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Special Report: Analysis of Bruce Barton’s 100 Percent Response Letter 107

Joe: Yeah, I love that observation. Obviously, we don’t
even know what he wants at this point, so we have to
start reading the letter. It has a couple of things going
for it, of course. In this case, no headline is wonderful
because the headline is the opening: “Dear Mr. Smith.”
That’s the headline. So, we go right into the first para-
graph, which I love because it says, “For the past three
or four years things have been going pretty well at our
house. We pay our bills, afford such luxuries as hav-
ing the children’s tonsils out, and still have something
in the bank at the end of the year. So far as business is
concerned, therefore, I have felt fairly well content.” And
I like that because not only is this personal, it’s sincere. It
is also still playing the curiosity card a little bit because
we don’t know what he’s writing to us about. If every-
thing is going okay, why the letter? But there’s a hint of
dissatisfaction in the very few lines that begin this letter,
because when he says, “So far as business is concerned,
therefore, I have felt fairly well content,” he’s implying
that he is not content in some other area. And I love this
because it’s very subtle.

It’s kind of going underneath the radar. It’s stirring up
that curiosity, and I love curiosity. Curiosity is one of the
most hypnotic, powerful motivators we can ever play, and
he’s playing it heavily but in such a low-key kind of way
that you can barely see it. But you start reading this open-
ing paragraph, just the first couple of lines, and you are
going, “Yep, that sounds great, wonderful.” I also think as
a side note that it’s so ironic: 1925 is during the party years.
We are in the Roaring Twenties. People are doing pretty
well and they don’t see 1929 coming. They don’t see the
Great Depression coming, and from a historical vantage
point looking back, it’s like “Oh, man, if they only knew.”