Recession Beater #7: The Coming Business Opportunity Explosion
Almost everyone is interested in making more money.
If you can legitimately show others how to make more money, you’ll never want for money yourself.
This is especially so in recessionary times.
George Haylings slept in his car while pyramiding his classified advertising profits during the Great Depression.
Joe Karbo and Ernest Weckesser wrote breakthrough biz-op ads which ran in the Wall Street Journal at the height of the 1970’s recession. Such ads never appeared in The Journal before. Boardroom launched its business development classic, I-Power, during the recession of the early 90’s.
The last century saw two world wars, the Great Depression and a dozen or so recessions.
The power of direct response advertising makes itself felt all the more acutely during these “bad times” as it pushes the unaccountable, “feel good” ads off the page. To boot, the price of advertising drops like a lead weight allowing savvy marketers like the above to roll out with force.
This ad was written nearly 40 years ago by Eugene Schwartz. It has all the drivers, all the hot-buttons that would cause someone to respond to this offer today. This is one-of-ten idea generating templates in the biz-op area I’ve uncovered, that’s been written by Eugene Schwartz.
The product is a newsletter subscription from mail order magnate, Joe Cossman. This offer is a link in the chain of biz-op compendiums started by George Haylings during the Depression and later continued by Thomas Hall (87 Japanese Money Making Plans) and Ernest Weckesser’s Publication, Network.
The kind of “making money” or biz-op advertising we’re likely to see will target to a broader, more sophisticated swath of respondents than the typical “work-at-home” fare and have higher price points.
There’s also bountiful opportunity in direct mail to target high profile segments of recently unemployed workers in the financial industry. Direct marketing and Internet marketing are for the most part, “new” to them.
You can download the 354 KB PDF by right-clicking on the thumbnail above and choosing either ’save link as’ or ’save target as.’ The first page is marked up to draw attention to the important elements of the ad. The second is untouched.
Filed under Eugene Schwartz Copywriting Swipe File, Recession Beaters by 
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Comments on Recession Beater #7: The Coming Business Opportunity Explosion
Thanks.
I’ve been looking for something like this.
Much appreciated.
Excellent post. Please post some more Cossman.
Lawrence, your post today is, characteristically, a gem.
And enough of one to bring me out of hiding.
To date, my copywriting has focused on corporate America, mainly in Silicon Valley where I live. Right now, I’m helping prepare the #1 PC manufacturer’s messaging for their 09 desktop series. Before this, I was senior copywriter at eBay until the axe fell.
While this kind of writing can be rewarding work, it’s not the classic direct response which keeps me coming back to your stuff time and again.
Interestingly enough, “biz opp” always felt “hypey” to me. Perhaps, I was on my high horse, but it felt like “hanging out with the riff-raff.”
Yet, the idea of speaking to laid off Wall Streeters via Biz Opp is radical and refreshing.
Back in the 80s, I worked on Wall Street. I started out as a trader’s assistant with a Japanese bank called Nippon Credit Bank.
I’ll never forget, one day, seeing my Japanese supervisors get all excited about a new product. I asked them what it was. They said, “mortgage backed securities.”
When they explained to me how it worked, I had to hold my tongue!
My first thought was, “You guys have a AAA credit rating and you fund major infrastructure projects around the world and now you want to go slumming with the American homeowner for windfall profits at a time when blue collar jobs are leaving the US permanently? This is a game of hot potato that can only lead to an eventual collapse.”
Not long after I left the bank, the Japanese real estate meltdown kicked in and took Nippon Credit Bank down with it!
All this to say, Lawrence, is… that if what you’re saying about direct response aimed at laid off Wall Streeters is true, this is a niche I could go after – with a vengeance!
Hey Eric.
Fascinating how we keep making the same mistakes time and again.
In ten or twelve years a batch of freshly minted financiers will have a stroke of genius by devising new, risk-free, high leverage products without any memory, or even knowledge, about what’s transpiring today.
I hear you about Nippon. My wife was (for a brief while) the head of a trading desk at a major energy company before the Enron implosion. There were so many energy trading products and derivatives floating around, you wouldn’t know this was a company whose core business was shipping natural gas and oil through pipelines…yet somehow they fancied themselves such financial luminaries that they started betting on credit and interest rate spreads.
What the heck that has to do with supplying energy is on par with Sumitomo diving into mortgage backed securities in the 80’s.
Anyway, my man on the street’s take is things are going to get a lot-lot worse before they get better. I think we direct response people have as good a chance as any, besides medical associated workers, of keeping our heads above water and perhaps even thriving. Oh, and of course, tobacco and booze manufacturers will make out like bandits.
Once I clear some l-o-n-g overdue things from my plate, I may try a DM drop to the Wall Street crowd.
Great find,
I am looking at writing a sales letter for my site now, might take the liberty of swiping some of these ideas,
In our current financial state of the global economy I think this seems to be very appropriate.
Hi Jeremy,
Glad you stopped by.
Swipe away.
That’s what the site is here for!
Best,
Lawrence