Joining us now on is author richard. Here is his book. Its called go big the Marketing Secrets of richard, a viguerie. Mr. Viguerie, what do you do for a living living . My mother went to her grave a few years ago, not really understanding what did. I was fortunate. Back in. 1960s, early sixties to pioneer political direct mail. People have been raising money for a long time and theyve been raising it money through the mails for charities, churches, etc. Nobody could combine the two politics and the mails. And i did that in the early 60. For about 20 years, i had no competitors. And i went out there and and helped the conservative movement. And i can a case that without direct mail would be no conservative movement worthy of the name. When i did my pioneering work in the sixties, the left wasnt doing. Now theyre doing a better job than the are. Have you always been a conservative when you even when you were growing in texas . I grew up right in pasadena, texas, outside of houston. And kids in neighborhood playing cops and robbers, you know, were 11, 12, 13 years old. I wont tell anybody. Im not shooting robbers. Im shooting commies. I dont know. I have no recollection of any political conversation in my family. My extended family. But i just came to this world knowing are bad people. And i was dedicated to to, you know, fighting them, opposing the im Second Generation conservative, first generation bill buckley, russell kirk, Barry Goldwater, etc. , 100 of Second Generation conservatives. Phyllis schlafly, jerry falwell, etc. Before we were conservatives, first we were anticommunist. That was the glue that held the conservative Movement Together in those days. Back in the sixties, 1780s. What was that moment that burning moment for you when it came to direct mail and, mailing lists . You were visiting the National Review office in new york city. Well, the i was fortunate in i had two weeks summer camp, National Guard at a military base outside of chicago. And the first and only saturday we were there for the two weeks. Everybody goes into chicago, richard stays in the barracks and reads National Review. And so a small ad about an inch or two for four field directors for americans for constitutional action and didnt no longer exist. But i had a friend a buddy who worked for National Review, a journalist, a writer there. And so i could hear the cannons and the guns going off new york in washington. The war was starting and i was desperate to get into battle and fight the left here in america. And so i called my friend David Frankie and said, david, ive to get one of those four jobs. He says, its not is one. It was a blind ad to run Young Americans at freedom. And i said, david, get me that job. I got the job. And for about a year and a half a moved to new york, and i came in contact very regularly with bill buckley, frank meyer and brant bozell and intellectual giants out there, James Burnham and i tried to be like them and i Read Everything i thought they were reading. I wasnt making a lot of progress, so one point i made a conscious decision to focus direct mail. We didnt have enough like buckley, who could write and, debate and all, but we had some. We had nobody that could market them to the country so literally went to my wife. By then i had a wife, two babies, and i said, honey, i think ive got something here is going to change. America, maybe even change the world. But i dont know. It. Ive got to study it. Could i be relieved of all household duties . No diapers, no trash, no yard work . She bought into it for seven, eight years. I made a deep dive in marketing and direct marketing, direct mail. And in those days it were the microphones of the country. Back in those days, conservative message went up against the blockage new york times, nbc, abc, etc. We couldnt get our message out. We were the tree that fell in the fourth. But starting with direct mail could go around this blockage right into peoples homes. And that changed everything. I can make a case that Ronald Reagan would not have gotten the nomination in 1980 without direct mail, because when John Connally and george h. W. Bush were getting the thousand contributions, he was getting hundreds of thousands of ten, 15, 25 contributions funded campaign made all the difference. Mr. Viguerie what makes an effective direct mail letter . Talk about one that youve written. Well direct mail is used to be, until recently, the second largest form of advertising in the country. Television number one now is number three, because the internet, internets number one, television number two. Direct mail is number three. And i recognize that early on. And i recognize that its not a when i write a letter that goes to a million people, i dont write it to a million people. I write it to one person. Had one person in mind, im writing that letter and i have a conversation. Well, for most of my political life it was my parents, my mother, my dad. I would have them met. They didnt give every time, but they were occasion a gift. So you dont want to write to somebody that gives its not a child or never gifts. So you want somebody that occasionally gives in and you have a conversation with a and i bill buckley famously said he was a conservative, but not of the breed on saturday night, hes hanging out. John gilbert, truman capote, etc. I am of the breed. Im a my faith catholic. And as long as most catholics have been going to mass, theyre not quite sure. When you stand up, when you kneel down, whatever. I can sit in the front row. I know, i know. At any conservative meeting to applaud when i am one with the audience and that makes a huge difference. Im a im a true believer. Many of your letters and those of us who have been involved in the media or politics over the years have received these and theyre often one line paragraphs and then three or four pages, and they repeat. Whats the effect that. The one of the many reasons why like direct mail is dont have to guess does this work for that work because we take a million letters and we split it and have 500,000 get this appeal, the short paragraphs and 500,000 get the long paragraphs and its been tested billions and billions of letters. So we know that a good long eight page letter is going to output a good page letter up to a point. The more page people say, i dont read that. And thats true. People dont read, but they scan. They just kind of flip through, look at this. Look that. So the longer the copy, you would never give a salesman, say, selling a refrigerator, sell this refrigerator. But you can only speak 200 words or 400 words. You know, if you speak until youve made sale. So short letters. Short words. If you read the new testament, jesus words and are almost all and two syllable words, very few, three and four, he used very short words and short paragraphs, follow me, etc. So to matthew. So the you went long letters but but short words sentences short paragraphs. And let me just say that at my age ill be 90 and a few months. I literally spend 2 hours a day studying Marketing Advertising business. And ive done that for over 60 years. And still today, youre to this day, i will spend 2 to 3. Ive already spent probably 45 minutes today studying marketing and i young people are interested in a Marketing Advertising career. I tell them a study, study, study, read, read, read. Competition is not that serious. Out there, quite frankly. Most people in Marketing Advertising havent done a lot of study. And so if you study the classics out there, the the giants whove come before us, you can get to the top of marketing in five years, you can be at the very top 5 , say. Mr. Viguerie has email and social benefited your business. Not really in a major way. When i got involved in 1961 early sixties youre fundraising through the mail was not a mature business its been out there for a little bit. Its very mature now. Every fortune 500 company has a direct marketing division, a department. So we know who it works in direct marketing. We dont with the internet well figure it out that might be tomorrow might be five years from now but we havent figured how to market on the internet. Theres a lot of young people who are trying it. They theyre theyve know next to nothing about marketing. They know the internet, but they dont know how to marketed. And so were still in exploratory stage in terms of learning how to market using the internet back to go big. You talk about the four horsemen of marketing position different creation benefit and brand briefly describe what those for nothing original that at all board from this stone from then etc. But i put it together in a package which is really really important and i urge our viewers that it doesnt really matter in life whether running for office or want a promotion. You want a you want to raise you want a spouse i tell people when i dated my wife, it was a lot of competition for this pretty young hands, pretty young ladies hand in marriage. So i to separate myself from all that competition out there, position number one is simply a whole early in the marketplace. What holding a marketplace can you occupy . And thats a private decision differentiation is what do publicly to let everybody what your what your who the marketplace is. I like to use either msnbc or Fox Television they they both have a a position holding a marketplace. They both differentiate it you know, it used to be. Carlson and now its, you know, brett baer and jesse waters and laura ingram, etc. , on fox and rachel on msnbc, you find those people type of people anywhere else on. Television. Third is benefit by the way, youve got to your market, to your audience, youve got to get all four right, get all four right. Life is downhill the when do you back . Get one wrong. Youre going uphill youre not likely to succeed. So fox to their audience succeeds for a benefit. They offer news information. We dont get anywhere else out there particularly until recently. They have a little competition now, but previously there was no competition for decades i same msnbc fourth is brand and brand is the ball game. One is a combination of position differentiate and benefit is what makes you singular what makes you in the words of a famous communicator star seth godin, a purple cow . I live out in the country, gregory pass feels of 40 brown cows here, 50 black and white moves over there. Cant tell one from the other, but if one of them has a purple cal, it stands out. So all of our goal in life is to be a purple cow. And i havent figured out how to squeeze a fifth one in there, but theres a fifth one. Its called a tagline. And you want a tagline and a tagline when you come up, a tagline should be relatively short and summarize what it is that you do different, differentiates you from else out there. And if anybody else use your tagline, throw it away. It has nothing to do with how much more to do your faster how how you jump or you better or anything else. Its something that really differentiates you from all of the products out there, all of the candidates. You know, if youre running for office, your name doesnt tell you. You liberal or conservative. So you want a tagline that the most effective tagline, by the way, in the last 40 years has been make America Great again, and it liberals will acknowledge that because so that tagline separated trump 2016 from everybody else out. You want that tagline. And we had a wellknown of out of virginia george allen he said you do the crime you do the time, some kind of a tune you can whistle. There. Reagan 1980, are you off now than you were four years ago . And so you went that that tune people can whistle thats in a tagline mr. Do you have to use have you found it effective to use Strong Language against your opponents at ak you know negative ads work well on tv even though everybody says they hate them. The its not necessarily words. I read something for the umpteenth time recently about truman. The people you say, give him hell, harry. He says, i dont give them hell. I just tell him the truth and they think its hell. So i think its just important. Differentiate yourself from your your competition, whether its in a primary, the general election or even if its in an hour, get your a nonprofit your support you want separate yourself from all your competition out there and you want to explain in a few words what it is youre doing. It used to be people were exposed to a thousand, maybe 2000 messages a day. Now its in five, 10,000 with the internet. Were just inundated. So youve got to be able to succinctly, in a few words, identify your brand. And brand, by the way, is when you own a category, i am a brand. I own a category. I was the first ever duke political direct mail who was the second person to fly solo across the atlantic . Who who was the second pope . You dont remember . You remember the first. You want to be the first in a category. What surprised me in reading go big is you were talking about how liberals or the people the others have superseded the conservative movement when it comes to direct mail. Even though you basically started it in when i did my pioneering work at this it earlier in the early 1960s i caught lot of criticism quite frankly up regalia tacked on nbc, new york times, Time Magazine all through seventies. But all of the criticism stopped within a few hours. Election night, november 1980, huh . Thats what viguerie has been up to. So i told conservative friends, editor for the heritage foundation, paul weyrich, Howard Phillips and many others that we used to get together at my home for breakfast every wednesday, ten years. Dont worry if taking me 20 years to learn how to do this, its going to take them 30 or more years. Because im smarter than they are not so within five years. Roger craver and others on the left had caught up with the conservatives and now they have far surpassed us. In my opinion i wouldnt dream of flying an airplane with a pilot who had the skills that the average conservative marketer they just most people have learned it by their gut feeling. You know none of us would go to a doctor who learned medicine gut, you know, a seat of his pants. So, you know, the liberals are basically have about 20,000 single issue organizations, conservatives, about 1500. They raised 700 more money than we do from 100 more donors. Well, yeah, talk about them as third force organization is correct. Correct. Which are one. Im a big exponent of a third force organization, not third party, of course, but third force. The liberals have these 20,000 single issue organization out there. Think about if obama, former president obama called a meeting of all liberals environmental groups, itd be 300 350 groups represented. There if the conservatives, if conservative did same, there would be, you know, five, six, seven groups represented. There. So each of these groups out there has their own agenda, their own source of money, their own membership, own leadership. And theyre pulling everybody their way. I think within our membership accomplished, not just with the democrats, the republicans, independents. They pulled people mostly their way on many of their issues. And the politicians dont really set the agenda so much as these third force organizations and conservatives only with 1500 we really, really are far behind. And one of the things i reason i wrote the book was to encourage mostly younger people when. You get to be my age or in your sixties and seventies, even your fifties, your dna is pretty well the very definition of an entrepreneur is a risk taker, somebody whos going to be bold and go out and take risk. So thats going to come from younger people twenties, thirties, early forties. And so i want everybody to a particularly conservative to read the book and get engaged, pick to lead. I talk about that and really i think its very nobody was banging on Barack Obamas door to run for the senate or for the president. He picked himself, you know, in 2007, 2008. Hes just decided, describing himself as a Community Organizer a year later, as president and donald trump is a businessman. No prior government experience. 15 months later, hes president of the state. So i would urge young people pick yourself. Dont wait for somebody to come knocking on the door. I did. When i came to washington, had all these ideas, energy, and nobody invited many meetings. And i said, you know, this always knowledge is going away. So one day and in frustration, i called a meeting, a dozen people, they came know. And i called a meeting a week later. They came and i learned early something that nancy pelosi i learned also as shes climbing the democrat leadership ladder youd be surprised how many people will come to your meetings if serve good food and serve good food. And then all of a sudden they started inviting me to their meetings know and so but pick yourself be a big have courage be a risk taker. Be bold. Mr. Viguerie could liberals pick up go big and learn things unfortunate . Yes. Nothing i can do about that. But yes, theres a word its good advice for, even if youre not interested in politics quite. Frankly, as i said earlier, the vigorous four horsemen of marketing. If you want to get a job get a promotion, start a business, get a spouse. You know, you want to differentiate yourself from. All that competitions a lot of competition out there, billions of people. So this book will help you differentiate yourself from everybody else out there. I want to talk about some of the people that you write about in go bag, beginning with charles edison. Who was it . George harrison was one of lifes great human beings. I was fortunate to know him in the early sixties. He was youngest son of thomas edison, the inventor, and he had been secretary of the navy, the governor of new jersey and in the last ten, 15 years of his life, he was very active in the conservative cause. The movement. He was quite wealthy and very, very generous with his contributions and. So and very supportive. Ran Young Americans for freedom, for the early sixties and one day we had a small office on the fourth floor, no elevator. And middle on madison avenue advertising row in new york city. And so im working at my desk there about 2 00 in the afternoon, i look up theres charles ellison, you know, 75 years old or Something Like standing in front of me. Hed walk all the way from the waldorfastoria of towers, 15 blocks just to kind of boost our morale, kind of encourage us and all that. Just a delightful, wonderful man. And i called him on the phone when i first started asking a contribution. He gave me a contribution on the phone and i called a few other people like him, captain Eddie Rickenbacker of eastern airlines, world war one hero, and jay howard pugh of the sun oil company. They all gave me money generously, but i decided i didnt like asking people for myself to write letters. Yeah, talk about that a little bit cold. Calling people on the phone. Voice to voice that. Thats not me. It wasnt me. As in my twenties. And its not me almost 90. I just dont like people asking for money. So you will write them a letter . I started letters and you know, that seemed to work and so i got a secretary and i was able to write more letters. And then i got that hardly any of your viewers understand, remember and know about something. A mimeograph machine, big drum. You wrote it like it would print, you know, a few hundred out letters an hour or Something Like that. And that seemed to work. And then i got something called computers that nobody had heard of in those days. And we started spitting out letters and and after about a year and a half, by the way, at berkeley National Review, Young Americans for freedom, i began to focus entirely on direct mail. And after a year and half, i thought i knew everything there was to know about mark. But then i had a just wife and two babies. As i said. So i quit a good job and hung out my shingle and started the viguerie company, which was the worlds first direct mail political Advertising Agency and knew nothing. I thought i knew everything. I knew nothing. Less than 1 of what i know now. The one thing i knew that i didnt have that i needed, and that was names and addresses and i was able to get 12,500 Barry Goldwater donors, dollars plus donors. And that changed everything. And so by the end of that first year, when i started my company, 1965, i had 100,000 republic and goldwater donors, and now were well past million donors. And activists, conservative movement. And i recognized early on that was the business i was in. I wasnt in fundraising too much or marketing i in the name acquisition business. Mark zuckerberg figured that out too. Mr. Viguerie have you gotten rich in your business . I have not. As a matter of fact, im very comfortable. But to this day, my team will testify under that, i put Everything Possible back into the company. Im a at every fiber. My being, im an entrepreneur as. I said earlier, the definition of an entrepreneur, if anything, is a risk taker. So to this day, i, i put everything ive got available back in the company and i learned reason do that is 1965 assad makeup and in january and i went to very conservative organization just a few of them out there and i said, ive got these goldwater donors. Lets a test mailing testimonial 5000 and they all agreed and we had spent a dollar instead of now you spend a dollar and 50 the money comes back because you invest in the long term value of that donor. In those days when i did spend a dollar two, three, four, 5 would come back. This is great. Lets now well mail 50,000 letters. And when those results come the same, at the 5000, well mail 500,000. Everyone, im said no, lets just mail another 5000. I said no, the barbarians there down the street, i can see. And theyre going to be here. We got to blow and go. We got to. And i said no further. So i said, at that moment i said, okay, im going to save western civilization. I know what to do. So ill tell you what do ill finance the meeting, ill put up all the money. And to this day, the vast majority of our clients we financed their mailings. So everything i can possibly get from the company i put to finance more growth for the conservative movement. By the way, who was right . 5000. 500,000 . Well, neither millions. And and millions. Were well be mailing in the next 18 months something around 300 million postal letters. Somebody else whos been very active in the conservative movement that you write about and go big Morton Blackwell who is it Morton Blackwell i dedicated the book to morton. Hes a dear friend. Oh, and im a known in the conservative movement as double otu, which means ive been active at the National Level longer than ever. Living conservative, except dr. Lee edwards, whos double or what . Barry goldwater and bill buckley and brant senior and falwell robertson recently all did you know so im a im an active at the National Level longer than everybody except dr. Lee edwards. So lee is a dear friend ive known since 1961. And he calls me on the phone one day and says, lets have lunch with this young conservative of you need to know him. He doesnt know you. You dont know him. So we had nice lunch at the mayflower and so i liked the lunch money. So well invited. Morton back ten days later for another lunch as he and i. And at the end the lunch, morton said, i spoke magic words to it and the magic words i spoke to him. I said, morton, i want you to come work with and help me build the movement. And he said at that he would taking a pay cut. I gave him a little pay increase. But anyway after some years he left and they ended up working for Ronald Reagan in the white house. And then that he left and started something the Leadership Institute and its in there almost no i can think of as more important the conservative movement didnt Leadership Institute theyve trained well over a quarter of a million young people many many governors senators congressmen legislators too numerous to mention mention over the years he gives right now as we speak hes with my president of my company. Im chairman my company. Kathleen patton is in jerusalem with four or five, six other National Conservative marketers, and hete