Transcription
One of the greatest secrets of marketing is how you influence and inflict pain upon your prospects. I know it may seem kind of dark and evil, but it literally is the way you can actually change people's lives. I'm going to show you guys a course from the 40s, '50s, and 60s, an advertising method that was pioneered back then that sold over 30 million copies of a course through direct mail and comic books in the '50s. And if you can learn this principle and apply it to whatever it is you're selling, I promise you, it will dramatically increase your sales, cause some pain for your customers, but literally transform and change their lives forever.
Hey, this is Russell. Welcome back to my vault. Today I'm going to show you guys one of the most successful advertising campaigns in the history of all time. The Charles Atlas a weightlifting course. I have the original ads, the course, and a whole bunch of really cool cool things to share with you guys. And from that, some ideas on how you guys can increase your ads, how you can make more money selling whatever you're selling.
If you study marketing, advertising, you've heard the stories about this. But for most of you guys who aren't advertising nerds like me, I'm going to give you the cliffnotes version so you can apply these principles. I spent $512 just for this copy of the actual course. I spent hundreds of dollars on getting as many copies of these original ads as possible. And I'm excited to show you guys all of them right now.
This is what Charles Atlas was most famous for. So, he would put these in comic books, in magazines, and everything. And they were these little cartoon ads telling the story of him. And it was funny is Charles Atlas actually grew up as a really skinny kid who got beat up. And eventually he learned about bodybuilding and he became this guy who got really big. And so most of these comics are actually stories about either what happened in his life or fictitious things that he thought were going to happen if he would go to the beach. and you know, things like that. And so this right here, it's like, "Hey, quit kicking sand in our faces. That man's the worst nuisance on the beach." The boy comes and kicks sands in their face, right? And he wants to go defend himself, but he's this little skinny guy. And then he goes on and so he decides he needs to get bigger. So he sees the ad for the Charles Atlas course. He orders it. And then later he's now this big huge muscle guy. So you have the before and the after. He goes back to the beach and this time you're here again. Here's something I owe you. And he beats up the guy and then the girl gets his arm and congratulations. You're the hero of the story, right? Get the Charles Atlas course. You can be just like Charles Atlas.
If you notice, most of them are very similar. The headline here is the insult that made a man out of a Mac. This one here is, "Hey, skinny, your ribs are showing." He's catering towards people who were just like him earlier, people who were too skinny. And he tells this whole comic book showing the before and the after. Here's the insecurities. Here's the problem that skinny people might have. Again, it could be a real story or it's just like something in their head that they can imagine like, "Oh, I can see that happening. Me at the beach or me on the airplane or me, whatever it is." So, he tells that story and then every single time it's like the before and then what does he do? He buys a Charles Atlas course and then the after he comes back and he fights and he wins.
I think is the biggest lesson from the Charles Atlas ads that you guys can all instantly use inside of your advertising. Again, your advertising, it could be your ads, it could be your Facebook lives, it could be your landing pages, your webinar, anywhere. The secret that you learn from Charles Atlas, greatest advertising secrets of all time is that the power in getting people to buy your stuff is by using contrast. Like the greatest copywriters in the world, they use contrast, right? The greatest webinars in the world are using a lot of contrast. The greatest sales people, they know how to use contrast. So what does that mean? Contrast is showing like the before and the after, right? I was overweight and then I got in shape. I was broke and now I'm rich. Whatever is your product, there's always this before and this after.
This wasn't just some madeup thing he did either, right? Charles Atlas, like this is his story. That's why he's able to tell the story. That's why people believe his story because he went through the exact same process. Okay? Now, when you're trying to sell something to your customers, the reality of most sales situations is you're selling something that where the thing that you're selling is something that is a result you've already gotten, right? you've already achieved the thing that your dream client wants. And so when you're writing your ads, you have to go back in time and remember like what was the before for you. What was your origin story? What was the thing that happened prior to you being successful, right? Because that's where people are usually meeting you.
I remember when I first got in this business, I first started learning advertising, met a guy who was writing copy for somebody who had a product, people who were losing their hair. And he said that when somebody would see my ad, they may be like a little self-conscious, like I'm losing my hair, I'm a little self-conscious, but he's like when they started reading my ad, he's like, I would tell my story. I would show the contrast of the pain and how couldn't get girls, I couldn't go on dates, jobs I got were worse. I got paid less than my co-workers who had hair, like so much pain that now they were ready for resolution, right? And so that's the job of really good advertising is to take somebody who's who's unhappy, but to like really twist the knife and to create more and more pain. So now that that gap between the heaven that they desire and the hell they're in becomes so painful that now they're willing to then buy something to to get them out of that out of that pit.
Most people, they live lives where they're not happy. There's a quote that says that good is the enemy to great. The reason why there's not a lot of great businesses, cuz there's a lot of good businesses. Your job as someone who is a product owner, someone who is a creator, someone who's trying to help somebody to change life, to go from good to great, is you have to get them and take them to the dark side. You have to put them into the pain of the actual situation or they'll never be willing to transition to the product or the service that you're trying to give to them. And some people say, "Oh, that's manipulative. That's using persuasion. That's using tactics that aren't good." But the reality is if you want to change people's lives, you have to do that. You are never going to change someone's life who's doing good. And if you believe in your product, you believe in your service, you believe in thing you're trying to do, like the contrast, like taking them to that place is the only thing that'll get them to actually be successful.
So I look at these ads and think about this. 40s, 50s, 60s, 30 million copies of this course were sold. Now, I don't know how much they were sold for, but let's say it was a dollar a piece. That's $30 million of a weightlifting course, assuming it was more than a dollar to get this entire thing. In fact, you guys want to see what it looks like? an original envelope that came with one of them. It's kind of falling apart right now, which is what makes it even cooler. Still got the stamps on it and everything. And you see like Charles Atlas like he believed in his stuff so much. He was willing to to put this out there so consistently. This is kind of what the course looks like. Here's lesson number one. The truest success is but the development of self. This is the entire course. Module number one. Lesson number one. Lesson number two. We now learn the types of foods and which ones give health power and great nerve energy. And he starts going through all the foods. Here's your nutrition plan and how you eat that. This is so cool. like someone who creates courses and studies courses. So fun to see how they were doing courses back in the 60s. Now again, let's say each of these sold for $10. That means he would have done $300 million. It's crazy to look at how much success he was able to have by selling this course using literally the same ad for 30 years. All about comic books, fun, this playful thing, but he knew exactly who he's talking to.
Right now, my guess is for a lot of you guys, if you were to take this principle and think about what's the comic book version of what you do, uh, in fact, I'm going to challenge my ads team this week. We're going to make some comic book versions of what I sell, right? Russell before funnels, Russell after funnels, Russell before, you know, whatever the things might be and try to show some contrast. But I just want you guys to understand this principle goes so much deeper than just print ads. You look at good webinars, good video sales letters, good Facebook lives, good like all these different places that you are having these interactions with people. If you want people to change, understanding this contrast and how to separate those things from people is what gets you the ability to change somebody's life.
All right, if you guys want to see actual copies of the Charles Atlas's ads, these are just three right here, but I got a whole bunch of other ones. I will scan them. Description down below. You click on that, you can go download a PDF. It's got a whole bunch of different ads. So, you can see examples of how they structure this, how they told the story, you know, what the comic books look like, what the call to action, all the cool things inside of one of the greatest, most successful advertising campaigns in the history of all time. Doesn't matter what it is you're selling.