Holy Grail launch party

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Yesterday, I paid 9 euro to see the Holy Grail. And I did see it, although I walked by it at first without noticing it. I got distracted by the heavy medieval chains on the walls.

After I first failed in my quest to find the Holy Grail, I asked Perplexity to guide me to it. It told me to retrace my steps, to the southeast, in the direction towards Jerusalem.

So that’s what I did. And sure enough, I found it.

The Holy Grail is housed in the Chapel of the Chalice in the Valencia cathedral.

I went there yesterday since the cathedral, which dates back to the 13th century, is one of main tourist attractions in the city.

The cathedral features a museum, ancient Roman ruins under it, and an impressive gothic dome.

Plus, like I said, it houses the Holy Grail.

But is it REALLY the Holy Grail? The cup that Jesus drank from at the last supper? The night before he was crucified? The most holy and elusive relic in all Christendom?

It seems a little implausible. To make it more so, when you see the Holy Grail, it looks like a golden goblet that’s fit for a medieval king.

But a little pamphlet, available at the entrance to the chapel in multiple languages, informs you that:

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Only the top portion is the sacred relic: a cup in the form of a carefully shaped and polished bowl. The cup is made of a type of veined sardonyx agate that comes from the region between Alexandria and Syria. Without a doubt, it is a Palestinian artifact, crafted in the first century AD. It is an example of a Jewish “Blessing Cup” for the ritual Paschal Supper in the Hebrew tradition, the most important piece in a Jewish family’s treasury.

Archeological studies, historical documents, the testimony of Tradition, recent discoveries about the design and the inscription in the base, comparative analyses with other similar cups around the world, references from the ancient liturgy, various investigations from distinct scientific disciplines, and even the legends of the Grail – all of these indicate it is perfectly plausible that the Holy Chalice of Valencia was in the hands of Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, and that it contained the Most Precious Blood of the Redeemer. In contrast, there is no evidence that counters this position.

===

The pamphlet goes on to tell the history of this stone cup. How it was used in Eucharist services by the early popes, up to the 3rd century… why it left Rome… how it was hidden in the face of the Moorish conquests of Spain… how it finally found its way to the Valencia cathedral… how it was recently used by two Catholic Popes during Mass.

So… is this really the most holy of holy Christian relics? In a little glass display case, behind a rope? In a side chapel where 9 of us were there to see it (I counted)?

I don’t know. I’m not an expert in Christian relics.

But I am an expert in effective communication. And clearly, the Catholic Church, or at least the archdiocese of Valencia, hasn’t done a great job communicating that the Holy Grail is here, if this really be it.

You might think it a bit distasteful to use this as a topic for a daily email, to profane the sacred, and to talk about better marketing for the Holy Grail.

In my defense, it seems the Church agrees it hasn’t done a good job advertising.

There’s a building across the street, which is being refurbished to serve as a Holy Grail information center and museum, to raise worldwide awareness of the Grail’s location, and to increase the number of pilgrims and tourists who come to see it.

But I think an information center, even it were to send out daily emails about the Holy Grail, won’t be enough.

This relic, if it really is the cup that Jesus held in his hands at the final supper, is infamous for being hard to find.

Hundreds of years of popular legend tell us how the best, bravest, and most noble knights went in search of the Grail, and all but a small handful — Galahad, Perceval, Indiana Jones — died or failed on the way.

If the Grail really has been found, and is available for everyone to see, it’s gonna take a giant announcement, an event, a spectacle, fireworks, buildup, in other words, what in marketing we call a launch.

It’s the only way in my mind to resolve the tension between the Holy Grail being sought and not found for hundreds of years… and the Holy Grail now available for tourists to see, for just 9 euro, and in fact not very popular as an attraction.

(By the way, it might be good idea to increase the admission price. I mean, it’s the Holy Grail. Sir Lancelot, despite being one of the greatest knights, quested after it for years and failed at the last step. How can you justify making something that’s so hard to attain available for 9 euro?)

But maybe I should stop giving the Catholic Church advice.

Maybe I should simply take my own advice.

Let me get to a less sacred topic, and remind you of my Daily Email Habit service.

I opened it up a few weeks ago, and have had a steady stream of people signing up since.

For the moment, I’m making it available at $20 a month because I wanted to test it out, polish it, make sure it works for people, take the pressure of myself, and as usual, reward early customers who trust me enough to take me up on my experiments.

I will have an official launch for Daily Email Habit soon, and the price will go up. There will be a big announcement and maybe even fireworks.

But for now, Daily Email Habit is still available at just $20/month, for the reasons listed above. If you would like to test it out, before the whole world finds out about it:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Ponzi-like cold calling

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I’m rereading David Sandler’s book You Can’t Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar, But You Can Teach Him How To Fish.

Even though the title won’t tell you so, it’s a sales book.

Do you know Jim Camp’s Start With No? Camp’s book is in many ways a rewrite of Sandler’s book. But the original, as always, has stuff that the rewrite doesn’t have…

… such as the following story of Ponzi-like cold calling, which could be useful to many, even if they never make a cold call in their life:

In the early days of his sales career, Sandler cold called business owners to sell self-improvement courses and sales training. It was the only way he knew how to get leads.

Valuable point #1: Sandler got 9 out 10 cold-called prospects to agree to meet him. How?

Simple. He’d offer something for free, something that the guy on other end wanted, something nobody else was offering.

Specifically, Sandler would offer to come down to the prospect’s office and demonstrate his cold calling techniques to the prospect’s sales team, and motivate the lazy bums a little.

Like I said, 9 out of 10 business owners agreed to that.

Valuable point #2: Sandler didn’t offer to come do a demo as a means of making a sale. He did it as a means of making cold calls.

Sandler hated making cold calls. If he had to make cold calls at home, he’d put it off, do it half-heartedly, and not make enough of them to set his weekly quota of appointments.

That’s why he did the scheme above.

He’d show up to the prospect’s office, nervous but also amped up. And then, for an hour or so, he’d cold call — for himself.

He’d spend an hour in the prospect’s office, with the sales staff looking at him in wonder, making cold call after cold call, chatting on the phone, digging into the pain, and in many cases, setting new appointments for himself.

A couple days ago, I wrote that identity is just about the most powerful appeal you can make.

Well there’s a close second, and that’s reputation. In fact, for many of us, reputation might even trump identity. Cause you wanna look good in front of people, right? Even if you have to do things you would never do on your own.

And so it was with Sandler. He’d end an hour at a prospect’s office with another 2-3 set appointments, way more than he’d get at home had he spent the afternoon there.

Plus of course, he’d have a way better chance of closing the sale. Because nothing sells like demonstration.

Such story. Much lessons. So few people who will do anything with it.

And yet, it could be so powerful if somebody would only apply it, whether to cold calling… or to any other persuasion-related activity.

I’ll leave you to ponder that, and I’ll just say my email today is a “demonstration” of the daily email prompt I send out this morning for my Daily Email Habit service.

Maybe it’s easy enough to figure out what today’s prompt was.

Or maybe not.

In any case, today’s prompt is gone. Today’s prompt is lost to history, to be known only by the current subscribers to Daily Email Habit.

But a new prompt will appear tomorrow, to help those who want to write emails regularly, both for their own enjoyment, and to impress and influence others in their market. Because powerful things happen when you know that others are watching you.

If you’d like to read the email I write based on that prompt, and maybe try to guess what the prompt was, click here to sign up to my email newsletter.

The epidemic of thinking big

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Lesson for you, really lesson for me:

Last week I was digging through my emails, and I found this:

“Oh, btw. If you use AI at all…and want to do a guest post on Write With AI, let me know. Love to promote you.”

That message came from Justin Zack, who I mentioned a few emails ago. Justin is the Head of Partnerships at a paid newsletter called Write With AI, which has 54k subscribers.

Except, Justin wrote me that back in August. I had completely missed it then.

I wrote Justin to see if he’s still interested. He said, yes.

I asked what kinds of posts had done well previously on Write With AI. He gave me an example by Matt Giaro, which is the top-performing post for Write With AI, on how to write a weekly newsletter with AI.

“Mhm,” I said. Just like I thought. I had a problem.

Because I use AI for research… for filling in things I don’t know or can’t think of… as a replacement for Google and YouTube and Reddit combined.

But I don’t use AI to write. Not my own stuff anyhow. I have a policy that I won’t use AI for anything that’s published under my name.

In part, that’s because I think there’s value in making a big deal of actually being real, live, more or less human being on the Internet.

In part, it’s because AI never actually writes like me, and I’m pedantic about what I put out.

So I told Justin, “Yeah let me go away and think a bit, and see if come up with a topic that could work.” Frankly, I was not optimistic.

And then, independent of all this, I wrote an email for this newsletter (by hand, by myself, without AI) about how I had used AI to create a little tech tool — the in-email streak tracker for my Daily Email Habit service.

Justin, who reads these emails, replied to that email and said, “btw, ‘how I created a daily email counter with AI (with promo for deh)’ is what we should do…. just a thought.”

It was one of those forehead-slapping moments. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

So that’s what we ended up doing.

I’ve written up the post about how I got ChatGPT to be my little code monkey. I’m finishing up that post today. I’ll get it over to Justin, and I guess he will publish it at some point on Write With AI when they get a spot in their busy editorial calendar.

But the lesson I promised you, which is really a lesson for me, because it’s a mistake I keep making:

There’s an epidemic of thinking too big and too broad. I know I’ve definitely been infected by this contagion.

Over time I’ve managed to develop an immunity to it when it comes to writing daily emails. But I still get sick with this disease when it comes to writing in other formats… or when it comes to creating offers, or making new products.

So the lesson I would like to suggest to you, in the hope I myself will remember it, is to make smaller, more specific promises.

Don’t teach people how to walk, run, and jump.

Just teach them how to tie their shoes.

And if you additionally restrict your teaching to just a course on how to tie asymmetrical, decorative laces on $400 fashion sneakers, odds are good you will not only have an easy time selling to that dedicated market, but you’ll be able to charge a premium.

All right, time to tie this shoe up:

My Daily Email Habit service does just one tiny thing. Each day, it helps you get started writing an email to your list, with the ultimate goal of making it easier to stick with the valuable habit of daily emailing.

Here’s a tiny case study I got about Daily Email Habit, from Roald Larsen, who used to be a high-powered consultnant and now runs an online brand called Solopreneur MBA:

“Today I wasn’t really feeling it. But the prompt helped to make it smaller. Easier. More manageable to write and send to the list. Nice.”

But I’m not inviting you to sign up for Daily Email Habit, which costs money. Instead, I’m inviting you to sign up to my daily email newsletter, which I write based on the prompts inside Daily Email Habit, and which is free, at least for the moment. To try it out, click here and fill out the form that appears.

Why I don’t drink alcohol

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I’m zoominating on the high-speed train from Barcelona to Valencia as I write this.

In between looking out the window at the countryside (sun, olive orchards, power line towers, factories, occasional ruins of medieval forts), I also making sure to regularly check what’s happening on the Internet, so you know, so I don’t miss out on something important.

A few minutes ago, this led me to a surging Reddit thread:

“Why do you not drink alcohol?”

Millions want to know, and millions more want to answer.

This thread caught my eye because I myself don’t drink alcohol, and haven’t for the past two years. Why?

Some top Reddit comments apply to me, some not:

– “I drank my lifetime supply” (I definitely did drink, regularly, for years, but having had my fill isn’t what made me stop.)

– “Getting older” (A part of it. With age, drinking just made me feel in general less healthy, though it was probably always true.)

– “Blackouts” (This was actually significant. I noticed that even moderate drinking started to make me not remember what I did the night before, and this scared me.)

– “Tastes bad” (Just add some water to it.)

– “Alcoholism runs in my family” (No. My dad is a lifelong teetotaler and my mom tends to start crying if she has a glass of wine.)

– “I don’t like who I am when I drink” (I like myself much better when I drink.)

So much for crowdsourced wisdom. It’s okay… but there’s one reason I didn’t see anybody on Reddit mention.

The fact is, over the past two years, not drinking alcohol become a part of my identity.

For me, not drinking was at first a health-related experiment… then a kind of on-off habit.

But whatever reasons I initially had have become completely secondary to the fact that now “I just don’t drink.” It’s not something I have to think about, pressure myself to do, feel I need to justify myself over.

Maybe there’s a lesson there?

The way I see it, if you want to make an appeal to people, then identity is as powerful of an appeal as you can make, and much more powerful than any kind of benefit or promise or warning.

This works with yourself as well.

Make something a part of your identity, and it becomes a non-issue to do it regularly, cheerfully, even in the face of hardships and obstacles.

There are intermediate steps, like I said. First experiment, then habit.

But my train’s a-nearing Valencia. So let me just say:

I don’t know if you identify with the sentiment, “I write. It’s just something I do.”

Writing has benefits, as you may know. It also has costs — time, thought, or blood, like Hemingway apocryphally said.

But writing can become just something you do, regardless. And then good things happen.

If you’d like to start an experiment with writing regularly, and maybe make a habit of it, and even an identity one day, then I can help. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Writing formulaic copy month after month

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A couple weeks ago, I got on a call with a long-time reader, who works as an in-house copywriter.

This is part of an illuminating practice I’ve taken up, of actually interacting with people who read my emails and buy my courses.

Anyways, this reader, who has been working as a copywriter at the same company for four years, said the following:

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The main problem is, each month, the offers don’t really change so I’m writing the same stuff repeatedly.

The only difference is when they have a product launch, I get to write different stuff and set up more flows.

Other than that, it’s quite routine. There’s not much growth for my skill set.

To be honest, I don’t write a lot of copy there, because the copy I write there is quite formulaic and it’s also, not much variation. I don’t get to experiment much with ideas.

===

About that:

Gary Bencivenga, widely called the world’s best living copywriter before he retired, liked to quote Al Davis, the coach from 1963-1965 for the infamously tough, mean, aggressive 1965 Oakland Raiders team.

One time, during a press conference before a game, a reporter asked Davis, “So I guess you’ll just have to take what the defense gives you?”

Davis glared. “We don’t take what the defense gives us. We take what we want.”

Gary Bencivenga, who seems to be as sweet and nice of a man as you can put a hat on, recommended Davis’s tough-guy attitude for copywriters also.

Gary didn’t just take the offer the client gave him to promote. Instead, he took what he wanted — he switched the offer altogether, or reworked it, or added to it — until it was as close to his ideal as he could get it, and many miles ahead of where it had started.

So that’s point 1.

Point 2 is that you’re not Gary Bencivenga. You don’t have his authority, and you don’t command the same deference and respect from clients. That’s normal. Gary, again, was the world’s best, and he had a reputation to match.

The situation is even trickier if you’re an in-house copywriter, working with one company full-time. In this case, the power dynamic shifts even more to your client/employer.

And maybe, when you try to “take what you want” — to rework an offer, or to experiment with copywriting ideas, or to simply do something that will stretch and increase your skills — your client/employer gives you a look and just says, “No.”

What then?

It’s up to you. But one thing you can do is say, “Fine. I’ll do my own thing.”

I’m not saying to quit your job. You can “take what you want” on your own time, with nobody controlling what you do or how you do it. It can give you new skills, experience, extra authority.

And who knows?

If you come to your client/employer next time, and cite a personal success story, instead of just pulling a good idea out of the air, maybe you’ll get a better hearing.

If not, you will still feel more fulfilled, skilled, and stimulated. And you’ll have options, because you’re building your own thing on the side, and taking what you want there.

On the call I had with the in-house copywriter I mentioned above, I heard that this is exactly what he’s doing. He’s hunting and working with freelance clients as well. Plus, he’s started his own email list, and he’s writing to it daily.

Who’s got time for all that?

I don’t know. You almost certainly don’t. Or maybe you do. And maybe, if you want some help with the last part, starting and sticking to writing a daily email, you will like my Daily Email Habit service.

Every day, Daily Email Habit prompts you to write something different.

At the end of 7 days, you already have a bunch of little experiments you wouldn’t have had before. And at the end of 30 days, you can experience a transformation.

If you’d like to experience that transformation as soon as possible, it makes sense to get started today:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

May we please have your attention

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Welcome aboard this Bejakovic Air email from Barcelona to wherever it is you may be right now.

For your safety and entertainment, please pay close attention to this short safety demonstration. Even if you are a frequent newsletter reader, the safety features of this Concord-like newsletter may be different from any you have flown on before.

There are no seat belts on this newsletter. Bejakovic Air only shares ideas that are found to be interesting or possibly useful, with no guarantee of truthfulness or consistency from email to email.

We recommend you fasten yourself to an idea whenever reading this newsletter. Unfasten that idea tomorrow by pulling on the buckle, like so, and consider fastening on tomorrow’s idea to see if it fits more snugly.

The emergency exits of this newsletter are clearly marked. We have 6 exits: two at the front (archive, or delete); two at the back (follow the link, or unsubscribe); and, if you are using a mobile electronic device, you can also swipe left or right, to read other emails in your inbox.

In the unlikely event of an evacuation, press the “Spam Complaint” button above you. Leave all carryon luggage behind so our staff can rifle through it as you leave, and make fun of you once you’ve gone.

Cabin pressure on all Bejakovic Air flights is maintained in a narrow range between “intriguing” and “impossible to parse.”

If we lose cabin pressure or gain too much of it, oxygen masks will deploy automatically. Immediately extinguish all cigarettes, and adjust your own newsletter first before offering to assist with ours.

Thank you for your attention during this brief safety demonstration.

In preparation for takeoff, please make sure your seat is upright and your tray table is stowed away. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy this personal message from our captain:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Coffee and guilt at 10:40am

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It’s around 10:40am as I write this, and a beautiful, sunny, warm, Barcelona December morning outside. So far today, I’ve only taken a stroll to Starbucks to buy a new coffee mug — the old one mysteriously shattered last night after I poured some hot water into it.

Now I’m sipping my coffee, from my new mug, sitting at my living room table and getting down to writing this daily email, and I feel…

… really guilty.

A popular routine for many marketers — I’m thinking of one guy in specific, but the sentiment is common — is to hype up the promise of “morning coffee + daily email and my work day is done!”

My guess is that most of the people who sell that dream in their marketing are actually working or thinking about work for much of the day… and if not, then they previously spent decades of their life working or thinking about work all day long, in order to get to where they are now.

The fact is, I have way more autonomy today than I did 10 years ago, the last time I still had a proper job. I have way more autonomy today than I had even a few years ago, when I still regularly worked with clients, had deadlines, meetings, etc.

But the more autonomy I have, the more time I spend working, or thinking about work. And if I catch myself slacking off, or getting to work super late like today, well, I feel guilty. Like a joke in Dan Kennedy’s Time Management For Entrepreneurs says:

GOOD NEWS! You are now your own boss!

BAD NEWS! You are a lousy boss with one unreliable employee!

I’m not sure who needs to hear this or why. The only thing I can tell you to reclaim some of the dream is that I wouldn’t trade the autonomy I have now for the ability I had 10 years ago, to show up to the office, hung over and useless for the day, and not feel guilty about it, because after all, they are just paying for my time.

Plus, I even like I what I do now. Yes, sometimes it takes a bit of prodding to get me to work. But then again, it takes a bit of prodding to get me to stop work also.

If you’re willing to work, and to even enjoy working, but you need some prodding like I do, then you might like my Daily Email Habit service.

Daily Email Habit will help you start and stick with writing daily emails.

No, a daily email is not a business in itself — there’s other things that need doing, and doing regularly, to make it work. What can I tell you? That’s the truth.

But if you still like the idea of writing regularly, of building something for yourself, and in sharing your own insights with the world, so the world can give you something back, then maybe check out Daily Email Habit, before the day runs out on you:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

I want Justin Goff back

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Two days ago, Justin Goff sent a new email.

Do you remember Justin Goff?

He was a direct marketer who made between $30k-$70k per month, writing a daily email and creating a new offer a month, usually in partnership with some industry expert.

I wrote an email about Justin back in July, with the subject line, “What happened to Justin Goff?”

Because back then, Justin had decided to stop emailing daily. First, he switched to emailing weekly, but that didn’t stick, and so he stopped emailing altogether.

By my count, Justin has sent only 3 emails since. One, back in October, to say he’s struggling to adjust to no longer having the identity of an entrepreneur… a followup a few days later, with a self-help lesson… and now this one, two days ago, about success, like nothing happened.

I don’t know if Justin’s latest email means he’s preparing for a comeback. I hope so, because I found his email newsletter valuable.

Justin used to share the results of his ultra-profitable, very simple campaigns, and he reminded me of fundamental, make-or-break direct marketing truths that are easy to forget in the chase for something new. For example, take the following koan, about all it takes to create a hyper-successful offer, from Justin’s email on 2023/6/3:

“Making money with an email list is really about selling the same benefits over and over again with a new mechanism.”

“Pff,” I hear you saying. “So obvious. Perhaps you’re not aware, John, but I’ve read Breakthrough Advertising. Well, the first three chapters anyway. I know all about new mechanisms.”

I’m sure. The thing is, it’s not about knowing, but about applying, creating, and actually doing a good job of it.

Because so many marketers, so many business owners, think that a mechanism is the same as an acronym:

“Buy from me because of my proprietary, 5-step F.A.N.C.Y. system! What could those letters stand for? You’ll never know, not unless you buy! And you’ll be sorry if you miss out, because I’m telling you, F.A.N.C.Y. is unique, and it’s new, and it’s an acronym!”

No, a new mechanism, at least one done right, is not an acronym. A few examples of new mechanisms done very right:

* Travis Sago’s Phoneless Sales Machine, about making $5k sales without ever getting on a sales call, all via email and Google Docs, which every guru and coach is now using and peddling

* Donovan Health Solutions massive promo a few years back, about curing all your health problems with a special, magical sound frequency that activates your vagal nerve

* Justin’s own “Pocket Change Offers” training, which he did in partnership with Ning Li, for building an email list of thousands of buyers, quickly, with little $7 offers

So that’s why I’m hoping Justin will come back. I want him to promote stuff again, and share more impressive results, and remind me of what really matters, and how it looks when it’s actually carried out well.

But on to work:

Daily email. Sticking to it. It can be very valuable, as Justin’s promo results have shown.

On the other hand, letting your daily emails go slack can be harmful to your mental health. At least that’s my reading of Justin’s few emails of the past 6+ months.

If you want my help writing daily emails, and sticking to it, in a completely new way that you haven’t seen or tried ever before, you can find that at the link below.

Frankly, each day matters, each day is unique, and so my recommendation is that you get started today.

For the full info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

A frustration that only grows with each email I write

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Yesterday, I wrote an email with the subject line, “Only open this if you play Wordle.” I guess that drew in some people who rarely read my emails, such as the following reader, who wrote:

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You sold… dog seat belts?

I didn’t know that was an actual product until I saw you mention it.

I’m a dog-owner – should I be concerned? 😧

Anyway, hi, I’m Anastasia.

I’m an e-com email copywriter, and I’m trying to learn how to write (hopefully great) advertorials.

So I came across your video with Chase Dimond where you discussed this concept of ‘horror advertorials.’ Do you have a swipe file with successful examples you wouldn’t mind sharing?

===

“OH YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME,” I said.

An ongoing frustration in the running of this newsletter is that, in spite of writing a fairly in-depth email each day, many of which end up repeating stuff about me, most people on my list still known very little about who I am or what I do.

It’s a frustration that only gets more common the longer I’ve been writing this newsletter and the bigger my list gets.

The fact is, I do have a swipe of “horror advertorials.”

I’ve sold it in the past for $100, and just last month, I included it as one of the bonuses to my $997 Copy Riddles program during the “White Tuesday” promo, which also included a “$2k Advertorial Consult” as another bonus.

And yet, I still get questions like the one above. What to do? After my initial childish rush of frustration, I reminded myself this is inevitable, and just a part of how the world works, particularly online.

Some people got on my list only recently. Some miss my emails in their overflowing inboxes. Some don’t get drawn into my emails because I didn’t deliver on the copy front.

Other readers skim because they’re busy or distracted… and still others open, and read diligently, and then forget — because my newsletter, immensely important though it is to me, is really only 2-3 minutes in the day of even my most devoted readers.

In all these cases, the responsibility really lies with me to do something and improve the situation. So:

Regarding my “horror advertorial” swipe file, it’s not something I’m selling at the moment, and it’s certainly not something I’m sharing, if that means giving it away for free — because I’ve had lots of good customers who have paid me good money for the same info.

At the moment, I am selling and promoting my Daily Email Habit service.

You may wonder if you really need DAILY emails. After all, you may already have a website… or ads on Facebook… or you may even send a weekly email. Surely that’s enough???

I’d like to propose to you that your prospects know much less about you than you could ever believe. Shockingly less.

Daily emails can help with that, so you make more sales today, and so you get lodged more deeply in your prospects’ minds, so you make more sales tomorrow.

And if daily emails fail to deliver? If you end up writing daily emails, and most people in your audience still don’t know who you are and what you do?

Well, that just becomes a topic of a new email.

And if you’d like to see how I and a group of other smart folks are transmuting such everyday frustrations, or reader questions, or personal insights into daily emails that both entertain and sell, you can find that inside my Daily Email Habit service. For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Only open this if you play Wordle

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For much of his life Fyodor Dostoevsky struggled with a gambling addiction. He played roulette obsessively, and would lose huge sums of money, and be driven into debt and self-loathing as a result.

I’m no Fyodor Dostoevsky, either in terms of writing or in the depravity of my addictions. Where Dostoevsky wrote Crime And Punishment, I wrote an advertorial for a dog seat belt. Where Dostoevsky played roulette, I play… Wordle.

This email is really only for you if you play Wordle as well. If you don’t, or have never even heard of Wordle, then you are a better or luckier man than I.

Wordle has been a daily addiction for me for the past three years or so, pretty much since I discovered it.

I tell myself Wordle is a tool I use to relax and reward myself for a job well done. But the the fact I play Wordle first thing in the morning, when I’m neither stressed nor when I’ve done any job, well or otherwise, exposes my reasoning as a lie.

The fact is, I like word games, puzzles, brain teasers, clues that tell me if I’m on the right path, the brief flash of insight when a solution comes together.

And then the added features of Wordle — the fact that it’s simple and limited in scope, that there’s just one puzzle a day, that it tells you how many days you’ve kept up a streak of guessing the day’s Wordle puzzle right…

Well, you play also. You can understand me.

Really, Wordle is harmless. It’s also useless, at least in any adult view of the world. But in the words of Claude Hopkins:

“The love of work can be cultivated, just like the love of play. The terms are interchangeable. What others call work I call play, and vice versa. We do best what we like best.”

These be profound words.

The same motivations and drives — love of word games, narrowing in on a solution, a flash of insight when it comes together, a streak you don’t want to break — can be put to some adult use.

It’s why I’ve been writing these daily emails even longer than I’ve been playing Wordle.

And unlike Wordle, these daily emails have been very valuable to me, personally, professionally, and metaphysiologically.

My point for you being, see what you already like to do, and see how you can take elements of that and make it a part of something that pays you.

Nobody was ever going to pay me to play Wordle professionally — THE WORLD IS UNFAIR — but writing daily, in a short format, keeping a streak up, getting some kind of feedback always, is the next best thing, and in some ways, even better.

All that’s to say, if like me you play Wordle, you might enjoy writing daily emails.

You might also enjoy my Daily Email Habit service, because I very consciously introduced elements of Wordle into it — the hints, the streak, the unique once-a-day puzzle.

You can see an example of a daily email puzzle at the page below, or you can sign up to start playing the game yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/deh