government none. maybe the pilot. [laughter] >> thank you so much this is been so much fun barry. [applause]

we are just getting started, building 100,000 new miles of infrastructure to reach those who need it most. charter communications along with these television companies support c-span two as a public service. joining us now on book tv's author richard vagary. here is a book called go big the marketing secrets of richard a vigorously. mr. vickery what do you do for a living. >> i'm mother went to her grave

a few years ago not really understanding what i did. i was fortunate back in the early 60s to pioneer to wrecked male. people had been raising for a long time and for charities and churches et cetera. nobody had committed to politics and mail i did that in the early 60s and for a while had no competitors. i went out there and helped build i can make a case that without direct mail there. will be no conservative movement of the name when i did my hiring work in the viguerie 60s now there's a better can job. >> have you always been a conservative even when we were growing up in texas? i grew up right into texas, and houston and kids in the neighborhood playing cops and robbers, 11, 12, 13 years old, don't tell anybody i'm not shooting robbers i'm shooting

commies. i have no recollection of any political conversation in my extended family but i just came to know the communists are bad people and i was dedicated to fighting them and opposing them. i'm second generation conservative. first generation about clay, barry goldwater et cetera. 100 percent of second generation conservatives, jerry falwell, myself et cetera, before we were conservatives, first we were anti communist. i love the glue that held a conservative movement together in those days back in the 60s, 70s 80s. >> what was the moment, that burning bush moment for you when it came to direct mail and mailing lists. you are visiting the national office in new york city? >> look, i was fortunate i had two-week summer camp national guard and a basal side of

chicago. the first and only saturday we were there for the two weeks everybody goes into chicago, which is stays in the barracks and state reads national review. small out about an inch to two for four field directors for americans for constitutional action. in no longer exists, but i had a friend who worked for national vehicle, a journalist there. i can hear the cannons and the guns going off in new york and washington. the war was starting and i was desperate to get into the battle and fight the political left here in america. so i called my friend david frankie and said david i want to get one of those four jobs. he says it's not for, it's one. the blind had we run young americans of freedom. as a david, getting that job. i got the job. for about a year and a half i moved to new york and i came in contact very regularly with bill buckley, frank myron,

moselle, intellectual giants of the. i tried to be like them, i read everything they were reading. i wasn't making a lot of progress in one point i made a conscious decision to focus on direct mail. we didn't have enough people like buckles to write and debate but we had some. and nobody that could market then to the country. so i literally went to my wife. that had a wife and two babies, i said honey i think i have something that's going to change america, maybe the world. i don't know, i've got a study. can i be relieved of all household duties? no diapers, no trash, no yard work. she bought into it and for 70 years amid a deep dive into direct marketing, direct mail. those are the microphones of the country back then. conservative message went up against his blockage, new york times, abc, nbc, but couldn't get our message out. starting with direct mail we grew around this block right into people's homes, and that changed everything. i can make a case that ronald

reagan would not have got the nomination 1980 with a direct mail. because when john connally and, george h. to be bush were getting thousand dollar contributions, he was getting hundreds of thousands, ten, 25, 50 dollar can traditions. made all the difference. >> mr. viguerie what makes it ineffective direct mail letter? >> direct mail used to be until recently a second largest form of advertising in country. television number one. now it's number three because of the internet. internet's number one, television ember to, directly on a mystery. i recognize that early on. i recognize that when i read a letter that goes to 1 million people, i don't write a 2 million people, i read it one person. i have one person in mind and writing that letter to. for most of my political life was my parents, my mom my dad. didn't give every time, but

they would occasionally give. so you don't want to write to someone who always gives, that's not a challenge, or never gives, you want somebody who occasionally gives and you have a conversation with them. bill buckley famously said he was a conservative but not of a breeze. saturday night he's hanging out with john carl resentment capote and et cetera. i am of the breed. my faces catholic and his longest most conflicts have gone to mass not quite sure when you stand up kneeled on, i can stand in the front row. i am one with the audience. that makes a huge difference. i am 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. they are often one line paragraphs and then three or four pages and they repeat.

what's the effect on a? >> one of the many reasons why i like direct mail that i don't have to guess does this work or does that work? because we take 1 million letters and split in half, 500,000 get the short progress, and 500,000 get long paragraphs and it's been tested billions and billions of letters. so we know i could long eight-page letter is going to a pull a seven-page letter up to a point. more pages, people say don't read, but they scan a flip through, look at this, look at that. so the longer a copy, you never give a salesman selling a refrigerator but you can only speak to her words for her words. he speak until you've made the sale. sure words. if you read the new testament, jesus has words in there that

are one and two syllable words. very few three enforceable wars, he's very short words, and short paragraphs. follow me eccentricity said timothy. you want long letters but short words, four sentences, short paragraphs. let me just say, i'm my age, on the 19 a few months. i literally spent two hours a day studying marketing advertising business i've done for over 60 years. >> still today do? this >> to this day a sprint to a, threat spent 45 minutes studying marketing. young people interested in marketing, advertising career, i tell them study, study, steady. read, ray, ray. competition is not that serious quite frankly. marks people or marketing advertising haven't a lot of studying. the study the classics at their, the giants who've come before us. if you get to the top of

marketing he can meet the very top. >> mr. viguerie, as female social media benefited your business? >> not really in a major way. when i got involved in 1961 early 60s, fund raising through the mail was not a mature business. it had been there a little bit. it's very mature right now. every fortune 500 company has a direct marketing division department, so we know what works and direct marketing postal. we don't with the internet. we will fill it figured out, but it might be tomorrow, might be in five years from now, but we haven't figured out how to market on the internet. there's a lot of young people who are trying it, they know next to nothing about marketing. you know the internet but they don't know how to market it. we are still in the exploratory

stages of learning in a market using the internet. >> back to bill big. you talk about the four pillars of marketing, position, differentiation, benefit and brand. briefly describe it thus far? >> nothing original was set at all. i borrowed from this. i put it together in a package which is really, really important. i would urge our viewers doesn't really matter in life or the you are running for office or you want to promotion, what a job, you want a raise, you want a spouse, i tell people, when i dated my wife there was a lot of competition for this pretty young ladies hand in marriage. so i to separate myself from all that competition out there. position number one is simply a ellie a hole in the marketplace. one hole can you market by can

you occupy? differentiation is when you publicly to let everybody know what your hole in the market places. i like to use msnbc or fox television, they both have a position, have a hole in the marketplace. they both differentiate. used to be tucker carlson and now it's brett barren jesse waters and laura ingraham et cetera on fox, and rachel maddow on msnbc. you don't find those type of people anywhere else on television. third is benefit. by the way, to your market here audience you gotta get off already, you get all four right down, not get one run he grown-up philly not gonna see profit. so fox to the office succeeds for a benefit. they offer news information you don't get anywhere else particularly in some recently they have a little competition on the previously there's no competition for decades. same with msnbc.

fourth is brand and brand is the ball game. what it's the combination of different shin and benefit, it's what makes you sing into. what makes you in the words of a famous communicator purple cow. i love it in the country. passed feels a 40 brown cows here, 50 black and white ones over there, can tell one from the other. but as a purple cow stanza. our goal and life is to be a purple cow. i figured out how to squeeze a fifth win in their. it's called a tagline. you want a tagline. when you come up with a tagline should be relatively short and summarize what it is you do it's differentiates from everybody else out there. and anybody else can use your tagline thrown away. it has nothing to do with a much smarter you are, or how fast she, jumper here better anything else, it's really something that differentiates you from all the other products at their, all the other candidates.

if you're running for office, you name doesn't tell if you liberal or conservative. c one attack line, the most effective tagline in the last four years has been make america great again. liberals woollum acknowledge because that tagline separated trump in 2016 from everyone else up there. we had a well-known governor of virginia george allen said you do the crime you do the time. some kind of tunic in whistler. reagan in 1980, are you better off now than you were four years ago. you want that two people can listen, lets the tagline. >> mr. viguerie, have you found it effective to use strong language against your opponents aka negative ads work well on tv even know everybody says they hate them? >> it's not necessarily strong words. i read something for the

umpteenth time recently about truman, it's a given how harry. he says i don't give them i, just tell them if you think it's. i think it's just important whether it's in the primary the general election. even if it's a nonprofit, we want to separate yourself from all the competition at, and you want to explain in a few words what it is you are doing. he used to be people who are exposed to 1000 maybe 2000 messages a day. now it's five or 10,000 with the internet. we are just inundated. you have to be able to succinctly in a few words identify your brand. brian by the way it when you own a category. i am a brand. iona category. i was the first ever to do political direct mail. who's the second person to fly solo across the atlantic? was the second pope? you remember the first. you want to be the first in a

category. >> what surprised me is reading your book is that you are talking about liberals or the others have superseded the conservative movement when it comes to direct mail even though you basically started it. >> and i did my pirating work as i said earlier in the 1960s i regularly attacked on nbc abc times magazine. all of the criticism stopped within a few hours election night november 80 that's what viguerie has been up to. i fill my conservative friends at the heritage foundation, many others these to get together and my home for breakfast every wednesday for ten years. don't worry, it's taken me 20 years to learn how to do this. it's going to take them 30 or

more years because i am smarter than there. within five years roger craver on the laugh caught up with the conservatives and now they have far surpassed this in my opinion. i wouldn't dream of flying in an airplane with a pilot who has the skills of the average conservative marketer. most people -- never go to a doctor who learned medicine by the seat of his pants. a liberals have about 20,000 organizations, conservatives about 1500. they raised 700% more money than we do from 700% more donors. >> but yet you talk about them as third force organizations correct? >> correct. >> which is? what >> i'm a big exponent of third force acts organizations. the liberals have 20,000 single

issue organizations if there. about that. former president obama called a meeting of all liberal environmental groups, 3300 350 groups represented there. at the conservatives to the same, there will be 56 or seven groups represented there. each of these groups has their own agenda, their own source of money, their own membership, their own leadership and they're pulling everybody think what the environmentalists have accomplished not just with the democrats both the republicans. independents have pulled their way and their issues. so the politicians don't really set the agenda as much as the third force organizations. conservatives only have 1500, we really are far behind and one of the things the reason i wrote the book is to encourage mostly younger people when you get to be my age or in your 60s

are even 50 60s you dina's pretty well set. the very definition of an entrepreneur is a rex taker. so that's gonna come from younger people. twenties, 30s, early 40s. one about particularly conservatives to read the book and get engaged. i talk about that. i think it's very important. nobody was banging on barack obama's door to run for the senate or run for the president. he picked himself. in 2000 and 17, 008, he's describing himself as a community organizer. a year later he's president of the united states. donald trump is a businessman, no prior government experience. 15 months later he's president of the united states. i would urge young people get yourself, don't come some knock on. when i came to washington all of these i.d.s in energy, nobody invited me into any meetings.

she said all this knowledge is going away, so one day at a frustration that called a meeting. a dozen people came. i called a meeting a week later and more came. i learned early on about nancy pelosi as she's climbing the democratic leadership ladder. be surprised many good people will come to your meeting if you serve good food. i served good food and all of a sudden started inviting me to their meetings. the pick yourself, be a risk taker people. >> mr. viguerie could liberals pick up go big and learn. things >> unfortunately. yes there's nothing i can do about that. it's good advice even if you're not in politics. viguerie four horsemen of marketing. if you want to get a job in a promotion, start a business, get a spouse if you want to differentiate yourself there's

a lot of competition so this book will let you differentiate from everybody else alter. >> i want to talk about some of the people who write about in go big starting with charles edison. >> charles edison was one of life's great human beings. i was fortunate to know him in the early 60s. it was the youngest son of thomas edison the inventor. he had been in the navy, governor of new jersey and in the last 10:15 years of his life, he was very active in the conservative cause and movement. with quite wealthy and was very generous with his contributions. very supportive. iran within the nearly 60. this one day we had a small office in the fourth floor, no elevator, madison avenue, advertising in new york city. so i'm working at my desk there

about 2:00 in the afternoon. i look up and there's charles edison, 75 years old standing in front of me. he walked all the way from the waldorf astoria towers, 15 blocks just to kind of boost the morale and kind of encourage us and all that. just a delightful, wonderful man. a call on the phone whatever started asking for contribution, again a contribution on the phone. i call a few other people like in captain eddie rickenbacker of eastern airlines, world war i here, and j. howard pew the if the sun oil company, they'll give me money generously. and i decided i don't like asking people so i started writing letters. >> talk about that a little bit. cold calling people on the phone, voiced a voice. >> that's not me. it wasn't me in my twenties, it's not me an almost 90. i just don't like asking people for money. >> you won't write them a letter? >> i started writing letters not seem to work, enough so i got a secretary, and i was able to write more letters.

-- when i got something called a mcgrath machine, big drumroll, and a print 200 letters an hour or something like that. that seemed to work and that i got something called a computer that nobody had heard of in those days. we started sending out letters and after about a year and a half by the way at buckley's, i began to focus entirely on direct mail. after a year and a half i thought i knew everything there was to new the marketing. biden at a wife and two babies so i quit a good job and hung up and started the viguerie company which is the first direct mail advertising agency. i thought i knew everything, i knew nothing. and a loss in 1% of what i know now. there's one thing i knew that i didn't have, that was names in addresses. i was able to get 12,500 barrick gold water donors, 50

plus donors that changed everything. so by the end of that first year when i started my company 1965, i had 100,000 republican donors now we are well past $10 million and activists in the conservative movement. i recognized early on at the business i was and i wasn't in fund raising too much, i was into name acquisition business. mark zuckerberg felt gear that it to. >> mr. viguerie have you gotten rich in your business? >> i have not, i've lived very comfortably but this to this day my team will testify under oath and i put everything possible back into the company. every fiber of my being i'm in entrepreneur. as i said earlier, the definition of an entrepreneur if anything is a risk taker. to this day, i put everything i've got available back into the company. i learned the reason i do that

is 1965 i started my company january. i want to very conservative organizations and i said i've got these goldwater donors, let's do a test mailing a 5000. and they all agree. we spent $1, and now you send it and dollar 50 comes back as you investing in the long term value of that on. in those days when i sent $1, to three or $5 come back. i said this is great. if we mail 50,000 letters memos results come in his same is the 5000, well male 500,000. they just said no let's mail-in of a 5000. i didn't know there down the street we got a blow and go. they said no, 5000. so at that moment i said i want to save western civilization, i know what to do, saltville you want to do. i will finance the mailing. i'll put up all this money. to this day, the vast majority of our clients we financed the

mailing. everything i can possibly get from the company and put back, finance more growth to the conservative movement. >> by the way who is right, 5000 or 500,000? >> neither, millions. we will be mailing in the next 18 months something around 300 million postal letters. >> someone else has been very active in the conservative movement that you write about in the conservative movement, morton blackwell. >> morton blackwell i dedicated the book to he's a dear friend. i am known in the conservative moment as double 02, i've been active in the movement's longest conservative moment except for dr. g edwards as double 01. bill buckley, and others falwell, robertson all dead. so i am an active at the national level that everybody except for everybody but dr. li edwards.

lee i've known since 1961 he calls me on the phone when they, let's have lunch with this young conservative. you have to know him, he does not get, or you don't know. and a nice lunch at the mayflower hotel. i invited him back ten days later for a new lunch just tni and at the end of the lunch morton said i spoke magic words to him in the magic words and spoke to him were more than i want you to come work with me and help me build the conservative movement. he said at that point he's taken a pay cut. i gave him a little pay increase. anyway, after some years he left and ended up working for ronald reagan in the white house. and then after that he left started something called the leadership institute. almost no organization i can think of that is more important than the leadership institute a trained well over a quarter of 1 million young people, many, many governors, senators, congressman, legislators to many too numerous to mention.

over the years now as we speak he's the president of my company. i'm chairman, my company kathleen pad is in jerusalem with far her five other conservative marketers and he's teaching a couple hundred people in young europe, conservatives out of the effect of conservatives. so as maybe 500 more classes all over the country that he has leadership history teaches each year. he's had more impact on the conservative movement than anyone else i can think of who's living. >> the book called go big, the marketing secrets of richard a richard viguerie viguerie. it was richer. very recreate your time. >> my pleasure, good to be with you.

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