Announcing: Opportunity to buy more stuff and get more great deals

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Today kicks off the Black Friday Bundle, which is neither black nor does it seem to have anything to do with Friday (today being Thursday).

The Black Friday bundle includes offers from a dozen people in the copywriting and email marketing niches, myself included.

The dozen or so people who are participating in this bundle are all promoting it to their lists.

How can you stand out among a dozen people standing on stage, all straining to appear the tallest, in front of pretty much the same audience?

I don’t know. But I did ask myself what the underlying psychology is when it comes to bundles in particular, and to Black Friday in general. I came up with following:

1. People buy stuff because they find buying enjoyable

2. They want to feel like they’re getting a deal

Does that sound right? Is that what you want? If so, I’ll give it to you.

I figure that everybody else participating in this Black Friday Bundle will pile on more stuff in the form of free bonuses.

Unfortunately, free bonuses have the downside of being free.

And who wants free, when you can have the pleasure of 1) actually buying something, for real money and 2) still feeling like you’re getting a great deal?

So instead of piling on free stuff, I will tell you where to get more great deals, for real money.

To start, if you buy the Black Friday Bundle via my link below, I will tell you where you can buy something I’m calling “$25 Classified Ads.”

These “$25 Classified Ads” are something I’ve already teased inside my Daily Email House community. But so far, I haven’t shared this secret with a single person (you could be the first).

If you’re a marketer or an agency owner or a copywriter, then “$25 Classified Ads” is a behind-closed doors opportunity to get in front of about 20,000 relevant prospects… advertise and test out your offers… get clients and partners… and grow your list… for what works out to $25 a pop.

(You have to buy a package of 4, for $97, though there’s a way to get an even better deal if you’re willing to buy a bigger package.)

I have used these $25 Classified Ads myself with good results so far, which might possibly turn into great results soon.

I will tell you what these $25 Classified Ads are, and how you can buy these ads yourself — IF you buy the Black Friday Bundle through my link below and forward me your receipt.

Oh, and tomorrow, and Saturday, and Sunday, I will have three more great, buyable deals to share with you.

All of these are deals are ones I have personally invested in (well, except one, which I was gifted).

I can recommend all of them fully.

Of course, if you buy today, I will also tell you the other deals as I tease them out to the rest of my list.

In any case, if you wanna buy the Black Friday Bundle and get a great deal, and then have the opportunity to buy more stuff and get even more great deals:

https://bejakovic.com/greatdeals

If you move your tail for clients, but they don’t appreciate it enough

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Yesterday, because I am thorough in my research, I was watching old TV commercials from the 1970s, including one for the long-gone Continental Airlines.

It featured a bouncy jingle that’s still playing in my head:

We live to make you happy

We’re out to make you pleased

You’re flying Continental

Your flight will be a breeze

We’ll hop to make you happy

We’ll skip to prove it’s true

On Continental Airlines

We MOVE OUR TAIL FOR YOU…

… and then the refrain comes in, with a cross-section of all Continental employees — pilots, stewardesses, luggage handlers, admin personal, even the chefs who prepare the delectable meals — bleating “WE MOVE OUR TAIL FOR YOUUUU” over and over.

I looked it up, and back in 60s and 70s Continental really moved their tail to make their customers happy —  larger, cushier seats, full meals (the commercial shows a chef preparing a giant salad), and complimentary drinks (alcoholic and soft), as well as additional perks like amenity kits, pillows, and blankets, all for free, all at no extra cost.

Today, of course, that’s unimaginable. So many of the things that airlines offered for free back in the 60s and 70s are now available and then some on a flight – but you gotta pay:

– checked baggage

– meals

– alcoholic drinks

– seat selection

– pillows and blankets

Continental Airlines no longer exists, at least under its own name (it was gradually absorbed into United). I guess Continental’s customers didn’t sufficiently appreciate all the tail moving to make this a viable long-term strategy.

Maybe there’s a lesson there? Maybe? In any case, I will share my idea, and you can decide if it could possibly be useful:

You can charge for what you offer for free now, or for what everybody else offers for free.

This doesn’t mean offering worse customer service, or turning yourself into the RyanAir of your industry.

But the fact is, “FREE” is a norm — whether it’s checked baggage or “free strategy sessions” or simple “let’s talk and see if we can benefit each other calls.”

Maybe that norm is one that’s working out for you. But if not, it’s one you can change, because norms are not rules of nature, but simply habitual ways of doing things.

I’m gonna write a new book one day, expanding on this idea.

For now though, I’ll just point you to my latest book, the “10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup artists, Magicians, etc.” This book is not free, but I really did move my tail to make it both fun and valuable for you. If you haven’t read it yet:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

How coaches and course creators can give confidence and lasting knowledge to their students

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Here’s a little riddle for ya:

– pine

– crab

– sauce

There’s a fourth word you can attach to each of these three words, which will lead to three other common words.

What is that fourth word?

While your brain works on that, I can tell you I riddled this riddle myself yesterday.

At first, nothing came to me in spite of trying. Then I gave up trying to guess the fourth word, much how the fox gave up trying to get the grapes, because they are unreachable and therefore must be sour.

But then, a few moments later, out of nowhere, without me seemingly doing anything and while I was busy thinking how this is a stupid riddle and how I don’t want to play, the fourth word popped up in my mind, covered by a thick syrup known as the feeling of insight.

The feeling of insight = that feeling of satisfaction, wonder, and possibility that happens when we emerge from the intellectual dark into light, when confusing and complex give way to simple and certain.

I read an article yesterday about the new neurology of insight. Basically, scientists have now pinned down the areas of the brain that light up when we come up with a solution to riddles like the one above, and we feel insight.

The names of those brain areas aren’t very interesting, unless you yourself are a neuroscientist.

What is interesting is something the article called the “insight-memory advantage.”

Basically, experiences of insight make people remember associated facts better than when they are simply told facts. This has practical applications, for example, if you are a coach or course creator. From the article:

“Applying insight-boosting strategies to teaching could lead to better learning outcomes for students. Insight seems to be a powerful and positive experience that generates accurate solutions, confidence in our answers and strong memories.””

So how do you generate a feeling of insight in your students?

I will leave you to ponder that on your own, for possibly obvious reasons.

One “insight-boosting strategy” is sure to pop up soon, if it hasn’t already.

Meanwhile, if you write emails about marketing or copywriting, there’s a non-obvious way to create insight, which I’ve personally used to great effect. To find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Don’t count on people remembering you

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Cautionary tale:

A few days ago, a dude joined my Daily Email House group. The description in his Skool bio sold that he had recently sold a media company and that he is now building a newsletter business.

I got curious. I wanted to look him up, and find more about this media company and newsletter business.

But the dude’s name is very common. I won’t say it here, but it’s on the commonness level of “Ben Johnson.”

In other words, it’s hopeless to find this guy online with a quick search, and there’s no link in his Skool profile. I shrugged, and had I not needed a topic for today’s email, I would have forgotten all about him.

Yesterday, I talked about how to make a long-term bet on list growth, which is to pick a platform you believe in, and then invest either your time or your money into it.

But there’s quick and cheap stuff you can do also.

Putting a link to your optin page in all your online profiles one of ’em. This probably won’t get you thousands of subscribers. But it might get you a few, and you never know who might be hiding among those few (me, for example).

There’s a bigger point here, which is not to count on other people to do the work of remembering you and seeking you out.

That’s one of the main benefits of an email list.

An email list gives you a chance to be the one who gets in touch with others, when it suits you, as often as it suits you, rather than hoping and waiting for them to think of you.

Of course, if you have more than one channel to reliably get in touch with people on your own terms, even better. which is one of the reasons I have set up my Daily Email House group.

Daily Email House is another way for me to connect and bond more deeply with readers. As you can imagine, I have to give people value and even fun in order to make it worth their while to get and stay inside the group.

If you would like to make this deal with me yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/house

2 simplifying questions to ask yourself

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I was waiting in the line at the coffee shop this morning. The barista was making a latte with oat milk for another customer, and she looked up at me.

“Coffee?” she asked.

I nodded and said yes.

“Well?” she said with a bit of frustration in her voice, waving her hand to indicate I should be a bit more specific than that.

I’m telling you this fascinating story because I want to set up something email-marketing related.

I’ve been running my revived Daily Email House group for a few weeks. I invited people to post about problems they are having, and see if the group can help. Came the following problem:

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How do I grow my list? That’s my biggest problem.

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“Well?” I said when I read this question, waving my hand to indicate that the question-asker should be a bit more specific than that.

If you’re reading this right now, odds are excellent that you already know two dozen perfectly good ways to grow an email newsletter. Maybe more.

The fact is, there are hundreds and possibly thousands of ways to grow an email list. Many of them can work great. What’s more, there’s a ton of good and free information online about how to put most of them into practice.

And I guess therein lies the trouble. There are simply too many choices, including too many good choices, when it comes to growing an email list.

It paralyzes people, the same way that a choice of two dozen sourced coffees from around the world… prepared with two dozen different techniques including V60s and aeropresses and pretentious pourovers… resulting in two dozen final products like lattes and batch brews and cortados and americanos… can paralyze people, if they don’t already know exactly what they want.

To help with that (not the coffee, but the list growth), let me propose two simplifying questions:

1. “Which platform do I believe in?”

A “platform” is any technology or site or organization that’s already got the attention of some humans. Here are few examples:

– Facebook

– YouTube

– Substack

– Google

– Amazon

– Pinterest

– Email newsletters

– Yellow Pages

– AM radio

– your local Chamber of Commerce

…

Pick a platform from the list above, or some other platform you believe in. You can believe in it because you believe it has staying power… because you feel some affinity for it… because you think that the kinds of people you want to attract are there… or ideally all three.

2. “Do I prefer to pay with money or time?”

You have to pay, unfortunately.

The question is whether you’d rather pay with a dozen hours a month spent creating content, or reaching out to people one-on-one, or building yourself up to be a more attractive and fascinating person…. or whether you’d rather spend a few hundred dollars a month to get the platform owners to push your message out for you.

There are pros and cons to both paying with money or time, including ones which are nonobvious.

For now, just go with your gut. You probably have a sense of which one is a less painful cost to you to pay each month — a dozen hours of your time, or a few hundred dollars from your wallet.

Once you have your two answers to the question above, the path will be clear. You will know what to do — again, most of the details are out there on the Internet, and it’s just a matter of committing to it and following through.

But what if you pick the wrong platform, or you start to pay with one currency and you realize you made a mistake, and you want to switch?

It’s not really a big problem. Anything you do will be infinitely better than doing nothing, and pivoting to a new platform, or switching from paid in time to paid in money, or vice versa, is pretty straightforward.

Did this help?

I hope so.

But if not, my Daily Email House community is still there, waiting to help people who want to use their email list to pay for a house.

Over the next few days, I will be releasing a Daily Email Habit Starter Pack, including a proven way to grow your email list, which is based on my own personal answers to the two questions above.

If you’d like to get inside Daily Email House in time to get this Starter Pack:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Credit card companies hate this one weird trick

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I listened to an NPR podcast a few days ago that discussed “buy now pay later” plans.

Basically, it’s what I did last year when I offered a 10-part payment plan my Copy Riddles program:

1. The course normally costs $997.

2. for a few days only, I offered a 10-part payment plan: $97 today, and 9 more monthly payments of $100, adding up to exactly $997.

I ended up making a nice number of sales of Copy Riddles that way, and payments trickled in, without fail, throughout this year.

The podcast I listened to says “buy now pay later” has spread to all parts of the economy in past few years because of a new breed of companies that provide this kind of financing as a service.

Unlike credit card companies, these “buy now pay later” companies offer payment deals that add up to exactly the same price or something very close to it.

Because this is all happening in place of regular credit card payments, it has cost credit card companies billions of dollars in lost processing fees and interest payments.

Of course, credit card companies hate this, and are battling these new startups that threaten to eat their lunch.

But even if credit card companies end up successful in driving these “buy now pay later” companies out of business, there’s nothing preventing you from offering such a payment plan yourself.

The whole reason this new system has appeared is that customers love it, and end up buying way more than they would otherwise.

“Yes but,” you say as you look up from your glasses, pen in hand, eyebrows arched, “is that a good thing?”

The NPR podcast clearly tried to give this “buy now pay later” thing a sinister, manipulative tint.

They started out the episode by featuring a dumb and out-of-control 20-year-old girl, who ended up buying a bunch of overpriced bikinis, designer tights, and sneakers using these plans, because it all felt effectively free, until the payments started arriving in a pack.

All I can say is that the two times I ran “buy now pay later” plans, I saw that a bunch of people who bought were people who are successful and who I assume have enough money.

I further assume they bought because the payment plan made it psychologically easier to get something they already wanted, and not because it tricked them into buying something they couldn’t afford.

In other words, maybe “getting people to buy from you more easily” and “keeping dumb and out-of-control people from buying from you” are two distinct topics, rather than a single concern.

And now, entirely unrelated to today’s clickbait subject line:

I’d like to remind you of my Daily Email House group, where the mission is “Use your email list to pay for a house.”

I’m planning some exciting things for that community soon. In the meantime, I keep sharing stuff in there related to list growth and list monetization for free, including some stuff that I should really be selling. If you’d like to join us inside Daily Email House:

https://bejakovic.com/house

PSA: $34k worth of value for $500

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For the past couple days, I’ve been teasing the identity of an online guru who has just decided to shut down his course business.

I had been following the guy for the past couple years, and on Wednesday I easily and quickly made the decision to pay him $500 for a clearance bundle of his courses.

A buncha people wrote in, asking who this mystery online guru might be.

I kept mum because frankly I had hoped to promote this bundle of courses as an affiliate. I reached out to the team behind the offer and asked. I got back the following reply:

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Hey John,

We are not doing an affiliate offer on this. As this is a one time offer before we shut the doors, it is simply the only offer and best price we can share- with no affiliate offers attached.

Sorry about that but thank you for sharing and thinking about us😊

We appreciate you.

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… and yet, here I am, promoting this bundle to you, even though I’m not getting paid anything for it.

I think it’s a great deal, a great offer, and possibly life-transforming knowledge and skill.

I’ve been going through it since I bought it. I only have good things to say so far. I want you to know about it.

If you wanna read the full story, or spend $500 on something that has previously sold for $34k in total and that might transform your life:

https://bejakovic.com/epic

To all my dog trainers, pottery instructors, and professional alpaca whisperers

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Yesterday I got a question from Liza Schermann, the original “Crazy Email Lady” and current head copywriter at surging startup Scandinavian Biolabs. Liza wanted to know:

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Why so tempting??

I promised myself never to click through to the sales page of Daily Email Habit. It’s too good an offer not to buy, but I knew I wouldn’t commit. Yesterday, I gave in and clicked against my better judgement.

Anyhow, now I’m wondering:

The example you provide on the sales page is very specific to online marketing. Are most of the prompts geared towards this crowd? Or is it a mix, and people can adjust as they see fit for their own purposes?

I happen to be in this crowd, so it makes perfect sense to me. But maybe there’s a dog trainer, a pottery instructor, or a professional alpaca whisperer on your list who’s scratching their head wondering what to do with a prompt about daily emails (or something similar).

===

I got variants of this question all week. In a nutshell:

Daily emails, like the kind Daily Email Habit gets you to write (including the sample prompt on the sales page) will work in any business or industry. The only caveat is you must be willing to put yourself (or some sort of avatar you write behind) as the face of that business.

In fact, that’s the point of daily emails, unpleasant though it may sound.

You’re ultimately selling yourself as the product, rather than whatever your “product” officially is. In the words of Dan Kennedy, a direct marketer who has managed to sell himself for millions and millions of dollars:

“The higher up in income you go, the more you’re paid for who you are, rather than what you do.”

So now the question becomes, are daily emails, the way Daily Email Habit helps you to write, a fit for you?

Only you can decide that.

Maybe you don’t like the business of selling you, even for a premium, and maybe you want your products or services to stand for themselves, at competitive market rates.

That’s a fine decision. In this case, don’t go the daily email route, because the relationship and authority you build up will only interfere with people buying from you on the strength of your product or price alone.

On the other hand, if you want to charge higher prices… or surround yourself with a moat that’s not easily crossed by marauding neighbors… or have a ready source of income whenever your business or personal life needs it… then daily emails work great.

And Daily Email Habit will help you write them, in an effective and (relatively) painless way, whether you are a dog trainer, pottery instructor, or professional alpaca whisperer.

But that doesn’t change the cruel truth:

The price for Daily Email Habit is going up tonight at 12 midnight PST, from a modest $30/month to an obscene $50/month.

If you’re considering getting in before the price increases for ever and ever, and you want the full info on DEH:

https://bejakovic.com/deh/

Why close down a successful info product business?

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Yesterday, I wrote about guy who is closing down his successful info product business (and who got me to instantly pony over $500 to get a clearance bundle of his courses.)

I didn’t share the guy’s name in my email. This predictably drew a higher-than-usual number of responses from readers.

For example, long-time reader and customer Sean Clark wrote in to ask:

“Do you know why he’s shutting it down vs letting someone else take it over or license the content, etc?”

According to the sales page for the clearance bundle, the info marketer in question has simply decided to retire from teaching, and to go back to doing full-time.

But that still doesn’t really answer Sean’s question.

My suspicion:

The guy in question, being highly sophisticated in business generally and in direct marketing specifically, knows that the majority of the value of a course lies not in the course itself, but in the relationship the buyer has with the person selling the course.

In other words, if he’s really planning to step away from the info business 100%, then the value of his courses will soon drop to a feather over 0, whether he hands it over to somebody else or not.

Don’t believe me?

Then ask yourself, what would you pay for the magnificent and life-transforming courses by sales trainers and personal development gurus of years past, such as J. Douglas Edwards or Og Mandino or W. Clement Stone?

No?

Names don’t ring a bell?

You wouldn’t pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to learn from these dead masters?

That’s my point. These folks influenced and helped hundreds of thousands of people, including today’s gurus, or gurus who trained today’s gurus. The ideas from these old-timers would be as sure to help you as, say, Russell Brunson’s or Tony Robins’s ideas. Maybe more so. And yet…

Before you you think I’m trying to drown you in the impermanence of human existence, there’s a flip side to this depressing truth, which is much more positive.

That flip side is that, if you build up some sort of relationship with an audience, they will want to buy from you and only you, and will be willing to pay a premium far above what the information itself might sell for otherwise, at least while you still choose to be in business.

And so let me remind you that today, Thursday November 13, is the last day to sign up to my Daily Email Habit service at the still ridiculously low price of $1/day, aka $30/month.

Daily Email habit helps you start and stick with showing up in people’s inboxes, every day, with something relevant and interesting to say.

This habit, practiced for weeks and months and years, leads to a relationship and to standing with an audience, so they want to buy from you or hire you, even if hundreds or thousands of equally good alternatives are out there.

If you want to get started building your standing and authority today, and benefit both from taking action sooner and from not suffering from the price increase:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How to get me to pay you $500 in 90 seconds flat

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Today I was on Facebook — don’t ask why — and I saw a post from a dude whose email list I’ve been on for the past two years.

The dude was announcing that he’s shutting down his info publishing business and that he’s making all his courses available in one heavily discounted bundle, which will presumably go away some time soon.

About 90 seconds later, I had entered in my credit card details and paid the dude $500 for this heavily discounted bundle.

Point being:

Discounting works great — IF people already value what you’re selling at the full value.

The dude above has been emailing for years, practically every day.

I didn’t read all his emails, but I read a good number.

He has been building up the case for buying his various courses.

He made the case over and over for the value of knowledge inside… he showed results that people who were applying this knowledge were getting… he kept digging and prodding into soft spots in my flesh, making me suspect that I’m missing out on something really important.

I grew to believe what the dude was saying, and I grew to want what he was selling.

My “no thank you” defenses were good enough to resist his sales pitches while I thought I still had time, while the offer was basically “Get started today OR tomorrow OR the day after if tomorrow doesn’t work.”

But once this became a last-chance matter, and once there was also a significant discount over what these courses had been selling for previously, I saw myself involved in an instant, almost involuntary action to pay the guy $500.

So discounting can work great.

As can launches, promos, and special offers.

But none of them will work unless people in your audience have grown to want the thing you have, and have grown to value it above and beyond the offer you will be making on it.

How do you get people to that point?

Well, I told you above.

Email every day, or practically every day. Make the case, over and over, for people buying what you’re selling. Tease, provide proof, and dismiss alternatives.

Do this over and over, and then, when you make a special deal and you give a deadline for it — you don’t have to close down your entire business, or bundle all your stuff for $500 — people will buy, instantly.

And on that note, let me remind you:

The price for my Daily Email Habit service is going up this Thursday at 12 midnight PST, from a modest $30/month to the Martin Shkreli-like $50/month.

Daily Email Habit helps you start and stick with consistent daily emailing, so you can gradually move people to wanting what you have to sell, and so you can get them to value it at the price you sell it for.

If you wanna get started today, and start moving people to where you want them to go, before the price goes up:

https://bejakovic.com/deh