John Bejakovic

The truth about bad breath

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Once upon a time, the mighty Persian king Darab took a wife from Greece.

Her name was Nahid.

Nahid was beautiful and the daughter of the king of Greece, Filqus.

One night, while Darab and Nahid lay in the same bed, Nahid turned towards Darab and exhaled in her sleep.

“My God,” said Darab to himself, “the stench!”

The next day, Darab asked his court physicians to see what could be done about his wife’s bad breath.

They gave her an herb, sekander. It fixed Nahid’s halitosis.

But it was too late. Darab’s fire for Nahid had cooled. So he shipped her back to Greece to her father, even though she was already well pregnant.

Filqus, Nahid’s father, was embarrassed by the whole situation. And rather than admit his daughter had been rejected by the king of Persia, he thought it sounded better to simply claim that he, Filqus, had gotten his daughter pregnant.

Nahid eventually gave birth to a baby boy. She gave him the name Sekander, I guess to remind her of her shame and lost love.

When Filqus died, Sekander became king of Greece. He put together an army, invaded Persia, conquered all who opposed him, and wound up on the Persian throne, which was really his by right, since he was the secret son of the Persian king.

If you’re wondering what the hell you just read, it’s how the Persians, back in the 10th century, told the story of Alexander the Great.

I’m sharing this with you for two reasons:

1. Because it shows the lengths of unlogic we will go to to protect our pride and ego.

2. Because contrary to what you might have heard, modern advertising did not invent bad breath.

What it did do however, is make people sensitive to the idea they themselves have bad breath… and the consequences this could have.

So starting in the 1920s, women were told that nobody would want them if they were hali-toxic (“Often a bridesmaid… never a bride”).

And men were told that bad breath would get them canned (“Employers prefer fastidious people… halitoxics not wanted”).

Meanwhile, the sales of Listerine mouthwash kept going up and up and up. In 1921, when Listerine was promoted mainly to dentists, sales stood at $100k per year. In 1927, after ads warning of halitosis had blanketed the country, $4 million worth of Listerine was sold. That’s equivalent to about $62 million in today’s money.

So my point for you is:

Much good advertising works like this.

It’s not enough to only speak to the very few who are aware of their problem and looking for a solution.

Entire vast, untapped markets are out there, full of potential prospects… people who aren’t aware of the problem, or what that problem really means for them.

Speaking of which:

Are you plagued by uncertainty and doubt? It might be because of work trouble. Specifically, a lack of new marketing and copywriting ideas you can implement every day. Clients and customers prefer marketers with new ideas… bores not wanted. In case you’d like a fix for that serious problem, here’s where to go.

A deadline to make a deliberate and far-sighted decision

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“We might describe the predicament of these [frontal lobe] patients as a ‘myopia for the future,’ a concept that has been proposed under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. Inebriation does narrow the panorama of our future, so much so that almost nothing but the present is processed with clarity.”
— Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error

Antonio Damasio is a celebrated neuroscientist at USC and the Salk Institute. He claims all our decisions are made emotionally.

One of his arguments is that people who suffer brain damage that interferes with their emotions… also stop being able to make decisions effectively.

​​Instead, they start to act in impulsive, short-sighted ways, much like somebody drunk.

That’s some high-science proof for an idea that direct response marketers and copywriters have been preaching for decades.

Here’s another thing direct response marketers figured out long ago:

A deadline, coming up in just a few hours, is a proven way to bring a person’s focus to the present.

Specifically, if you’d like to join Copy Riddles, my program for learning how to write bullets and improve your copywriting in general, then you can do so until the end of day today, Sunday, July 4, at 12 midnight PST.

After that, I’ll close the shopping cart down and keep it closed for a few months.

Of course, you’re not drunk… you’re not under the influence of drugs… and you’re not suffering from frontal lobe brain damage.

In other words, you have all your wits about you, and you can make decisions for yourself and your future effectively right now.

So if you’d like to make a deliberate and far-sighted decision for the benefit of your copywriting career, then the time is here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Dark psychological things hidden behind conspiracies

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“This, in sum, is our problem: the truest conspiracies meet with the least opposition.

“Or to put it another way, conspiracy practices — the methods by which true conspiracies such as gerrymandering, or the debt industry, or mass surveillance are realized — are almost always overshadowed by conspiracy theories: those malevolent falsehoods that in aggregate can erode civic confidence in the existence of anything certain or verifiable.”

So says Edward Snowden.

He’s the former NSA drone who exposed a bunch of inside NSA data. He had to flee America and is now living in exile in Russia.

I thought Snowden’s idea above was interesting. But if Snowden is right, then it makes me wonder…

Why do people believe in conspiracy theories, but ignore conspiracy practices?

I came up with a few possible answers. They might be useful to you if you are in the business of persuading:

1. Our brains prefer neat, human-sized explanations.

​​Conspiracy theories give us this. Conspiracy practices don’t — they are a mess of individual actors, institutions, and changing mass behavior.

2. Conspiracy theories are black and white, while conspiracy practices are not.

​​Conspiracy theories allow us to focus our blame on something alien and evil. Conspiracy practices often mesh with our deeply held beliefs and commitments, like paying off our mortgage, voting for the party we believe in, and taking the medication our doctor tells us to take.

3. We get habituated to anything.

​​There is value in something new and different (conspiracy theories) over what we already have and know (conspiracy practices).

4. Conspiracy theories give us hope.

​​Because conspiracy theories are new, because they are run by a few people, because they are external, we believe they are opposable. We even hope that one good fight can be enough. Things are much more murky with conspiracy practices.

5. Conspiracy theories often involve added drama.

Examples: pedophilia, satanists, Hollywood stars, billionaires, midnight rituals. And we like drama. On the other hand, conspiracy practices are mundane.

6. There is official pushback on conspiracy theories…

… but there is no official pushback on conspiracy practices. In other words, conspiracy theories trigger reactance, and conspiracy practices do not.

When you add all this up, it’s no wonder direct response copywriters figured out long ago that unfamiliar, hidden conspiracies, run by a few bad actors, can get crazy attention and drive a lot of sales.

That’s why I cover conspiracies in round 3 of Copy Riddles, which is all about that essential copy ingredient, intrigue.

But like I tried to show above, standard copywriting tactics like conspiracies go deeper. They tap into more fundamental human needs and desires.

And the best copywriters know this, and use it to their advantage.

So that’s why Copy Riddles has another round, which I called “Dark psychological things.” It teaches you how A-list copywriters tap into things like mistrust and outrage and desire for the “Inner Ring” to drive sales.

As I’ve mentioned over the past few days, Copy Riddles is open right now. But it will close tomorrow night (Sunday) at midnight PST.

Why exactly that time?

Because that’s when the official Copy Riddles midnight ritual kicks off… and I have to be there in time to meet the brothers and sisters of my Inner Ring.

More seriously, if you are interested in a higher level of copywriting chops, here’s where you can find out about Copy Riddles before it closes:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Some snob tells me how to write better

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A few days ago, I came across a list of 36 rules for writing well. The list was put together by Italian novelist Umberto Eco, best known for a book that became a 1986 movie starring Sean Connery.

(Roger Ebert: “If the story had been able to really involve us, there would have been quite a movie here.”)

If I sound a little bitter, it’s because Umberto Eco is directly attacking me and my writing with his stupid rules. Here are a few of them:

1. Avoid alliterations, even if they’re manna for morons.

13. Don’t be repetitious; don’t repeat the same thing twice; repeating is superfluous (redundancy means the useless explanation of something the reader has already understood).

17. Don’t write one-word sentences. Ever.

22. Do you really need rhetorical questions?

30. Do not change paragraph when unneeded.
Not too often.
Anyway.

I’ve covered many of Eco’s rules in this newsletter. Except my advice was to do the things Eco warns against.

I guess the difference is that Umberto Eco has snobbish taste on his side, while I have numbers. Because things like alliteration work to get people’s attention, and even to make sales.

If you don’t believe me, look at the curious case of The Big Black Book.

This was a book of consumer tips that sold like crazy, through a sales letter, to a list of infomercial buyers of an audio cassette program on reprogramming your subconscious.

What?

Why did people who bought a bunch of tapes… by watching TV… about reprogramming your subconscious… want to buy a book, on an entirely unrelated topic, sold through a different format?

Easy.

Because that audio tape program was called Passion, Power, and Profit. Get it?

Passion, Power, Profit… Big Black Book.

Crazy as it seems, these buyers bought mostly on the strength of alliteration in the product name.

Same thing with words.

Umberto Eco’s rules don’t mention amazing, secret, or magic, when used as an adjective. But based on his other rules, I bet he would think those words are cheap, overused, and ineffective.

Wrong again. Those words have been used in direct response marketing for a hundred years plus. And they show no sign of wearing out.

In fact, words like amazing and secret are used so often, and with so much power, that I put them in a list of 20 such magic words.

It’s part of round 14 of Copy Riddles. That’s my program about bullets and copywriting. The promise is that in just 8 weeks, Copy Riddles gets A-list copywriting skills into your head, through a combination of exercises and demonstration.

The deadline to join this run of Copy Riddles is this Sunday at 12 midnight PST. 2 days from now. Coming up soon.

So if you want skills that pay the bills… or complete command of copywriting… this might be worth a look:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

“A-list copywriter vaccine”

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A certain Dr. Frankenstein, who is a genetics professor at Stanford University, claims he has invented a “superhero vaccine.”

Dr. Frank took genetic material from an an Olympic athlete as the basis for his vaccine.

And what does the vaccine do?

“It gives you a body-wide genetic upgrade,” says Dr. Frankenstein. He claims that the jab will make heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and liver disease a nonissue in the vaccinated.

I don’t know about you, but a genetic upgrade sounds great to me. I’d love to have the muscles, stamina, and Alzheimer’s resistance of an anonymous Olympic athlete, all with just a one-time visit to Dr. Frank’s offices.

In fact, this superhero vaccine matches 3 of my 4 criteria for the ideal offer.

It’s irresistible and promises escape… it’s easy… and it’s urgent.

After all, old age and diseases are certainly coming. And I don’t want to be left behind as the only non-vaccinated, aging weakling in a population of vaccinated superheros.

Of course, there is one element of the ideal offer missing with Dr. Frank’s jab. And that’s perceived safety.

In fact, the reactions I’ve read so far are a rehash of Jeff Goldblum’s speech from Jurassic Park:

The lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here staggers me… Don’t you see the danger inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun.

It’s a reasonable attitude.

But who of us is gonna be that reasonable once a number of daring souls opt for the superhero vaccine… and report amazing results about overflowing energy, perfect memory, and more lustrous hair?

Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. So I won’t drag the point on.

Instead, let me remind you that my Copy Riddles program is open right now.

I think of it as an “A-list copywriter vaccine.” Because it gives you the irresistible promise of a brain-wide copywriting upgrade… through a quick and easy process… based on the winning sales bullets of A-list copywriters.

And there’s a certain matter of urgency. Because Copy Riddles is only open until this Sunday, July 4, at midnight PST.

“Uff, I don’t know,” you might say. “It sounds kind of risky.”

In that case, let me tell you that a small group of daring souls have already gone through Copy Riddles.

They all survived. And here’s what one of them, an Agora copywriter by the name of Vasilis Apostolou, has to report:

I’ve taken every popular course out there. I’m talking about the most popular courses from A-list copywriters. Obviously, I’ve read, listened and watched a lot about bullet writing.

But I can say with 100% confidence that John has put together the best course on bullets, bar none.

I learned a lot from the course that I use for all types of copy: From subject lines to hour-long interview style promos.

I wish I had John’s bullet course when I was starting out. It would have saved me tons of frustration… and shaved months off my learning curve.

In case you’d like to find out more about the A-list copywriter vaccine:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

You too can profit from mooches, singers, and bon bon eaters!

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“I’m always amazed that people seriously believe that they can make $1,000 a week stuffing envelopes. Evidently, greed and the ‘something for nothing’ ploy are too much for the bon bon eater to resist. What the mooch doesn’t know is stuffing envelopes is a sophisticated, highly mechanized operation that is run by legitimate businesses that specialize in mass mailings. The possibility of them using a bon bon eater is not only remote, it’s a joke. As a biz-opper, you look at bon bon eaters as a joke — a profitable joke.”
— Biz Op: How To Get Rich With “Business Opportunity” Frauds And Scams

Thanks to a reader named Lester, I found out about the book Biz Op, written by one Bruce Easley in 1994.

Biz Op claims to be an inside look at how Easley made a killing by cheating, lying, and scamming his customers, often in violation of state and federal laws.

“Yeah right,” I said.

“Why would anyone publicize that information if it were really real? Even if Easley wasn’t afraid of the legal consequences and the retribution of his burned “mooches”… why not turn his confession into a business opportunity itself, and sell people ‘The Lazy Way to Riches’ for $197… instead of selling a book about defrauding people, through a regular book publisher, for a few bucks apiece?”

I don’t know the answers to any of that. But I have no more doubts that Biz Op the book is legit.

There’s the fact that Easley was written up in the NY Times (“You too can be a successful criminal!”).

There are his appearances on daytime shock shows like Donahue.

But most of all, there’s the book itself.

It’s got insider jargon I’d never heard of. Like mooches (any sucker dumb enough to hand a bizopper his or her money)… bon bon eaters (stay-at-home moms who respond to envelope stuffing offers)… and singers (relatives you pay to pick up the phone and act as social proof for your biz op).

And then there’s all the familiar detail of the marketing approach and the copy. In a nutshell, Easley’s biz op offers were:

1. Irresistible (a promise of riches outside your normal grasp, and an opportunity to escape your current life)
​
2. Easy (you don’t have to do anything… or the work will be trivial)

​3. Safe (there’s a money-back guarantee plus all these other people say it’s a great opportunity)

​4. Urgent (somebody else in your market is interested and we need to tell them by tonight if it’s them or you)

I saw a YouTube video recently of Magnus Carlsen, the current world chess champion.

Carlsen was shown different positions on a chess board. Each time, within a few pieces being put on the board, he recognized the position as part of some famous historical chess match. He even recognized the setup from the chess scene in the first Harry Potter movie.

My point is that there’s value in knowing the history of your field. That’s why I’m telling you about Biz Op the book.

Don’t scam people. But there’s value in studying mooches, singers, and bon bon eaters. Because Easley’s 4-part checklist above is the essence of what makes for a good direct response offer.

Make your own offer as close to that as you can… without lying, cheating, or breaking any laws… and you’ll have a real shot at profit.

At least that’s my theory. Which is why I organized my own offer as I did.

I’m talking about my Copy Riddles program. For the right person, it should be irresistible (“breakthrough copywriting skills in 8 weeks or less”)… easy (“just follow the instructions and do the exercises”)… and safe (“there’s a guarantee, plus all these other people say it’s great”).

And what about urgent?

Well, Copy Riddles is open until this Sunday, July 4, at midnight PST. After that, it won’t be available for months.

So if you want to find out about this exciting opportunity before it becomes unavailable…

https://bejakovic.com/cr

When sex doesn’t sell

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The cover of Gary Halbert’s Killer Orgasms! book has a photo of Gary’s topless girlfriend.

I took that photo, censored it with a thick black bar over the nipples, and put it into the sales letter to my bullets course, now called Copy Riddles.

There are a couple reasons for that:

One is that this book was instrumental to Copy Riddles coming into being.

Killer Orgasms! was the first place where I found the “source text” behind bullets, so I could see how A-list copywriters like Gary do the magic they do.

But that’s not the only reason I have the photo in there.

Because sex sells, right? If you associate sex with your offer, it makes people buy more?

Maybe… or maybe not.

It might actually backfire.

Like I wrote yesterday, our attitudes towards other people are mixed.

In a situation of fear and danger, we love nothing more than to be in the middle of the herd. There’s safety in numbers.

But in a situation of attraction and mating, we hope to seduce by being exceptional. We hope to be seen as the maverick, roving the hillsides alone. Others are just meddling competition in this case.

At least that’s what some scientists hypothesized back in 2009. So they ran some experiments. And they showed this common-sense logic to be true.

They found that, sure, sex can make your offer sell better… if your offer is about standing out.

But sex can hurt your sales if your offer involves a strong appeal to community and belonging.

Which was relevant to me.

Because I initially planned to sell Copy Riddles with a stronger appeal of support, community, etc. I wound up minimizing that, and amping up the exceptionalism talk:

“Discover how you can OWN bullets more quickly than you would ever believe… and set yourself apart from the masses of other marketers and copywriters.”

But who knows? Maybe all this jiggering won’t do anything.

Or maybe it will even hurt. After all, if a female reader sees this same topless photo and the surrounding “set yourself apart” copy, it might be a turnoff rather than motivating.

But whether I suffer or not, the underlying idea is worth keeping in mind:

Your prospects’ frame of mind influences whether they want to belong or to be unique. And perhaps, this can influence your sales.

We will see what it does in my case. Because as of today, I am reopening Copy Riddles.

The first round kicked off in March. I’ve had very positive feedback about it. I’ll write more about that over the next few days. (Signup will be open until this Sunday.)

In the meantime, if you’d like to check out the Copy Riddles sales page for yourself, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Parents and frenemies in stories of fear and shame

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When I was 23, I had this accident. It was quite serious.

I was gripping a dull butter knife. In a moment of anger, I decided to stab the knife into the wall.

Stupid.

Because the wall was fine. The knife was fine. But I was not.

There was a lot of blood. I wound up in the ER. And my right ring and pinky fingers would no longer obey when I told my hand to close.

A few weeks later, I had to get surgery to fix those two fingers, if they could be fixed.

And I remember when I got back from the hospital.

I was living in something like a crack house, with four other college guys, including one who was actually dealing drugs.

So I locked myself in my room, which was empty of furniture except for the mattress on the floor.

I was still groggy and confused from the general anesthesia.

I had this giant plastic-and-wire contraption on my right arm to keep my fingers and hand in place.

And panic came over me. I was alone out here, I realized. My closest family was thousands of miles away. I felt vulnerable and in pain, a step away from death.

My point in telling you this personal anecdote:

Human beings have twin drives. To preserve face… and to preserve body.

Preserving face is about avoiding shame and humiliation.

Preserving body is about getting free from pain and fear, like in my story above.

Now I’ve recently been looking at stories I’ve written in sales copy. And I noticed something in each type of situation:

It makes the story more powerful to either bring in an audience (face threatened) or to make the hero isolated (body threatened).

When I think back on my post-surgery panic, the biggest thing that sticks out is the loneliness and isolation of it.

Because we have a weird relation to other people.

Sometimes others are good. Sometimes they are bad.

I felt especially vulnerable because I was alone curled up in my empty crack house bedroom after a three-hour surgery. It would have been great to have somebody there.

​​But had I been in a situation where I had done something shameful… the last thing I would want is an audience to witness it.

So that’s my takeaway for you for today.

If you’re telling stories, you can can selectively bring in an audience… or take out a community. Do it right, so it matches your primary emotion, and you will get people more motivated than they would be otherwise.

But community or the lack of it can also influence the attractiveness of your offer. That’s something very intriguing I learned only recently… which I will talk about in my newsletter email tomorrow.

In case you want to read that when I send it out, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Constant scarcity loses to recent scarcity

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Yesterday, a copywriter who reads my email newsletter wrote me with a job offer.

The offer sounds great. I’m planning to get on a call with the copywriter and the COO of the company to talk about it, hopefully later today.

It took over two years of everyday mailing to get to this point.

For the longest time, nobody read my newsletter. But gradually, a few people found me, and then a few more.

And now, even though I still have a small list, opportunities are coming my way out of unexpected corners.

I’m telling you about this for two reasons:

First, if you’re getting started in any kind of service business, then writing daily emails is a great way to get in front of high-quality, high-paying clients, very slowly.

Maybe you can do it faster than I did, if you work hard on growing your list and if you push your services in your emails. Both things I never did much of.

Which brings me to the second reason I’m telling you about this, and the real point of today’s post.

Several copywriting influencers claim you should reach out to your email list whenever you’re looking for work. They advise saying something like:

“I just wrapped up a big project… I currently have an opening in my schedule… if you’re interested, reply and we can talk.”

I always had a bad feeling about this advice.

I’m sure it works, if you have a big enough reputation and a big enough list.

But if you have a small enough list or a small enough reputation… then the message above smells of need, at least to me.

​​I figured there must be a better way.

My suspicions were confirmed when I read Bob Cialdini’s book Pre-suasion. Cialdini cites laboratory research showing that constant scarcity is less motivating than recent scarcity. From the research:

If there are always a few cookies in a jar, you want them more than if there are a lot of cookies. But…

You don’t want them nearly as much as when there were always a lot of cookies… and now suddenly there are only a few.

“Pfff, lab persuasion!” you might say. “What does that have to do with the real world?”

I don’t know. Let’s find out.

As I mentioned at the start, I have a new job offer. That’s in addition to my ongoing clients in the ecommerce space… plus a real estate business I’ve recently joined… plus my own books and courses, which I’m building up and selling.

And like I said, new opportunities are popping up, more and more often, as my little newsletter picks up steam.

In other words, I’m really not looking for more work. But I am still open to it.

So if you would like to work with me in some form… before I get so entangled in other projects that it becomes impossible to say yes to anything new… then get on my newsletter, get in touch with me, and we can talk.

The power of the fake diagnosis

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“Please spit in the cup,” the nurse said. “And now we take the test strip and wait a few seconds. Oh… you see how the color changed? I’m afraid that means you’re positive for TAA deficiency.”

Back in 1988, a bunch of undergrads at Williams College got tested for Thioamine Acetylase (TAA) deficiency.

TAA is a pancreatic enzyme, the undergrads were told. People who don’t have enough of it can experience mild but irritating pancreatic disorders.

Turns out TAA doesn’t really exist. The point of the charade was to see how the undergrads would react to the fake diagnosis. Because next they were given a questionnaire.

The questionnaire had a list of common symptoms of TAA deficiency (“headache, diarrhea, backache, …”).

It also had a list of common risk factors contributing to TAA deficiency (“taking aspirin or Tylenol, getting less than seven hours of sleep, skipping a meal, …”).

Perhaps you can see where this is going:

The deficiency group of students noticed 50% more symptoms in their life… and 20% more risk factors … than the control group did. (The control was people who didn’t have the test strip change color.)

But as I said, in reality, both groups had the same levels of TAA coursing through their bodies — zero.

The authors of this study call this “confirmatory search.”

It’s the underlying mechanism by which our brains get infected by medical student syndrome… personality tests… and horoscopes.

We look for proof, we ignore disproof.

My point is there is power inside these made-up diseases, syndromes, and categories. Even when they don’t explain anything. And even when people who get a diagnosis are not given any way out.

So imagine what would happen if you actually diagnose a real and troubling condition for people… point out the symptoms and risk factors so they can convince themselves… and then give them a solution that can fix it.

It might make you immune to empty lobby syndrome… for the rest of your life.

If that’s something you currently suffer from, and if you experience the anxiety and lack of cash flow it brings, I have a solution for you. It’s the ideas and suggestions I share inside my email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.