John Carlton’s Best Ads: 20 Dollars From My Own Pocket

Bodybuilders are among the most insane people on the planet.

Two quick stories to prove it:  I once trained with Leo Costa, Jr. for a year in the gym.  He’s a brutal trainer, but he put 20 pounds of solid muscle on me, just like he promised.  However, I  knew I wasn’t  meant to be a hard-core bodybuilder when he forced me to leg-press 580 pounds one day.  That’s a lot of weight, in case you don’t know.   Much more than a guy my size should be able to handle.

 You have to imagine the scene:  There’s me, a none-too-big guy welded into the leg-press contraption with a scared look on his face… and there’s Leo, all 330 pounds of him, screaming encouragement and demanding I perform.  The entire gym grew silent, and people gathered around to watch.  I used every last drop of strength  — and six full minutes of grunting — to slam that pile of iron up one time.  It was a stunning achievement,  the main rumor in the gym for a month.

And I bled from the anus for a week afterward. That was the end of my bodybuilding career.  Leo was dumbfounded. He thought I was getting the hang of it.

Next story:  Tom  Platz (“Mr. Legs” to every bodybuilder who follows the professional side of the sport) is training in Gold’s Gym in Santa Monica.  He’s on a mission to get huge for a competition.  They call him “gonzo”, because he’s famous for doing literally ANYTHING to add another  inch of muscle to his bulging torso.  So… he’s experimenting  with ungodly amounts of weight on the same type of leg-press machine.

Here is how I remember him describing what happened next:  “So I’ve got every free weight in the room on the machine, plus a bench and several  barbells — everything I can find that weighs anything.  Gotta be close to a thousand  pounds on the rack.  And I’m doing sets of multiple repetitions.  My head is swelling with the strain.  Every fiber in my body is at max effort… and  suddenly, my brain seems  to explode with  the  most agonizing pain I’ve ever felt in my life.

I blacked out, and came to in a cold sweat, the leg press almost crushing my pelvis.  I was sure I was near death, having pushed my body beyond its outside limit.

So…I tried one more rep…“

That is gonzo  bodybuilding.  These guys are nuts.

They’re also wary of bullshit advertising.  The muscle magazines are full of dubious claims and junk to waste your money on.  Leo has earned the respect of millions of bodybuilders by being honest, challenging the status quo, and offering nothing but proven training tactics to a customer base starved for legitimate information.  He is his own “human laboratory” for training.  Nothing goes out that he can’t personally vouch for.

Even so, this is a market where money matters. A dedicated bodybuilder will spend every cent he has on something he believes will help him attain his goals.  And since serious training requires so much time, the average bodybuilder often struggles to earn what his peers are making.  Every penny counts (as it does in many markets).

So… the appeal in this letter of “giving you $20 from my own pocket” means something.   Here is a chance to see training secrets that everyone else will pay more for later on.  It puts you in a special group. It helps you feel privileged.  Part of an “insider” camp.

I am always astonished when businesses neglect to highlight their willingness to offer deals.  I have frequently  been shopping for stuff, and casually mentioned on leaving a store that I was heading for the competition to see what they were charging…only to be told, as an afterthought by the salesman, that they would match any price in town I found.

No mention of that in the advertising.  If I’d had a better head start toward the door, the salesman wouldn’t have been able to tell me that little fact.

Look–if you’re offering a deal, TELL ME!  Never assume your customer  has even a sliver of the knowledge you do about the market you’re in.  Too many businesses take for granted all the deals they’re willing to make…and forget completely that the customer is NOT part of their inner circle.  The average customer doesn’t have a clue what “everyone” in your market does.  He’s interested in buying from you right now… and tomorrow he will be onto another project altogether.

If you don’t tell him what he needs to know, he’ll never know it.

And he’ll buy from your competition.

This letter is all about credentializing.  The reader will soon be seeing this ad in. major magazines, for a higher price.  Here’s your chance to get it cheaper.  And don’t panic if the operator tells you it’s sold out.  We’ve set aside a package in your name…for a week.

Interested?  Better act fast.

Click here to see the “$20 From My Own Pocket” ad.

(It will open in a new window or tab, so you can toggle between the ad and Carlton’s commentary.)