What I Learned from Gary Halbert

I didn’t find Gary Halbert. He found me.

It was June of 1984, days after I’d launched my direct marketing consulting business. A plain white #10 envelope arrived — no logo, no window, just my name typed cleanly on the front. Maybe the first mail I’d gotten in my new office.

Inside was a long, personal letter offering a charter subscription to a new newsletter. It promised hard-earned secrets from a great copywriter and business thinker. The name of the newletter: The Gary HalbertLetter.

I didn’t know who he was. But the pitch was aimed directly at me. I subscribed.And I stayed a subscriber until he stopped publishing the newsletter. All the issues were entertaining. Some were highly useful.

The Lettershop Test — Pure Halbert

The most memorable lesson I got from Gary Halbert’s newsletter was about lettershops.

He suggested testing them — not for price, but for follow-through.

His insight was that some lettershops (the ones who label, sort, and deliver big mailings to the post office) would skip mailing some of your pieces. To save time, labor and cost. To cut corners. And you'd never know — unless you tested.

So I tested and he was right. One lettershop consistently outperformed the rest. They actually mailed all the pieces. The others didn’t.

It was an insight with big implications — classic Gary Halbert.

Halbert’s World: Casinos, Astrology, and Handwritten Mail

I crossed paths with Halbert again — indirectly — during a due diligence project for a client.

I was reviewing a mail-order astrology business in Ohio. Hundreds of employees working in a converted movie theater, hand-addressing envelopes.

They were doing that because handwritten mail got better response. Where did they learn that?

Gary Halbert.

The entrepreneur behind the company had met Halbert in the Las Vegas airport, after losing everything gambling using a system he’d bought. Halbert told him, “If you just want to get rich, I can show you how.”

And he did.

That encounter said something to me — about how wide Halbert’s circle was. How close to the edge he must have operated.

The client passed on the investment.

Yes, He Could Write. But His Use of Data? Brilliant.

Most people admire Gary Halbert for his copywriting. Rightfully so. But what impressed me even more was his creative use of data.

Take his “Coat of Arms” mailing.

It used a newly available national name database to create a list of people with the same last name — and offered a framed printout of their surname history and family crest and all the other holders of that last name. Most of it was public domain. Some of it was likely fiction. The margins were incredible.

And yes, I bought one. Found all six Mirbachs in the country at the time.

That offer was pure Halbert: thoughtful, scalable, and psychologically spot-on.

Then the Phone Rang…

In the early 2000s, I was leading direct marketing at Intuit. One of the copywriters in my stable, John Nicksic, and I were chatting one day. I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed The Gary Halbert Letter.

I said it’d be fun to talk to him someday.

About a month later, I walked into my office just as the phone rang. I picked it up.

“This is Gary Halbert. I heard you’d like to talk with me.”

We talked for an hour. About copy. About what had changed. About why he wasn’t doing the big mailings anymore.

I asked why. He told me “Philips Publishing has been after me to do a new control. They pay $50,000 upfront, plus $50/M royalties and they’ll mail 3 million pieces a year for a control. But I don’t do it.

“I’d have to check out of my life completely for six months. Worry constantly. It’s not worth it. I’d rather sit on the phone and tell a contractor to include a business reply envelope. That’s easy. And it works. And he’s so grateful.”

He also talked about the “Coat of Arms” letter — how it took him a year and a half to write. One page. He worked on it every day.

That conversation stuck with me. Not just for the content, but for the tone. Gary Halbert was generous. Thoughtful. Funny. And he aimed what we talked about to my questions — not some canned advice.

Halbert’s Legacy —Free and Valuable

To this day, you can read every issue of The Gary Halbert Letter at www.thegaryhalbertletter.com. It’s all there. Free.

And yes, the world has changed. Technology is different. Channels are different.

But the principles and the understanding of what makes people act?

Still sharp.

What I admired most about Halbert’s writing was how he pulled you through it. He’d end a paragraph with a sentence that demanded you read the subhead below. You literally couldn’t stop.

Here’s one of my favorite examples:

“Listen: If you want to be a true success (whatever that means to you), you've got to lead a high-wattage, energized life. You need high energy, enthusiasm, optimism, cheerfulness and... and... and...

You're Probably Being Sucked Dry By Success-Killing Vampires From Loser City!

And what is a success killing vampire?Ah, Igor, I'm glad you asked …”

Classic Halbert. Entertaining, unexpected, and impossible to stop reading.

One More Thought

Was Gary Halbert perfect? No. He used his powerful gifts to sell stuff that was more entertaining than useful - astrology readings and family history charts. While I wasn’t there, it appeared he sometimes played the edges.

But he also tested skillfully, shared what he learned and knew generously, and wrote like no one else.

He influenced generations of marketers and copywriters — myself included. He built a legacy of iconoclastic thinking, data fluency and persuasiveness that lives on.

Worth learning from.