One Letter From Retirement is a home study course written by Steven Gregson and published by Streetwise Publications.
The course itself is a full comprehensive course on copywriting and writing sales letters used in direct response marketing. For those of you who do not know anything about copywriting, allow me to explain more and tell you how and why the title of the manual came about.
The name of the product, One Letter From Retirement, comes from the fact that a copywriter can write a sales letter which can generate tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pounds in sales over the course of its lifetime… sometimes even millions.
‘I am paid from $50,000.00 to $150,000.00 to as much as $2 million plus royalties for such a campaign…’
– Dan Kennedy, author of Renegade Millionaire
Many sales letters can generate tens of thousands over a few days. If the sales letter is good and is seen by the right people it will generate a lot of money in sales… and I do mean a lot.
Obviously, the sales letter has to be shown to the right audience. The product which the sales letter is promoting needs to be shown to the people who are interested in whatever the product is or whatever the product does.
But at the end of the day, it’s the sales letter which makes the sales.
It’s the sales letter which really makes the money.
It doesn’t matter how good a product is or how much the audience wants the product, without a good sales letter very few people will buy.
Copywriting is one of the most profitable forms of writing around. With many copywriters generating millions in sales for clients and for themselves. John Harrison of Streetwise Publications, the company which published the One Letter From Retirement home study course, is a copywriter in his own right and has said that one of his sales letters has generated around £5,000 per word.
That is per word!
One of his sales letters, which is reproduced word for word in the manual, has generated £5 Million pounds in sales over the years. That is just one sales letter… and it gets better… that one sales letter only took an afternoon to write.
‘The most successful letter I wrote…and one of the shortest at two pages of A4…has pulled in over £5 Million so far, and it’s still coming in. I wrote that one way back in 1998 – in an afternoon!’ – John Harrison, Streetwise Publications
This is what I love about copywriting. Anyone can do it. There is no big skill involved. You do not need to be born a natural copywriter. Everything can be learned. And everything you need to learn is in this manual.
You certainly do not need to be a writer. If you left school without any grades in writing then you would be perfect for this as you DO NOT need to be a wordsmith. You do not need to know how to write a bestselling novel.
If you are a brilliant wordsmith, a crafter of pros and fiction, and write like a professor of literature then you may struggle because copywriting often needs to connect with the general public. It must appeal to Mr and Mrs average and so it should be written in basic, easy to understand conversational language.
Steven Gregson insists that you use the K.I.S.S approach when it comes to writing a sales letter, it is one of his important 12 elements to writing profitable sales letters. More about this shortly…
To earn a lot of money as a copywriter, all you need to do is write using a specific formula incorporating 12 important elements and have a basic understanding of buying psychology.
As well as the 12 elements to a successful sales letter, Steven Gregson lists his 18 sure-fire steps to writing a powerful sales letter which guarantees your sales letter makes sales.
He also lists his own 5 personal rules he follows when writing a sales letter such as never write sales copy when you are busy or when you are tired. Because whatever you write will be substandard and will probably never be used. You would have gained nothing and simply wasted your own time.
The technology that is used to deliver the sales letter and take payment has changed over the years but the reasons why people buy hasn’t changed at all over hundreds of years.
The copywriting formula has been used over a century and works just as well today as it ever has. Yes, some of the words which are used have changed but the formula is still the same.
Writing a sales letter with a headline which catches a person’s attention and then leading with a story is still being used today with good reason… it works.
As the popular sayings go… ‘why reinvent the wheel’, and ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
There is no need to change the formula. Simply learn it and write yourself a killer sales letter which can bring in tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds over time.
‘Coming right up to date, the most recent letter, which I wrote just last week, brought in over £40,000 in the first two days after being read by less than a thousand people. I fully expect that one to bring in over £1 Million over the next two or three years.’ – John Harrison, Streetwise Publications
One Letter From Retirement was written by Steven Gregson but there are a lot of sales letter examples from the Streetwise Publications archive included in the manua. There is a ton of gold in those pages. A lot of the sales letters and headlines which have been included have generated a lot of money for Streetwise.
There is a huge stack of examples which you can study to help you master the formula and write your own profitable sales letters.
There are basically two ways to profit from writing simple sales letters:
- Write them for your own products and services which you sell.
- Write for other people who have products they intend to sell.
When you write for other people you can charge between a couple of thousand and tens of thousands of pounds for a sales letter. Many of the top copywriters can charge upto £30,000 per sales letter.
‘Some of these copywriters earn fees and royalties of $25,000.00 to $100,000.00 per ad.’
– Dan Kennedy, author of Renegade Millionaire
Some copywriters like Dan Kennedy, have made hundreds of thousands and even millions from just one sales letter thanks to a percentage of sales agreement they have with the product owner.
They charge a fee which is a little lower than they would charge if it were to be a one off writing fee but this time they include a percentage of the overall sales. The royalties generated from the sales letter of one product can amount to millions over the years the product is for sale.
It also means that the copywriter is invested in the long term success of the product because if it sells well, they make more money.
They will actively change and test new copy to improve the sales.
Not every copywriter does that. But it is one method which helps to generate a lot more money from writing one sales letter.
Everything you need to know about writing the perfect profitable sales letter which can generate enough money to retire on is found in One Letter From Retirement by Steven Gregson.
Sell With A Story
Steven talks about why you must include a story in your sales letter. Story is incredibly important to have in a sales letter because it is incredibly powerful.
Having a good story helps to generate sales because it helps to paint a picture in a person’s mind. Humans are visual creatures and we use story to pass on information from person to person and generation to generation.
If your sales letter includes a true story, something which really happened, it can add proof to your product. That is incredibly powerful when it comes to making sales… maybe even more so than testimonials.
Testimonials are a great way of adding proof to your sales letters but some people believe that testimonials can be fabricated and so they distrust them.
Whereas a true story adds proof with a different dimension. A story is seen to be more fact than opinion, which is what testimonials often are.
A profitable sales letter should include the 12 important elements as laid out in One Letter From Retirement. Such as element nine, the K.I.S.S approach which states that you should:
- Use short words
- Use short sentences
- Use short paragraphs
Basically, when it comes to writing profitable sales copy, follow the motto ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’.
Do that and your sales letter has a winning chance of making a lot in sales.
As I mentioned earlier, the way people buy has changed but the reasons why people buy is still the same. In One Letter From Retirement there is a lot of talk of traditional sales letters and lift letters, this is because Steven Gregson made a lot of money from traditional direct response marketing where sales letters were sent through the mail.
Today, thanks to the internet, sales letters can be placed on single page websites and can be live online for years. Sales can be made 24/7/365 on autopilot. Everything which is taught in One Letter From Retirement is just as relevant today as it was in the good old glory days of direct response mailings.
It is exactly the same as it was then.
The great thing about One Letter From Retirement is the appendix of real word sales letters and headlines which have generated millions in sales over the years. The examples are examples reproduced with permission from Streetwise Publications of many of their most successful sales letters and headlines.
Why is this important?
Because you can read, breakdown and learn to understand what exactly makes a successful and profitable sales letter. By studying them, you will soon start to think and write like a copywriter. In no time you will be able to craft your very own successful and profitable sales letter.
You really will be only one letter from retirement.
If you would like to:
- See what a successful yet easy to write simple sales letter looks like…
&
- Learn more about Steven Gregson’s One Letter From Retirement sales letter masterclass…