My auction is ALIVE

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My “I endorse YOU” auction came ALIVE today, about 2 hours and 34 minutes ago, reckoning by the time this email gently slithered its way into your inbox.

As the prize and wager for this novel auction, I am offering to take one of my readers… to give him or her a NAME on the Internet along with my full endorsement… plus to co-create a working acquisition funnel the winner can use to build up an email list via newsletter ads or list swaps… plus I’m guaranteeing, with my two hands, the winner will make back 100% of his or her money before I’m done endorsing and promoting them.

How has the world reacted so far to this audacious offer?

Has the bidding already reached into the millions of dollars, as entire families pool their finances, mortgage their homes, and reach into their children’s college funds?

Or is it still and quiet over there inside Daily Email House, with me standing around the House living room, feeling naked, a bunch of House members looking at me but not saying anything, with only the occasional…

CHIRP

CHIRP

CHIRP

… breaking the silence?

I’ll be 100% honest with you:

I don’t know.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I am actually writing to you FROM THE PAST.

It’s currently 9:26am my time as I write this. The auction will come ALIVE today at 6pm my time, while this email will only go out a couple hours after that.

What I do know is that people are curious about how this will go. For example, this morning I got a message from a reader that said:

===

Will you let us know the results of the auction in a future email?

I’d like to know how well it works out. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

===

I am making precisely zero promises about letting anybody know anything.

Frankly, I’m a bit promised out, with the auction and the audacious promises I’m making there — “I endorse you until you get 100% of your money back,” plus all the little micro promises I’m making in order to have a shot to deliver on that core promise — being just about all I can handle.

I can tell you this:

If the auction goes as well as I hope, I am sure to crow about it, turn it into a case study, and run more auctions, both for myself and in partnership with other people.

If the auction doesn’t go as well as I hope, maybe I’ll tell you how it did go, along with my conclusions, and my plans for what I might do different another time. That would be the matoor thing to do.

But maybe I won’t do any of that, and maybe I will secretly just go and take this experiment and bury it in the experiment sematary in my back yard. After all, I’m often not very matoor. And rather than bewailing that fact, and saying that I should do what I am not doing, I’ve learned to work with what I’ve got.

One thing is for sure:

If you are curious how this auction is performing and how it will end, the only way to find out, without fail and in full detail, is to join my Daily Email House community, and to do so now.

Come for the morbid curiosity. Stay for the pool party and the little auction party snacks. Here’s the location:

https://bejakovic.com/house

The best writer on the Internet?

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There musta been something in the water last week.

First, I exchanged a couple 1:1 emails with Derek Johanson of CopyHour, about a potential JV deal. At the end of of our exchange Derek wrote:

===

I LOVE your emails.

Literally the only daily emailer I read anymore. I’ve un-subbed from everyone. I don’t know how you do it daily. haha

===

Then I sent out one of my regular daily emails and I got a reply from Parker Worth.

In case you don’t know Parker, he is “just a guy with a neck tattoo,” as per his Twitter bio.

In reality, Parker is quite a bit more than that. He’s got an online audience of over 70,000 people spread across Twitter and LinkedIn and his email list, and in just two years, he’s built a 6-figure business on the back of it, teaching people how to write online.

Parker simply replied to my email and said:

====

John,

I’m convinced you’re the best writer on the internet.

Happy holidays

===

Then I was on a mastermind call with marketer Travis Sago, somebody I have learned more from over the past couple years than anyone else, and somebody I’ve promoted to this list multiple times.

At one point, Travis said to his mastermind folks:

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I’ll brag on Johnny B. [that’s me, by the way].

Johnny B., when he sends affiliate promos, he brings a buncha people in.

He’s a micro influencer. He’s a big fish in a small pond. That’s all I am too.

But you’ve got these very, very rabid people, and they’re very responsive, because they’re not Mr. Beast and they’re not Grant Cardone. They’re very responsive and a lot of their little ponds will drive so much fucking traffic it’ll blow your fucking mind.

===

I’m telling you this because well, much like milk, endorsements and social proof are best used fresh.

Also, to show you that, as I’ve been claiming, I have the attention and trust of some influential marketers and business owners in my little corner of the Internet, many of whom read these emails every day.

Also, because tomorrow is the grand and dramatic start of my “I endorse YOU” auction.

This is in fact the last email I will send out before the auction starts.

I’ve been talking about this auction for what seems like an eternity. And yet I’m still getting questions about exactly where and how this auction will happen.

The details are the following:

1. The auction will kick off tomorrow at 6pm CET/12 noon EST/9am PST.

2. It will happen inside my Daily Email House community.

I will create a new post to lay out exactly what’s on offer to be auctioned off.

Bids will go as comments under the post. If you are a Daily Email House member, you will be able to bid, if you so choose, by posting your bid as a comment as well.

3. The auction will go on for as long as it has life.

I have had a few dozen people express interest in bidding in this auction. Let’s see who actually will bid, and for how long.

Since I am offering to transfer my own credibility to you (as for my credibility, see above), and since I am guaranteeing the winning bidder to make all his or her money back, I am hopeful of brisk business. But as I wrote yesterday, success is far from certain, and in fact, the road is treacherous.

4. I’ll have a free bonus for you if you make any kind of a bid, even if it’s just $2. The goal is to make this auction fun and lively for as many of my readers as possible.

5. Oh yeah, there will also be a pool party. Did I mention that? I recently moved to a new apartment. I now have a pool. On my terrace. The dimensions are ridiculous (enough to maybe fit a fridge inside, and not much else) and it’s more trouble than use to me. But I have a pool.

Would you like to join me for the pool party? If so, again, doors open tomorrow at 6pm my time. Here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/house

If you won’t laugh too much if I fail, I’ll try it

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A couple years ago I read a biography of Harry Houdini. I wanted to learn about showmanship because I’m far from a natural showman. And who better to learn from than one of the greatest showmen of the 20th century?

One curious thing kept catching my eye throughout the book. The background:

The background:

Houdini built his career on accepting public, grand, and spectacular challenges.

He’d perform on stage and offer audience members the chance to tie him in the thickest of ropes from head to foot, twice over, however they pleased, to see if they could keep him from freeing himself.

He’d challenge secret service agents to cuff him with their most modern handcuffs, to see if these cuffs were the ones that could finally hold him.

He’d accept when police chiefs publicly announced they would lock him inside their most secure cells, because those cells were impossible to get out of.

Now here’s the curious thing that caught my eye:

Each time Houdini accepted such a public challenge, rather than boasting that this would be a cakewalk because of his supernatural skills, he would rather highlight the possibility that he would fail.

For example, one time, after Houdini had just escaped from handcuffs in a police station, the police chief joked he will lock Houdini in a cell to keep him from escaping. Houdini replied:

“Getting out of a cell isn’t in my contract and I don’t guarantee it, but if you won’t laugh too much if I fail, I’ll try it.”

I’ve been thinking about this as I prepare for my upcoming “I endorse YOU” auction.

As I wrote a few days ago, this auction is the riskiest offer I’ve ever made, for myself personally.

If nobody ends up bidding or the winning bid ends up too low, I will look incompetent, foolish, and very probably unskilled in this thing I claim to be good enough to teach, namely, making offers that people want to pay me good money for.

On the other hand, the more successful the auction becomes, the more obligation I am taking on, and the more risky it becomes that I will fail on the delivery side. After all, I am promising that the winning bidder will make back all of his or her investment, and that becomes progressively more difficult the higher the bid goes.

But I’ll try it nonetheless, for your entertainment.

If you won’t laugh too much if I fail, I’ll put my reputation and wellbeing on the line for you.

Here are the details of the spectacle:

Time: This Wednesday, Dec 10, at 6pm CET/12 noon EST/9am PST.

Place: My Skool community, Daily Email House

What to bring: Popcorn, binoculars, and possibly smelling salts in case the person next to you faints from the suspense

If you wanna get your seats to the most daring, most risky, possibly most lethal challenge of my career:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Have I promised too much?

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Yesterday, I sent an email in which I privately and secretly advised you to bid as much as it takes to win my upcoming auction.

The background, in case you missed it:

I will endorse the winner of this auction to my own list. What’s more, I’m offering to keep endorsing and promoting the winner until he or she makes back the entire investment.

I got a reply to yesterday’s email about that, which just said:

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maybe i should take a loan out

===

This echoes something a member of my Daily Email House community wrote, back when I ran a poll to check if there’s interest in this “I endorse YOU” offer:

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The guarantee of money back really makes this a no-brainer… I’d open a 12-month no interest credit card if I needed to, to pay for this 🙂

===

This gave me a great idea.

Yesterday, I reached out to Wells Fargo.

In spite of it being Saturday and not a day that bankers normally work, they got back to me right away and agreed to sponsor this auction, with a custom line of uniquely low-interest credit cards…

No, none of that.

It’s true that in preparing for this auction, I have used what I’ve learned about the people in my list across thousands of emails sent… hundreds of hours spent in individual communication with my customers… and about 5 years of making offers, some successful, some unsuccessful, all providing some data points of learning into what people on my list want, fear, and are wary of.

I’ve used that, plus more feedback from my list, to craft the grandest, sexiest, and riskiest (for me personally) offer I’ve ever created.

It’s possible I’ve promised too much for my own good. But I’m gratified to see signs that the right people are finding it pretty irresistible.

That said, I don’t want anyone going into debt in order to win. Debt for me carries bad vibes and karma, and frankly, that’s not something I want to take on.

On the other hand, if you do have money to invest in something:

I can tell you I’ve long ago stopped investing in stocks and index funds.

For one thing, I don’t know what I’m doing with those.

For another, I figure my returns will be much, much, much better if I simply spend that money to build up my email list. I don’t know any other investment that can conceivably pay me back 100% of my money on day 0, and give me 500%-1000% returns over the next 6 months to a year.

On top of that, I’ve personally found that investing in newsletter traffic is better than other forms of traffic to grow my email list, because newsletter readers are proven to open read and respond to emails.

If on top of that top, you throw in a warm and honest endorsement from the person who is sending you his trusting and engaged readers, then…

Well, I should stop myself, because I’m again starting to hype up and promise. And while I normally don’t have a problem with either, like I said, maybe I’ve done too much of both already.

If you are interested in having me endorse you:

I’ve officially set the date for this auction.

It will happen this coming Wednesday, December 10, as the Moon moves from Leo to Virgo (auspicious for new beginnings).

The exact time the auction kicks off will be 6pm CET/12 noon EST/9am PST.

The exact place will be my Daily Email House community. If you’d like to get inside in time and get familiar and comfortable before the craziness starts:

​https://bejakovic.com/house​

A splendid chance for notoriety that will never offer itself again

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Three years ago, I wrote a prescient email that started out so:

“Today, I want to share with you a marketing technique so powerful, so daring, so all-around incredible that I wish I had the circumstances and the courage to implement it myself right now.”

This powerful, daring, and all-around incredible marketing technique is something I found in a book about P.T. Barnum. Lemme tell you about it.

Barnum once promoted a Swedish opera singer, Jenny Lind, on her first tour of the U.S. He ran ads in newspapers to promote Lind, but not just that.

Barnum also — get ready for this — ran an auction for the very first Lind ticket to be sold.

But again, not just that.

Barnum went in private to see a certain hat maker, Genin, and told Genin to bid as much as needed to win.

Barnum then went to a Dr. Brandreth, a maker of patent medicines, and also told the good doctor to bid as much as needed.

“The higher the price,” Barnum told both men separately, “the greater renown it will give you all over the country within twenty-four hours.”

Genin listened. He kept bidding and ended up putting up the winning $225 bid for the first Lind ticket, about $8,662 in today’s money.

Within 24 hours, the name “Genin the hat maker” was known all over the country.

Ragged and beat up “real Genin hats” started being sold at a 46,000% markup.

Genin started selling 10,000 extra hats a year on the back of that initial $225 investment — and became a very rich man.

Dr. Brandreth, on the other hand, didn’t listen to Barnum’s advice.

Brandeth decided to cap his bidding at $200, and he lost the opportunity to win the first Lind ticket. He later said:

“I had better have paid $5,000 [over $192,000 in today’s money] than to have missed securing the first Jenny Lind ticket. Such a splendid chance for notoriety will never offer itself again.”

Three years ago, as I said, I didn’t have the courage or circumstances to implement Barnum’s powerful, daring, and all-around incredible auction idea.

Today I have the circumstances — my Daily Email House group, where I can run the auction. And as for courage, I have gathered that too, and will run my own first auction soon.

Ultimately, this auction is your opportunity to build a name for yourself, gain notoriety, and achieve status, all while building up your email list.

If you win the auction, I will use my own good name, standing, and authority with my list to hold you up like baby Simba and say “Behold!” while all the gazelles and zebras stare up in wonder and applaud.

But even before that happens, you will already have gotten your name into people’s minds.

“Who is this Genin the hat maker?” they will ask, except with your name except Genin’s.

Some people are sure to look you up and sign up for your list right away.

If you have a flair for showmanship and self-promotion, you will be able to capitalize immediately by making a big deal out of being the winning bidder.

But even if not, your name will simply become more familiar to people — including the many influential marketers and business owners who read these emails — so they become more responsive to you the next time hear of you.

Now lean in. Close. I wanna whisper something important to you:

If you’re looking to build a name for yourself, I advise you, in secret, one-to-one, just you and me here inside this email, to bid as much as it takes to win.

It will be a splendid chance to win renown for yourself that will never offer itself again.

You’re likely to profit many times over what you will bid to win. Of course, I’m even guaranteeing that you will make all your money back before I’m done promoting you.

More details on my auction soon.

Meanwhile, if you wanna secure your spot inside Daily Email House, where the auction will be happening:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Direct marketing explained in two simple steps

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Yesterday, I was on a call with a smart and very successful direct marketer. He explained his entire philosophy of direct marketing in two steps:

1. Get people to say YES, and then

2. Upsell them

(Of course, people are free to say no to the upsell. No hard feelings.)

This is a fractal that repeats over and over, throughout the direct marketing world. For example, it’s how I have run ads in other newsletters that paid for themselves on day 0:

1. Get people to say YES to a cool free offer in the ad and on the landing page, and then

2. Upsell them to a paid offer on the thank-you page

Of course, people are free to say no to the thank-you page offer. (Once again, no hard feelings, just a bit of me sticking voodoo pins into a little doll I use to represent my ideal customer avatar.)

The above is basically the model I’m gonna help you implement if you manage to win the bidding in the upcoming “I endorse YOU to my list” auction, which I will be running soon in my Daily Email House community.

The community is free to join… though if you do join, I’ll try to upsell you on participating in the auction.

Of course, no hard feelings if you say no to that.

(Starts muttering, and gets pins ready.)

Just kidding. Here’s where to join my FREE community, where the shared mission is, “Use your email list to pay for a house”:

https://bejakovic.com/house

“XXXXXXX will be the new webinars!”

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Yesterday, I ran a poll, both in my Daily Email House community and to my list, asking readers if they would bid $2 (two whole dollars) to have me endorse them to my list.

People voted.

After discounting those who voted for multiple options (most likely just email software clicking on links), I got the following fairly clean results:

24 people said they would bid $2

14 said they would bid $200

7 said they would bid $2,000

6 said they would bid whatever it takes to win

What will happen in reality? I have no idea. But I’m willing to give it a try, at the risk of making a fool of myself publicly and of burdening myself with big obligations that will take time and effort to pay off.

I’m willing to do this because I’m curious about the potential of AUCTIONS.

AUCTIONS (a word which happens to have 8 letters, the same as the number of X’s in my subject line today) is an invention by Travis Sago.

Well, maybe “invention” is a little strong. Let’s just say Travis adapted the traditional idea of an auction, and brought it into spaces where auctions were never even considered.

For example, Travis himself got started with auctions back in 2020, when he auctioned off 3 email templates (along with licensing rights and some bonuses).

The winning bid for that ended up being “$8,000 + $2,000 to a charity of Travis’s choice.”

(The winning bidder, by the way, was a certain Justin Goff, who used to be an influential email marketer.)

Travis has since been running more auctions, and encouraging others to run them as a fun and new way of selling. He’s even making the prediction that auctions will be the new webinars (there, I spelled it out completely, I hope you’re happy).

I didn’t understand that at first. How could an auction possibly be a replacement for a webinar?

After all, in an auction it seems there’s only one thing being sold to one bidder.

Of course, Travis is a clever guy, who gets a lot of use out of everything he’s got, including stuff that seems worthless to other people.

That’s why the winning bid is not really where the money is made in one of Travis’s auctions.

When I finally figured that out, the “auctions will be the new webinars” prediction made more sense. I could understand how some of Travis’s students were bringing a hundred thousand dollars, or even a quarter million, with a big and successful auction.

Based on my numbers above, I’m not expecting anything close to those results. But again, I’m willing to run my first auction and see where it could possibly go.

At best, I will make some money and deliver something of value to people who actually value it.

At worst, I will provide some entertainment for everyone participating or just observing.

If you wanna observe my first auction, or better yet, participate, it will be happening soon, inside my Daily Email House community. You can find that here:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Would you bid at least $2… to get me to ENDORSE you to my audience?

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A couple weeks ago, I sheepishly asked if you would bid at least $1 to have me promote you to my audience.

I got a goodly number of people saying YES.

But my ego craves approval and encouragement something fierce… and frankly my ego was not satisfied.

So I went away… locked myself in my laboratory… and experimented and researched and toiled until…

I CREATED IT!!!

V2: My new prototype auction offer.

The stakes are bigger this second time around.

And that’s why I’m asking if would bid, not just $1… not even $1.50… but at least $2 (two whole dollars) for the following:

#1. I will ENDORSE you to my audience

I have a unique level of credibility with my list, and more broadly, in the email marketing and copywriting space.

I have been emailing for years, and I’ve had readers stick with me for years… I don’t really hard-sell and I don’t ever sell out… I’m always looking to only promote things I feel good about because I believe they are genuinely valuable to my list.

As a consequence of these long-standing policies, I regularly turn away lots of people who would like me to endorse them or their offers.

But when it comes to you?

I will endorse you 100% to my audience.

In other words…

I will transfer my credibility to you, both so you can hit the ground running with my readers when they become your readers… and so in the future, you can go around and say, “I got endorsed by John Bejakovic therefore hire me/read me/buy from me.”

Maybe that sounds like a paradox? Or like I’m finally selling out?

After all, how can I endorse you congruently, without even knowing who you are or what you do?

Glad you asked:

#2. I will work with you to create the sexy and valuable offer I will promote in my newsletter

We will work together.

The goal here is both for me to get to know you, so I can figure out what your unique strengths are, and so I can credibly endorse you…

… and so we create something I will feel great about promoting to my list, and that my list will find both valuable and sexy.

Ideally, we can start with offers or content you currently have. But if that’s not an option, I will help you create something from scratch.

(I can even contribute some of my own content or offers, and give you rights to give that away.)

I will also work with you on the ad copy and the landing page copy.

You will get as much 1:1 with time me and even my hands-on help as needed (though as little as possible).

And then, optin bribe done…

#3. I will also work with you to come up with a thank-you page offer

This is an offer you can make to new subscribers on day 0, as soon as they sign up.

This is the secret to both making money immediately… and to turning free subscribers into first-time buyers, who are dramatically more likely to buy from you down the line.

(Once again, we will work together on both the offer and the copy.)

#3. I will then send a dedicated email to my list and create a post here in Daily Email House, to promote and endorse you and your optin bribe, and…

#4. I will GUARANTEE you will make 100% of your money back

If you don’t make 100% of your money back on day 0, with the first email and post I create to endorse you, I will keep promoting you… and endorsing you… and sending new subscribers to your list… for as long as it takes for you to make back 100% of your money.

I will also keep working with you to tweak the copy or offers (or come up with entirely new ones) if that seems to be the issue.

UNOFFICIALLY, my goal is to take the winning bid here, and have the winning bidder make 10x his or her investment, over the next year, as a result of this offer.

I honestly think it’s very doable, because an email list has tremendous value if you keep mailing it, and because first-time buyers are likely to buy future offers you create.

But also, I think 10x in the next year is very doable because of a couple…

BONUS IDEAS

#1. “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin”

After you get my endorsement and my readers become your readers, I will help you take the same funnel and put it in front of other creator’s audiences.

I will give you valuable paid resources and, again, my personal help in finding, negotiating, and reducing the price of ads in other newsletters, so you can keep growing your list at breakeven or at a profit, regularly, month after month.

(And yes, you can approach these newsletter owners and tell them, “I already got John Bejakovic to endorse this offer… and his audience loved it.”)

#2. Membership inside my Monetization Mastermind

The Monetization Mastermind is a small, invite-only group I’ve set up for list owners, with the goal of forming JV partnerships and doing list swaps.

I won’t name names here, but the Monetization Mastermind features the who’s who of list owners in the email marketing, course creator, and copywriting worlds — about 50 of us in total.

(The fact these busy and influential folks are inside a community I organize goes back to my unique credibility in this corner of the Internet.)

This group is exclusive, invite-only, and highly vetted.

But once you will have my folks on your list as a result of me endorsing you… and a working offer funnel as a result of me working with you… you will belong inside the Monetization Mastermind, and you will be able to take the funnel we’ve created and use it (or tweak it slightly) to do list swaps with other successful list owners.

(Once again, the fact that you have been endorsed and promoted by me, and that you have an optin bribe that’s been proven to be interesting and valuable to readers will make this an easy and natural sell, unlike if you were simply to approach these same people out of the blue.)

#3. OTHER BONUSES???

As a final idea, I’m open to offering other bonuses based on ideas you throw at me.

Special status within my Daily Email House… an interview I do with you and post within either Daily Email House or Monetization Mastermind or both… a spot on a RECOMMENDED PARTNERS page on my site… a link to your optin bribe inside my book bonus flow… help with email copy to build up your status and standing further…

… what extra inducement would make this auction offer worthwhile or exciting or sexy for you?

Lemme know and if my liver can handle it, I will make it happen.

AND NOW…

I’ve done my research when crafting this V2. That’s how I know:

Fellow email marketer Daniel Throssell says he “literally built his entire business off” an ad he ran to Ben Settle’s list.

(That was a time that Ben was selling one of three spots in his newsletter for $500… without any kind of personal help and certainly without any endorsement.)

Daniel claims he got a 10x return on his ad spend, and I can well believe that’s an understatement if you could really see what those newsletter subscribers have paid Daniel over the years.

AT THE SAME TIME:

Another would-be list owner who ran an ad in Ben Settle’s newsletter (same as Daniel) got NO CLIENTS and didn’t make his money back. This guy wrote:

“I bet if I had offers in place and knew what I was doing that I would’ve made that money back in one sale.”

As part of this V2 offer, I’m offering help with your optin bribe and the rest of your funnel.

In my research, I’ve seen somebody offering a “newsletter ad” funnel like this for $5k.

Yeah, I’m also offering that.

But I am also offering… not just to put your ad and your list in front of my audience… not just to help you with the offers and the funnel to monetize that ad… but I’m putting my name and endorsement on the line for you, so you benefit from the credibility I’ve built up over the years.

It’s very very rare to get somebody to go full-in and endorse you to their list.

The few times it’s happened as an offer, made by credible people with real standing in their industries, it ranged all the way up to $34,000 on the high end.

And in all the cases I have found audience owners offering an endorsement, there was NO guarantee that you will make your money back.

And yet, a 100% guarantee is something I am offering with this new and improved V2.

So with all that said?

Would you bid $2 for all this — for my help, audience, endorsement, and personal guarantee?

Vote away below… and your votes will determine if this auction happens… or if I skulk back to my lab because I laid an egg.

​Me likey, I’d bid $2!​

​Good golly, I’d bid at least $200!​

​I play big! I’d bid at least $2,000!​

​I ain’t playin’! I’d bid whatever it takes to WIN!​

“Coaching crickets” so loud you cannot hear the quiet “maybe”

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Before bed this past week, I’ve been reading a book about direct marketing. A couple nights ago, I read the following:

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You need to identify all the categories of solutions available to your prospect. Make a list of their pros and cons. Your job is then to close all the doors to buying other solutions by identifying all the ways your solution is better than all those other solutions.

===

“WOW,” I said out loud. “This is GREAT advice! I should totally do this with my newsletter and with the offers I make!”

Then I shrank back a bit, and looked around my bedroom to make sure nobody had heard me.

I realized what I’d read is perfectly normal, commonplace advice about any kind of selling.

In fact, back when I used to write lots of advertorials and sales pages for clients, this kind of “dismissing alternatives” was a major part of my research process, which took probably 60% of the entire time I devoted to any copy project.

And yet…

A different part of the brain is involved when you’re solving a problem for other people than when you’re solving a problem for yourself. At least that’s how I explain to myself why I never think to apply things I knew to do so well for clients to my own newsletter and my own offers.

I once heard marketer Sean D’Souza say:

“If you wanna solve your problems, go and solve somebody else’s problems.”

That’s one reason why I recently started offering 1:1 coaching.

Of course, there are other good reasons too.

For one, doing 1:1 coaching gets me talking to the most motivated and proactive people in my audience, which makes me feel much better about what I’m doing in the world, and the impact my ideas and work can have.

For two, 1:1 coaching is market research. It exposes me to my audience’s problems, objections, and desires in a way that I never woulda thought up.

For three is that thing Sean D’Souza says. I’ve realized that my best advice to others is really advice I myself should be following as well, but that, for mysterious neurological reasons, I could never give to myself directly.

I just gave you three good reasons why you too should consider offering coaching, if you’re not doing it already.

Only one problem:

Like I wrote a couple days ago, “coaching” is actually a terrible offer.

The only way “coaching” sells is if you have built so much status or bond with your audience that they are basically buying YOU, in spite of that vague and unattractive “coaching” offer you made.

(That’s why I can kinda sorta get away with it.)

But what if you don’t have the same level of status and bond with your list yet?

From what I’ve heard among people on my list and inside Daily Email House, it’s a real problem. As one House member put it:

“I have thrown coaching to my list before, but the crickets were so loud I couldn’t hear the quiet ‘maybe.'”

A couple days ago, I talked about a new and 100% different offer you can make instead of “coaching.”

It’s a transmutation of “coaching” into something else, which sells better, is easier to deliver, and still gets you all the benefits I listed above.

Could this be something you’re interested in?

If so, hit reply and let me know.

Yes, I am selling something here ultimately. And if you hit reply and express the smallest bit of interest, my crack team of D2D salesmen will immediately descend on your front lawn, set up camp, and start a round-the-clock door knocking campaign…

No, none of that.

If you do reply and express interest, I will simply reply back, in order to find out a bit more about you, so I can see if this “alternative to coaching” could be useful to you.

If I think it can be, I will give you the full details.

If you like the sound of it, you can take me up on what I’m selling.

If it’s not a fit for any reason, you can tell me no. You won’t hurt my feelings, or sour this relationship we’ve got going on.

Does that sounds like something you can bear?

Then ask yourself whether a different, easier-to-sell offer instead of coaching could be valuable to you. If it could, hit reply and tell me so.

Become an investigative reporter with high-level salesmanship skills

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A bit of Bejako background:

I went to high school in a rich suburb of Baltimore, Maryland (we weren’t rich, but ok).

All the other kids in my class were ambitious and smart (one girl’s dad later won the Nobel Prize in chemistry). They worked hard their entire high school days. They ended up going to schools like Princeton and Stanford, and became lawyers and doctors and architects.

Meanwhile, 17-year-old Bejako had zero drive to go to college, and had no idea what kind of work he might ever want to do.

His best guess — the only option that kind of turned him on – was the idea of moving down to Annapolis, Maryland’s small, quaint, maritime capital, and becoming a reporter on some local newspaper that covered state politics.

Fast-forward to the present, and switch back to the first person:

While I never became a small-town reporter, the same lack of ambition and non-entrepreneurial nature I had in high school has stuck with me throughout life, now into middle age.

I am really not motivated by money, try as I have to change that. I’ve also never thought of myself as an entrepreneur or online business owner. And yet, that’s kind of what I’m doing now, and what’s more, I’m not really qualified to do anything else.

I’m telling you all this because a couple nights ago, I was reading a book about direct marketing. It said the following:

“Understanding your ultimate prospect has nothing to do with creativity. It requires relentless, investigative salesmanship. You need to become an investigative reporter with high-level salesmanship skills.”

“Hm,” I said to my pillow. “An investigative reporter on the salesmanship beat? That’s something I can imagine myself doing.”

And in fact, the very next day, I told myself to treat what I’m doing as investigative reporter. I started collecting data about offers I had made, successful or unsuccessful. I came up with theories about why things turned out as they did. I started trying to write up a story that makes sense that fits the data to the theory.

It’s been fun and it’s getting me to do things I should have been doing all along.

My point is not that you specifically should start treating your business as an investigative reporter.

My point is that, if “value-creating entrepreneur” or “small business owner” doesn’t really feel like a suit that fits you, there lots of other suits you can put on, including ones that you like the look of. And it will still be you inside the suit.

You gotta do certain things to see success if you have an email list and want to make money with it. Selling is one of them. Understanding your audience is another. Creating new offers is still another. But there are lots of ways to get yourself to do those things, including things that align with your own natural motivations and ambitions.

Or in the words of Internet marketer Rich Schefren, “Put your business goals of your self-development goals.” It’s much more likely you will see success if you work with your own psychology, rather than trying to change it.

So much for Monday Morning Mindset.

For some specific strategies on how to take your existing skills and interests and turn them into money, enough to pay for a house:

https://bejakovic.com/house