“Unsubscribe please”

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Last night, following my “Buy my 10 Commandments book” email, a reader replied:

“Unsubscribe please”

I’ll admit it. This irritated me. I figured my reader was just too dumb to know how you unsubscribe from an email newsletter.

But then I had a hopeful thought.

Maybe my reader just wanted to show her displeasure at my grossly self-promotional, zero-value email?

When I checked ActiveCampaign, it turned out I was right. My reader had found the unsubscribe link and unsubscribed on her own. But as she was walking out the door, she just had to let me know about it.

This isn’t the only parting shot an unsubscribing reader has taken at me.

Last January, during a launch I was running, a troll wrote me and suggested I read up on copywriting fundamentals before promoting any more offers of my own.

To which, I wrote a newsletter email about his helpful suggestion.

The troll replied to that newsletter email in an offended tone.

So I wrote a second newsletter email about his offended tone.

At which point, the troll unsubscribed. In the “reason why” field you get when you unsubscribe, he wrote:

“You’re simply too dumb to be helped.I tried twice & you can’t tell the difference between a troll & someone with advice. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

I’m telling you all this because enemies are good for business. They’re so good that if you don’t have them, you have to make them up. Here’s America’s greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga, on the matter:

“And if you can create an enemy in your copy, that’s what happens. You set up a three-point discussion and you come around from your side of the desk to be on the reader’s side of the desk and then it’s you and the reader against the enemy that you’re railing against.”

The trouble is, my emails are usually so placid and polite that I’ve been suffocating any potential enemies in the womb.

In that whole span from the guy back in January to the woman last night, I’ve gotten zero even mildly criminal replies to any of my emails.

I don’t know if it’s too late. I hope not.

There’s a theory that Gotham City is so full of wacky costumed villains simply because Batman is there. The villains watch the evening news, and see other criminals scrapping with Batman. They want a challenge also, and so they congregate on Gotham.

I’ll see whether writing about the “unsub plz” lady or the “you’re too dumb to be helped” troll will bring out any latent Scarecrows or Penguins on my list.

If they do come out, I’ll be sure to write an email and let you know about it.

In the meantime, let me promote something. That’s like lighting up the Bat-Signal in the night sky for making blood boil among wacky villains.

My offer for you today is my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters.

This little book features a commandment by Gary Bencivenga. Gary’s commandment is not about enemies. It’s both more fundamental and more powerful than that.

If you’d like to read it, here’s where to go…

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

… and I’ll be back tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. ​​

Buy my 10 Commandments book

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This past November, copywriter Dan Ferrari sent out an email with 38 lessons to mark his 38th birthday. Lesson number 9 read:

9. People love commandments. A little copy “trick” I don’t see used often enough is to create a commandment and then repeat it over and over again, like the chorus to a song. Here’s an example… “remember: commandments always equal higher conversions.” If this were a sales letter, that would be the chorus line.

I haven’t promoted my 10 Commandments book for a while. So let me do it now.

Buy my 10 Commandments book.

​​Why? Because it’s great. Here’s a testimonial — or more specifically, a four-star review, which is as negative of a review as I’ve gotten so far:

“Short and very pertinent. Loaded with the names of hugely successful giants of the copywriting world and the titles of their successful books. I read the book on Kindle and highlighted many great bits of advice and the names of the great writers sharing advice. If you write ad copy for a living or hope to do so, buy this book.”

As the reviewer above says at the end of his 4-star review:

Buy my 10 Commandments book. At least if you write ad copy for a living or hope to do so.

Maybe you’re still not convinced.

​​So let me tell you that the book contains a commandment by Dan Ferrari. Dan is one of the smartest and most successful people in the copywriting world right now.

Over the past decade, Dan has made himself a lot of money by writing copy for some of the biggest direct response publishers. He has a long string of controls, even when going up against other top pros. As a result, he was voted the no. 1 direct response copywriter in a recent ranking some dude put together.

So that’s another reason why you should buy my 10 Commandments book.

Maybe, maybe you’re still not convinced.

In that case, I can tell you my 10 Commandments book costs only $5. It’s by far the cheapest of my offers, and outside of any future Kindle books I may one day write, it’s also the only thing I will ever sell for under $100, at least outside special launch prices.

Are you starting to feel the refrain coming on? I’m feeling it. And it goes like this…

Buy my 10 Commandments book.

​​You can do it at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

My trivial mistake and maybe a profound human insight

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I went for a walk this morning and I passed by a small public park. The gate was closed. On the gate, hand-written in white paint, was a quote in Spanish. It said something about a man sitting in the shade, and it was attributed to actor Warren Beatty.

I’m a big Warren Beatty fan, going back to the movie Shampoo. As soon as I saw this quote, I imagined this handsome, confident, and yet accommodating Hollywood star smiling at me as he said whatever the quote said.

But what did the quote say?

My Spanish is still not so good. I googled “warren beatty tree quote” on my phone, hoping to find the original. Amazingly, the quote popped right up:

“‘Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.’ With this quote, Buffett was speaking to long-term investing…”

That was the original quote all right. But Warren Buffett? Giving a metaphor for investing? I did a double take.

I checked what I had googled. Sure enough, I had searched for “warren buffett tree quote.”

I looked at the handwritten quote on the gate. It too was attributed to Warren Buffett.

And yet, in spite of processing “Warren Buffett” on some level, the conscious part of my brain had confidently seen actor Warren Beatty’s face and heard Warren Beatty’s voice — not Warren Buffett’s.

That might seem like a trivial mistake. But to me it’s not. Consider another anecdote:

A couple years ago, I was driving a car on a mountain road. Turn after turn, all I saw was forest around me.

It got a little monotonous but I kept my eyes on the road and kept focused — the way was windy and narrow.

And then, as I was staring ahead at the next turn, straight into some bushes, in a flash, the bushes metamorphosed and became a deer that was standing in the road.

Of course, I realize the bushes probably didn’t jump into the road and turn into a deer.

What I guess happened is that my brain kept predicting “bushes, trees, turn, trees, bushes, turn…”

But then that monotonous picture became unsustainable, and a more useful picture — there’s a deer in the road — popped into my consciousness.

I’d like to suggest to you this is what the human brain does all the time. It makes up guesses, predictions, images, stories, in line with what we expect and what we hope. But it does something else also.

The brain also gives us an incredibly powerful feeling of certainty that whatever we are seeing right now, right in front of our eyes, is real and right — even when it’s far from what the “reality” is. We just don’t usually see the counter-evidence as clearly as I did today or on that mountain road.

Anyways, these are things I like to think about.

I also like to think about how to play with that feeling of “certainty of rightness” that we all experience at the core of who we are.

And that’s connected in some subtle way to my Most Valuable Email.

Today is the last day I will be promoting that program for a while. That’s not any kind of real deadline, except for the benefits you could be getting if you went through this course today.

Maybe you’ve been interested in Most Valuable Email. Maybe you’ve been telling yourself you want to go through it and apply it. But maybe you’ve been postponing it because you think there’s time and I will keep reminding you day after day.

If so, then your brain might be fooling you with certainty that isn’t very useful.

In case you want to get a jump on your brain while the image of MVE is still in your consciousness, here’s where you can get the Most Voluble Email:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Fear v. glory

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This past weekend I finally broke down and listened to an interview with Dr. Andrew Huberman.

Even though I’ve never listened to Dr. Andrew speak before, I’ve written about him in this newsletter.

That’s because the man is a phenomenon.

He’s been the fastest-rising podcaster of the past year or so. An international celebrity. I’ve heard talk of him from a half dozen entirely unrelated people, living in as many separate countries.

Anyways, among the many novel recommendations Dr. Andrew has for your health, one is:

Several times a day, practice panoramic vision.

Find a place that allows you to look off into the distance, so the immediate details around you melt away.

It’s a physical equivalent of mentally seeing the bigger picture. And like with so many other things, the physical and mental equivalents are linked, or so Dr. Andrew says. According to the research in his lab at Stanford University, “panoramic vision practice” lowers stress hormones yadda yadda.

All right, and now for marketing:

Yesterday, the “Wizard of Ads,” Roy H. Williams (not a doctor), wrote a very interesting email.

Even though I’ve never listened to Roy H. speak before, I’ve written about him in this newsletter.

That’s because the man is a phenomenon.

He’s written several books about advertising that have sold well. He appears to head an international advertising agency. Plus he has a weekly email newsletter.

Anyways, among the many novel recommendations Roy H. has for your marketing, one is:

Reframe pain v. gain as fear v. glory.

People are very reluctant to experience pain, says Roy. But they are only modestly motivated by gain. Pleasure is not much more motivating.

Instead, what you want is for your prospect to look off into the distance, so the immediate details around him melt away.

It’s a mental equivalent of panoramic vision practice. And like so many other things, the physical and mental equivalents are linked, or so Roy H. says. According to the research in his kitchen somewhere in Texas, reframing pain as fear and gain as glory lowers your prospect’s buying resistance yadda yadda.

All right, and now for sales, our last topic for today:

Ever since I started selling my Most Valuable Email training, one of the claims I’ve made is that you can get through this course in an hour and start applying the MVE trick right after.

And it’s true, but it’s also marketing hype. As Spanish A-list copywriter Rafa Casas wrote me:

“Thanks for the course. It’s true that it can be read in an hour, but it needs more resting time and practice to get the full potential out of it. Which is a lot.”

You know, and I know, that if you do go through this training, quick and brief though it is, that’s when the real work starts.

In order to get any real-world benefit out of my Most Valuable Email, you will need to apply the MVE trick yourself dozens or maybe hundreds of times, over the course of months or maybe years.

Maybe that amount of work scares you. Maybe you’re afraid of the commitment, or maybe you’re simply afraid to set your mind to it and then fail.

Those are serious things to worry about. I won’t lie to you and say that they’re not.

On the other hand, imagine the acclaim, praise, and yes, even pride you can win if you do manage to get the full potential out of this course. Imagine:

Readers writing to you regularly to say you’ve blown their minds…

Industry heavy-hitters sending you endorsements and treating you like an equal…

And most important of all, the knowledge inside that you’ve accomplished something in spite of your own fears, that you’ve got a valuable skill that nobody can take away from you, that you can feel good about yourself for doing something that few other people were willing to do.

The choice is yours. If you’re willing to act:

http://bejakovic.com/mve/

“Steal” a secret from the master email copywriter

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Yesterday I read an article about an American named Ryan Neil, who spent 6 years living in Japan, apprenticing to become a bonsai master.

During those 6 years, Neil was beaten, humiliated, exploited, and encouraged at every step to quit. In between the abuse, he didn’t even get taught anything, not directly. From the article by Robert Moor:

“Neil learned that an apprentice is rarely given overt lessons; he is expected to watch out of the corner of his eye and ‘steal’ his master’s secrets.”

This reminded me of a curious thing I had spotted recently by watching Ben Settle out of the corner of my eye.

Day after day, I noticed the same pattern. Something Ben was doing, probably consciously, to make his emails easier and more fun to read.

But maybe it was all in my mind. So I went back this morning and checked the past 30 days of Ben’s emails.

It seems elBenbo has been busy recently, because the past two weeks of his emails have almost all been reader questions or testimonials, leading quickly into an offer. Those emails didn’t show the pattern I had spotted.

But the two weeks before are where I noticed the pattern. I spotted it in 8 out of 14 of Ben’s emails during that period.

Now as a matter of transparency, let me say:

1. Yes, you can really call this a secret, because it makes content much more engaging and easy to consume, and yet most marketers don’t use it nearly as often as they could or should…

2. Yes, you can even call it a trick, because it’s quick and easy to do…

3. No, it will not sound particularly sexy or revolutionary when you hear it. But such are most of the things that Ben does. And yet he’s still really the master of email copy.

And in case you’re wondering:

I’m not talking about teasing, trying to get a no, or writing bullet-inspired subject lines.

I’m talking about a specific trick to do with infotainment. It’s more subtle than any of the techniques above, and probably more powerful as well, at least for getting people to come back and consume more of your writing.

Also, it’s something I’ve never seen him talk about in any of his paid products, or for that matter, anywhere else.

So here’s the deal:

If you’ve bought my Most Valuable Email training already, and you have a hunch of what trick I’m referring to, then write me and make your best guess. I will confirm if you’re right, and I will spell it out otherwise.

And if you have not yet bought my Most Valuable Email training, and you’d like to know this trick, then can consider this secret an extra bonus, live for the next 24 hours.

Buy the Most Valuable Email in the next 24 hours, until Tuesday Dec 6 at 8:33 CET, and along with the other bonuses I offer with the training. I will then write you separately, explaining Ben Settle’s infotainment secret and giving examples from his emails.

Of course, a​fter the deadline tomorrow, you can still buy the MVE training. But if you buy after tomorrow, I won’t share this extra bonus with you.

To get a jump on that deadline:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Looks like I’ve won a $1,000 copywriting gig!

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About two months ago, I found out about an exciting copywriting gig:

An online publication was looking for content writers. The pay was $250 per article of about 750 words. Articles could come in a thematic series of 4.

I came up with an idea for a 4-part series, wrote up a nice little proposal, and sent it off to the editor of the publication.

And then, as nothing seemed to be happening, I forgot all about it.

Fast forward to two weeks ago:

The editor wrote back to me to say my idea sounds wonderful. And if I can get her the first drafts by December 16, my articles could be published as soon as January. And once my articles are published, inshallah, I will get paid $1k!

There once was a time, not even so many years ago, when I would have gladly taken on this kind of work without any ulterior motive.

But today, it takes a little something extra to get me excited.

So here’s the something extra:

This online publication is The Professional Writers’ Alliance. From what I understand, PWA is a paid community of freelance copywriters, somewhere under the umbrella of AWAI.

Are you getting a glimpse of my devious scheme?

I write some interesting and valuable content for PWA, and include a byline and a link to my site…

Some freelance copywriter out there reads my content and decides to get on my email list to read more…

I send him a few more well meaning emails and then—

BAM! I sell him one of my offers that might be interesting to freelance copywriters.

All right, writing guest content as a means of self-promotion is probably not new to you. What might be new to you is the following suggestion:

Look for ways to get paid for your self-promotion.

Of course, it’s not always possible, but it is more possible than you might at first think.

For example, did you know it’s possible to get paid to send out your sales letters to your audience, either online or by mail?

In other words, rather than having to pay either the USPS to deliver your stuffed-and-enveloped sales letter… or having to pay Facebook to get eyeballs that will look at your sales page… you can actually get paid each time a high-quality prospect reads your sales pitch?

It’s true, and it’s actually what I will be writing about for the PWA in January.

If you’ve been reading my emails for a while, you probably know this get-paid-to-advertise trick. And if not, I might write more about it in the coming weeks.

To get on my email list so you can read that (beware, I might try to sell you something), click here and fill out the form that appears.

I’m not worried about my email from last night — really

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My email last night about James Altucher drew a surprising number of thoughtful and emotional responses…

#1 “If that’s what got James Altucher to stop, that’s really sad. I too enjoyed his writing.”

#2 “Great email. I always enjoyed James Altucher’s writing, too. It’s so quirky and off-beat.”

#3 “So… your email couldn’t have had better timing.”

#4 “I appreciate you sharing the email you never sent and hope he finds his confidence again someday.”

… but what my email yesterday did not do is get any sales. And in fact, it also didn’t get almost any clicks to the sales page – not compared to what I’m used to seeing.

To which, all which I can do is give a Gandhi-like smile, shrug gently, and then hiss through clenched teeth:

“Come on people, don’t you realize I’m trying to run a little business here? Buy something or move on.”

But a little more seriously, such is the world of not-really direct response marketing in daily emails.

Last night’s email drew a lot of engagement, but seems to have been worthless for business. But maybe not.

I’ve sent similar emails to this list that made me multiple thousands of dollars. In fact, I might collect all such emails into a course one day, which I will call:

“Multiple-Thousand-$$$ Emails I Sent Right Before A Deadline — And You Can Too”

The truth is, if you have a daily email list, and you’re not just spamming people with random affiliate offers, then it’s often the cumulative effect that makes people buy.

And even when people are mostly “sold” by a single email, it’s often not the email from which they clicked through to the sales page.

So the way I see it, it doesn’t make too much sense to stress over an email that seems to have been worthless for business.

Likewise, it doesn’t make too much sense to celebrate the emails that did make sales (except my “Multiple-Thousand-$$$ Emails I Sent Right Before A Deadline” — more info on that exciting course coming up soon).

So what does make sense?

I can only tell you the four things I do:

1. Keep an eye on sales over a longer time – like a month. Things tend to average out over a month, and hidden effects become less hidden.

2. Do worry if the total sales over that longer period are not going up. (If the total sales are going up, then still worry, but less.)

3. Do make new offers — again, keep your eyes peeled for my “Multiple-Thousand-$$$ Emails I Sent Right Before A Deadline — And You Can Too”

4. Follow Gary Bencivenga’s advice about getting 1% better each day. Except 1% better each day seems like a lot to me. So I aim for more like 1% better each week.

Which brings me to my offer:

It’s not new. And it’s certainly not the only way to get 1% better each week. But maybe it will be the difference that allows you to get better, regularly. Sign up for my email newsletter, and get more emails like this, every day.

Hot takes are dead… here’s why

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About six months ago, I wrote an email that for some reason I never sent. In that email, I wondered what had happened to James Altucher’s writing.

The background is this:

James Altucher is an online personality, a podcaster and also writer who used to write daily.

James is one of few people whose daily writing I enjoyed reading. Plus I’ve gotten multiple really valuable ideas from James that have transformed how I work.

James used to write regularly on his own site.

But his last post there came on June 15 2021. Since then he’s published a few pieces on other sites including LinkedIn, but his writing has largely disappeared.

There aren’t many people online that I would miss if they got swallowed by a sinkhole.

But James Altucher is one, largely because I’ve found his writing both insightful and valuable.

So I was wondering what happened to his writing and wishing somebody could tell me.

Well, I found out. James revealed it himself on a recent podcast.

Back in August 2020, he wrote an article titled, “New York City is dead forever… here’s why.”

James lived most of his life in NYC, but in that article, he predicted the death of the city based on the effects of the corona pandemic.

That article went very viral. It got a huge amount of readership, and also a huge amount of blowback.

And maybe most painful to James, who used to own a comedy club, “The New York is dead” piece got Jerry Seinfeld to write a trolling response in the lying New York Times in which he only referred to James as “some putz on LinkedIn.”

With all that blowback, and the personal attack by Jerry Seinfeld, James gradually retreated from writing. Maybe he will get his courage back to write daily. Or maybe he won’t.

I’m not sure what my point is. I guess there are many.

Such as, it’s harder to not care what people think that most of us would like.

Such as, don’t pick on people who are known to be combative (New Yorkers as a group, who knew about Jerry Seinfeld).

Such as, writing hot takes can burn you as well. And putting your own attitudes into your writing makes you vulnerable to personal attacks.

If you agree with me on these points, then what can you do?

Well, develop a tougher skin… only pick on people who will take it… or find some other way to get readership and attention than by writing hot takes and sharing your own personal attitudes.

I can’t help you with the skin part or with finding meek targets to pick on.

As for that last part, about other ways to get readership and attention, I can remind you of my Most Valuable Email trick.

A few of the emails I’ve written using my Most Valuable Email trick have gone semi-viral — they got unexpected forwards and shares in the small direct marketing community.

And using the Most Valuable Email trick allows me to write in a way that’s separate from what I believe personally. And yet my readers don’t mind this lack of “authenticity” — in fact, they even seem to enjoy it.

Maybe it’s not too clear how this can possibly be true.

If you’re curious, try out my email newsletter and witness it for yourself. Click here to sign up.

The three sweetest sales I made in November

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A few moments before I stood up to write this email, I shut down the cart and disabled the sales page for the Age of Insight live training.

It’s the first time I’m offering a training on the topic of insight, which has been squatting like a demon in my head for the past several years. Now it’s time for people who signed up for Age of Insight to see how I deliver on my promises of:

1. Influencing people without resistance

2. Triggering hope and enthusiasm, which translate into sales

3. Having your ideas and your name spread far and wide by excited audience members and grateful customers

Like I said, I’ve been thinking about insight for years. I’ve been preparing for this presentation for the past month. I’ve been promoting it actively every day for the past two weeks.

And now that the training is live, I will have several all-evening calls to deliver, plus a couple bonus trainings to think up and give, plus a year-long book club to run.

I managed to get the exact number of people to sign up for Age of Insight that I was hoping for. Which is nice.

But as I tried to show you above, it’s taken me quite a bit of work to get here, and it will take quite a bit more work to pay it off.

If I had to describe the flavor of successfully promoting and now delivering Age of Insight, I would have to say it’s a complex and umami-heavy broth.

Compare that to the three sweetest sales I made over the past thirty days.

All were for my Most Valuable Email program.

Three sales might not sound like a lot. And $300, which is what I made in total from these three sales, won’t buy me a fur coat just yet.

On the other hand, all three of these sales came without absolutely any effort on my part, either in promoting or in delivering this program. I haven’t promoted it for over 6 weeks, and the delivery is all automated.

Plus, there’s a bit of sugar on top:

When people go through MVE, they become very likely to buy more trainings from me. So maybe one of these three $100 purchases will turn into a few hundred dollars more down the line.

If that happens, and if you then ask me to describe it as a flavor, I’ll probably have to say it tastes like a raspberry cheesecake.

Anyways, I won’t try to get you to visit my Age of Insight sales page here. All I want to do is to offer you a chance to sign up for my daily emails, where you can see my Most Valuable Email trick in practice, once a week or so. If you are curious, click here to sign up for my daily emails.

Good Will Hunting disease: Why you shouldn’t join Age of Insight

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“So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency?”

Today is the last day to sign up for my Age of Insight live training. And since this is the last email I will send before the deadline, let me tell you why you shouldn’t sign up.

I call it Good Will Hunting disease.

As you might know, Good Will Hunting is movie about a tough-talking, blue-collar math genius from the slums of Boston, played by a young Matt Damon.

In one scene, Will is interviewing for a job at the NSA.

“You’d be working on the cutting edge,” says the NSA guy in a cocky sales pitch. “You’d be exposed to the kind of technology not seen anywhere else because it’s classified. Superstring theory. Chaos math. Advanced algorithms. So the question is, why shouldn’t you work for the NSA?”

Will nods his head and thinks. “Why shouldn’t I work for the NSA… That’s a tough one. But I’ll take a shot.”

And then he goes on a 2-minute rant, all about how he’d just be breaking codes the NSA, feeling good about doing his job well, but the real upshot of his work would be burned villages, dead American soldiers, lost factory jobs, drug epidemics, inflation, and poisoned baby seals.

Will finishes up his rant and smirks sarcastically. “So why shouldn’t I work for the NSA? I’m holding out for something better.”

Of course:

Your offer is nothing like a job at the NSA. And your pitch is nothing like the NSA recruiter’s pitch.

Still I bet you that your audience, on some level, suffers from Good Will Hunting disease.

Too smart. Too sophisticated. Too skeptical.

And if you need proof of it, just look inside yourself. Don’t you smirk and scoff and shrug off pitch for top-secret opportunities all the time, even if they are at the cutting edge, and even if they promise things you superstring theory and chaos math, or whatever the equivalent is in the marketing space?

And this is why I am not making a pitch for you to join the Age of Insight training. The only offer I will make you, unless you are holding out for something better, is to join my email list. Click here smart guy.