John Bejakovic

“Why don’t you ever whip me?”

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“Why don’t you ever whip me?” the colonel’s wife asked. She had already slept with the colonel’s entire brigade, but she was still eager for a little attention from the colonel himself.

“Because I’m busy,” the colonel snapped back.

That’s from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. The colonel is busy because he is obsessed with putting on parades — parades that nobody watches, parades that the soldiers hate, parades that have no practical value.

Almost as little practical value as the time you waste, polishing and pondering a project that should have shipped in one-tenth the time.

Because, like sex, money loves speed.

I once tried to track down where this phrase comes from. I got as far back as copywriter Joe Vitale, but then the trail went cold.

I always assumed money loves speed because you get more time to keep working on other projects. More work, more money.

And I’m sure that can be a part of it.

But there can be a second part also.

And that’s that money, like sex, doesn’t like desperation.

And if you act busy, even if your other project is your own parade that nobody watches, money might come around and say, “Why don’t you ever pick me up?”

“Because I’m busy,” you can then snap back. “But we can schedule something for next Friday evening.”

Oh, and I once figured out a third way in which money loves speed. It’s something practical I heard in a conversation between marketers Rich Schefren and Kim Walsh Phillips. If you’d like to hear it also:

https://bejakovic.com/the-aggressive-other-meaning-of-money-loves-speed/

Boredom is a necessary nutrient

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Yesterday, I came across an article which compared media consumption to eating. The real problem, the article claimed, is that we are consuming the media equivalent of junk food. But I’m not buying it.

Because here’s another food-related claim I once heard:

Hunger is a necessary nutrient.

That was somebody’s clever way of summarizing what’s now a pretty accepted medical idea. When you don’t eat, your body does some housekeeping which ends up being good for you, and which you cannot get done otherwise.

In other words, hunger, occasional but regular hunger, is just as needed as salt or vitamin C.

And now let me extend that idea to media consumption:

Boredom is a necessary nutrient. Or rather, a necessary ingredient, for any kind of creative work or actual thinking.

For example, today I spent three hours in the car, driving from one town to another.

As soon as I got in the car, my hand reached out to turn on the radio.

“Get thee behind me, Satan” I said to my hand, and I stopped myself from turning on the radio. Because I had a feeling what would happen if I kept the radio off.

For a while after that, my mind roiled inside my skull. “This is so boring!” it said. “I’m getting nervous! Let’s put on some music, it doesn’t even have to have words!”

But eventually, the mind gave up. And some time later, without me doing anything, it happened:

An idea for a new book jumped out at me. The title, the concept, everything. I’m not sure I will ever write this book, but right now I think it’s pretty cool.

Then a few minutes after that, an outline formed in my head for a project I’m working on.

“That outline seems too linear,” I said. “Not integrated enough.”

So a few minutes later, while I braked and navigated some tricky curves high above the sea, a better outline formed in my head.

Eventually, I pulled over at a gas station. I took out my phone, and I wrote down the results of all this hard work I had done.

Maybe the same stuff would have happened in my head had the radio been playing. Or had I been listening to an audiobook. Or had I had somebody in the car to entertain me.

But I doubt it. And that’s why I’d like to suggest:

If you’re looking to get healthy, lean, and fit, creatively speaking, it might be worth turning off your TV. Hiding your phone under the couch. Even putting away that valuable book you are reading.

And then, just sitting there, hungry for stimulation and bored out of your mind…. until something cool happens.

Oh, and stop subscribing to so many email newsletters. Even the entertaining and valuable ones. Like mine.

So bad they can’t ignore you

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Yesterday, I published two posts on this site, where normally I publish one.

This wasn’t part of any strategy or new trend. It was just a goof-up. One of those two posts was meant to come today, and I scheduled it wrong.

There was a second goof-up in one of my posts yesterday, which was that I claimed the free bullets mini course is kicking off today. In fact, it is ​​kicking off tomorrow, Thursday. So if you opted in to get it, you will get it starting tomorrow, as promised initially.

Now that I’ve cleared the air of those painful topics, we get to something even more painful:
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What valuable thing can I say today, since I don’t have a post ready the way I planned?

By blind luck, I’ve been forcing myself to write down a list of 10 “Flaubert moments” each day for the past few days. These are things I spot in the real world, which catch my eye or make me chuckle or wonder. So let me tell you about a fascinating Flaubert moment from two nights ago.

I was walking through the crowded old town at the center of this island. I came out from the medieval city walls and started down the steps to the main plaza.

There were people everywhere. There was chatter everywhere. There was music everywhere.

And yet, above all this noise, I heard it:

The nursery rhyme Frere Jacques. Played on a saxophone. Very badly, with each third or fourth note flat like a honking duck.

I found myself drawn toward this mysterious sound. It kept playing while I made my way through the crowd.

Fre-re-Ja-cques
Fre-re-Ja-cques
HONK-HONK-HONK

Finally, I had my answer. There, in the middle of the main plaza, surrounded by hundreds of ambling and ogling tourists, was a boy. Age about 10. Holding an alto saxophone, which was about as large as he was. With a hat on the ground in front of him for collecting tips.

By the time I got there, the boy stopped with the Frere Jacques and did some arrhythmic improvisation for a half minute. Then he got back to work, honking out Frere Jacques again, again missing each third or fourth note.

I stood there mesmerized.

Because every few seconds, a new tourist family came to drop some change or even a few bills into that hat on the ground. Each time, the boy nodded and kept at his task.

And if you’re looking for a lesson from this, here’s a lesson I’ve heard from very successful people, including Mark Ford and Dan Kennedy:

In any business, there are more important things than the quality of the product or service. In fact, excellence is optional for success, especially at the start.

Maybe you think I’m being silly by drawing this lesson from the honking saxophone boy. So let me spell out just how many things that boy did right, in spite of the awfulness of his playing:

1. He got into the middle of a crowd of hundreds of people who were in the mood to throw away a bit of money.

2. He made it clear he would accept some of this money by putting down his hat on the ground.

3. He drew attention to himself by blaring his saxophone. (Compare this to the little girls sitting along the edges of the same plaza, and selling statues made of shells, which nobody was buying.)

4. He played a simple tune which everybody knew and everybody could identify with on some level.

5. He entertained, whether consciously (by his playing) or unconsciously (by his shamelessness).

6. He kept at it. He didn’t play one round of his four-bar melody and quit.

All right, I think I’ve made my point. And maybe you can get some use out of it. Particularly if you still believe success will be yours one day… when you just become so good they can’t ignore you any more.

And now, here’s my hat on the ground:

I write a daily email newsletter. Each day, I honk out a new four-note tune, about marketing and copywriting. If you’re in the mood for getting a bit of entertainment (either through content or through my shamelessness), you can sign up here to get those emails.

I’m banging my shoe on the desk right now to convince you to opt in to my bullets mini-course

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On October 12 1960, Nikita Khrushchev took the podium at the UN General Assembly. Khrushchev was a short, round, combative guy. He was also the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and one of the two most powerful men on the planet.

“Mister President of the Assembly,” Khrushchev shouted in Russian, “you must bring these proceedings to order! What the previous speaker just said is completely false! He is a stooge! A lackey! A toady of American imperialism!”

Khrushchev then took off his left shoe. He started to bang it full force on the podium. “I refuse to have the great name of the Soviet Union blackened in this way!”

Well, I’ve just taken off my own left shoe. And though you can’t see me, I am ready to start banging it on my desk.

For the past two days, I’ve had a hidden offer at the end of my posts. The offer is for you to sign up to get my free “How to write bullets” email mini course. Here’s a bit of what’s inside that course:

* Halbert’s crucial bullet secret (almost unknown among copywriters) (email 4)

* How A-list copywriters stab you in the heart, and then twist the knife (email 3)
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* What never to omit in a bullet. Never. (email 1)​
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* The #1 technique for bizarre bullet mechanisms. Take a piece of paper and write these 5 words across the top. (email 9)

* How women can write more exciting bullets (even if the source material is boring) (email 7)
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* Genuine weird payoff bullets (email 11)

* A simple 3-hour “trick” which 100% makes your bullets better (email 13)

I put out this free mini course only once before, last January. Eventually, I expanded it significantly, made it interactive, and turned it into my Copy Riddles training.

So here I am now, shoe in hand, giving you a chance to bring your own proceedings in order, and get the original free course. Today. The last day it is available.

You’ll have to sign up to my email newsletter first. And then, you will have to write me an email to ask to be put on the free bullets email course. If you’re willing to jump through all those hoops, here’s where to get started.

Fake stories in copy

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A man sat down at a classy restaurant. It looked great.

There was a plant next to his table. A big ficus.

“I’ve got one of these at home,” the man said. He passed his fingers over the leaves and—

He realized they were plastic.

The plant looked real, but it was fake. In fact, on closer examination, the man realized the plant looked fake also. There were things that gave it away.

Suddenly, the man found himself questioning the whole restaurant, even before he had a chance to order.

Speaking of ordering, I got a couple questions recently. They were on the topic of, “What do you think of using fake stories in your copy?”

One question had to do with the claim that fake stories are illegal to use.

I don’t know about that. I’m not a lawyer. But I doubt it’s illegal. At most, I think you might have to add some kind of disclaimer, like they do at the bottom of TV commercials. “These are paid fitness models, and they have never used the Ab Rocket and would in fact never use the Ab Rocket.”

So I don’t have a problem with fake stories from a legal standpoint. But I have a problem with them just because they sound fake and made up. Because people will spot a fake story, just like they will spot a fake plant. And then they will doubt everything that follows.

“But what about parables and fairy tales?” That was the second question I got on this topic.

That’s something completely different, I think. Parables are powerful. Pop culture illustrations are great also, even if they come from a comic book or superhero movie. Fairy tales work too, whether you made them up or somebody else did.

The key is the subtext.

A fake plant in a restaurant signals tackiness and makes you doubt the quality of the food.

A fake plant as part of theatrical scenery, during an engrossing play that leaves you with some sort of lingering moral… that’s a welcome aid to imagination, understanding, and maybe, to being persuaded.

Now if you feel persuaded by this fairy tale:

You might like to read some other stuff I write. In that case, you can sign up for my email newsletter.

You, the publishing magnate

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The first American magazine to ever reach a circulation of one million subscribers was called Comfort. Comfort was started by William H. Gannett, in 1888, in Augusta, Maine, the birthplace of direct response advertising.

Gannett did not have any experience with magazine publishing when he started Comfort. Instead, his business was selling Oxien, a patent “nerve tonic.”

Much like other patent medicine pitchmen, Gannett had a natural knack for marketing. So he decided to start a women’s magazine, filled with advice columns, recipes, fashion tips, songs, poems, romantic fiction, and of course advertising. Because his real goal, at least at the beginning, was selling more Oxien.

That’s a possible business idea for you also.

If you’ve got a product or a service, and you want to sell more of it, then stop selling.

Instead, start publishing.

You can start a magazine. Like Gannett did.

Or you can create a reality TV show. Like the UFC did with The Ultimate Fighter.

Or you can start a podcast. Like a million businesses and marketers do.

“Gotcha!” you might say. “There’s nothing new with what you’re saying here. It’s the same damn thing as everybody else is saying, and that’s to start a podcast or a daily email newsletter.”

And there’s definitely overlap with that.

But what I’m suggesting is for you to take an extra step away from your current offers… to put still more focus on entertainment… and to make your publishing venture capable of standing alone.

The result can be massive growth for your core business. Maybe even a new business that makes more money than the business you started with. And who knows, one day… when all the other patent medicine pitchmen are forgotten… you may be remembered as a publishing magnate.

And now, in other news:

I still have some back issues of the free bullets mini-course I ran in January.

This course collected some of the best lessons I figured out by looking at the source material that A-list copywriters used to write their bullets… and then looking at the bullets themselves.

I eventually took this free email course, expanded it significantly, made it interactive, and turned it into my Copy Riddles training.

​​​​But you can now get your hands on your own copy of the original free course. You’ll first have to sign up for my email newsletter by this Wednesday. Once you do that, then watch out for the next email in my newsletter, and just click the link at the end of it.

Marketing in a Terminator world or Abyss world

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A couple days ago, I sent out an email with the subject line, “Silver medal: Writing how you speak.” To which a reader named Andrew wrote in.

He said the email had landed in his promo folder, rather than his main inbox. “Maybe it’s the subject line?” Andrew wondered.

Maybe.

But I decided a while ago that I will not write with Google in mind.

You might think this is another one of those, “I’m an edgy marketer and I’m too cool to care about tactics” speeches. But I’m not that cool.

In fact, a few years ago I paid for a training by marketer Ian Stanley. It was all about how to get your emails into your prospect’s primary Gmail inbox.

I experienced first hand the endless and mindless work it takes. I decided very quickly I didn’t want to do it, especially for daily emails like this, and the ones I was writing for my biggest ecommerce clients.

In the time since, I’ve only gotten more fixed in my belief that I cannot win against Google and Apple, any more than I can win against the federal government or the WHO.

It’s like the Terminator movies, with the leftover humans trying to resist the monolithic and mechanical Skynet.

The human beings put all their grit and smarts to defeat the latest killing machine that Skynet sends back in time… and they succeed. For about five minutes. But then it starts all over again in the next round, except this time the robots are faster, smarter, and meaner.

So I don’t feel it makes sense to fight these monstrous entities or their steady flow of new terminators.

Instead, I feel the only way to win is to ignore them as much as possible. And create little communities of real live human beings.

For example, my email newsletter goes out to a small group of people all around the world. Some of these people like to read what I put out. These are the people who might seek out my content even when Google or Apple hides it. Ultimately, that’s who I write for, maybe including you.

The good news is, this is not a futile exercise. Plenty of people have proven you don’t need an audience of millions to succeed today. A few thousand or even a few hundred can be enough. Tiny communities of people… within a much larger indifferent or hostile world.

So maybe the question is which metaphor you prefer to live in.

Maybe you like the constant conflict of the Terminator movies. Maybe you like the idea of being a general in a war… of fighting for a cause… even if the chances of winning are slim.

But maybe you’re more like me. And maybe you prefer the metaphor of another James Cameron world.

​​Maybe you like to imagine yourself in The Abyss, with its floating and content jellyfish humanoids, living in a harmonious city, hidden deep down at the bottom of an indifferent or hostile ocean.

But enough philosophy. Here’s something more practical:

Last spring, I ran a free email course about writing bullets. It collected some of the best lessons I figured out by looking at the source material that A-list copywriters used to write their bullets… and then looking at the bullets themselves.

I eventually took this free email course, expanded it significantly, made it interactive, and turned it into my Copy Riddles training.

But if you like, you can now get that original free course. You’ll have to sign up for my email newsletter first by this Wednesday. If you do that, then watch out for the next email in my newsletter, and just click the link at the end of it.

Avoiding sick-at-the-gut customers

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As I write this, I’m feeling woozy. The ground is swaying under my feet. My stomach is a little sensitive.

I wouldn’t be surprised that when I lay down for the night and I turn out the lights, I will have to run to the bathroom to throw up.

In case you’re wondering, I haven’t been drinking. But I did spend the whole day on a boat.

It was a beautiful sunny day. Fresh air. Clear skies. The contrast of green olive trees and white cliffs and deep blue sea below.

It was a great experience. I didn’t feel anything but excited during the whole day.

But once the day was over, and I stepped off the boat, tired and happy to be back on dry land, that’s when the whole earth started to move beneath my feet.

Now let me switch to a different topic for a second:

Here’s something valuable that A-list direct response marketer Michael Fishman once said in an interview with Jay Abraham:

“The interesting thing is that your selling copy in the prospecting process can actually impact the longevity of a customer with the company. So what I mean by that is if you make very, very big promises for a self-help product, a health or investment product — if you make very, very big promises for that about quick results and overnight success, etc. — the kinds of people that will find that believable and ultimately will buy turn out to be folks that are not very committed in the long very long run to your company because they’re opportunistic about their purchase.”

Michael is saying that hype can hurt your long-term sales because you end up selecting the wrong customers.

The only thing I would add is that hype can also create wrong customers for your business, out of otherwise good people.

Because your prospect goes for a bright and colorful selling experience, designed by somebody like you or me. He spends a long time with you, enjoying the contrast of cool blue promises and big white warnings and a sparkling offer underneath it all.

So your prospect has a great time while you entertain and sell him. He doesn’t feel anything but excited the whole time. But at the end of it, he steps off the boat — by taking you up on your offer — and that’s when the feelings of wooziness and stomach upset hit him.

A part of this reaction is inevitable. But a part of it is within your control. And I’d like to suggest it’s worth controlling yourself.

Because as Michael said in the same interview, direct response is built on repeat business. You rarely make money the first time.

So if you want a profitable business… rather than just a bunch of sick-at-the-gut customers who aren’t worth anything to you… then you might purposefully make your sailing — I mean selling experience — less long, less colorful, and less enjoyable than you know how to do.

For example, I know several ways to hype people up so they will sign up for my email newsletter. But I won’t use them. Instead, if you like marketing and copywriting ideas that can help you build a profitable business… long-term… then here’s where you can join my newsletter, which gives you one new idea each day.

Silver medal: Writing how you speak

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“A girl I knew was brought up by ‘higher thinking’ parents to regard God as a perfect ‘substance’; in later life she realised that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca).”
C. S. Lewis, Miracles

I chuckled when I first read this story. But then I rubbed my chin a bit. And I held up a finger in the air, like a light bulb had just gone on in my head.

Our human brains cannot see words like development. Instead, we have to imagine a picture, a smell, a sound. Like a skyscraper being built… or the smell of wet grass in April… or Ravel’s Bolero.

But there are some dark clouds on the horizon.

Because without thinking, most of us for reach for words like development and substance all the time, like we reach for popcorn while watching a movie in a dark theater. We reach for these words, even though, like popcorn, they have no body to them.

My point is this:

Popular advice is to write the way you speak.

I say this will get you a silver medal at best.

But if you want a gold medal, then write the way you speak… and then take out words like substance and development. And instead, put in word pictures, of tapioca pudding or half-finished skyscrapers.

Because the bigger the weight you take off the shoulders of your reader, the more likely he is to follow you as you lead him down the sales page… and the more likely he is to add another dollar bill onto the stack of dollar bills that makes up your bank account.

I mean, if your bank account really were made of stacks of dollar bills, instead of bodyless numbers in a computer database. But I think you see what I mean.

Here’s something else you can see:

Each day, I write a little letter. I put it in an envelope and I send it to hundreds of people around the world. Some of these people read my letters… some even chuckle or rub their chins in thought. You can do the same. It’s free. You can sign up, with just your address, by filling out the form here.

5 (+ five) easy ecommerce pieces

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See if you can spot the one green “5” in the picture below:

Wasn’t hard, was it?

But if I asked you how many 5’s there are in the above picture, that wouldn’t be as easy. In fact it might be a pain in the ass, and you might give up rather than count.

Counting doesn’t come natural to us. Our eyes and brain have to work at it.

Not so with contrast.

We’re kind of like that T-Rex in the original Jurassic Park. “Don’t move… it can’t see us if we don’t move.” In other words, create enough contrast, and your prospect immediately sees the message you want him to see.

Of course, marketers have long known about this. And they have long used it to make more sales. As Rich Schefren likes to say, different is better than better.

Anyways, that was my little intro to try to sell you on watching the video below. It’s a recording of a presentation Stefan Georgi gave a few weeks ago. And it’s all about split tests he always recommends performing in ecommerce funnels.

I’ve done a lot of work on the direct response side of ecommerce. And I knew some of Stefan’s split tests. But most were new to me.

And while it’s not guaranteed that any of these split tests will win for any specific funnel, all of them sound reasonable. Because all of them are based on fundamentals.

Stuff like contrast… or reason why… or guiding your prospect’s attention… or cutting down his confusion.

So if you’d like to see all of Stefan’s split tests, along with his breakneck explanations for what exactly to test and why, you can find it at the YouTube video below.

But be careful. Because the first two-thirds of Stefan’s presentation are all about these split tests. But then Stefan shifts gear.

​​And he gives a soft pitch for the Copy Accelerator live event that’s happening in Scottsdale at the end of this month.

I say be careful because you can get sucked into Stefan’s pitch. For example, it happened to me.

After watching Stefan’s presentation yesterday and hearing his pitch, I found myself excited abuot going to the Copy Accelerator event. Even though I’d have to fly halfway around the world to do it (what a contrast and a pain)… and even though I’d have to laboriously count out a bunch of simoleons for plane tickets, hotel rooms, and for the event admission itself.

We will see how that ends up. ​​

In the meantime, if you’re already planning on going to Stefan’s event, let me know. So far, I’ve only met 2 people in real life who read my email newsletter. I’d like to maybe bring that up to 3, and meeting you there might sway me to go.

(Whaat? You’re not signed up to my email newsletter? You can fix that here.)

And if you’re not going to Copy Accelerator (yet), or if you just want to see Stefan’s ecommerce optimizations, here’s the money-making video: