Chapter 10: The Highest Paid Copywriter

I’m not sure I believe that Gary Halbert is, or was, the highest paid copywriter in history. To me, it sounds like a story, and a damn good one at that. And probably a story with a bit of self-propulsion behind it. But all thought leaders are great storytellers, starting 2,500 years ago with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aspasia. And it was Gary Halbert who wrote, “Don’t you know what is the most-often missing ingredient in a sales message? Storytelling…good storytelling… is a vital component of a marketing campaign.”

Chapter 10 is all about the great storytellers, which is a pre-requisite to being a thought leader. But it’s not as simple as your crazy uncle, exiled to the attic, only to be paroled for a few moments to tell a compelling story, even if it’s the same story he’s told each year until his probation is revoked.

There’s a lot of neuroscience behind why storytelling is so effective in sales and marketing, and it’s imperative that we all understand it. I explain it to you, not as a lullaby, but as a tune that makes people buy, and that my friends, is definitely not pie-in-the sky, it’s the thought leaders battle-cry.