Archive - Page 126 of 266

Magic words

December 27, 2022 by John Bejakovic

A few days ago, I read a fascinating story by Yassine Meskhout, a public defender in some unnamed U.S. state.

Being a public defender is a dull job, says Meskhout. Mostly, you are defending people who are clearly guilty, and there’s nothing you can do.

Meskhout story was of one such defendant. This guy was an illegal immigrant from Mexico. He was caught driving drunk, and not for the first time. He was then released on bail. As part of his probation, he had to wear a tracking ankle bracelet.

And then, the following hapened. From Meskhout’s article:

“The ankle bracelet company sends me an update a few days later. My client had visited their office, informed them that he intended to flee the country because he was scared of jail, then underscored his statement with a flourish by taking out a knife and cutting off the ankle bracelet in front of them.”

The bracelet guy had panicked. He immediately changed his mind about leaving the country. But it didn’t matter.

After this dramatic breaking of his probation conditions, it was highly likely this guy would get sent back to jail. And that’s not the worst part.

If he went back to jail, he would then be deported and never let back into the U.S. even though the rest of his family — his mother, wife, and children — were all there.

During the probation hearing, Meskhout made his best appeal. It didn’t work.

The judge decided the drunk driver would be sent back to jail. Case closed.

The defendant sat there without understanding. His mother started bawling in the background.

Meskhout stood up from his desk, his brain whirring. And right before the hourglass emptied down to the last grain, he blurted out these 11 magic words:

“Is there anything else the court would like to review to reconsider?”

The judge looked up from her glasses. She paused for moment. She flipped through the case file for a second. And she said:

“All right. Mr. Meskhout, I’ll go ahead and give him an opportunity. Since you have asked.”

In other words:

The defendant would not have to spend 180 days in jail. He would not be deported.

In an instant, his life went from being perfectly dark to being perfectly clear. The mother started bawling again, but this time from happiness.

Now put aside the question of the craziness of how the justice system operates, or who it decides to free and who to put through the meat mincer.

Instead, simply focus on the impact those 11 magic words had.

11 words, put together in the right way at the right moment, which absolutely changed the course of somebody’s life, in spite of overwhelming odds to the contrary.

That’s something to remember when you yourself are making offers or crafting appeals.

But let me take my own advice.

I’ve been promoting my Copy Riddles program for the past 7 days. After today, I won’t be promoting it for a while.

In case you haven’t bought Copy Riddles yet, let me ask you:

Is there anything else you would like to review to reconsider?

Like I say on the sales page, if you have any questions or doubts whether Copy Riddles is right for you, then write me and ask.

I don’t have a money-back guarantee. What I do have is a pretty stellar record of satisfied customers who have bought this program. I’d like to keep it that way.

So if you are on the fence, then write me and ask. I will answer your questions honestly, because I would rather not have you buy than buy and be disappointed.

And if you need a bit more of a push, I can tell you that round 14 of Copy Riddles is all about magic words.

Sprinkle these words into your appeals and offers to instantly boost response, without doing anything else.

You might know some of these words. But a few are sure to be a surprise. Perhaps a valuable surprise. In case you’d like to review this one more time:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

The old future of new newsletters

December 26, 2022 by John Bejakovic

I’m a regular reader of Simon Owen’s Tech and Media Newsletter — it’s an insightful rag. For example:

A few weeks ago, Owens wrote a piece about the future of new media startups, and what those will look like.

He made five predictions. One of those was “niche editorial products.”

Here’s a relevant bit from Owens’s article, where he is writing about Axios, a conglomerate of email newsletters (free and paid) that sold for a thumping $525 million back in August:

What most impressed me about the company was how it simultaneously managed to be a general interest news site while also funneling its audience into niche verticals, making it much easier for it to deliver highly targeted advertising and industry-specific subscription products.

In other words, Axios offers general and free newsletters on the front-end… and specific and expensive newsletters on the back end.

When you put it like that, this ain’t nothing new:

1. Write something like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Give it away for free or sell it for $0.46 on Kindle.

2. And then, to the people who bought the book, sell something like the Dale Carnegie Institute’s High Impact Presentations corporate training, which consists of two in-person sessions, and costs $2,195.

So Owens’s prediction might not be new, but it’s still a good reminder for each new generation and each new technology.

And it’s something I’m thinking about, especially in the context of email newsletters. If you have a highly niched offer, it might be something for you to think about also.

Meanwhile, let me remind you that this basic idea is not just about offers. The same idea actually applies to copywriting, marketing, and effective communication of all types.

In fact, everything I’ve just told you is related to “chunking up”, which is the first big and new copywriting insight I had by looking at the bullets of A-list copywriters.

The way I describe it inside my Copy Riddles program, “chunking up” allows you to expand your market 3x, 5x, or more.

Which goes to show:

Once you learn the essence of effective communication — once you learn to make interesting and attractive appeals — you can then apply that from a single sales bullet all the way up to the core structure of a $525-million business like Axios.

Perhaps you’re curious to learn more. Perhaps you want specific examples from print ads, video sales letters, and paperback books.

Perhaps you even want to practice chunking up yourself, so next time you try to get your message or offer across, it comes naturally.

You can do all that, and more, if you buy Copy Riddles, which I am currently selling. For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Chameleon positioning

December 25, 2022 by John Bejakovic

If you are ever looking for political influence in a new country, or maybe just a new copywriting client, then the following might be valuable:

A few months ago, I wrote about Alkibiades, an Athenian politician and general who was the ancient world’s Donald Trump.

Alkibiades once cut off his own dog’s tail. The people of Athens were shocked and outraged at the cruelty. “Good,” said Alkibiades. “At least they aren’t talking about the really bad stuff I’ve done.”

Alkibiades switched allegiances several times. First he served Athens. Then Sparta. Then the Persian empire. Then back to Athens.

He did this 1) because he always became hated wherever he stayed for a while and 2) because he had an uncanny ability to become loved wherever he decided to move.

How?

How did Alkbiades, who was hated, envied, and despised wherever he stayed, become quickly loved wherever he moved?

Simple. He turned chameleon.

When Alkibiades moved from luxurious Athens to spartan Sparta, he dropped his personal chef, threw away his perfumes, and packed up his fancy clothes.

Instead, he started bathing in cold water, gnawing on dry Spartan bread, and forcing down the infamous Spartan black broth.

Pretty soon, the Spartans, who had initially been suspicious of Alkibiades and his allegiances, started to wonder that this man could ever have lived in decadent Athens, because he was so clearly a true Spartan at heart.

So there you go. Like I promised. The key to political influence in a new country — or to new client work, if that’s the kind of thing you’re after.

Perhaps you see exactly how to apply the story of Alkibiades to getting new client work. Perhaps you don’t.

In that case, you can look inside my Copywriting Portfolio Secrets, where I lay out and expand on this idea of chameleon positioning, and apply it to the hunt for new clients.

Chameleon positioning is how I won some of my longest-running, most profitable copywriting jobs — and I didn’t even have to become hated anywhere along the way.

But you might hate me for this:

Pretty soon, I will pull both of the free bonuses I currently offer with Copy Riddles, put a bow around them, and turn them into paid products.

For now though, you can still get both bonuses — Copywriting Portfolio Secrets and Storytelling For Sales — for free.

You can get them for free if you get Copy Riddles, which, in case you are not overflowing with client work, is something you might want anyhow. As Vasilis Apostolou, formerly a senior copywriter at Agora, wrote after going through Copy Riddles:

I wish I had John’s bullet course when I was starting out. It would have saved me tons of frustration… and shaved months off my learning curve.

To save yourself some frustration, shave months off your learning curve, and find out how to win yourself new client work:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

It’s the thought that counts

December 27, 2022December 24, 2022 by John Bejakovic

I’ve been living in Barcelona for the past six months, and it’s been more or less normal until a few weeks ago.

That’s when Christmas prep started, and things got bizarre.

I’ll tell you just one bizarre thing, and that’s the appearance of the poop log.

The poop log – aka caga tió — is literally that:

An actual wooden log, propped up on two wooden sticks for arms, with painted-on googly white eyes and a big smile, wearing a traditional red hat, covered with a little blanket for warmth — and for privacy.

Yes, for privacy. Read on.

The poop log goes in homes. It’s a Catalan tradition, the equivalent of the Christmas stocking that goes above the mantel in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic traditions.

Every night, kids are supposed to “feed” the poop log with sweets and dried fruit to fatten it up.

Then, on Christmas Eve, kids hit the poop log with a stick — gently and lovingly — and sing it a threatening little song, which apparently translates to:

“Shit, log, shit nougats, hazelnuts and mató cheese, if you don’t shit well, I’ll hit you with a stick, shit, log!”

No, I poop you not, this is all for real.

The beating and singing complete, the poop log relieves itself, and children lift up the bulging red blanket in the back to find the usual mess — candies, small toys, and other things I prefer not to write about.

Catalans laugh and wave their arms to try to explain away the poop log. But really, there is no explaining.

There’s just the fact that, when it comes to most things humans do, it’s really the thought that counts.

I mean, without being too vulgar about it, here they’ve managed to take a log, and one that shits, and turn it into a kind of cute and heartwarming winter tradition that brings the family together.

If they can sell that, imagine what you can do.

And with that thought, let me wish you a merry Christmas.

And now let me lift up the bulging blanket in the back.

Because if you thought you could get to the tail end of this email, and avoid the usual mess — well, Christmas is no time to stop selling. But it’s the thought behind the selling that counts.

So in case you want your nougats, hazelnuts and copy riddles, dig in here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

I’ve written about this before, but you probably missed it

December 23, 2022 by John Bejakovic

This morning, I talked to a business owner who is interested in joining my email coaching program. Interested… but also wary.

“I was talking to my husband,” she told me. “And I realized, John writes good emails. But who is he? I don’t really know anything about him.”

About that:

I’ve been writing this email newsletter for four years. I’ve shared plenty of personal stories.

I’ve also shared plenty of specifics from my copywriting career — lessons learned, successes earned, endorsements spurned, like the one I wrote about yesterday.

And yet, people still don’t know almost anything about me. Because the problem is this:

I shared all those stories and successes and endorsements once, or twice, or maybe frice.

That ain’t enough.

So here’s my message to you. It’s a message I’ve shared before, multiple times. But you probably missed it, even if you’ve been reading my emails for a while.

You have to repeat yourself over and over and over. And if you want people to “know” you, you have to create a legend – a simplified cartoon version of your life, and you have to hammer that home, week in and week out.

“I was a blessed child born into a billionaire family… but a tragic and violent attack left me an orphan… and then one day, I fell into a cave full of bats.”

You tell that story. And then next week, you tell it all over again.

“I was made an orphan after my parents were brutally gunned down… I was lost, and all the billions I had inherited meant nothing… until one day, when I fell into a cave full of bats.”

You might wonder why I don’t take the opportunity here to talk about my own background, instead of that fantasy with the cave and the bats.

That’s because these emails are not primarily about selling, or even about building authority where you look at me as a leader in my little niche.

You might wonder what these emails are primarily about in that case. I’ve actually written about that in the past, and multiple times, but you probably missed that too.

No matter. I will probably write about it again one day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there are certain messages that I cannot allow to slip through the cracks of your awareness.

For example, last week, while I was promoting that coaching program for which I’m interviewing prospects now, I got the following fat-fingered reply from a reader:

What annout copyriddles John? Still selling?

Of course I’m still selling. In fact, I spent a good amount of time just a couple months ago, writing and sending a sequence of two dozen emails to sell Copy Riddles.

And yet people forget, and quickly.

So if you’d like to join Copy Riddles, let me repeat you can do that at the page below. And let me repeat the following, even though I’ve said it before—

Everything I’ve just told you is actually part of a fundamental copywriting technique. It’s a technique covered in Copy Riddles Round 4, with riddles based on bullets by Clayton Makepeace, Gary Halbert, and Parris Lampropoulos.

For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Are your emails too long? A litmus test

December 21, 2022 by John Bejakovic

A tale of two long emails:

A few days ago, I recorded a breakdown of a Ben Settle email that got me to subscribe to Ben’s $97/month Email Players newsletter.

That email is long, very long, almost 1,700 words.

I use that email as a reminder to myself whenever I worry my own emails are getting too long. The fact is, if you have the right message-to-prospect fit, you get your reader in a hypnotic trance, and length becomes an asset, not a liability.

Then this morning, I did a copy critique of an email that’s also long, and clocks in at almost 1,100 words.

This second email is interesting and insightful. It makes a bunch of convincing sales arguments. At the end of it, I want to actually take up the offer the email is making.

And yet, part of my critique was that this email is probably too long. Even though it’s interesting. Even though all its parts are necessary. Even though it is actually shorter than Ben Settle’s email.

Still, this second email just feels too long.

Why? What’s the difference?

It’s not the writing, the formatting, or even the design.

The difference is that Ben Settle wrote his very long email for his own list and his own business.

On the other hand, the quite long email I critiqued this morning was from a freelance copywriter, working for a client.

That’s the real litmus test for whether your emails are too long. If you like, I will explain.

The reality is you have two sales to make as a freelance copywriter. One is to your client’s market or audience — the sale you probably think you’re getting paid for.

But you have another sale to make. And that’s to the client himself.

If the client doesn’t like your copy, he will nag you to change it. Or he will neuter it himself. Or he just won’t run it.

But wait, it gets worse.

You might count on your powers of persuasion to make your client see the light. To convince him to try out your long email as-is, without changing a word.

And you might succeed. But there’s a good chance that your long email will get less response, not more, compared to a shorter email.

For example, the email I critiqued is trying to get people to sign up to a free webinar. There’s a fair chance that a much shorter email, which just hypes up the urgency and scarcity and repeats the phrase “hot new opportunity” a few dozen times will actually pull more webinar signups.

So why would you ever want to send longer emails, with three pages of story and argument and proof?

Well, I told you already. Because those are the emails that select the right people. That get those people not just to click or opt in, but to buy from you. That get those people not just to buy from you, once and at $37, but to spend thousands of dollars with you over a period of years. The way that Ben Settle email did with me.

Unless you have a very, very sophisticated client, those are not things that your email copy will ever be judged on.

Instead, you’re much more likely to be judged on the client’s gut feeling or some shortsighted metric. “I don’t know, it’s kind of long, isn’t it? The other email we tried is much shorter. And it got more clicks to the optin page.”

I’m telling you all this because today is the last day I’ll be promoting my coaching program for a while.

Over the past seven days promoting this coaching program, I realized there are two categories of people who make a good fit:

1. People with their own quality list and their own quality offers, whether products or services

2. Copywriters who have near total control of a client’s email list, and who also have some sort of rev-share deal on the money coming in from that list

If you fit either of those categories, and if you want my help and guidance in making more money from the lists under your command, then as a first step, get on my email list. After that, we can talk in more detail.

And if you’re a freelance copywriter, but you don’t fit either category above, then my advice is to work towards getting into one or the other or both of those categories.

And not only because it would make you a good candidate for my coaching program.

But also, because those two categories are the only place where you will be truly be judged on your results and your copywriting abilities, rather than on how well you can divine and cater to your client’s whims.

Plus, the two categories above are where the real money is. Or where there’s the potential for real money. At least in my experience — and I’ve been in both categories.

3 Tuesday bland breakthroughs (Dec 20 edition)

December 20, 2022 by John Bejakovic

In preparing to write this email, I dug up my notes for a high-priced consult I did this past summer. For that consult, I looked over the email marketing of a running and profitable business, and I came up with little-known, highly technical, A-list email copywriter secrets to skyrocket conversions.

Since I am now promoting a new coaching program with a focus on email marketing, I’ve decided to give you a sneak peek into that high-priced consult, and reveal some of the behind-the-velvet-rope ideas I conjured up in there. Here are the three most exciting ones:

– email more often
– inject more curiosity and intrigue
– add some personality to it

Those exciting ideas might remind you of the “bland breakthroughs” of a marketer I’ve code name Gavin Juff.

And maybe these bland breakthroughs make you glad you never hired me for an email marketing consult. After all, is this anything worth paying for?

Well, Camille Clare, the business owner who hired me for that consult last summer, wrote me some time later to say:

Just so you know, since your feedback, we have tripled our sales via email. So that’s pretty awesome and thank you 🙂

Why don’t people email more? Add some intrigue? Inject a bit of personality into their copy?

It’s beyond me. But the fact is, there are plenty of businesses that don’t execute on the basics of email marketing — even if they’ve been hearing about those basics since Saddam Hussein was in office.

Enter my new coaching program.

As genuine A-list copywriter David Deutsch might say, I’m not promising that this coaching program will triple your sales from email.

But I am promising I won’t just tell you the obvious “what to do” — email more, you dummy — but I will give you specific one-on-one ideas, tailored to your business, for how to implement those “what to dos.”

The truth is, that’s actually what I did with Camille in that consult last summer. The extra thing I will do within my new coaching program is work with people week-by-week, and make sure they actually implement these ideas in their email copy and their email marketing.

Is this anything worth paying for?

No, it’s not. Not for most people.

But if you have a running and profitable business, or at the very least, an email list of some size and quality, then it might be worth paying for. Because it might end up making you much more money than you pay me.

My new coaching program will kick off in January. I will be promoting it until tomorrow. If you think you might be a good fit for it, then the first step is to sign up for my email newsletter. Click here to do that. After that, we can talk in more detail.

Mysterious showman’s unnatural advice

December 19, 2022 by John Bejakovic

For the past four days, I’ve been promoting my new coaching program, but maybe I should stop.

Days one and two produced a lot of response.

Day three produced less response.

Day four has so far produced no response.

It might turn out somebody will still respond to yesterday’s email. After all, I sent it out less than 12 hours ago.

Or it might turn out I’ve genuinely tapped out demand. Especially since I’ve been trying to disqualify people pretty hard in my copy.

Or it might just be that my audience is getting weary of my recent barrage of long, charged, promise-heavy emails.

In connection to that last possibility:

I want to share a tip with you from the mysterious Derren Brown.

Brown is a hypnotist and illusionist and mentalist who has spent a lot of time on stage performing to big crowds, and a lot of time on UK’s Channel 4, making mindbending TV specials for audiences of millions.

Writing once about his experience playing to crowds, Brown gave this advice:

The lesson I quickly learned, which goes against every natural instinct when you are on stage showing off to people, is that if they are losing interest and starting to cough, you must become quieter.

Let me test out Brown’s advice.

So no benefits of my coaching program today. No man-or-mouse copy. Not even any deadline countdown.

I will just quietly remind you that I will be offering a coaching program with a focus on email marketing, starting in January. In case that interests you, the first step is to get on my email list. Click here to do so. After that, we can talk in more detail.

Touch 1458

December 18, 2022 by John Bejakovic

Yesterday, while vegetating in the changing room at my gym, I came across a provocative post written by a Morgan Housel.

That name sounded familiar. It turned out I’d seen it high up on the Amazon bestseller lists.

Housel is the author of The Psychology of Money — an ugly title, but one which has sold over 2 million copies and been translated into 52 languages.

Not only that. Housel is also a partner in some venture fund called Collaborative. I guess that might mean absolutely nothing, but it might also mean he’s very, very rich.

Anyways, Housel’s post was titled, Ideas That Changed My Life. “You spend years trying to learn new stuff,” says Housel, “but then look back and realize that maybe like 10 big ideas truly changed how you think and drive most of what you believe.”

So what are Housel’s big ideas?

I’ll share just one. Housel believes the only path to long-term success, besides luck, is sustainable competitive advantage. And get this — Housel also believes there are only 5 sources of such competitive advantage:

1. Learn faster than your competition

2. Empathize with customers more than your competition

3. Communicate more effectively than your competition

4. Be willing to fail more than your competition

5. Wait longer than your competition

And now, if you like, I’ll tell you about a single way, and a rather simple way, to tap into all five sources of sustainable competitive advantage in one go.

I can tell you about it from personal experience. Because I believe I’ve tapped into all five sources of competitive advantage by writing these daily emails.

Maybe it’s obvious how, maybe it’s not.

Check it:

1. Learn faster than your competition. I know what I will write in my email today, but I’m not sure about tomorrow. And so I’m constantly on the hunt for valuable and new ideas to share.

When I write about those ideas, I get a clearer understanding, or realize my total lack of understanding. Plus I remember them better. Some of these ideas I even apply in my own email marketing, and grok them on a completely different and much more real level than simply “knowing” about them.

2. Empathize with customers more than your competition. I never made much effort to share intrusive personal detail about myself in these emails. I find it unpleasant to do so more than once in a mercury retrograde. But inevitably, over four years of daily writing, many personal stories came out.

Pop quiz: How did my ex-girlfriend react when I gave her an expensive gold bracelet on our one-year anniversary? Hint: It wasn’t pretty.

I wrote an email about that a year and a half ago. When I recently asked people which of my emails first comes to mind, these kinds of personal reveals were near the top. And yes, this is how empathy works on the Internet.

3. Communicate more effectively than your competition. Yes.

4. Be willing to fail more than your competition. Uff. So many stupid things I’ve written. So many offers I’ve made that have gone nowhere. So many experiments that blew up in my face. Nobody remembers. Even I struggle to dredge them up, and I’ve got a keen instinct for shame.

5. Wait longer than your competition. Conventional wisdom says it takes 7 “touches” to make a sale. But how about 775?

Two weeks ago, on December 3, during my last bout of promoting my Most Valuable Email, one of the people who bought has been on my list since October 19 2020. That’s 775 days. He never bought anything from me before, though he replied to my emails on occasion.

Imagine poor Frank Bettger a hundred years ago, trudging around Chicago in his galoshes while the wind and snow whipped is face, visiting cigar-smoking business owners and trying to sell them life insurance. Back then, doing 775 “touches” was not feasible.

Today, thanks to the Internet and email, it’s quite feasible. In fact, it’s easy and even fun.

I’m not telling you to follow what I did, or even to do what I’m doing now. My path to 1458 “touches” — my best estimate — has been unique. And even today, I do things that might be suboptimal, but that allow me to stick with daily emailing for the long term.

My point is simply that if you’re not writing regular emails, start doing so. It can give you lasting competitive advantages like few other things can.

And if you want my personal help and guidance with that, well, I’m not sure you can get it.

As I announced three days ago, I’m launching a coaching program, which will start in January, specifically about email.

Quite a few people have expressed interest so far. But I’ve turned most of them away. They simply had too few of the necessary pieces already in place.

I will be promoting this coaching program for another three days after today.

If you can see the possible value to your business of sending regular emails — and doing so for the long term — then the first step is to get on my email list. Click here to do so. That done, we can check whether you have enough in place already for me to quickly guide you to email-based competitive advantage.