The Direct Mail Solution
Craig Simpson is the co-author of The Direct Mail Solution and a bone fide direct mail solution expert. The Direct Mail Solution is a book written to help business owners build a lead-generating, sales-driving, money-making direct mail campaign. His co-author is Dan Kennedy.

The Direct Mail Solution:      https://www.amazon.co.uk/Direct-Mail-Solution-Lead-Generating-Sales-Driving/dp/1599185180

The Direct Mail Solution - Craig Simpson & Dan Kennedy

Craig is the real thing. A direct mail solution expert. His firm, Simpson Direct, based in Oregon, USA has mailed more than 300 million sales pieces, used thousands of mailing lists and sold hundreds of thousands of products, courses, services and newsletters.

Additionally, Craig is co-author of The Advertising Solution, a book that captures lessons from 6 of the greats of advertising – Robert Collier, Claude Hopkins, John Caples, David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert and Eugene Schwartz.

The Advertising Solution:     https://www.amazon.co.uk/Advertising-Solution-Influence-Prospects-Multiply/dp/1599185962
The Eugene Schwartz Copywriting Focus Method
Craig started the podcast discussion with an explanation of how Eugene Schwartz focused on writing copy.

"It works phenomenal" Craig said about this method he uses himself, not just for writing, but for all areas of business. The technique is great for difficult projects. So how does the technique work?

Every time you have a very difficult project, that you really don't want to do or it's more than you want to accomplish, Craig puts this method into practise. When Gene Schwartz, possibly one of the road's best ever copywriters, he would have all these ideas in his mind. Too many to easily just put them down on paper. Or maybe he would have no ideas at all.
The Focus Technique

Gene would never just sit down to write a sales letter from A to Z. Instead, he would sit down and set a timer. For 33 minutes and 33 seconds. Just an odd number, but about the length of time you can actively focus for.
For that 33 minutes and 33 seconds, he would only work on this ONE project. No going to make coffee, or take a break, he'd just do this one thing for 33 minutes 33 seconds.
First, he would just organising his thoughts and his research. Read something, and if he found something he liked he would write it down and put it in a little folder.
As the project progressed, he would just organise his thoughts. But he would only work for 33 minutes and 33 seconds at a time. When the buzzer went off, at the end of that time slot, he would get up, EVEN if it was mid-sentence. He would stop right then and there.
At that point, he's going to do whatever he wants to do. He'd take the dog for a walk, grab a snack, whatever it was he could do whatever he wanted.
Then, he'd jump back in and set the timer again. He'd re-organise his thoughts and move things around. Gene always said, it was like the copy wrote itself. Because, you weren't sitting down to write it, you were only organising your thoughts for 33 minutes at a time. He write phenomenal pieces that generated $100millions for clients, because of this ONE method.
He would repeat this 4 or 5 or 6 times a day and that's how he created his mail pieces.

Was the Pomodoro Technique a straight copy of Eugene's?
Kevin mentioned the Pomodoro technique, developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique Interestingly, some time after Gene Schwartz had been using the same method...

The Pomodoro Technique

Ask yourself, what is the one thing you can get done in the next 33 minutes 33 seconds? It is a really attainable tie-frame to work in. It's not like you are going to be overwhelmed with a huge long day.
Simpson Direct - a business that has shipped more than 300 Million Direct Mail pieces
Craig is a direct mail consultant and coach, so he sends out 250-300 different mail campaigns every year.

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