John Bejakovic

Hypno-wizards and their willing victims

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Imagine a small, dark cell. There’s a light bulb swinging overhead. One man is seated at a table under the light bulb. Two men are standing over the seated man, and a few more sit in the shadows along the wall, watching the proceedings.

“Who else was involved in planning the robbery?” asks one of the standing men.

“It was me…” stammers the man at the table. “Well, we had talked about it the night before…”

The other standing man leans in. “Who is this ‘we’?”

The seated man looks up into the light and blinks over and over. “It was just me. Bjørn… I…”

“Bjørn was also involved in planning the robbery?”

Suddenly, one of the men sitting in the shadows coughs. He makes a show of crossing his legs in an unusual way. The parts of his legs beneath the knee form a clear letter X.

The man under the light bulb straightens up. “Nobody else was involved. I acted alone. My goal was to support the revolution.”

In 1951, a man named Palle Hardrup robbed a bank in Copenhagen. The robbery wasn’t his first, but it was the first one that went bad, and Hardrup killed two people. Soon after, he was arrested and interrogated.

During the interrogations, it became clear Hardrup might have been acting under the direction of somebody else.

That somebody else turned out to be Bjørn Nielsen, a self-taught hypnotist.

Over the next 10 years, the story slowly unfolded across Danish courthouses, prisons, and hospitals. Eventually, it even made it to the European Court of Human Rights.

The question was who was responsible for the robbery and the murders. Hardrup, who had confessed to the the crimes… Nielsen, who dozens of witnesses claimed had hypnotized Hardrup over the course of two years, and who still seemed to have total control over his hypno-puppet, each time the symbol X appeared in some way… or Hardrup and Nielsen both.

What do you think? I’ll tell you what Dan Kennedy thinks:

Dan thinks if you want to get rich, then be the wizard… and beware other wizards.

What Dan is saying is we all crave to give up responsibility in our lives. It’s a dangerous thing to allow yourself to do… but there is lots of money to be made in providing that service to other people.

And that’s what I think those Copenhagen hypnosis murders illustrate.

Human beings are extremely programmable.

We also have individual agency.

And if you ask me, those are two magnetic poles that cannot be reduced down to one.

This is something you might want to keep in mind… if you too have decided to get rich, the way I’ve finally done recently, for the first time in my life.

And in case you want to get educated about persuasion, marketing, and copywriting to help you in your quest to get rich… you might like my daily email newsletter.

Profit from your prospect’s lack of common sense… even if… you don’t deserve it!

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Here’s how a typical argument goes in the Bejakovic family—

My father [an economist by training and profession]:

“We are living in the best moment in history. We’ve got free education on every topic on Coursera… effective cholesterol-lowering drugs from Pfizer… and a Nespresso machine in every home! The most powerful kings of 500 years ago, or the wealthiest robber barons of 100 years ago, couldn’t dream of riches like these.”

Me [who also studied economics… but found it more heat than light, and dropped it for other pursuits]:

“Yeah, but people don’t seem so happy today. Maybe people were happier before we had Nespresso machines.”

Or maybe they were just the same. For example, here’s a quote by George Orwell, writing about Mein Kampf in 1940, 46 years before the first Nespresso machine was invented:

“Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.”

I’m not arguing for Fascism. But that other stuff, the stuff Orwell says about psychologically sound conceptions of life — that’s inarguable.

And if you’re writing sales copy, then you have to take it into account.

​​You have to tap into the dark, hidden, and often nonsensical parts of the human existence, at least intermittently. Because human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, and Nespresso machines.

History and sales results prove it.

Which is why I put together a list for myself, and for people who go through my Copy Riddles program, which I called The Dirty Dozen. I made this list by looking at successful sales copy, and stripping out the direct self-interest.

Whatever was left — well, my father wouldn’t understand that.

But you can. And you can profit from it.

You don’t even need my Dirty Dozen list. You can make a list like it yourself. It might be a long, lonely road… and you might doubt yourself along the way. But I’m sure you can do it.

Or of course, you can join the Copy Riddles army, when enlistment opens up again in a few weeks’ time (sign up here to hear from the recruiting office). We’ve got flags… loyalty parades… and thanks to some stuff I’ve been working on, we will soon have safety in numbers also.

Evergreen “wireless” fears

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Did you ever hear of “radio face”? It was a curious affliction that swept through households in England in 1925.

​​The background:

Radio had started to spread in the early 1920s. It became more and more popular to have one at home. As a result, radio programming started to explode like corn over a fire.

By 1925, many people found themselves leaning in to the loud speaker… straining to hear each crackling word of the news or the radio drama.

Finally, a companion who was ready to entertain all day long!

Radio seemed perfect. Until, that is, some of the female listeners noticed a worrisome thing. From an article I read:

“The strain of trying to catch every word of wireless broadcast constantly puckers the lines around a woman’s forehead, and draws more lines around the sides of her mouth.”

As a result, many women in England started to live in fear of “wireless wrinkles.”

“Concentration at the Earphones Brings Wrinkles to the Brow.”

Who knows, maybe they were right?

In any case, this made me think how evergreen the fear of “wireless” has been. You could use it in 1925… and also in 2021.

For example, over the past couple of years, I’ve written a lot of copy for a team of ecommerce guys.

One of the longest-running front-end advertorials that we’ve had going is about the fear of “wireless pickpockets.” The offer is an RFID blocking card you put in your wallet, to keep these wireless pickpockets from swiping your money… and giving you wrinkles from all the frowning you would do afterwards.

A few years ago, Stefan Georgi and Justin Goff ran a webinar, offering to critique copy. I submitted the “wireless pickpockets” advertorial.

Stefan and Justin looked at the advertorial tweaking the copy wouldn’t produce much improvement… but Justin had some tested-and-proven advice about the rest of the funnel:

* Add a lot of reason why copy for the first upsell — even though it was just more of the same RFID card.

I passed that golden info on to my clients. But as far as I know, they never implemented it. So maybe it will be useful to you instead, in case you or your clients also run some kind of ecommerce offer.

Anyways, Justin and Stefan put out two more webinars over the past few weeks. If you haven’t watched them yet, I might write more about them in the coming days… and tell you about any golden info that I find inside.

Meanwhile, I want to tell you about a cool newsletter. It’s called The Pessimists Archive. It’s where I found the above story about radio face and wireless wrinkles.

The whole newsletter is really just interesting newspaper cutouts from decades past. It shows you how many things never change… how many fears and appeals stay the same… how predictable human reactions can be, even century after century.

And you know what? This can be valuable if you are the type to track trends and profit from them.

​​So in case you want to check out news from the past that’s still news, here’s the link to the Pessimists Archive:

https://pessimistsarchive.substack.com/

Why adults crave drama so much

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I’m not sure I could do this every day. Or that I would want to.

I spent today maneuvering a tiny little sailboat. Sun sea wind.

I am more physically tired now than that time 10 years ago, when I thought it was a good idea to start going to a boxing gym.

But after three days of supposed “sailing” over the past week, which involved either a complete lack of wind or a complete lack of control, I got both wind and some control today. I even hung my ass out of the boat and lay down almost flat on top of the waves, two thirds of me hanging off the side, to keep the thing from capsizing. It worked.

(I still ended up capsizing a few times. They tell me that’s normal.)

But let me get to the point:

​​I’m glad I’m making progress handling the boat. But I’m not sure I could do this every day. I’m too adult. ​​This craving for speed and the spending of physical energy is a kids’ game. I’d rather read a book or watch a movie.

Which brings me to a valuable quote I want to share with you.

​​It’s from playwright David Mamet, who wrote a book about drama that all copywriters should read. (Itsa called Three Uses of the Knife.)

And in the book, David gives the following bit, which is both a rare explanation for why we adults crave drama so much… as well as a reminder to put it in your copy — or suffer the consequences:

“Children jump around at the end of the day, to expend the last of that day’s energy. The adult equivalent, when the sun goes down, is to create or witness drama — which is to say, to order the universe into a comprehensible form. Our sundown play/film/gossip is the day’s last exercise of that survival mechanism. In it we attempt to discharge any residual perceptive energies in order to sleep. We will have drama in that spot, and if it’s not forthcoming we will cobble it together out of nothing.”

The very first ad to do sex in advertising

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Albert Lasker, known as “the father of modern advertising,” called it one of the greatest and most important ads ever.

Partly, because it looked and sounded classy.

Partly, because it drove up sales.

But most of all, because it was the first ad to feature sex appeal.

I’m talking about the Woodbury’s Soap ad, which you can find below, if you are the curious type.

For me, it’s hard to get aroused by the sex in this ad. Yes, because I grew up with the Internet. But also, because the sex appeal in this ad was mainly targeted at women, and women and I have differing tastes.

Still, I get aroused by this ad for another reason:

The Woodbury’s ad is an example of a class of ads from the early 20th century, which were not really direct response ads the way we know them today… but which still featured a direct response offer.

For example, the Woodbury’s ad features an offer to write in and get a print of the beautiful painting in the ad, without the company logo or the ad copy. Oh, and you get a sample of the soap too, all for just 10¢ worth of coins or stamps.

The thing that’s interesting is that making this sale isn’t really the point of the ad. After all, this ad continued to run for many years after, without the direct response offer.

My guess is that the direct response mechanism initially served to tell J. Walter Thompson, the marketing agency behind this ad, how effective this ad was in terms of capturing readership, interest, and brand recognition.

Which I think is something you can use today as well.

As I’ve written before, we are entering an age where brand advertising and direct marketing blend. Not just for soap companies. For your own personal brand as well.

And if you do some brand awareness work… whether that’s a podcast appearance… or a livestream… or even a daily email in which you don’t have a product to sell…

It can make sense to put in an offer. Not the real thing you’re selling. Something else.

It can be free. It can also be quick and easy, without any back-end setup. And yet, it can help you gauge how effective your spiel was… and how valuable the channel in which you delivered it.

For example:

If you write me an email, I will direct you to a cool resource for learning more about classic ads like the Woodbury’s ad. These ads all hold great ideas that you can apply to your marketing today. And you can get them in a resource that’s available for free, online — and that I’ve never heard anybody talk about.

Like I said, just write me an email, and I’ll tell you what this resource is.

Oh, and here’s a sample of the Woodbury’s ad, all for just 0¢ worth of coins or stamps:

Proven: Change in perspective creates 900% improvement in thinking

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A few months ago, Edward de Bono died. He was somebody meaningful in my life because I read his Lateral Thinking book 15 years ago.

Lateral Thinking got into my head. It influenced how I do stuff like writing these emails. It made me generate more ideas before I commit to one… made me less critical of ideas as they pop up… made me integrate randomness and restrictions into my idea generation.

Anyways, I read an obit for de Bono in The Guardian today. And the following quote from de Bono came up:

“Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception.”

I was very excited when I read this. “Can this be true?” I thought. “If it is, then just imagine how valuable that would make a change of perspective!”

Now I’m no math wiz, but by my calculations it would mean that the right change of perspective would create something like a 900% increase in right thinking.

So for a split second, I thought about tracking down the studies that de Bono referred to. But those are probably as interesting as watching a slug try to cross a six-lane highway.

So instead, let me point you to another kind of proof… which de Bono approved of… which is much more convincing… and which might help you when you try to convince people of your own ideas:

https://bejakovic.com/chickensoup

Free business idea: 9 Chambers of Pain

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Here’s a free business idea for you to run with, if you so choose:

Just a little over a week ago, a new study was published by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh.

They studied over 21,000 patients who came for treatment at pain management clinics around Pittsburgh.

The scientists measured these poor people… probed them… interrogated them… and then fed all this data into a large tube-based computer.

And then they waited.

36 days later, the computer printed out a result:

There are exactly 9 types of chronic pain.

Such as group F (lower back pain radiating below the knee)… and group D (upper and lower back pain).

Each group varied in the location of pain… the severity of pain… as well as in the severity of other problems that went with the pain, like depression and anxiety.

So here’s my business idea for you:

You create a quiz. “Which unique type explains your chronic pain?”

People go through the quiz. You categorize them into one of 9 groups, based on their physical and emotional symptoms. For extra points, you can give it a Wu Tang flavor, and call it the 9 Chambers of Pain.

And then what?

Then you sell them something that helps them. It can be your own offer or an affiliate offer. For example:

Any kind of anti-inflammation supplement…

Or a course on meditation techniques…

Or a visit to a chiropractic clinic or some kind of other physical restructuring.

And here’s the incredible thing:

You can sell the same thing to all 9 groups. Of course, you say something like,

“Based on your unique scientifically-proven pain type… we recommend a free + shipping bottle of our doctor-formulated turmeric dust.”

As I’ve written before, this quiz => same offer funnel works like magic.

Because people like to feel unique… because they want a new understanding of their chronic problem… and because they aren’t very skeptical or critical when they get this new understanding.

Which is why RealDose Nutrition, the first big-name direct response company I ever worked with, built an 8-figure business in record time on the back of exactly the model I’ve just described to you.

And now, if you like, you can start doing the same. You already have the entire marketing concept. All you need is to decide which helpful product you want to sell… and to be quick, so other people don’t swipe this idea from right in front of your nose.

To end:

If you’d like more Wu Tang-flavored business idea, you best protect ya neck and sign up to my email newsletter here.

The parable of the unfree client

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Legend says the mighty Persian king Bahram Gur once went a-hunting. But he failed to catch even a single wild donkey.

Angry and tired, Bahram Gur, along with his vizier and priest, then happened upon a lovely village.

But nobody came out of the village to greet the great king or offer him food or drink. So in his bad mood, Bahram cursed the village and said,

“May this green prosperous village be a den
of beasts — a wild and uncultivated fen”

The priest at the king’s side lived to make his lord’s wishes come true. And he knew just what to do. So he rode into the village, assembled the people there, and decided to ruin their lives.

“King Bahram is pleased with your village,” he said. “So he has decided to reward you. From now on, all of you are free and equal. Children are equal to adults. Women are equal to men. Workers are equal to headmen.”

The people rejoiced.

A year later, Bahram Gur went a-hunting again in the same country. And he happened upon the once-beautiful village.

But this time, all he saw was a scrawny cat wandering the empty, trash-littered main street. A torn bra dangled from one window. A dirty baby sat on the corner, drinking wine and smoking a cigar.

“What awful thing happened here?” asked Bahram Gur, close to tears. “Priest, make sure these people get whatever they need to repair this once-beautiful village.”

“It shall be done, my lord” said the priest.

And he rode into town, assembled the drunken, dirty, diseased locals, and gave them the gift of order and hierarchy once again.

​​Within a year, the cat fattened up, the streets turned clean, and that dirty baby became an honor student who listened to his parents.

This thousand-year-old story is in part social propaganda. After all, it’s not clear that humans really need to be ruled for peace and harmony to abide. So it makes sense to tell them stories like this to make them believe that’s the case.

But in part, this story is also an allegory about human nature.

Because there’s no denying our brain loves to minimize thinking. And while we might not need order, authority, and hierarchy… we certainly crave those things on some level.

I’ve noticed this with my clients. The more I take charge of the client relationship, the more I tell my clients how it is… the more they respect the work I do, and the more they pay me, without any questions.

But this same idea goes just beyond copywriting client work. So let me leave you with a Bahram-like couplet to sum it up:

“Strip away his freedoms, and make things black and white —
Your prospect will love you, and feel you must be right!”

For more commandments, delivered to your brain each day, just as you’re getting antsy about the lack of order in your life, click here and follow the instructions.

Jerry Seinfeld’s harsh words of encouragement

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Today I read an interesting article by a guy named Sam Sussman, who might be Bob Dylan’s son.

Sussman’s article starts out by describing how Sussman’s mom and Bob Dylan got together, back in 1974.

Dylan asked the mom, then 20 years old, to host a party in her tiny New York apartment.

He then showed up in red cowboy boots, along with a bunch of other people.

The other people left around 2am.

Dylan stayed. And with a flick of his red cowboy boots, he closed the front door behind the last guest, and then turned to face Sussman’s mom. And so their relationship started.

I thought Sussman’s article was worth reading for that boot-flicking seduction move alone.

Of course, Sussman has more serious soul-searching to do, including this bit:

But perhaps more than seeking a literal father, I looked to Dylan for evidence that I could make it as a writer. Besides my mother and my tenth-grade literature teacher, nobody had ever given me a reason to believe I could.

I guess Sussman turned out ok as a writer, in spite of a lack of early encouragement. His article appeared in Harper’s, and I think he’s got a novel out.

Still, that quote above made me think of a bit of advice Jerry Seinfeld gave in the 1980s to would-be comedians who had signed up for a stand-up comedy class. Jerry’s advice might sound harsh. In any case, it’s all I want to say for today, so I’ll leave you with his words, and you decide:

The fact that you have even signed up for this class is a very bad sign for what you’re trying to do.

The fact that you think anyone can help you or there’s anything that you need to learn…you have gone off on a bad track.

Because nobody knows anything about any of this.

And if you want to do it, what I really should do is I should have a giant flag behind me that I would pull a string and it would roll down, and on it the flag would just say two words:

Just work.

“That’s fine for today,” you might say, “but what about tomorrow?”

Tomorrow I’ll have something new for you. And if you’d like to read it, you can sign up for my email newsletter here.

Last chance to send $1000, plus a free spot in my upcoming Write-Your-Advertorial workshop

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On April 30, 1961, Leonid Rogozov gave himself a jab of Novocaine. He struggled forward in his hospital bed and told one of his “assistants” to shift the mirror a little. He picked up the scalpel, and started cutting into his own side.

It took Rogozov about an hour or so. He had to take frequent breaks due to weakness and fainting spells.

But eventually, he managed to cut out his own inflamed appendix… sew himself up… and presumably, drink a bunch of vodka to celebrate.

Leonid Rogozov was the only doctor at the Soviet Antarctic station. He had to operate on himself, because nobody else at the station could. He survived, and a year later, when he got off Antarctica and his story became known, he became a national hero.

I’d like you to keep in mind this image of a doctor operating on himself… while I tell you about something I heard in Dan Kennedy’s Wealth Attraction Seminar.

“Don’t make decisions for other people,” says Dan.

The fact is, we are all full of what Dan calls secular religious beliefs. These are “facts” about our businesses we firmly believe without any proof. Things like, how much people in our market are willing to spend… what they are willing to buy… and how best to sell them.

Dan says those secular religious beliefs reflect more what’s going on internally in our (the marketers’) heads… rather than the true state of the market.

Dangerous stuff. You might even call it a poisonous inflammation. One that only you can surgically cut out from your own body, in a heroic operation, with the sharp scalpel of real-world testing.

And now that I’ve given myself a shot of Novocaine by sharing this valuable idea with you, let me get out my own scalpel and start cutting:

A few days ago, I got an email from the affiliate manager behind Steal Our Winners. She’s pushing people to promote the lifetime subscription to Steal Our Winners, because the price is going up.

“Nope,” I said. “I won’t do it.”

As you might know, I regularly promote Steal Our Winners. It’s Rich Schefren’s monthly video thing, where he interviews a bunch of successful marketers, and they each share one inside tip on what’s working for them right now.

I think it’s a great product. That’s why I’m happy to promote it each month.

Except, what I always promote is the $1, one-month trial of Steal Our Winners. I think it’s an easy sell, both because Steal Our Winners is a product I personally like… and because, come on, it’s $1.

But this lifetime subscription is not $1. It’s orders of $$$$ more. Plus it’s a lifetime subscription. It sounds so final, like marriage.

That’s why I said I wouldn’t promote this offer. And yet, here we are. So let me make a confession:

I myself have bought the lifetime subscription to Steal Our Winners.

For me, it was absolutely worth it, at the price I got it at. Not just because of the great monthly content… but because of the free bonuses you get, which you can’t get anywhere else.

Like Joe Schriefer’s Copyboarding Academy.

And the Agora Financial Media Buying Bootcamp.

And Rich Schefren’s Mystery Box. (What’s inside? You gotta open up and see.)

Plus about a dozen other bonuses… along with all the back issues of Steal Our Winners.

But if you have no interest in this offer, there’s no sense in me pushing it more on you.

And if you do have some interest, this post isn’t space enough to tell you all the many things you get in the lifetime subscription to Steal Our Winners… and why it might be worth grabbing before the price goes up.

For that, I recommend checking out the link at the end of this post.

Phew.

​​I guess I’ll manage to sew this up after all, after an hour of weakness and fainting spells. So here’s one final thing:

If you do decide to get the lifetime subscription to Steal Our Winners, forward me your confirmation email. Along with your mailing address.

As my own bonus, I’ll give you a free spot in my upcoming Write-Your-Advertorial Workshop. This workshop will happen later this year, and it will cost more than the lifetime Steal Our Winners subscription costs now. (More details about this workshop to follow.)

But what about the mailing address? Why do I want that?

Because I will also mail you a bottle of Belvedere vodka. That way we can celebrate this successful and heroic operation, together, somewhere in virtual space. Na zdorovye.

Operation complete. So here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sow-lifetime