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support c-span 2 as a public service. >> joining us now on book tv's author richard -- here is his, book it's called go big marketing of richard. mr. bakery, what do you do for a living? my mother went through her grave a few years, ago not really understanding what i did. i was fortunate, back in the 1960s early 60s to pioneer political's people have been raising money for a long time they've been raising it through the mail. no one had combined the two. what i did that in the early 60s, for about, i had no competitors. i went out, there and help build the conservative movement. now to make a case, without men

there'd be no conservative movement, when i did my peering work in the 60s, that's what we're doing now doing a better now. >> have you always been a conservative? >> i grew up right in texas. kids neighborhood playing cops and robbers 11, 12:13 years old. i'll tell, everyone i'm not shooting, robberies i'm shooting comey's. i have no recollection of any political conversation in my family. i was just dedicated to fighting them, opposing them. i'm a second generation conservative. first generation et cetera. 100 percent second generation conservative. before we were conservative, first we were anti communist. that was the glue that held the

conservative movement together in those days back in the 60s 70s 80s. what >> was that moment, that burning bush moment for you when it came to direct mail visiting the national review office? . i was fortunate i had two-week summer camp national guard military base outside of chicago, the first and only saturday were there for the two weeks. everyone goes to chicago richard, state national review. so for field directors, constitutional action. we no longer existing, i had a buddy who worked the national, review a journalist and a writer there. i can hear the candidates and guns going off, new york and washington. the war was, starting i was

desperate to get into the battle. despite the political left here in america. i called my friend, david frankie, i said david i have to get one of those jobs. he said it's not for, it's one. a blind eye to get americans. i said david get me that job. and about a year and a half, i moved to new york i came in contact, fairly regularly with bill, frank mayer, intellectual giants. james burnham, i tried to be like them i read everything they were reading. i was making a lot of progress. at one point i made a conscious decision to focus on men. we didn't have enough people, i thought we had some. no one that could market them to the country so i literally went to my wife, back then i had a wife and two babies, i said honey, i have something that's gonna change, america maybe even change the world, i don't know what i have to

study. i've been relieved of all household eucha's, no trash no yard work, she bought into it. 78 years i made a deep dive in marketing direct marketing. those were the migrants back in the country new york times, nbc, abc et cetera. we couldn't get our message out. we started with direct mail, we went around this block and that changed everything. i can make a case ronald reagan would not have gone the nomination without direct men, because with john connally, george h. w. bush getting thousand dollar contributions. he was getting hundreds of thousands ten 50,025 dollar contributions campaigns made all the difference. >> what makes a direct mail letter? talk about when you've written. >> we'll direct mail used to be until recently the second largest form of advertising in the country. television, number one. now it's number three, because

of the internet. number internet's number, one television number. do directory mail number three. i recognize that early. on i recognize when i write a letter goes 2 million people, i don't write it to 1 million people. all right to one person, that one person that i'm writing that letter to. and i have a conversation,. >> well for most of my political life it was my parents, my mother and my dad. they didn't give every time, they occasionally would give. in order to write to someone always gives, or never give. you have a conversation with them, bill buckley famously said he was a conservative but not of the breed on saturday, night hanging out with john. i am of the breed. my face is catholic, catholic,

when you stand, up when you deal, down not quite sure. i just knelt in the front row. why am one with the audience. that makes a huge difference. i'm a true believer. many of your letters, yes. >> those of us who believe in your politics over the years, we've received them. they're often one line, paragraphs. and then three or four pages and they repeat. what is the effect of that? >> one of the many reasons why i like direct mail i don't have to guess this worker that work. we take 1 million, letters we split it in, have 500,000 500,000 gets long paragraph. it's been tested billions and billions of letters, we know a good long eight-day letter. it's gonna pull a good

seven-page letter. up to a point. the more pages people have, that's true, they flip, threw it look at this look at that. you would never get a salesman, selling a refrigerator selling the refrigerator, you can only take to her, words are 400 words. you speak until you get the sale. so, short letters, short words, if you book the do testament, jesus says the words, they're almost wanted to syllable worse. very few three and four short words. short paragraphs. so long letters, short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. let me just say, i'll be 90 in a few months. i literally spent two hours a day, studying marketing advertising, business. i have done that for over 60

years. to this day i spent 2 to 3 hours studying marketing. young people interested marketing, advertising career. i'll tell them study, study, study, study read, read, read read. competition is not that serious out there, quite frankly. most people in marketing and advertising haven't done a lot of studying. so if you study the classics, the giants who have come before us. you can get to the top of marketing in five years. you can be at the very top, five, percent easy. >> have email and social media benefited your business? >> not really, in a major way. when i got involved in 1961, early 60s, fundraising through the mail was not a mature business. it's been out there for a little bit. it's very mature now. every fortune 500 company has a direct marketing decision

department so we know what works and direct marketing we don't with the internet will figure it out, might be tomorrow might be in five years. we haven't figured out how to mark it over the internet. a lot of young people who are trying it they know next to nothing about marketing. so we are still in exploratory stages learning how to market. the fac could go big. you talk about the four horsemen of marketing, positions. differentiation, benefits, and grants. briefly describe what those for our. >> nothing original, was that it all. but put it together in a package. it's really really important. bird's-eye view, doesn't really matter whether you're running

for office or you want to have a, promotion you want to job you want to raise. i'll tell people, when i did in my, wife it was a lot of competition for the pretty young lady, her hand in marriage. do i supervise myself from all the competition out there. position, number one, find a hole in the marketplace. l.e.d.. what hole can you identify? differentiation, what you do publicly to let everyone know what your marketplace is. i could use msnbc or fox television, they both have a position, they hold the marketplace, they both differentiates. used to be tucker carlson, now it's brett bear, laura ingraham, et cetera on fox. rachel maddow, on msnbc. you don't find those types of people anywhere else on

television. third, benefits. by the, way you have to mark it to your audience. you have to get all four right. downhill, when your, back you get one wrong you're not gonna like it. so fox, to their audience, they succeed for benefits they often use information they don't go anywhere else out there. until recently, they had a little competition, but previously there was no competition for decades. same with msnbc. fourth is brands, and brands as the ball game. a combination of position and benefits it's what makes you in the words of famous communicator steph godin, a purple cow. i live in the country, 40 brown cause they're 50 black and, white can tell one from the other. but a purple cow stands out. our goal in life is to be a purple cow. i haven't figured out how to get the fifth one in, they're

the fifth one is called a tagline. you want to tagline, a tagline, when you come up with the tagline, it should be relatively sort, summarize what you do that differentiates firms everyone else. if anyone else uses your tagline, throw it away. it has nothing to do with how, fast smart you are. are you better, or anything else. it's something that really differentiates you. from all other products out there. you know, if you're running for office, your name doesn't tell you if you are liberal or conservative. so you want to tagline that does. the most effective taglines by the, way in the last 40 years, has been make america great again. liberals acknowledge that, because that tagline separated trump in 2016, from everyone else. with that tagline. and we had a well-known governor of virginia, george, he said you do the crime, you do the time. kind of a tune you can whistle that. reagan, 1980,, four years ago

-- 40 years ago. you want to tune you can, whistle that's a tagline. >> mr. vickery, do you have to, do you have to use strong language against your opponent? aka, negative ads, work well on tv even though everyone says they hate them? >> yes, it's not necessarily strong words, i read something about truman, the people you said given harry. i don't give them help, i just tell the truth, they think it's. i think it's important to different yourself from the competition. whether it's the, primary or the general election. or even if it's a nonprofit. you want to separate yourself from all your competition out there. and you want to explain in a few words what it is -- people are exposed to maybe

2000 messages a day, now five 10,000 with the internet, so you have to be able to in a few, words succinctly identify your brand. brands by the, way when you own a category. i'm a brand i own a category, i was first ever to political direct mail. who is the second person to fly solo across the atlantic? who was the second pope? you don't remember. you remember the first. you want to be the first in your category. >> what surprised me and read, go big, you are talking about how liberals. the others they have superseded the conservative movement when it comes to direct, mail even though you basically started it, . >> when i did my pioneering work, as i said earlier i caught a lot of criticism, regularly attacked on nbc, abc new york times time magazine.

all through the 70s but all of the criticism stopped within a few hours. november 1980. that's what they've been up to. so i told my conservative friends with paul why, or -- many others don't worry, it's taken me 20 years to learn how to do this, it's gonna take them 30 or more years because i'm smarter than they are. within five years, and others, they caught up with us conservatives. now they have far surpassed, in my opinion. i wouldn't dream of flying in an airplane with the pilot who has -- they just most people that learn about, it they're just none of us would go to a doctor who learn medicine by the seat of his pants.

the liberals basically they have about 20,000 conservatives about 1500. they race 700% more money than we do and a hunter percent more donors. -- you talk about them as third force organizations correct? >> i'm a big exponent of third fourth organization. the liberals have 20,000 organizations out there. think about the obama former president obama called a meeting, liberal environmental groups. represented there. if the conservatives claim there would be 567 groups, represented there, each of these groups out there had their own agenda, their own source of money, their own membership, their own leadership, and they're pulling everyone -- think with the environmental have accomplished, not just

with democrats, or republicans. pulling people mostly there, weigh on many of their issues. so, the politicians don't really accept the, agenda as much as the third force organizations. we really really have fallen behind, and one of the things, the reasons i wrote the book, was to encourage the younger people when you get to be my, age or in your 60s, 70s, even your 50s, your dna is pretty well set. the very definition of an entrepreneur, is a risk taker. be, bold go out, their take risks. so, it's gonna come from younger people, twenties, 30s, 40s. and, i want everyone to conserve read the book. take themselves to lead, i talk about that. i think it's very important. nobody was banging on barack obama's door to run for the senate, or for the president. he picked himself. in 2007, 2008, he just decided

-- started describing himself as a community organizer. a year later he's president. donald trump is a businessman. no prior government experience. 15 months later, he's president. i would urge young people, don't wait for somebody to come knocking on your door. when i came to washington, i had all these ideas, energy. and nobody invited me to any meetings. and i said, all this knowledge is going to waste. one day, out of frustration, i called a meeting, a dozen people came. i call the meeting a week later, even more came. and i learned early on, something nancy pelosi also learned, you'd be surprised how many good people will come to your meetings if you serve good food. and i serve good food, and then all of a sudden, they started inviting me to their meetings. but have courage. be a risk taker. be bold. >> mr. viguerie, could liberals

pick up your book and learn some things? >> unfortunately yes. nothing i could do about that. but yes, it's good advice for -- even if you're not in politics, but the four horsemen of marketing. if you want to get a job, a promotion, start a business, get a spouse. if you want to differential self-from all the competition, this book will help you differentiate yourself from everybody else. >> i want to talk about some of the people that you write about in go big, beginning with charles -- who was he? >> charles edison was one of life's great human beings. i was fortunate to know him in the early 60s, he was the youngest son of thomas edison, the inventor. and he had been secretary of the navy, governor of new jersey, and in the last ten or 15 years of his life, he was

very active in the conservative cause movement. he was quite wealthy, and very, very generous with his contributions. and so -- very supportive. i ran young americans of freedom in the early 60s. one day we had a small office in the fourth floor, no elevator, madison avenue. in new york city. and i'm working at my desk there, i look, up there's charles edison, 75 years old or something, standing in front of me. he walked all the way from his waldorf astoria towers, 15 blocks, just to kind of boost morale and encourages. just a delightful, wonderful man. i called him on the phone, asking for a contribution, he gave you one on the phone. i called a few other people like him, captain eddie rickenbacker of eastern airlines, world war i hero, and jay howard -- of the oil company. they have both gave me money generously. but i decided i didn't like ask

people for money, so i started writing letters. >> talk about that a little. cold calling people on the phone, voice to voice, and -- >> that's not me. it wasn't me in my twenties, it's not me at almost 90. i just don't like people asking -- asking people for money. >> you write the letters though. >> i started writing letters. that didn't work. i got a secretary, i was able to write more. and then -- something called a mcgrath machine, a big old drum, you roll it. a few hundred letters and hours, i got that thing to, work and then i got something called computers, and nobody had heard of in those days. we started pointing out letters, and after about a year and a half, by the way, at buckles, -- i began to focus on direct mail. after a year and a half, i thought i knew everything there was to know about marketing.

but then i had a wife and two babies. so i quit a good job and hung up my hat and started the new company which was the world's first direct political advertising agency. and i knew nothing, i thought i knew everything, i knew nothing. nothing. less than 1% what i know now. but one thing i knew, that i didn't have, and that was names and addresses. and i was able to get 12, 000, 500 barry goldwater donors. and that changed everything. and then by the end of that first year when i started my company, i had 100,000 republican goldwater donors. and now we'll passed $10 million. and i recognized early on that the business i was in, i wasn't in fund raising too much, or marketing, i was in the name acquisition business. mark zuckerberg figure that out to. >> mr. viguerie, have you gotten rich in your domain?

>> i haven't, as a matter of fact. but i'm very comfortable. to this day, my team will testify, and under oath, that i put everything possible back into the company. i am -- every fiber of my being, i'm an entrepreneur. as i said earlier, the definition of an entrepreneur, if anything, is a risk taker. in this day, i put everything i've got available back in the company. i learned, the reason i do that, is -- 1965, started my company in january. i went to very conservative organizations, just a few of them out there, and i said, i've got these goldwater donors. they all agreed. and we'd spend $1, now you spent $1 and 50% the money comes back, because you invest in the long time value of that donor. in those days, two, three, four, $5 would come back. that was great. 50,000 letters. when those people came in, will

mail 500,000. everyone else said no, let's just mail another 5000. i said no, i can see them, we gotta go. they said nope, 5000. so that moment i said, okay. i want to save western civilization, i know what to do, so tell you what i'll do. of finance the meeting. i'll put all the money. and to this day, -- the vast majority of our clients, we finance. everything i got from the company, i put back to finance more growth for the conservative movement. >> by the way, who was right, 5000, or 500,000? >> neither. millions. -- 18 months, something around 300 million postal letters. >> somebody else who has been very active as a conservative that you write about in go big, morton blackwell. who is he? >> i dedicated the book to martin. he's a dear friend.

it's known in the conservative movement as double 02. which means active at the national level longer than any living conservative, except for dr. leigh edwards, whose double 01. very goldwater and bill buckley and -- and falwell, all dead. so i'm an active at the national level longer than everybody except for naturally edwards. lee is different, i've known him since 1961. he called on the phone monday and says let's have lunch with this young conservative, you need to know him. he doesn't know you, you don't know him. so we had a nice lunch at the mayflower hotel. and the lunch went so well i invited morton back ten days later for another lunch, and the end of the lunch, morton said, i spoke magic words to him. and the magic court spoke to him were, i said morton, i want you to come work with me and help me move the conservative movement. he said at that point he would've taken a pay cut.

i gave mueller will increase. after some years, anyway, he left. ended up working for ronald reagan in the white house. and then after that, he left and started something called the leadership institute. almost no organizations i can think of that are more important to the conservative movement than that one, trained over a quarter of 1 million young people, many many governors, senators, congressman, legislators, too many dimension. over the years. right now, as we speak, the president of my company, i'm chair of it, she's in jerusalem with four, five, six other national conservative marketers, and teaching a couple hundred people in europe conservatives how to be effective conservatives. so he has maybe 500 classes all over the country, leadership instead teaches them. each year, and he's had more

impact on the conservative movement than anybody else i can think of living. >> the book is called go big, the marketing secrets of richard a viguerie. and as someone said, before rush limbaugh, there was richard. we appreciate your time. >> my pleasure. good to be with you.