Psychographics of prospective copywriting clients

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Last week, I advertised a writing job through this newsletter.

I got a few dozen applications coming in. As a result, I could confirm first-hand what I had figured out second-hand a long time ago, and that is the psychographics of prospective copywriting clients.

In case you’re curious, I’ll share these psychographics with you:

1. Prospective clients are busy

Copywriting clients have their own businesses to run and lots of other plates to spin. That’s why they are looking for a writer instead of writing themselves. It’s also how they have money to pay you.

2. Prospective clients do not enjoy the work of hiring a copywriter

Resumes/application emails are not fun to read. Neither is wit — not when it’s jammed like a head of lettuce into a job application. Neither are random samples of sales copy — not unless the client happens to be a member of the target audience for that copy, and even then.

3. Prospective clients will be swamped with applications

My list is not huge. I still got a few dozen applications following just one email. When I advertised on Upwork in the past, I got still more applications, towards 100, coming in for a single advertised writing job.

So what to do if you are a freelance copywriter looking for work?

The best way I found around the nasty psychographics above was to get into a position where I don’t have to apply for copywriting jobs, ever.

Yes, it can be done.

You can put yourself into a position where clients get referred to you or even seek you out — specifically because they are busy… and do not enjoy the work of hiring a copywriter… and do not want to be swamped with applications.

The trouble is, getting into such a position takes time or luck or ideally both.

So let me tell you about the second-best way.

This second-best way is designed to take into account the three psychographic elements above. By my estimate, it boosts your chances of winning a job about 20x-30x.

I’ve used this strategy while I was still applying to copywriting jobs, both when I was on Upwork and later off it, often winning out against 50+ other hungry copywriters.

I used this strategy to win 4- and 5-figure copywriting jobs, even when I was new in the industry and had little to nothing to say for myself… and also later, when I was more established, but I really wanted a specific job because it was such a great opportunity for whatever reason.

If that’s got you curious, then you can find this job application strategy described in detail in a short training I call Copywriting Portfolio Secrets. Earlier this year, I got a testimonial about this training from copywriter Kevin Wood:

===

Yo!

Your copywriting portfolio secrets workshop works like magic, even on Upwork in 2023.

[censored – Kevin explains how he applied the ideas in Copywriting Portfolio Secrets, with the result being…]

Pitched 100/hr with no job history, no reviews, only one ongoing job since they use Upwork to pay freelancers.

Got the job the next day. Should be a solid 3-4k/mo for the foreseeable future.

Shit works!

If you’re selling that training separately, I’d be happy to write up a better testimonial you can use.

===

I’ve sold Copywriting Portfolio Secrets previously for $97, but I’m giving it away for free now as a bonus to anyone who gets the Infostack copywriting bundle.

You can find out more about that bundle at the link below. But before you go there, here are three other free bonuses I will send you to complement the bundle and Bonus #1, Copywriting Portfolio Secrets:

Bonus #2. No-Stress Negotiation For Well-Paid Copywriters ($100 value)

This guide outlines my 7-part negotiating system, which I adapted from negotiation coach Jim Camp. This system kept me sane while I still regularly interviewed and worked with copywriting clients. Follow these seven principles, and you will end up making more money, working with better clients, and being able to stick to it for the long term.

I only offered this guide once before, as part of the $100 Copy Zone guide, which also featured….

Bonus #3. How To Get Set Up On Upwork

This free bonus is an excerpt from a short self-published book I wrote once, How to Become a $150/Hr Sales Copywriter on Upwork: A Personal Success Story that Almost Anyone Can Replicate. It tells you how to actually get set up on Upwork — the details of your profile page, your description, your title.

If you combine this bonus with the two bonuses above — Copywriting Portfolio Secrets and No-Stress Negotiation — you have a great shot of winning a job on Upwork by the end of this week, or even today.

And finally, my bonus stack also includes…

Bonus #4. Dan’s Timeless Wisdom (priceless, or $25k+)

Between August of 2019 and March 2020, I was in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group. As you might know, Dan started out as a star copywriter at The Motley Fool, and went on to become one of the most successful, most winning, big-money direct response copywriters working today.

Inside his coaching group, Dan dispensed copy critiques, marketing advice, and mystical koans to help his coaching students get to the next level.

At some point, I had the bright idea to start archiving the best and most valuable things that Dan was saying. I got 25 of them down, and they are all included in this document, which has until now only been shared with Dan and his coaching students.

(By the way, I never tallied up the exact and rather painful amount of money I paid Dan for the coaching. It was north of $25k. I do know I made it all back, and then some, in just the first two months after I stopped with the coaching, thanks to just one tip I got from Dan.)

So there you go. If you want the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Stack for its $555.86 worth of value and inspiration, yours for just $49…

… or if you want my add-on bonuses for their $25,197/∞ value, yours free…

… then here’s what to do:

1. Buy the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Bundle at https://bejakovic.com/infostack

2. You will then get an automated email from ThriveCart with a link to a special, members-only page on my site where you can access the four free bonuses above.

Important:

Infostack’s bundle offer is live now and will go on until next week, but I will only be promoting it until tomorrow, Friday, at 8:31pm CET.

That’s how long my offer with the bonuses above is good for. Your gotta buy this bundle before Friday at 8:31pm CET to get my bonuses. So if you know you want them, why not get them now?

How I changed myself from lazy and aimless to disciplined and motivated

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I was talking to my mom a few days ago, and right before we got off the call, she paused.

​​”You know,” she said, “it’s really great you’ve become so disciplined and self-motivated.”

I grunted.

“I remember this one time,” she continued, “when you were 18 years old. And you said that the only hope for you is either the army or prison. That you needed that kind of outside structure.”

I don’t remember ever saying that, but it sounds about right.

For the longest time in my life, well beyond age 18, I was aimless, floating about from place to place, from habit to habit, as the days flipped by.

To top it off, I’m very lazy by nature. My big ambition in life was not to work. No wonder I concluded my only hope was either the army or prison.

So. How did I go from there to where I am today, being relatively disciplined, hard-working, even successful… with no army or prison along the way?

Honestly, I don’t know. ​​Time, small steps, and seeing the example of others definitely helped. Like I wrote a few days ago, when we’re unsure, we ping our environment for references.

I’ll say more about that in a second, but first, on to work:

Yesterday I started promoting the Infostack copywriter bundle. 14 ebooks and courses and trainings by copywriters, about various aspects of copywriting. The reason I’m promoting it is because I’m participating in it — my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters is one of the 14.

I said yesterday I will go through the bundle myself and tease the best individual content.

What in the hell was I thinking?

It takes a ton of time to do that, or at least to do it well. Gene Schwartz took weeks to build his “vocabulary” — to go through the book he was promoting and to underline all the interesting bits.

I have no time to do that with all these books and courses, and certainly not by Friday, which is when I’m ending this promotion. So I will just tell you the following, and then you can make up your own mind.

Much of the bundle, about half, is real newbie stuff:

Four Weeks to Freelance Writing… Stop Aspiring, Start Writing… How To Become A 6-Figure Content Writer… Get Paid To Become A Freelance Copywriter…

Sure, these guides have specific advice for you. How to motivate yourself, how to get going, how to get your first client, how to get paid that first $100 or $1,000.

But really, if you are a newbie, then I figure the actual value in this bundle is likely to be the example of a dozen different copywriters who have made it, who are doing what you would like to do, showing you that it’s possible, and maybe getting you to finally take that first step yourself.

Do you need to pay $49 for this encouragement or motivation?

Certainly not.

On the other hand, if that finally does click in your head because one of these copywriters connects with you, and encourages you to take that first step, and the step after that, then it will be worth much more than $49.

As for the how-to info in this bundle, again, I cannot speak to any of it because I haven’t gone through it. But I can speak to the four free bonuses I am offering if you do get this bundle.

I want to guarantee this bundle is worth your $49 even if you don’t go through a single one of the participating trainings, courses, or ebooks (except my 10 Commandments of course, do read that because it’s great). And so I’m offering you the following four bonuses:

1. Copywriting Portfolio Secrets ($97 value)

In this training, I show you how to build up your copywriting portfolio in the fastest and most efficient way, so you can start to win copywriting jobs even today. I show you the best way I’ve found to win 4- and 5-figure jobs I REALLY wanted, even when I wasn’t qualified for them, and how you can do it too.

I previously sold this training for $97. But it’s yours free if you take me up on my Infostack offer, which also includes my…

2. No-Stress Negotiation For Well-Paid Copywriters ($100 value)

This guide outlines my 7-part negotiating system, which I adapted from negotiation coach Jim Camp. This system kept me sane while I still regularly interviewed and worked with copywriting clients. Follow these seven principles, and you will end up making more money, working with better clients, and being able to stick to it for the long term.

I only offered this guide once before, as part of the $100 Copy Zone guide, which also featured….

3. How To Get Set Up On Upwork

This free bonus is an excerpt from a short self-published book I wrote once, How to Become a $150/Hr Sales Copywriter on Upwork: A Personal Success Story that Almost Anyone Can Replicate. It tells you how to actually get set up on Upwork — the details of your profile page, your description, your title.

If you combine this bonus with the two bonuses above — Copywriting Portfolio Secrets and No-Stress Negotiation — you have a great shot of winning a job on Upwork by the end of this week, or even today.

And finally, my bonus stack also includes…

4. Dan’s Timeless Wisdom (priceless, or $25k+)

Between August of 2019 and March 2020, I was in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group. As you might know, Dan started out as a star copywriter at The Motley Fool, and went on to become one of the most successful, most winning, big-money direct response copywriters working today.

Inside his coaching group, Dan dispensed copy critiques, marketing advice, and mystical koans to help his coaching students get to the next level.

At some point, I had the bright idea to start archiving the best and most valuable things that Dan was saying. I got 25 of them down, and they are all included in this document, which has until now only been shared with Dan and his coaching students.

(By the way, I never tallied up the exact and rather painful amount of money I paid to Dan for the coaching. It was north of $25k. I do know I made it all back, and then some, in just the first two months after I stopped with the coaching, thanks to just one tip I got from Dan.)

So there you go. If you want the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Stack for its $555.86 worth of value and inspiration, yours for just $49…

… or if you want my add-on bonuses for their $25,197/∞ value, yours free…

… then here’s what to do:

1. Buy the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Bundle at https://bejakovic.com/infostack

2. You will then get an automated email from ThriveCart with a link to a special, members-only page on my site where you can access the four free bonuses above.

Important:

Infostack’s bundle offer is live now and will go on for a week, but I will only be promoting it until this Friday at 8:31pm CET.

That’s how long my offer with the bonuses above is good for. Your gotta buy this bundle before Friday at 8:31pm CET to get my bonuses. So if you know you want them, why not get them now?

Ultimate SUPER offer

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I got a deal for you today. A SUPER deal. In fact, an ultimate SUPER deal.

A few days ago, I got an email with the subject line, “Hey John.”

“Hello,” I whispered, and I opened up the email. It read:

===

Hi John, how’s it going?

I wanted to see if there’s a way we could collaborate and share your work with an audience of over 250,000 copywriters and marketers.

My name is Nicole; I’m the head of partnerships at Infostack.io.

I love what you’re doing, and I wondered if we could talk about including 10 Commandments Of A-List Copywriters in an upcoming writing bundle we’re putting together (titled: The Ultimate Copywriter’s Super Stack)?

===

First, let me admit these Infostack people have a smart business model. Years ago, I was actually thinking to start the exact same thing—

Bring together a bunch of people who sell offers online… create a bundle of their offers… get all of them to drive traffic to your event… promote to your own existing and growing list built up via previous events… rinse and repeat as the whole thing becomes more profitable and easier to run.

“Sure,” I told Nicole. “I would love to collaborate and share my work with your audience of over 250,000 copywriters and marketers.”

So that’s what I’m doing today. I am participating in and promoting the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Stack.

The Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Stack features a grand total of 14 ebooks… courses… trainings… even two “masterclasses.”

The collected value of the whole bundle is $555.86.

But the actual price it’s selling for during this special event is — well, you guessed it — not $555… not $455… not even $454… but just $49.

Now, I’ll be honest with you:

Aside from Ning Li (Dan Ferrari’s first coaching student and currently the copy chief at Paleo Hacks), I’ve never heard of a single one of these participating copywriters.

They are probably all fine people and very successful at what they do. I’m sure they have lots of value to share. The fact I’ve never heard of them probably just speaks to my crab-like ability to avoid networking.

What I can tell you is that I myself will get the SUPER Ultimate Stack today (the first day it’s available, even to me). I will be going through it over the next few days and selling you on what I believe to be standouts among the included trainings.

Still, you might think that’s a weak and wobbly pitch. So let me get to the meat of this email:

If you do decide to get this Ultimate SUPER stack, I want to guarantee it’s worth your $49 even if you don’t go through a single one of the participating trainings, courses, or ebooks (except my 10 Commandments of course, do read that because it’s great).

And so I’m offering you four FREE and yet SUPER-valuable bonuses. Specifically, I’m offering my:

1. Copywriting Portfolio Secrets ($97 value)

In this training, I show you how to build up your copywriting portfolio in the fastest and most efficient way, so you can start to win copywriting jobs even today. I show you the best way I’ve found to win 4- and 5-figure jobs I REALLY wanted, even when I wasn’t qualified for them, and how you can do it too.

I previously sold this training for $97. But it’s yours free, SUPER free, if you take me up on my Infostack offer, which also includes my…

2. No-Stress Negotiation For Well-Paid Copywriters ($100 value)

This guide outlines my 7-part negotiating system, which I adapted from negotiation coach Jim Camp. This system kept me sane while I still regularly interviewed and worked with copywriting clients. Follow these seven principles, and you will end up making more money, working with better clients, and being able to stick to it for the long term.

I only offered this guide once before, as part of the $100 Copy Zone guide, which also featured….

3. How To Get Set Up On Upwork

This free bonus is an excerpt from a short self-published book I wrote once, How to Become a $150/Hr Sales Copywriter on Upwork: A Personal Success Story that Almost Anyone Can Replicate. It tells you how to actually get set up on Upwork — the details of your profile page, your description, your title.

If you combine this bonus with the two bonuses above — Copywriting Portfolio Secrets and No-Stress Negotiation — you have a great shot of winning a job on Upwork by the end of this week, or even today.

And finally and most spectacularly, my SUPER Ultimate bonus stack also includes…

4. Dan’s Timeless Wisdom (priceless, or $25k+)

Between August of 2019 and March 2020, I was in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group. As you might know, Dan started out as a star copywriter at The Motley Fool, and went on to become one of the most successful, most winning, big-money direct response copywriters working today.

Inside his coaching group, Dan dispensed copy critiques, marketing advice, and mystical koans to help his coaching students get to the next level.

​​At some point, I had the bright idea to start archiving the best and most valuable things that Dan was saying. I got 25 of them down, and they are all included in this document, which has until now only been shared with Dan and his coaching students.

(By the way, I never tallied up the exact and rather painful amount of money I paid to Dan for the coaching. It was north of $25k. I do know I made it all back, and then some, in just the first two months after I stopped with the coaching, thanks to just one tip I got from Dan.)

So there you go. If you want the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Stack for its $555.86 worth of value, yours for just $49…

… or if you want my add-on bonuses for their glorious $25,197/∞ value, yours free…

… then here’s what to do:

1. Buy the Ultimate Copywriter’s SUPER Bundle at https://bejakovic.com/infostack

2. You will then get an automated email from ThriveCart with a link to a special, members-only page on my site where you can access the four free bonuses above.

Important:

​​Infostack’s bundle offer is live now and will go on for a week, but I will only be promoting it until this Friday at 8:31pm CET.

That’s how long my offer with the bonuses above is good for. Your ultimate SUPER purchase of this bundle has to come before Friday at 8:31pm CET to get my bonuses. So if you know you want them, why not get them now?

Getting praise for promoting failure

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Yesterday, I threatened to send you a testimonial in my email today. And when I get into a threatening mood, it’s hard to get me out of it.

So here’s what long-time customer Lucus Allerton wrote me a few days ago, in the wake of the Copy Riddles relaunch and the recent promo that Daniel Throssell did for it:

===

This might be weird to say, but hopefully comes across as more sincere than sycophantic.

I’ve honestly been delighted at all the positive (even gushing) testimonials I’ve seen for your Copy Riddles course. Not just the ones showcased by you, but by Daniel Throssell as well.

I think your (growing?) recognition is well-deserved. You deliver insights via your usual understated way, but from the numerous courses I’ve seen, your course belongs in the gold-standard. The time you clearly took to prepare the materials has made a direct impact on the structure and quality of your examples and riddles. I think it’s really important that you promote ‘failure’ too. We often learn more from our mistakes than our successes. It was fascinating to see Daniel say even he was stumped, going through your course, and got some things ‘wrong’ by overcomplicating it.

I know from my own experience from trying my own bullets through your course, then seeing how much better the real ‘answer’ was sometimes, made it a much more impactful and helpful experience. It helped test how much I understood the concept, instead of only recognising it.

And it’s far better than only seeing the solutions upfront, as most courses might do.

But at this point I’m only stating things you already know.

I’m glad you’ve brought it back, because I honestly believe it elevates the overall quality of the copywriting course industry. There are far worse courses at much higher prices. Copy Riddles shows how good a copy course can be, and I hope it raises everyone else’s standards too.

===

I have this long-running rule for my newsletter not to share obvious, bland insights, things that are true but have been said a thousand times before.

​​If I ever find myself wanting to say something like this, I have 3-4 different strategies to camouflage it, dress it up, make it at least somewhat new rather than the oldest of old hats.

Well, you gotta fail in order to get better… you learn more from your mistakes than your successes… there’s no more worn-out truths than that. And yet, it doesn’t make it any less true. Maybe the fact you read it today in Lucus’s words rather than my own can make it sink in finally.

And if that’s the case, and you want to learn copywriting via the “gold standard” — exercises that gets you comparing what you do (including making mistakes) to what A-list copywriters have done, starting from the exact same prompt — then go here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Why I ignored your social proof

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I remember an email once in which marketer Ben Settle wrote,

“Ignore social proof when buying.”

I reckon that was a sweetly pointless message, since in his very next email, Ben sent a testimonial to convince people to buy his offer.

Yesterday, I sent out an email with a job posting for a content writer. I got lots of responses, and witnessed lots of selling strategies and offers.

As I read through these applications, I floated up and above my own body, and observed my own reactions. Here’s one surprising revelation from that out-of-body experience:

A few people sent me testimonials for themselves or their work, or fancier still, they included a link to testimonials on their site.

I just frowned at this. “What good are testimonials to me?” I said. “I know exactly what I’m looking for, and either I see it here in the application, or I don’t.”

I thought about this afterwards.

It’s a rare situation when we know exactly what we want.

Most of the time, we are vague on what we want, how that should look, and even why we want it. So we ping the environment for clues. That’s why social proof is so good in so many situations.

Yes, like my job listing yesterday shows, there are situations when it makes no sense to provide social proof, and where it might even work against you. But such situations are vanishingly rare.

​​It probably doesn’t make much sense to worry about it, not unless you’re applying for a job where the customer or client hyper-clearly spells out what he is looking for.

So my only advice today is to flip the above story inside out, and to repeat what Ben Settle said:

Ignore social proof when buying.

​​Instead, make up your own mind.

And if you do ever read a testimonial or endorsement, treat it for what it is — somebody leaning over to you at the roulette table and whispering in your ear, “I suggest betting on red. It worked for me last week and I won a bunch o’ boodle.”

​​It might be sound advice… but only if you’re playing with money you can afford to lose.

That’s my public service announcement for today. Tomorrow, like Ben did a while back, I’ll probably send you a testimonial, one to sell my Copy Riddles course.

But that’s tomorrow. Today, I’ll just point out that there are lots of very clear and very good reasons you might want to join Copy Riddles even if this were the first time I were offering this training, even if it had zero social proof, and in fact even if you knew little to nothing about me personally.

All those reasons are spelled out on the first two and a half pages of the Copy Riddles sales letter. If you’d like to read that so you can make up your own mind, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Hiring a content writer who can write a fascinating investigative article

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I’m looking for a writer, somebody who can write a long-form article that will go on the website of my health newsletter.

The topic is, “How Big Tobacco started addicting food companies.”

The starting point for this article is an academic paper that came out last month on exactly this topic.

Your job, should you convince me you’re the right person for it, will be to take ideas from that academic paper… do additional research you might want to do… dramatize… make it all sticky… tell a story… draw out some surprising conclusions… and produce a piece of writing that’s new and fascinating for a real, live, intelligent human being to read and that makes such a human want to share the article with others.

I’m not looking for SEO fluff, but something written for actual people.

​​I’m fine if you want to use any AI tools to research or write this.

​​I don’t have a specific number of words in mind — I’m imagining something around 1k-2k words, though I’m not in any way set on that.

If you are interested in doing this job:

1. Hit reply
​
2. Tell me that you can write a fascinating article on the topic above

​3. Give me proof for statement 2 above. Tell me, or better yet, show me, whatever you think is relevant to persuade me that you are able to do this work and do it well

​4. Tell me what you want to charge for this work (Hint: saying you will do it for free is not a winning strategy)

For now, I am just advertising this to my list. I am willing to go on Upwork in a day or two and advertise there as well. However, I’m hoping to find the perfect person via my list, and quickly.

​​That’s to say, if you are interested in this job, don’t put off writing me — I hope to hear from you soon.

Pride as proof element

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I was on a call with one of my coaching students recently. He had added some new features to his subscription offer. He was excited and enthusiastic about it, and so he wrote up one of his daily emails to announce it.

I thought this was great, and I told him so.

Not necessarily for the feature or even what it would do for his customers, though that was solid. But the real thing that was great was my student’s excitement and enthusiasm around the whole thing.

My very first big direct response copywriting client was Josh Dunlop. Josh hired me via Upwork in early 2016, some 6 months after I decided to work as freelance copywriter. Back then, Josh had a 7-figure site selling photography courses. I’m guessing it’s even bigger now.

I remember talking to Josh at some point and hearing him say he’s particularly proud of one of his courses. That stuck with me. I put it into an email that sold that course, and it did well. I guess it resonated with his readers too. I’ve been using it ever since.

In his book How to Write a Good Advertisement, Vic Schwab lists 17 types of proof. As far as I can see, “pride in your work” is not among them. But it should be.

People normally cannot judge the quality of your offer before they buy it. They might not be able to judge it even after. But they sure can judge your emotions around what you sell.

​​So if you are proud of what you sell, highlight that, so people know it, and so they have an easier time making up their own minds. Speaking of:

As I’ve said before, and as I’ll say again, I’m proud of my Copy Riddles course.

​​I’m proud of the initial concept for the course… I’m proud of the way I managed to carry it out and the learning experience I provided for people who get it… I’m proud of the feedback I’ve gotten, including from people whose jobs and careers have been positively impacted by this training.

Of course, pride is not the only proof element I have to show you that Copy Riddles is a worthwhile investment. For the full presentation, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Business opportunity: Coat of Arms email address

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This morning, as all mornings, I got up, opened the balcony doors, sat down on the couch, and started looking at new subscribers to my health newsletter. That’s an ugly addiction I formed in the first few months of my new newsletter, thanks to an early success.

I was doing the same back when I had only a couple hundred subscribers, when one morning, I saw that the CEO of the Oura Ring company had signed up to my newsletter.

Like a crypto fiend, I’ve been checking my new subscribers ever since, hoping for that same fix.

But while my subscriber list keeps growing, I’ve never found another new subscriber of the same caliber. Still, I make a point every day to look up anyone with a custom domain name.

Today, I got a signup from, let’s say, bill@shackleford.com. The “bill” part is not real, but the domain is. I checked it out so you don’t have to. Here’s what I found:

===

Find your @shackleford.com email address

Swap out your generic email address for a professional and clear your firstname@shackleford.com email. Grab yours now.

===

The price for this professional and clear service? $35/month.

What a great business idea.

I mean, stamping out another email account if you already have website hosting is free. These guys charge $35/month for it!

But is this still an opportunity? Won’t all these family name domains be taken?

I think the opportunity might still be there. I did the lightest bit of detective work and looked up grinell.com, which according to a census site is a last name of comparable frequency to Shackleford.

The domain is for sale. I don’t know for how much. But I can imagine that, across the entire universe of mildly common last names, you could find at least a few dozen or a few hundred .com domains that you could acquire for a reasonable price.

“Great,” you might say, “and then I have a stupid grinell.com domain. How would I possibly persuade any Grinells to actually use my custom email address?”

That’s the beauty of my plan. Because that entire marketing funnel has already been done for you, some 60 years ago.

I’m talking about Gary Halbert’s Coat of Arms letter. You could even use the original product — a framed report about the history of the Grinell family name — as a kind of loss leader to get people onto your email address subscription.

(Incidentally, if any Bejakovics are reading this right now who would like to get their very own firstname@bejakovic.com email address, write to me. It’s just $35/month, and I will tell you all I know about the illustrious and warlike Bejakovic clan, going two generations back.)

Maybe your greed glands have been set a-workin’ by my Coat of Arms plan.

But maybe you’re wondering what I’m on about.

So let me say that the bigger point of my email today is that key appeals, ones that worked 60 or 160 years ago, are most likely still around.

The specific products, the ways to satisfy those appeals might change.

But people’s desire for locking down and celebrating their family heritage… for free money from the government… for getting rich in real estate… for manifesting their thoughts into reality… all those worked a century ago, and they will still work today.

Don’t like any of those appeals?

Then let me tell you about another appeal that worked a century ago, which still works today.

That’s the appeal of new, money-making skills. For a specific way to get yourself a particularly lucrative set of such skills, more quickly than you might ever believe, I’ll refer you to the page below. It’s also courtesy of Gary Halbert:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

The best argument against money-back guarantees on the Internet

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I was just listening to an interview with Vic Conant, the president of Nightingale-Conant.

As you might know, Nightingale-Conant is a big info publishing company. For decades, they dominated the self-help and sales audiotape market, with lots of big-name gurus on their roster. Their original guru was Earl Nightingale, who influenced Dan Kennedy and everyone on down.

One question posed to Conant was about the most profitable idea he’s used to market his products online or offline. Here’s what Conant replied:

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It’s been this ‘open accounts’ idea. When we advertise, we typically say, “Try this product for 30 days on ‘open account,’ or at our risk for free, basically. We’ll send it out to you, you try it, and we have the risk on our side.”

My dad came up with that idea back in about 1978. We were asking at that time for people to send in $50 and we’d send them the product. And that just wasn’t working to a great degree. We tried this and it worked very well and because of that our business exploded.

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The interviewer, Michael Senoff, asked a clarifying question:

“When someone orders, do they put a credit card down, but it’s not charged until 30 days later?”

Conant shook his head. “No. Typically it’s nothing. Just strictly bill-me-later.”

I thought this was very interesting. Because I don’t offer money-back guarantees on my expensive courses, like Copy Riddles.

​​I certainly don’t give them away for free for 30 days and then work to collect my money.

So should I start? For that… let’s go on with the interview.

Michael Senoff asked the obvious followup question. “They responded well, but how is it on the side of your collections? What percentage have you found you have to go chase money?”

Vic Conant replied:

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We have a very sophisticated collection effort, but it’s basically using guilt. And we’re very sophisticated in picking lists.

In direct marketing, in mail, you pick a list and you test that list. And if you test a list that returns all the products or doesn’t pay, then you don’t use that list any more.

So we tend to use very strong lists like Business Week subscribers, or people that don’t have time to screw around.

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So there you go. That’s the best argument I’ve heard against money-back guarantees on the Internet, at least the way business is typically done.

On the Internet, you’re not testing in slowly to very strong lists of buyers.

Instead, most businesses, including mine, have an open-door policy. Pretty much anybody can find my website, join my list, have the opportunity to buy. There’s no way to know if that’s a serious business owner with no time to screw around… or an unserious opportunity seeker with all the time in the world for screwing both me and himself around.

But still.

If you’re anything like me, your ears perked up at that original question, “most profitable idea,” and Conant’s reply “open account.”

I thought for a bit. Is there any way to do something like that on the Internet?

I realized I already am doing it.

Really, that’s the point of free daily emails such as these.

​​My courses such as Copy Riddles are very expensive.

​​The point of my free daily emails is to demonstrate — expertise, trustworthiness, valuable or interesting ideas. That’s the open account. And then, once you feel comfortable, you have the opportunity to buy into the next level.

I realize that might take a while, maybe much longer than 30 days. That’s okay. I have time, and I have additional arguments and email ideas. Here’s one I will close with today, from automotive copywriter Kevin Cochrane, who bought into Copy Riddles a while back:

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Copy Riddles was a measuring stick for me as a copywriter. John charted a course through the persuasion pathways that separate the pros from the posers. The structure is clear. The examples tie direct response history to present applications. The exercises offered a practical way to test and implement the lessons.
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I write for the automotive retail space, which is watered down by legal teams, compliance guidelines, and plenty of regulation. The course has helped me plunk the guts of what makes a solid bullet into more and more of my work.​​

If you’re hemming and hawing about whether to join, read a week’s worth of John’s daily newsletter as a trial run. You’ll know what to do after. (Hint: the paid stuff in Copy Riddles is even better somehow.) This is the kind of course you’ll refer back to again and again.

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For when you’re ready:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

7 ways to grow your Twitter following from somone who has never done it

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Along with this daily marketing newsletter, I also have a weekly health newsletter, which I started in January.

Then around April, I started a Twitter account, under a pseudonym, to go along with the health newsletter.

I’ve been posting daily on Twitter for maybe 4 months now. It’s been absolutely worthless in terms of any organic traffic to my health newsletter, or even any engagement on Twitter itself.

I could blame the Twitter algorithm, or simply tell myself to be patient. But it’s not either of those. Instead, the fault lies with the content I put on Twitter — earnest, factual, “should” info, as in, “you should care about this… but you really don’t.”

I have no interest in investing any time to grow my Twitter following, or in changing my approach. What I’m currently doing on Twitter is useful to me as a kind of notepad. Plus I have other ways to grow my newsletter.

But yesterday, I did make a list of 7 types of content I believe would do much better on Twitter, and could get me a growing, engaged audience, perhaps quickly.

I’m sharing this list below because, frankly, it’s also a good lineup of content to put into your daily emails. So here goes, along with a quick “daily email” illustration of what I mean by each category:

1. Inspiration. “There has never been and will never be a better day than today to start an email newsletter.”

2. Tiny tips and tweaks that feel meaningful. “Listicles should either have 7 or 10 items.”

3. Sensational news, or news framed in a sensationalist way. “Breaking! Rob Marsh of The Copywriter Club wrote me directly last night to ask if I want to go on their podcast.”

4. Human stories. “Being slightly inhuman, I’m drawing a blank here.”

5. Personal opinions, particularly if they are dumb. “If you send fewer emails, people will value each of them more.”

6. Predictions, particularly if they are overconfident. “We will see a billion dollar newsletter company in the next year. 100%.”

7. Hobnobbing — referencing, resharing, commenting, agreeing or disagreeing with positions of people who have bigger follower counts than you. “Yesterday and today, Justin Goff sent out two emails about doers vs. spectators. I’m telling you about that because…”

… as I once wrote, I was lucky to read a specific issue of the Gary Halbert Letter, very early in my marketing education. That issue was titled, “The difference between winners and losers.”

In that issue, Gary said with much more vigor what Justin said in his two emails yesterday and today, which is that spectators can never really know what it is to be a player.

Like I said, that influenced me greatly, very early on, in very positive ways. It’s probably the reason why I managed to survive and even succeed as a copywriter and marketer.

It’s also why I profited so much from another Gary Halbert Letter issue, the second-most valuable Gary Halbert issue in my personal experience, which laid out a recipe to develop a specific money-making skill.

In case you’re curious about that money-making skill, or which Gary Halbert Letter issue I have in mind, or in case you yourself want to survive and succeed as a copywriter or marketer, then read the full story here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr