John Bejakovic

Anatomy of a laugh that didn’t happen

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“I can handle this. Handle is my middle name. Actually, handle is the middle of my first name. [Insert canned laughter]”
– Chandler Bing, Friends

You probably know from Cialdini’s Influence about the power of social proof. That’s why shows like Friends insert canned laughter. We laugh more when we hear other people laughing, even if we know it’s fake.

But:

It turns out to be more tricky than that.

Some scientists in Australia tested this out. They wanted to see if WHO is laughing matters. And the answer is yes.

I won’t burden you with the details of the experiment. In a nutshell, the study subjects (university students) had to listen to audio recordings of a standup comic, with canned laughter and without. But there was a twist:

One group of students was told that the canned laughter was other students from the same university.

A second group of students was told that the canned laughter was sympathizers of Australia’s far-right One Nation party, which apparently would like to build a wall with Mexico, and have Mexico pay for it.

And the results?

When the canned laughter was present, group one laughed four times more than without the canned laughter. Makes sense. Other people like them found the material funny. So Cialdini was right, and so was Friends.

But no such thing happened in group two. The students didn’t laugh any more with the canned laughter than they did without it. How could they? Obviously the comic isn’t very good if those horrible xenophobes find him so funny.

I’m telling you about this because it applies to direct marketing as well.

Just like the producers of corny sitcoms, marketers know about the power of social proof. That’s why we stick tons of testimonials into our sales letters.

And testimonials are good. But:

Testimonials are much better if they come from people like the prospect. (At least that’s what Dan Kennedy says, but he should know.) You want to find testimonials that have the same gender… same race… same age… same ideas about building the wall… as your prospect does.

And what if you don’t have any testimonials like that?

Well, then you can just sweep your arm over your offer and say something like,

“I write a daily email newsletter. Many successful marketers and copywriters find it very valuable. Click here to subscribe.”

The most “dangerous” idea in America?

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“I worry that I should be doing something bigger with my life.”

I have this friend. Many years ago, he came to America on a work-and-travel visa. He stayed and he built a little business. Through this little business, he made the 4-hour-workweek a reality in his life.

Ever since, he’s been making good money each month by sending a few emails and making a few phone calls. The rest of the time, he travels the world, has fun, and chases women.

“But I worry I might be wasting my time,” he told me when we spoke. “Maybe I should be working to save the children or make the world a better place.”

My answer to him was that there’s value in thinking small, and that leading a life of modest impact is a virtue. And vice versa. I believe that thinking big is flat-out dangerous.

Maybe you find that thinking perverse or even repugnant. So let me give you a few examples to back up my case:

1. The Soviet Union. From everything I’ve read, the people who laid the groundwork for Bolshevism were the best and brightest and most humane of their generation. They thought they were building a better world. And yet the result was a monstrous machine that took decades to dismantle.

2. Google. Just today I read how the Federal Court in Australia ruled that Google has been willingly misleading consumers. Google continued to track consumers’ locations, even after they had turned location tracking off.

Of course, Google didn’t start out being a power-hungry, inhuman monolith. Not long ago, it was just two PhD students, whose motto was “Do no evil.” They were looking to improve access to information, and make the world a better place — on a big scale.

But maybe you don’t care anything about Bolsheviks or Google’s surveillance. Maybe you just want your own big business that makes big money. So let me tell you why smaller might still be a safer bet.

It’s something I heard Pete Coyne say a few weeks ago.

As you might know, Pete started out as copywriter at Agora. He then became a publisher there, which means he ran an entire division. He built up this division from scratch to over $100m.

In short, Pete is a smart guy, and somebody who knows more about building big businesses than most of us ever will.

And yet Pete said the following:

“A lot of people chase scale. They want to scale their business. And I feel there’s a lot of gross number porn out there. 7 figures… 100 million… 500 million. That’s not really a great thing a lot of times. Usually, your headaches explode with your revenue… your exposure to lawsuits and regulations goes up.”

Instead, Pete said there is a magic number for yearly revenue. Once you get to it, you’re better off spinning up a new business than trying to grow what you’ve got.

Not only will this save you headaches and lawsuits, says Pete, but you might actually net more money in the end.

And this  is not only thing I heard Pete share.

He also talked about three “monetization events.” He calls these “gray labeling,” “demographic jumping,” and “USP flipping.”

​​Each of them is a quick, low-risk way to create revenue bumps in your business. And none of them requires doing anything very different from what you’re already doing. Just make sure you don’t shoot past the magic number.

Maybe you’re getting tired of the teasing. So let me get to the point:

I heard Pete say all these things in this month’s Steal Our Winners.

Once each month, I push you to check out Steal Our Winners. Because in my opinion, it’s the best value out there if you are interested in direct marketing or have a business that uses direct marketing.

In a nutshell:

Each month, Rich Schefren interviews a bunch of high-profile marketers like Pete Coyne. Rich gets these marketers to spill valuable ideas and information. There’s no fluff or self-promotion. Just valuable ideas, most of which you can apply immediately.

And it’s all available for an unthinkable monthly price. Plus you can even get a low-risk trial month, for a $1 entry fee.

So in case you’re curious, you can find the $1 Steal Our Winners offer at the link below. And if you act fast, you can probably still get the Pete Coyne segment. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sow

#1 secret of wealth creation for marketers and copywriters

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Today, for the first time ever, I took a closer look at Parris Lampropoulos’s Copy Vault sales page.

Parris, who is an A-list copywriter, offered the Copy Vault training back in 2018. And back in 2018, when I decided I wanted in, I raced past the sales letter and went straight to the order page. Rabbit brain.

So today, while working on a project, I finally took a closer look. And right away, I saw something odd. The headline reads:

For the First and Last Time Ever,
Parris Lampropoulos Opens the Vault and Reveals His Top Wealth-Creation Secrets
for Copywriters and Marketers

Hmm. That sounded strangely familiar.

The bit calling out copywriters and marketers… the promised secrets of wealth-creation… and that “first and last time” thing…

Had I seen all of those somewhere before? Oh yeah. Of course:

Available on DVDs for the First and Only Time…
“Gary Bencivenga’s
7 Master Secrets
of Wealth Creation
for Marketers and Copywriters”

That’s the headline that Gary Bencivenga, an even more famous A-list copywriter, wrote for the sales letter for his farewell seminar, back in 2006.

Coincidence?

Hardly. Rather, it’s the #1 wealth-creation secret for any marketers or copywriters who are willing to listen. Here’s why.

I recently heard marketer Caleb O’Dowd talk about how he does research. Caleb said two things.

First, when you enter a market, you should look at your top 3-5 competitors. (Or I guess one is enough, if your competitor happens to be Gary Bencivenga.)

Caleb said there are reasons why those people are at the top. So reverse engineer their successful sales letters… figure out those reasons… and you too will know exactly what to say to prospects to get a response.

Very obvious, right?

Right. But still something that was eye-opening to me. Because while I’ve spent hundreds of hours of research on copywriting projects… very little of that time went to analyzing copy from the competition.

Silly me. That’s something I will change starting now.

And what about the second tip Caleb had about research?

Well, that’s in the video below.

​​The video is from the Q&A after-party of the recent Clayton Makepeace tribute. It features a bunch of A-list copywriters, including Gary Bencivenga and Parris Lampropoulos, answering questions.

​​I personally think it’s worth watching for Caleb’s answer alone. But perhaps you’re wondering if you really need another Obvious Adams tip on research.

In that case, let me repeat something I wrote a few weeks ago, also in connection to Caleb:

“Caleb said deep research is the kind of thing very few marketers are willing to engage in. But those who do inevitably wind up at the top of their market. They don’t just succeed, they have breakthroughs, and they make millions.”

By the way, Caleb isn’t the only one to put such a premium on research and understanding your audience.

Gary says the game is won or lost in research. He calls deep research the “launchpad of copywriting breakthroughs.”

And Parris says the #1 secret in copywriting — more than any technique or book — is to understand your audience.

In case that’s sufficient motivation for you to find out Caleb’s other research tip…

Well, let me interrupt for a second. And say that, if you are a copywriter or a marketer, and you’re after wealth-creation secrets, you might want to sign up to my email newsletter.

And now, if I’ve convinced you about the value of research, and you want to see what Caleb’s second tip is, here’s the video:

Do as top copywriters and marketers do… not as they say

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A lot of people wrote to me over the past 24 hours. Many guessed the right answer to the riddle I posed yesterday.

I won’t reveal what that right answer was. After all, I have to withhold something as a reward for people who are signed up to my email newsletter.

But I will tell you this:

Among the people who did NOT guess right, there were lots of good ideas.

Curiosity… emotions… a big idea… a starving crowd… believability.

And you know what?

Makes sense. Because the copywriters I mentioned yesterday talked about the critical importance of each of those things.

Maybe you’re wondering what my point is. So let me set it up with something that may or may not surprise you.

In the interview where I got the Gary Halbert quote I cited yesterday, I heard Gary talk about the bullets he wrote for his Killer Orgasms book. Like a proud father, Gary said there are two really, really important things about those bullets:

1. None of them are hypey

2. They are based on truth

Well, I’ve looked at those bullets. They are most certainly full of hype.

I’ve also looked at the book Gary was selling. And it sure looks like it was slapped together after the bullets were already written. The payoff seems to be an afterthought. And sometimes there is none.

My point is that you can’t always go by what people say.

I got this bug into my head via marketer and copywriter Glenn Osborn. Glenn’s MO is to look at what successful promoters do, and learn from that.

So that’s what I’ll do tomorrow.

I’ll tell you about the #1 wealth-creation secret for marketers and copywriters — as I’ve heard it discussed, AND as I’ve seen it done. In fact, as I’ve seen it done by one of the famous A-listers I talked about yesterday.

And I’ll tell you this: This #1 secret is not the answer to my riddle yesterday… or any of those other things that people guessed.

If you’d like to sign up to my newsletter, so you can read tomorrow’s email, and so you can join in any future riddles I send out, click here and follow the rabbit hole to the end.

A copy riddle with a swipe file prize

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Here’s a copy riddle for you:

Gary Halbert called it the only reason that people buy from an ad, for the most part…

While Ben Settle said that copywriting is all about this one thing.

Parris Lampropoulos credits his success to it. And drilling this one thing is how he spends 80% of his time with his copy cubs.

David Deutsch said it’s the “key to the kingdom”…

And John Carlton believes it makes the difference between a sale made and a sale lost.

So my riddle for you is, what is this one thing?

I gave this riddle to people on my email newsletter. And the people who got it right got a prize.

The prize was a link to the best publicly available swipe file I have ever found. And no, it’s not swiped.co.

In my opinion, the swipe file I have in mind is about 100x better, based on the quality and quantity of ads you can find inside… many of which are only available today as bonuses to expensive copywriting and marketing courses.

Sometimes, I run little contests and challenges like this, as a way to keep my newsletter fun and profitable. If you’d like to try out my newsletter, both to see whether you like the content, and so you can participate in the next little riddle challenge, then click here and fill out the form.

A $30,000 copywriting course?

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Today I’ve got a business idea for you, if you’ve got an entrepreneurial mindset:

A few months ago, I speculated on a fanciful idea. What if copywriting education were free upfront, and the only income came from the money that students make thanks to the education?

Back then, I thought it was pretty impossible. It seemed to me that copywriting education can only go to one of two poles: AWAI or Agora.

AWAI is Mark Ford’s direct response business about copywriting. It works like any other direct response business — a never-ending stream of new offers. There’s always another secret to learn.

At the other extreme, there’s Agora. Not Agora the client-facing direct response business. That works just the same as AWAI.

Instead, I’m talking about Agora the copywriter training machine. That’s where Mark Ford (again) and the rest of the Agora folks bring in promising and ambitious people… teach them how to write copy… and then set them to work, capturing most of their productivity.

In other words, it seemed to me that you can either be an employee and get a great education for free (Agora)… or you can be a freelancer (or freelancer wannabe), and pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for your education, delivered in drips and drops of offers and upsells (AWAI).

So that brings us to today.

Because I learned something today that I didn’t know a few months ago, when I first wrote about this. What I didn’t know is that there is a business called Lambda School, which teaches you how to be a computer programmer.

So far, so meh.

The interesting thing is how Lambda School charges its students. It doesn’t charge an upfront tuition (like a regular undegrad education)… and it also doesn’t put you to work, paying you a wage and capturing your productivity (like a PhD, or work at a company).

Instead, Lambda School offers an income share agreement. I’d heard of these before, but only in the context of a traditional university. But things seem to be changing.

So here’s how Lambda School and its income share agreement work:

First, you apply to Lambda School. If you’re accepted, you sign the income share agreement, and you take the course. 6 months later, once you are a hireable programmer, you go out into the world and get a job. And then, you start paying a share of your income to Lambda School, for a total of 24 months, not to exceed $30k.

So there’s my business idea for you.

It works just like Lambda School, except it’s called AIDA School. And it teaches you copywriting and marketing. In a bit more detail:

You ask people to fill out an application to get into AIDA School. You test for basic writing skills… level of dedication… availability to commit to the course. The applicants who pass a certain threshold get in.

​​And then, you really give ’em a great education. You even help them get freelancing clients. And then you reap what you sowed, in the form of a share of their income, not to exceed $30k.

$30k per person. More than you’re likely to make selling ebooks and teasing secrets. And if you do an honest job on the teaching side, more of a positive impact also. Just remember to mention me in the first commencement speech.

And remember also to sign up for my email newsletter — if you want more business, marketing, or copywriting ideas than you would ever believe.

Will work for hundreds of thousands of dollars

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There’s a video on YouTube that shows Dan Kennedy’s cave. It’s where Dan does his writing, and where he receives clients for consults.

Dan’s cave is underground. That said, it’s as bright and cheery as an underground cave can be. The walls are packed with rare Disney memorabilia, exotic money, and clocks. And then there’s a sign that reads:

“Will work for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

This connected in my mind to something Jay Abraham said.

(By the way, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to Jay Abraham, including the video I re-watched today. I can imagine he’s said this same thing in many places, but it never registered in my head until just now. It’s another example of why it’s worth going back to stuff you’ve already read or listened to.)

Anyways, Jay was saying how you don’t want to just give stuff away for free. First off, you want to make people understand how valuable your free gift is. Second, you want to set expectations. Jay gave some off-the-cuff copy to show what he means:

We’ve spent five years and 50,000 hours studying this. We’ve come to conclusions that, to our knowledge, no one else has. We’ve spent a year and a half refining it. We’ve now put it into a form where you can grasp it and you can act on it. It will instantly impact your performance. It’s the result of looking at billions of dollars of successful transactions.

It would mean a lot to us to share this with you. We would like to gift it to you without charge and buy it for you. But there is an expectation, and it’s a very respectful one:

If we do that, we’d like if you, first of all, take the time to seriously read it and reflect on it and then take action. And we’re hoping it will help you appreciate what we do so that there will be an inclination to want to do business with us later.

It’s this last bit that finally clicked for me. Jay is basically saying, free stuff ain’t free. And you should let people aware of this. Don’t be pushy. Don’t be needy. But do state the fact.

Speaking of which:

I’ve written almost 900 of these blog posts, each of which is first sent out as an email to my newsletter subscribers. By my estimate, they are the result of ~9,000 hours of cumulative work and experience.

This includes tens of thousands of dollars in copywriting coaching… dozens of courses and even more books on the topics of copywriting and marketing… and the experience of 6 years of working on client projects, with many 7-figure and several 8-figure direct response businesses.

I’m saying this because it means a lot to me to share these posts with you. I hope you get value and entertainment out of them. I also hope they will, as Jay says, give you an inclination to do do business with me later.

Speaking of which:

If you want to do business with me, the first step is to get my free (well, debatable) email newsletter. Click here if you’d like to sign up.

The “Cow For Sale” principle

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Do you know what this is:

If you’re like me, you probably said it’s a cow.

Actually, this is Posh Spice. Posh is a pedigreed Limousin heifer, and several months ago, she became the most expensive heifer in the world. She sold at auction for a little over $359k. (Her owner described her as”smart and stylish” with a “lot of panache.”)

Speaking of farm animals:

Gary Bencivenga has this thing he calls the “Duck For Sale” principle. Sometimes, says Gary, when you have a duck for sale, just say so. “Don’t beat about the bush with a headline such as, ‘Announcing a special opportunity to buy a white-feathered flying object.'”

That’s good stuff, Gary. But don’t forget about the “Cow For Sale” principle.

Because sometimes, what you have in hand, or at the end of a rope, is a solution that is more specific than what your prospect really wants, or at least is aware that he wants.

I couldn’t tell Posh apart from any other cow. Maybe you couldn’t either. Maye you just thought to yourself,

“I just really need a cow right now. Any cow. That’s all.”

In that case, no sense in being stubborn. Don’t push a specific headline on your prospect such as, “Pedigreed Limousin heifer for sale — daughter of Gingerspice.” Because that will fly right over your prospect’s head.

Instead, swallow your pride and write a less specific headline. Something like:

“Beautiful cow for sale. Milk for miles, cheap to keep. Call 617-459-POSH”

One final point:

Are you looking for entertainment as well as education, specifically in the field of persuasion? In that case, check out the opportunity at the other side of this link — it might be just what you need.

“Good-bye, please don’t cry”: Dan Kennedy and Dolly Parton enforce the rules

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“I cried all night,” Dolly said, “cause I just pictured Elvis singing it.”

Back in 1974, Dolly Parton had a no. 1 hit with a song she’d written, I Will Always Love You. And a year later, she got word that the king himself, Elvis, wanted to record the song.

“I was so excited,” Dolly said.

And then, the night before the recording session was supposed to happen, Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told Dolly the deal.

“Elvis don’t record nothing unless we get the publishing rights or at least 50%.”

Dolly cried all night. But she said no. It was her song and it didn’t feel right giving away the rights to it.

​​In the end, Dolly made out all right. I Will Always Love You became a giant hit for Whitney Houston in 1995, and Dolly got over $10 million in royalties — in the 90s alone.

But most songwriters aren’t like Dolly. They give in. And apparently, this kind of thing is a dirty little secret of the music world, according to an article I read in Variety today.

Big stars routinely get songwriting credit — including publishing royalties — for songs they didn’t write or even help write.

But now, a bunch of songwriters are pushing back.

They find it outrageous that they are forced to share a part of their creative ownership with people who were not involved in the creation in any way.

It sounds like a perfectly legit complaint against a perfectly outrageous practice.

But it goes industry to industry, doesn’t it?

Take copywriting.

It’s standard that you write something and hand over all the control to the client.

In fact, if you’re very good and you manage to claw your way to the top, then you can hope to hand over all control of your copy in exchange for a few percent of the revenue it generates.

But it don’t have to be like that.

I heard Dan Kennedy talk about different things he does. How he bakes into his contract that he might later reuse copy that he’s writing for that client. Or that he might use copy on the current project that he wrote for a previous client. Or how he creates templetized copy, and licenses it to clients instead of giving away the copyright.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not telling you to be outraged if you are working the same standard way as every other copywriter. I just want to, as Ben Settle likes to say, give you options for thinking differently.

​​Because the standard way is not the only way it can be. You can create your own rules, and like Dolly and Dan, you can stick to them. And if a potential client doesn’t go for it, you can sing him a bit of Dolly’s song:

Good-bye, please don’t cry
‘Cause we both know that I’m not
What you need…

And then, when the song ends, you wonder what’s next. Perhaps you open up your inbox and read a new email I’ve written, and get some more ideas for thinking differently. Because I have an email newsletter — click here if you’d like to sign up for it.

Writing to the urgent foot fetish market

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Today I learned about Wikifeet, which is just like Wikipedia, with one big difference. Where Wikipedia has a range of in-depth articles on things like gift wrapping and Sam Kinison, Wikifeet only has pictures, and only of feet.

The feet on Wikifeet belong to celebrities, like Ilona Robelin and Trisha Paytas. If you’ve never heard of these two celebrities, don’t worry. Neither had I before today. But both Ilona and Trisha apparently have an IMDB page (a requirement for getting onto Wikifeet), and of course, they both have feet.

I learned about this today through a woman named Laura Bassett. Bassett, who is not a big celebrity but who does have an IMDB page, wrote an article about discovering her Wikifeet profile.

Finding a page dedicated to your own feet would probably be strange enough. But what was even more strange was that Bassett’s Wikifeet profile was always up-to-date. Each time Bassett posted a new photo to Instagram where her feet showed, a few minutes later, she found the same photo, uploaded to Wikifeet.

Mysterious.

So Bassett posted to Instagram, asking the foot poster to get in touch (“No shade, I just have questions”). And to her surprise, she got a response. Bassett’s foot admirer came out of the shadows, and was willing to publicly share his name — and so much more.

I won’t reprint the whole article, but here are a few key statistics about the man who came forward, Robert Hamilton:

1. Robert is 58 years old, and he lives in northern New Jersey.

2. He works as a salesman.

3. He loves the Yankees.

4. He is also a big fan of live music.

Basset had a Q&A with Robert, which is printed in the article. Robert revealed the key childhood events that led to his foot fetish. He explained what he looks for in a foot. He listed his favorite celebrity feet.

He also said he is aware his foot fixation on Internet strangers might make those strangers uncomfortable. And he’s willing to stop if asked. Otherwise, he doesn’t think he’s harming anybody.

Which leads me to something A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga teaches.

Markets are problems, says Gary. And by problems, he means problems, wants, desires, or possibly, fetishes.

Gary’s point is not to get hung up on demographics. How many other Wikifeet posters are 58-year-old salesmen from New Jersey? Probably not many. And yet all Wikifeet posters share something powerful in common.

So Gary says to focus on writing to that common problem. And even better if you can write to a slice of that market that has a more urgent problem.

But that urgent part is another topic, for another time. Speaking of which:

If you have a problem, or a fetish, involving persuasion, marketing, and copywriting, you might like my email newsletter. It’s just like Wikipedia, except it’s a short email that arrives to your inbox each day. In case you’d like to try it out, here’s where to go.