Harlan Kilstein was in education and switched to entrepreneurship with a hypnosis clinic.

Which is where he first saw direct-response in action.

He ran the ads given to him by the franchise…

and the phones rang.

When the ads from the parent company stopped coming and the promises dried up…

Harlan’s brother would send him Rich Shefren’s ads from New York.

It was Rich who told Harlan to study Jay Abraham.

When Rich gave Harlan a free ticket to Dan Kennedy’s last copywriting seminar…

he had a blast and loved what Dan was teaching.

It was the first time he saw and heard John Carlton.

Returning home to his clinic, he started to write his own ads and again, the phones rang off the hook.

Some of the ads people saved and were still calling five years after the clinic closed.

What happened next is the stuff of copywriting legend.

In his first year, churning out two or three projects a week he made over $300, 000.

He more than doubled it his second year.

Writing for marketing celebrities and legendary launches became his reality.

I pursued Harlan to come on the podcast for a long time to tell his story for one main reason.

So you can discover how to walk a similar path.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

* The number one thing copywriters don’t do now. Harlan says throw out the hand-copying and do this instead.

* How commonalities in great copy only reveal themselves when you do this. (Number two thing copywriters neglect!).

* Discover Harlan’s top secret for swiping winning salesletters.

* What did Harlan pay good money for that nobody seems to be doing these days either. (How he’s switched what he looks for as of late).

* The one step all the best copywriters take. If you don’t…it spells doom.

Mentioned:

* Harlan Kilstein on Facebook

* Harlan’s courses

* Harlan’s Overnight Copy

* David Allan’s Make Words Pay

Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO

David Allan: Hey, everybody We’re back with another edition of the podcast. I’m David Allan and we’re here with a very interesting guest I’ve wanted to get on the show for a long time. Someone whose programs I’ve taken personally some of his DVD programs and so forth I have bought. He is a fascinating copywriting story and I just want to welcome Harlan Kilstein to the show.

Harlan Kilstein: Hey thanks for welcoming me. Thanks for chasing me down. We won’t talk about how many years it took…

David Allan: It’s taken a couple of years for sure but here we are.

And I think you’re Of particular interest to myself personally and probably our audience which is comprised of largely freelance copywriters and people looking to get into that as a as a career vocation because you sort of had a very meteoric rise in your copywriting career and where it’s taken you since then and so maybe take us back Harlan to the very beginning like how you got what you were doing and then how you got involved in this wacky marketing world.

Harlan Kilstein: I’m sorry did you say mediocre rise or meteoric

David Allan: meteoric meteoric.

Harlan Kilstein: Just checking. Gosh I was the last person that I would have thought what a copywriter was to me. I probably would have been one of those idiots who thought that a...