Thread by @FindJimClair

I reread this recently. I consider it a staple if you do any sort of marketing. And it’s a staple to spot pseudo-experts and nonsense.

A few nuggets below, and the one critical lesson I think too many people overlook.

Yellow Kid Weil was a notorious Confidence Man. He pioneered various cons. Many of his cons are still being used today. Think Theranos or Fyre Festival.

Despite him fleecing people, you can remove the fleece and study his basic sales, copywriting, and even outreach formula...

He used framing, status tip-offs and the power of walking away. His upsells were simple, and not aggressive. He framed the problems people faced by knowing how they interacted with what they wanted. Then he made the person qualify themselves. His cold outreach, he made the mark..

Qualify themselves. Something that's so overlooked. He played up some curiosity, versus trying some elaborate can I work with you thing.

The sales lessons in the book are incredible.

Next, the book gives a lesson on how to think outside standard sales formulas...

Yellow Kid Weil would take basics, then come up with something new to adapt to the mark. Or he would try something completely new. If it failed it failed. If not, he looked how he could adapt it, or just let it be. Too often we try sticking to a formula, we try to optimize it...

Sometimes, it's not the worst thing to shoot from the hip and see. Or reflect on something new, and then try it, and see what happens. Yellow Kid Weil cooked up things on the fly, a mix of basics and just having fun and seeing what happens. That's how he learned...

The book also gives a radar to spot funnels. Yellow Kid Weil constantly looked behind the curtains (except when lust got the best of him, and he got fleeced). He wanted to see what was being done and not being done behind the scenes. As in, if he saw a sales page, he'd scroll...

To the bottom. Then he'd click the logistical stuff, terms, privacy, and he's pull at the threads at "who is behind this." Even if it was something he was interested in, he'd pull at the threads. How is the money made and who makes it, and what are they missing...

And just a general guide to funnels. You can see what's being run.

What I loved, the book gives a guide to spot guru bullshit. And likely, you'll see how most "success gurus" are themselves gullible suckers. And you can also spot how a Ryan Deiss or Russell Brunson profit...

Dreamers. Consider Clickbank. 3,578 products sold. Only really the top 5 offers make 7 figures or more. The top 5 may contain one Deiss product Avatar. But the top 5, they never pay attention to anything Deiss or Brunson say. Guess who Deiss knowingly targets for his products?

That's why the dreamers never crack the top 30. They buy all the products and courses. The guru bullshit? "The most gullible people are the people who want to make easy money at someone else's expense." Hence, most "success gurus." The people who pay to get best-seller labels..

To boost conversions for their "Summit" events... they are the gullible. Yellow Kid Weil would love the business of selling the Dan Loks labels. What a great racket. Just look at Advantage Publishing, they make bank selling people "status."

And you'll see why something like Advantage Publishing or Brunson are true players. Or why working for Agora is basically a sham unless you have that player knack.

But the biggest lesson... the best lesson... the most overlooked lesson...

HUMOR. Yellow Kid Weil had a great sense of humor. He enjoyed the foibles we all have. And he played on this. He didn't take himself too seriously. And his humor allowed him to think outside the box. He could turn the inane into a Monty Python skit. And there he could "see."

In my experience, my best sales letters, with all the research etc, when I found myself laughing, I knew I had something. When I could find the comedy in it. Or in the car business, the last place I worked, we did over 1k cars a month in sales. I worked in "the box."

The person who sold you warranties. Our crew, it was a ore aware Anchorman like crew. The guys who took the sales too seriously, as in those without humor and trying to optimize everything, they were average. They saw our crew as wild, but we cranked. We had an absolute blast...

And a lot of laughs. The same for me in copy, those who had some humor, succeeded. You can't take yourself too seriously with selling, seeing the comedy provides a potent persuasion weapon, and it helps keep your wits.