John Bejakovic

The mystery of taking a 4-foot dive

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The summer before last, I met up with some friends on the Croatian island of Krk, in the town of Baska, where I spent much of my childhood.

One day, with one of those friends — a jolly, bear-like guy — I went to a little beach at the edge of town.

The beach is a rocky lagoon with a small stone pier at one end. If you stand on the pier, you are four feet above the water. Some parts of the sea around the pier are shallow, but other parts are deep, 10-12 feet.

I grew up coming to this beach and so I immediately went up to the pier and dived into the water where it’s safe.

My friend stood on the pier, looking at me, ready to jump in as well.

Then he looked down at the water. “Is it deep enough to jump in here?” he yelled to me.

“Yep, you’re fine.”

My friend took a few steps back on the pier to get a running start. He started, neared the edge of the pier, and stopped.

He smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders.

“Come on,” I yelled at him, “jump in!”

He tried again. Same thing — he ran to the edge, stopped, and peered down at the water below.

I got out of the water, jumped in several more times.

​​My friend stood there, nearing the edge, peering over, getting ready to jump in. Each time, he stopped short. Then the entire process would begin again.

I got dry in the meantime. I sat in the sunshine making fun of my friend. I gave him encouragement and coaching and advice.

Nope.

People on the little rocky beach started noticing. At first, they were sneaking a peek out of the corners of their eyes. Then they started watching the spectacle full-on and pointing out the miserable non-jumper to their friends and family.

Will he do it? won’t he?

I’m telling you this because yesterday, I got a question from a member of my Copy Riddles program, who is taking advantage of the Copy Oracle privilege. He wrote:

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Your best advice for positioning or justifying starting a list when in the beginning you’re not a bonafide xpert yet on a particular subject without being a Bullshit Artist, Pretender or just a F.. Liar would be what?

The connection to bullets is I have studied Copywriting and Marketing for years because of the Sales Value they have. But have finally seen the light as to how powerful written direct response is and the leverage it offers or can offer when done correctly.

But its obvious it takes a list to take full advantage.

Mentally Positioning it to yourself as to why the hell should anyone get on the list in the beginning is a Bitch. ( at least to me it is )

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The justification for starting your own list are the same as with any other valuable project. You do it because the long-term benefit is great, and there’s no way to get there without taking the first step.

But that’s like saying the justification for taking a 4-foot dive into the sea is that it’s fun and refreshing.

​​That’s obvious.

​​But still my friend stood there, approaching the edge of the pier a hundred times, each time stopping himself right at the edge.

Eventually, after half an hour, in spite of a hundred short stops, it happened.

My friend went over to the edge of the pier. He looked down at the water. He reassured himself that the water was deep enough.

He took a few steps back, got a running start. He ran to the edge, leaped into the empty air, and splashed down into the water.

He emerged a second later, perfectly fine and even triumphant.

A huge wave of relief passed over the audience on the beach. Well-meaning families of Czechs and Hungarians had become exhausted by my friend’s indecisiveness. Now they could finally relax. A few of them even clapped.

What made my friend jump in? What makes anybody jump in?

​​It’s a truly mysterious question.

Some people can do it right away. Some people never do it. Some approach the edge a hundred times, and then, in spite of all the previous hesitation and inhibition, they finally leap in.

What makes the difference? And how can you achieve that difference, if you have been hesitating a hundred times?

I have no idea. And nobody else does either. I believe that if anybody truly had a method to force that to happen, he could set himself up as the founder of a new religion that would sweep the world and win billions of converts in five years.

But such a messiah has not yet appeared. And so we’re left with indecision and agonizing and will-he-won’t-he, even when the benefits are clear.

Now let me stop philosophizing and point you to my Most Valuable Email course. It’s meant for people who write about topics like I write about — marketing and influence and writing.

If you’ve already started a list, then my MVE course can help you entertain and engage your readers, while making you a better marketer and writer in the process.

On the other hand, if you do not yet have a list, then it’s a mystery.

Maybe the story I told you above was inspiring. And so you get a running start and you near the edge of the pier and… nothing. Yet again.

Or maybe today will be different for some reason. And you will actually start your list, and you will start writing to it regularly.

If today truly is different, then I suggest getting my Most Valuable Email course, because it can help you get authority and credibility even if you’re entirely new.

Either way:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Tipping outrage and my despicable suggestion

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A few nights ago, I went out for sushi with a friend. At the end of the night, the bill came. We each took out a credit card and split the bill halfway, 40 euro per person.

My friend then took out two one-euro coins and put that down on the table as a tip. ​​Out of solidarity, I reached for my pocket to see if I had any change, but my friend said, “No, no, it’s fine.”

I live in Spain, and the tipping culture here is that tipping is not required or expected. If you do leave anything, it really is “just the tip” and not half the snaking bill.

Compare that to the U.S.

​​I read an article in the AP last week. It said people in the U.S. are increasingly unhappy about tipping.

15% used to be standard once upon a time. Then it inched up to 18%. In most places, 20% is now standard.

Lots of automated registers now prompt you for tips. Plus tipping is spreading in situations where tips weren’t expected before, such as carryout and fast-food counters. If you want to clearly signal you were actually impressed with the food or the service, you will have to leave a 30% tip or more.

Lots of consumers feel this is getting out of control, a kind of highway brigandage at the coffee shop and the rotating sushi place.

On the other hand, you have people in the service industry, the baristas and the waitresses and the cooks, rightly pointing out that tips are how they live. It’s about paying people “what they’re owed,” said one service-industry veteran.

That AP article is worth digging up and reading, because it’s shows a war of different psychological principles — loss aversion, reactance, liking, reciprocity.

But that’s not my point for today. My point is simply that at the end of the AP article, there’s a quote from a consumer who’s complaining.

It’s the company’s job to pay, he says.

That’s foolish. Just the opposite. It’s the company’s job not to pay.

Some companies even advertise good tips in their job listings. “Somebody else will pay you well for doing this job,” they are saying, “but it ain’t gonna be us.”

This might make you feel frustrated as a consumer, or outraged if you work at a tippable job.

And maybe you’re right, whichever side you’re on. But here’s where I will make a suggestion you might find despicable:

Take that frustration and outrage, and instead of stewing there with your arms crossed, channel it into something valuable for you.

​​Get yourself into a similar position to those despicable companies, of not having to pay anything yourself, but passing on your expenses to others.

You might wonder what I’m on about. So let me tell you.

Marketer Dan Kennedy has a story of getting his million-dollar-plus divorce settlement. Dan says:

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I’ve never taken a pay cut. Somebody whacks me with a new tax, somebody else is gonna pay it. I’m not.

Exact same attitude about my divorce settlement. It’s why it didn’t really bother me. I said, I don’t know exactly who’s gonna pay this, but it ain’t gonna be me.

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Dan wasn’t bothered by his divorce settlement because he’s in a position of “income at will.”

In other words, when Dan got the ugly news of the millions of dollars he was suddenly supposed to pay to his ex-wife, he started thinking about creating a bunch of new offers — high-priced seminars, diamond-level coaching, marriage counseling services.

​​And then he advertised those new offers to his list, or as he likes to call it, his herd.

The herd ended up paying for the divorce, not Dan.

So start thinking about how to get yourself into a similar situation.

Because really, the only way to fully protect yourself against inflation… and out-of-control tips… and new tax bills… and ugly divorce settlements… is to put yourself into a position where you don’t have to be the one to pay any of that.

And if you want some free advice on how to do that, you might want to get on my email list. Click here to sign up.

A message from Porter Spamsberry & Co

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Each day, I like to check my spam folder several times because — who knows? Maybe somebody wrote me with a declaration of love, and I don’t get much of that in my usual inbox.

But no. No love ever in my spam folder.

Instead, all I ever find is dozens of messages from senders like:

Tech Crashes
Lucrative Market News
Worldwide Recession
Recession Starts Now
Market Collapsing

It’s not just the sender names that look the same.

All these emails have the same format, with a linked first sentence… a domain name that’s the same as the sender name (recessionstartsnow dot net)… and the identical “Thank You!” message that appears when you try to unsubscribe.

Unsubscribing, by the way, is impossible.

New disposable domains and new senders keep popping up in my spam folder, day after day, like moles. American Conservative Group. In Time Investing. Wallstreet Burning.

Sometimes, these website have disappeared by the time I click the link in the email, just a few hours after it was sent out.

But some of these emails do still point to live websites.

And on those websites, there’s always a video sales letter, which always features the same glum face. The glum face belongs to Porter Stansberry, the investment researcher and copywriter who started and then sold the billion-dollar company Stansberry Research.

What’s going on?

My suspicion is that this is some affiliate getting creative, and not a new email marketing strategy from Porter & Co, Stansberry’s new venture. But maybe I’m wrong.

If you know, and you would like to tell me, I will be grateful to you.

In any case, let me tease you about something else Stansberry-related:

A while back, a senior copywriter for Stansberry signed up to my newsletter. He replied to one of my emails, and offered to tell me the number one secret behind Stansberry’s billion-dollar success.

I won’t tell you what that copywriter told me — there’s value in not blabbing publicly.

But in case you would like to get on my email newsletter — after all, top copywriters and A-list marketers read it every day — click here to subscribe.

 

Famous showman advises you to stop bla— well, let me stop myself there

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Back in the 19th century, famous ringmaster P.T. Barnum made good money going around the country and giving a talk titled, The Art of Money-Getting.

Barnum knew a thing or two about money-getting.

​​He built up a large fortune, worth several hundred million dollars today, starting from nothing, using nothing except his own wits. And he did it a few times over, including after being forced into bankruptcy by cheating business partners and disastrous Acts of God.

Anyways, here’s a bit from Barnum’s Art of Money-Getting:

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Don’t blab. Some men have a foolish habit of telling their business secrets. If they make money they like to tell their neighbors how it was done. Nothing is gained by this, and ofttimes much is lost. Say nothing about your profits, your hopes, your expectations, your intentions.

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Not long ago, I asked readers of this newsletter which of my emails came to mind first.

I got lots of responses, and also some surprising extra information.

Many people used the word “transparent.” They said they liked my emails because of how transparent I am.

​​I guess they meant transparent about my business, because I don’t make any effort to be transparent about my personal stuff. Rather, I sometimes make an effort to be opaque about that.

So maybe Barnum speaking to me. Stop being so transparent, Bejako.

Or maybe he was speaking to you.

Don’t blab, dear reader. And if you do decide to share your money-getting business secrets, make sure something fine is gained by it, and not just a back-slap from your neighbors.

At this point in my email newsletter, I had a special offer for my readers. That’s not an offer I ever make on this website, in the archived version of my email — because I don’t like to blab about it publicly. In case you would like to get on my email newsletter, to get the full story I am writing each day, you can click here and sign up.

4 stories

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Story 1. John Carlton was interviewing a copywriting client. After hours of ho-hum information, the client casually mentioned how the TorsionFlex Super Saiyan MiracleT golf swing he was teaching was something he learned from a golfer who had lost a leg, possibly in a whaling accident.

​​”Huh?” said Carlton as he leaned in. This turned into John Carlton’s most famous headline:

“Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices… And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game Almost Overnight”

Story 2. Dan Ferrari struggled as a copywriter for the first year of his career, only getting work from freelance sites.

​​Things only changed when saw an job listing from the Motley Fool, which I believe he applied to just because it was down the street from where he was living at the time.

These days, he’s known as the number 1, most successful, how-does-he-do-it direct response copywriter out there. ​​

Story 3. Dan Kennedy once had a car repossessed during a seminar he was giving.

​​The seminar was in an office park building with big windows. All the attendees could see Dan go out to the parking lot, knock on the window of his own car, and hand the repo man a $20 tip, as though he was taking the car to get detailed.

4. My mom threw a slipper at me once out of frustration and fear. I was going through a teenage melancholy phase, looking wilted and sad for days, possibly ready for self-harm.

​​My mom kept asking me what’s wrong but I just sighed and turned away. Eventually the slipper came at my head. I managed to dodge it, but it did wake me up.

My point?

I heard recently that door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen were taught to first tell four stories before they go for a trial close.

Now, I’m selling an encyclopedia or an A-Z guide to copywriting. Rather, I’m selling a collection of wisdom that’s been handed from people who made it to the very top of the copywriting mountain.

I’m talking about my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

The three A-list copywriters above, plus me, all feature in the book. No, none of the stories above are in the book. But many others are. In case you would like to read those stories, and maybe obtain some wisdom in the process:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The positioning you want if you live and die by your expertise

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“Looks like you just about cleaned everybody out, fella. You haven’t lost a hand since you got the deal. What’s your secret of your success?”

“Prayer.”

Let’s see if you recognize this magical Hollywood scene, and if you can spot the influence and positioning lesson within.

The scene in set in a Wild West saloon. Some cowboys are playing blackjack. One cowboy has been winning. ​​Too much.

“You’re a hell of a card player,” says one of the other cowboys. “I know, cause I’m a hell of a card player. And I can’t even spot how you’re cheating.”

All the other cowboys push away from the table in a hurry. The accusing card player stands up. His hand is hovering at his hip, next to his gun.

“The money stays,” the accuser says. “And you go.”

I’ll continue the scene in a sec. I would just like to point out this is also likely to be how your prospects size up you and your business. “The money stays,” they say. “And you go.”

Moving on:

Suddenly, a new figure enters the scene.

This new guy is friendly and cheery. He goes over to the possibly cheating card player, who’s still seated. The new guy tries to pull the possible cheater out of the saloon before a gunfight goes down. But the guy won’t budge.

“I wasn’t cheating,” he says. “If he invites us to stay, then we’ll go.”

So now there’s this tense three-way standoff.

The accusing cowboy, standing and ready to draw his gun. The possibly cheating cowboy, still seated and looking cool and a little sad. And the third guy, cheery and helpful, trying to negotiate between the two of them.

“What would you think about maybe asking us to stick around?” the cheery guy says to the accusing cowboy. “You don’t have to mean it or nothing, just ask us—” But he gets shoved out of the way.

The cheery guy sighs and hangs his head. He turns to the seated, possibly cheating cowboy and says, “I can’t help you, Sundance.”

Suddenly the accuser, who was ready to draw his gun a second before, opens his eyes wide. Then he starts blinking.

“I didn’t know you were the Sundance Kid when I said you were cheating. If I draw on you, you’ll kill me.”

Sundance finally stands up from the table. “There’s that possibility,” he says.

But nobody dies in this scene, because, against all odds, the accusing cowboy decides to invite Sundance and his partner, Butch, to stick around.

“Thanks, but we gotta get going,” says Butch. So the two friends collect the money off the table, take a last sip of whisky, and head on out the door.

This magical scene, as you may have guessed, comes from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, which won the Oscar for best screenplay in 1969. It’s one of my favorite films.

As for the influence and positioning lesson — well, I’ll leave you to think about that.

It’s particularly worth thinking about if you make a living via your expertise, your undeniable skill, in a world filled with other with other cowboys who might be faster draws than you are.

Because here’s what doesn’t happen in the scene above. There’s no demonstration of skill. No guns being drawn. There’s not even any bluster or talk of how fast anybody is. There’s just the mention of a name — Sundance.

I’ll write more about that one day soon.

Meanwhile if this topic interests you, take a look at my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters. Not just for the content inside.

But for the fact that, out of tens of thousands of people who have worked as copywriters over the past century, there are just 10 that I thought worthy to highlight in this book.

How did they get to have that status and influence?

Well, you can get an idea of that by seeing how I talk about them in the book. To get that at an atrociously high price:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

My 11-inch Stonehenge now for sale for $12.69

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The similarities are uncanny:

On the one hand, you have the members of Spinal Tap, the hard rock bank, standing on stage, cowls over their heads, smoke billowing around them, eerie lighting from underneath.

​​They are supposed to be druids. As a mysterious guitar riff plays, a reproduction of one of the Stonehenge pillars is lowered onto the stage.

The pillar was meant to be monumental — 11 feet high. Except, due to a typo in the blueprint, the pillar is only 11 inches high. It’s lowered onto the stage, and is below the knees of guitar player Nigel Tufnel.

And similarly, this morning:

You have me, cowl over my head, lit up eerily from underneath, laughing a villainous laugh, going into my Kindle publishing account and raising the price of my 10 Commandments ebook from $4.99 to $200 — as high as Amazon will let me.

“What a spectacle,” I exclaim in triumph. “The whole Internet will soon be talking about me and my $200 40-page Kindle ebook.”

And then, a few minutes later, I go on Amazon to see my 11-inch Stonehenge lowered onto the stage:

Digital List Price: $200.00
Kindle Price: $12.69
Save: $187.31 (94%)

It turns out that, even if you set a ridiculously high price for your Kindle ebook, Amazon won’t actually honor that. They will sell your book for what they like, not for what you like.

I guess there are many lessons to draw from this.

But for today, I just want to say this is a fitting example of the chasm between spectacle conceived and spectacle delivered.

Lots of business owners think their marketing stunts are groundbreaking, terrific, sure to go viral among prospects and non-prospects alike.

The reality is an increase in price from $4.99 to $12.69.

Oh well. It’s just an opportunity to learn something and try again, with some new sensation. Because what else is there?

I’ll leave you with the following story from the godfather of modern advertising, Claude Hopkins, after he first tried and failed to make it as a marketer in Chicago:

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That night after dinner I paced the streets. I tried to analyze myself. I had made a great success in Grand Rapids; I was making a fizzle here. What were the reasons? What was there I did in the old field which I could apply to Swift & Company’s problems?

At midnight, on Indiana Avenue, I thought of an idea.

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Hopkins realized that in Grand Rapids, he had created sensations. So his new idea was to create the largest cake in the world to advertise Cotosuet, a margarine sold by Swift & Company.

Result?

105,000 visitors to see the world’s largest cake… thousands of new Cotosuet buyers… and the start of a very long, very successful, and very influential advertising career for Claude Hopkins.

That’s a valuable Claude Hopkins lesson. But not as valuable, in my opinion, as the Claude Hopkins lesson I write about in Commandment VI of my 10 Commandments book.

You can find that, along with a generous discount that Amazon has decided to provide for you, on the following page:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

“Pharma Bro in contempt”: Everything going to plan

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I’m signed up for the Federal Trade Commission newsletter, because I like to get news of marketing scams, pyramid schemes, and other skulduggery that can be useful for business. So a few days ago, I got a press release with the unlikely but highly satisfying headline:

“FTC Asks Federal Court to Hold ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli in Contempt”

You probably know Shkreli. He’s a young guy who caused mass outrage a few years back. He bought a pharma company that sold a lifesaving drug, and then raised the price of that drug 55x, from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Shkreli then schemed to suppress competition, to make sure desperate patients were forced to pay the new 55x price for his drug.

When this became international news, Shkreli smirked at cameras, and said the one mistake he made was that he didn’t raise the price even higher.

“Why are people coming after you?” asked one interviewer.

“It might have something to do with me being very handsome,” Shkreli answered with a smile.

People were fuming.

“Martini Shkreli,” said one irritated TV announcer, doing what he does best: looking like a real slappable prick.”

So the FTC headline is very clever and very fitting. The new news, by the way, is not that Shkreli is now officially contemptible — which is what the headline makes you think, and which is what most people feel — but that he disobeyed court orders, and is therefore himself “in contempt of court.”

Whatever. Point is:

Maybe Shkreli is a natural-born “slappable prick.” Or maybe it’s an act he’s putting on for reasons of his own.

Either way, I think Shkreli’s behavior is worth studying — and even emulating.

“Whoa whoa hold on there,” I hear you saying. “John, you don’t want to go down that road! There are many better ways to get attention than to become contemptible. It’s not worth it!”

No doubt. And I’m not actually planning on getting into the pharma business, or doing anything to taunt the FTC, or playing around with people’s lives.

But that doesn’t change the fact that specific strategies Shkreli is using — whether instinctively or consciously — can be very valuable if you run a completely above-board, highly moral, or even noble business.

That’s something I will write more about in a future book on positioning, which I’m working on now.

But to twist the advice of James Altucher:

“The best way to promote your next book? Get people to read your current book.”

And so let me remind you of my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

​​Get it now if you want, because tomorrow I will be raising the price of this baby to $200 for the ebook and $250 for the paperback — the highest prices Amazon will me allow me to charge. You can watch the price increase at the page below:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Be grateful you read my newsletter

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This past weekend I finished removing the free bonuses from my Copy Riddles program. I sent out an email to previous buyers to tell them 1) they will continue to get access to bonuses and 2) when I flesh out those bonuses into paid courses, they will be automatically upgraded to those new courses.

To which I got a response from a Copy Riddles member:

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Thanks for the update, John. You’ve been treating us OG buyers very well and fairly, and I think you deserve a bit of appreciation!

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I really do. I really do deserve a bit of appreciation.

I’m telling you I deserve appreciation for two reasons. One is that it’s self-serving — I’m a good guy, and others say so about me. I treat my customers well and fairly, and you should keep that in mind the next time I make an offer.

There’s a second reason also:

If you run any kind of business, chances are you’re doing good stuff that you’re not getting credit for.

That means you’re shirking your duties really. As “guru to the gurus” Rich Schefren likes to say, marketing is teaching prospects to value your offer.

The thing is, valuing stuff at what it’s worth is not something we humans are good at. If you want proof of that, go on Amazon, and look at the thousands of gratitude journals for sale, and the hundreds of inspirational guides telling you how important gratitude is, and how you should practice it regularly.

None of that would be necessary if appreciation came easy to humans.

Oh well. that just means you have to do the work for your prospect, and teach him to appreciate what you do.

So be grateful you read my newsletter. Because I always make a point to share something valuable and interesting, usually something you can take and apply right away, if you only think for a second or two.

Now on to my interesting and valuable offer. It’s my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters book.

The fact is, I could take the content of this book, change absolutely nothing except the format, and sell it as a $100 course instead of $5 Kindle book.

Or I could take that same content, deliver it over in a series of 5 Zoom calls, and charge $500 for it.

And people would pay, and they would get great value from it.

And yet, you can get all this value for just $5.

Perhaps you can guess my reasons why. And if not, that’s a topic for another interesting and valuable email.

Meanwhile, if you still haven’t read my 10 Commandments book, you’re shirking your duties as a marketer. Here’s where you can fix that:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The Eleven Steps of Shiny Objectaholics Anonymous

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I got an email from a reader yesterday with an excessively long subject line:

“The most valuable info is rarely sexy, and it’s probably been staring you in the face for a long while.”

Hm. Sounded familiar. It turned out to be a quote from the last chapter of my 10 Commandments book. The body of the email went on to explain:

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Hi John,

In a sea of great quotes from your book, this one spoke to me differently.

Why?

Cause I’ve been chasing shiny objects and secrets the past one year after quitting my banking job to write online.

Only to realize it’s BS 😅

The plan this year is to do the boring shit, on repeat. Till I get good at it. Means reading the fundamental books on copy and doing copywork a lot.

I’m already on your list and enjoy reading your emails. But it’s premature for me to buy yet – in due course though haha.

Anyways, this was an open invitation so I went for it.

Have good Sunday!

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I have this theory that people who wind up in copywriting and direct marketing are all shiny object addicts by nature.

It’s just that the ones who make it realize their addiction at some point, and begin a gradual process of detox and recovery.

If you want a ten-step program to begin your own detox and recovery, then consider my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

A few of these commandments might be new to you. But odds are, most will be either familiar, or obvious. That doesn’t change the fact it’s where the real value is.

If you have already admitted to yourself you are powerless over shiny objects — and that your life has become unmanageable as a result — then have taken the first step. For the next 10 steps:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments