go?
You don’t need to pay $5,000+ to read/listen/watch these guys speak from a stage. However it’s NEVER about watching the speakers on stage that makes a conference worth it.
It’s about the friends you make at the conference.
It’s about the small connections you make that might turn into something more.
It’s about the “oh yeah I know that guy” conversations you have after the conference.
It’s about getting to hang out with the bigshots in the room in a casual environment.
(And my number one….): It’s about taking hella notes in the conference and then getting to read them later!
I. Love. Taking. Notes.
Mainly because I suck at remembering things. Like, I really suck.
So taking notes is the only way I remember stuff.
In a month I’ll look back at my notes and allllll the information will come flooding back. But without the notes my memory is probably 98% erased from the conference.
So my notes are the most prized possession I have from the conference. What’s funny is that MY notes may not actually mean much to YOU. But to me they resonate.
So I’d like to share my notes right here. Who knows, maybe you’ll get something out of them.
.zip download of 26 jpg images
-or-
.pdf download
Download the Transcribed notes if you can’t read my handwriting:
.pdf download
Word download
(Special thanks to David Lowry at kickball.com for getting these transcribed)!
So obviously one of the main reasons to attend a conference is to mingle with other like-minded nerds. My friend Ryan did something cool whilst at the Titans of Direct Response conference:
He hosted a fancy dinner at The Capital Grille for 30 people.
He took care of the entire bill, and kind of “moderated” the dinner by assigning seats with people he thought would be good to meet each other. He also made everyone go around the room and take 30 seconds to introduce themselves, and tell people what help they need.
I thought this would be super-annoying but it actually turned out to be pretty cool. You got to hear a brief blurb about everyone’s companies, and they get to pose one question they need help with.
Often it was something like “We need help finding more people who do Google AdWords.” Almost immediately several people would chime in saying, “Hey I know the right guy for you.”
Instant connections made!
The highlight was Jay Abraham was at the same restaurant having dinner with his family, and he stopped by to say a few words and even bought the entire group bottles of champagne!
Incidentally Jay Abraham was the author of one of my favorite business books ever (Ask Noah, I mention this book all the damn time). So I brought my well-used copy of the book along to the conference hoping Jay Abraham would sign it.
Success! Clearly excited for him to autograph my book:
An interesting side note about this little inscription. He wrote it with a regular pen on the inside cover whilst standing up. This means it was VERY difficult to write on since it isn’t a hardback cover.
And it took him quite a while to write out this inscription. Halfway through I told him, “You know…..I kind of just expected you to write “Jay” on the inside, you don’t have to write much more.”
He responded with something like: “You know, I could easily just write something short, but if I take 30 extra seconds to sign this properly, you’ll much more likely remember this forever.”
(that was paraphrased based off my poor memory).
It’s kind of cool that the most in-demand guy in the room was the one who took the MOST time.
Notice he even wrote out “Kopywriting career”!!!
Welp….that was my experience at Titans Of Direct response. If you have the patience to read through my poorly-scribbled 26 pages of notes, be my guest!
You can download the notes here:
.zip download of 26 jpg images
-or-
Download the Transcribed notes if you can’t read my handwriting:
.pdf download
Word download
(Special thanks to David Lowry at kickball.com for getting these transcribed)!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora – Future Titan