The paradox of the long- and short-term view of success

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A couple months ago, former UFC featherweight champ Max Holloway was preparing for a super important fight. Perhaps the most important fight of his career.

Max’s manager, Christopher Daggett, had the following to say about this preparation:

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“Everything with Max — whether it’s finances, his family, brand, partnerships, charity, his health — all of these are long-term things. But when it comes to the fight game, everything is short-term. We’re looking three feet ahead and that’s it. So, to that end, it always feels like everything is at stake. We’re putting everything on the table. At the same time, we know that no matter what, two weeks from now, Max is still Max. That sounds like a contradiction. But really, from a short term, everything is at stake, but everything will be fine two weeks from now and we understand that.”

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The above quote may sound paradoxical, so to recap the essential:

In one instant, Max and his team focus on just the next step (three feet ahead, everything is at stake).

​​In the next instant, they focus on the long-term destination (no matter what happens, everything will be fine, Max is still Max).

​​And they do this over and over.

I bring up this quote to invite you to look at both long term and short term of this email.

In the short term, I want to tell you that:

Looking at your goals both from 3 feet away… and also from 30,000 miles away… is one of the 6 characteristics shared by people who have a positive mental attitude. At least around a specific goal or activity.

Perhaps you think “positive mental attitude” is such a worn-out phrase. Perhaps you are surprised I’m even writing about it.

I’m doing so because read I about positive mental attitude a while back in a book I liked a lot and found very valuable.

But more importantly, I’m doing it because well-worn doesn’t mean well-near-worthless.

​I hope you can see that. And I hope you don’t just jump on every bandwagon passing through town, trying to lure you to the new success and self-help circus that just pitched its tent down at the old horse track.

The fact is, the 6 characteristics of a positive mental attitude have helped athletes recover from serious injuries… star Wall Street traders win at the stock market… and have probably responsible, consciously or unconsciously, for much of the success in this world.

For example, once I found out about these 6 characteristics, I recognized them from my own life. I wasn’t always aware of them. And I didn’t always have them. But when I achieved the things I have achieved in my life, these characteristics were there, whether I knew it or not.

So that’s the short term. ​​T​oday’s email. Where I told you about you one of these characteristics, about the short-term and long-term views to your goals.

As for the the long term, meaning next few days, I will tell you the remaining 5 of 6 characteristics. In case you’d like to read about those characteristics as I write about them, you can sign up for my email newsletter here.

How a copywriting tortoise can compete with dozens of hares

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A true but ridiculous story:

​​One summer, through no real fault or merit of my own, I lucked into a job as a well-paid management consultant. I did it even though I have no background or qualifications for such a position.

I was walking down the street, around the corner from my apartment, and I noticed a plaque on the wall with an impressive-sounding company name.

“I wonder what they do,” I said to myself. “I’ll check when I get home.”

It turned out the company built software for banks. So I sent an email to their public-facing email address, saying how I have a background in economics and software development (true enough), and that I’m interested in working with them during the summer.

An email came back two minutes later. It was from the CEO of the company. “When could you come into the office to talk?”
​​
He hired me a couple of days later, at what was then a royal sum of money for me, to do some management consulting about how he should run his company.

Second story:

Back in 2019, a call went out among subscribers to Ben Settle’s print newsletter. A publishing company in the real estate space was looking for “A-list copywriters” to write VSLs.

For more info, interested applicants were to write to the CEO of the company.

I really wanted this job, but it took me about a week to finally write to the guy.

During that week, I’m sure 50 to 100 other would-be “A-list” copywriters wrote in to apply the same job with their best-crafted pitches.

But that’s not what I did.

Instead, I spent that week researching this publishing company, and writing two new leads for their current hot promotion.

I heard back from the CEO as soon as I sent my leads in. He was impressed I’d done that up-front work, and he liked the copy I’d written.

A few days later, he hired me for a big project. He later hired me for a second project. Not long after that, I got several referrals from him, which also resulted in lots of new work.

I’m not telling you either of these stories as specific strategies for winning projects. ​​When it comes to copywriting clients, I’ve never had much success with cold emailing. And I don’t recommend just doing free work whenever somebody asks you for it.

The point I want to get across is simply this:

In any collection of 50 smart, hard working, gung-ho hares, I’m unlikely to stand out and win the prize. I’m just not very fast, or very ambitious.

On the other hand, in a race involving just me, a slow and lazy tortoise, my odds are much better.

Maybe your totem animal is equally uncompetitive. So instead of working to make yourself into a better competitor, my suggestion is to look for ways to make the competition a non-issue.

One last tip:

While I haven’t had much success with cold copywriting work, I have gotten two good clients that way.

​​And while I don’t recommend doing free work whenever somebody asks you for it, I have also done free work for prospective clients with great success, including some I cold emailed.

I talk about that in much more detail in a training I call Niche Expert Cold Emails.

​​This training doesn’t cost any money, but you do have to do something to get access to it. In case you are interested, here are the full details:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/​​​​​​​​

Cold email to future email marketing work in 10 days

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11 days ago, a marketer named Jon Williams wrote in to take me up on my Niche Expert Cold Emails offer. I sent Jon the promised training video. Yesterday, he wrote back with the following result (edited slightly):

Hi John!

That didn’t take long at all.

I just got your reply with a better email if possible technique for cold outreach and it gained me some future email marketing work as a kind of white label service for a guy in my hometown of all places lol.

How it worked out:

I downloaded his video making guide and got onto his list. I actually just wanted the guide and was all good with it as it helps me out making educational videos to attract more clients.

Anyhow, I noticed I didn’t actually get the link to download the template.

Worse than that, the email went to spam folder immediately.

After checking, I found it and emailed a reply to him directly saying it went to spam and after running in a quick diagnostic, I found out what was causing that error & told him how to fix it, for free.

(I know it’s a little different than your technique)

He was thrilled to hear about that because he’s needed to fix it and just hadn’t taken the time to fix it before I replied to his email.

After he’d emailed me back a working link the conversation just went from there when he asked “do you specialize in email marketing?”

We just had our first a conversation / intro call yesterday over zoom!

Here’s an ugly truth from my lean-and-hungry freelancing days:

Back when I was hunting for clients, I tried cold emailing on a few different occasions.

Each time, I found it a frustrating waste of time and effort.

But like Jon’s story above shows, cold email can sometimes produce good results, and it can even do so quickly.

The key in my experience is not to get invested in any one lead. Either in terms of your emotions… or in terms of the work you put in to reach out to them.

I know that goes against a lot of cold email “wisdom” out there.

​​”Wisdom” says you should separate yourself by researching your lead’s family history and his dog’s name… writing a short novel, for free, featuring the lead’s ancestors and his dog… then publishing the novel on Amazon under your cold email lead’s name… then emailing a screenshot of your ghostwritten book along with any earnings the book has made and a message that says, “If this message happens to reach you, can we please please for the love of patience please get on a call?”

On the other hand:

I’m also not suggesting you just spam every potent client with the same canned cold email, regardless of how drunkenly clever you make it. I tried that also. It doesn’t work either, or at least it never did for me.

So how exactly do you make cold emails work?

One possible strategy is described up there in Jon’s comment.

Another two strategies are what I talk about in the Niche Expert Cold Email training. These are the only two cold email strategies that led me to client work (both led to sizeable clients).

​​And if for some reason I absolutely had to win a client today via cold email… or alternately have an anvil dropped on my head like Wile E. Coyote… then these two strategies are what I would reach for and use.

So here’s the deal:
​​
Niche Expert Cold Emails is a free training I put out last January.

But it’s really only “free” as in “direct-response free.” Meaning you still gotta do something to get me to send it to you.

​​But if you do want this training, and you want to see what you would have to do, then here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/

It’s okay to open this email

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Here are some intimate facts about my personal life right now:

I have two friends visiting and staying with me. Two nights ago, the three of us went out to dinner. The food wasn’t great. But it sure was toxic.

At least that’s how I explain the sudden onset of nausea and high fever that hit me a few hours later, when I got home and went to bed.

Each time I turned between the sheets, I thought I might throw up. I also burned feverishly throughout the night, and got almost no sleep.

I spent most of the following day on the couch, taking cat naps, only eating paracetamols to bring my body temperature back into normalish range.

Maybe you say this doesn’t sound like a typical case of food poisoning.

Maybe you are right.

But what still makes me suspect the dinner was that within another 24 hours, I was completely fine.

No more fever. No more frightened stomach. Nothing except a little lingering tiredness.

In fact, I was so fully fine that by the end of that second day I considered going to the gym.

Sure, I wasn’t thrilled at the idea. I hardly ever am. But I felt guilty at already missing a day.

“I will do it,” I said to one of my friends, who was sitting on the couch next to me. “I will go to the gym.”

This friend, a dominant Turkish girl, looked at me crossly.

“What! Don’t go to the gym. Your body needs to recover. Besides, you didn’t really eat anything for the past 24 hours. You need fuel if you will go to the gym!”

I smiled and nodded at how right she is. I concluded that I should follow her wise advice and skip the gym. Which was convenient, because it’s what I wanted to do all along.

You might see how this story lends itself to persuasion and influence. As Dan Kennedy likes to say, “There is power in issuing permission slips.”

Speaking of which:

I found that bit of “persuasion slip” wisdom on the bottom of page 47 of a huge 270-page document called,

“Dan Kennedy’s Million Dollar Resource & Sample Book”

I don’t know how much Dan originally sold this “Million-Dollar Sample Book” for. But I do know that it’s available for free as a bonus to Brian Kurtz’s very affordable book Overdeliver.

But in case you are quickly backing away from me right now, let me reassure you:

You might legitimately feel that buying Brian’s Overdeliver, and getting access to a few metric tons of high-quality marketing advice in the form of bonuses, has both its good and bad sides.

The good side is that it’s clearly an attractive offer. Brian’s book costs something like $12. And the bonuses that Brian gives away have sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

That’s the good side. The bad side is that:
​​
Almost certainly, you already have a mountain of good marketing advice sitting on your laptop right now, unconsumed, unloved, and unimplemented.

If that bothers you, I can telly you that I have the same. I have a ton of marketing content I have paid for but still haven’t done anything with.

Even so, I still encourage you to check out Brian’s Overdeliver collection.

In part, that’s because it is such a valuable hangarful of information. And because it is such an incredible deal.

And also, because I will make it easy for you to get value out of Brian’s offer. Here’s the deal:

1. Get Overdeliver

2. Get the bonuses using the form on Brian’s page below

3. Open up the Dan Kennedy Sample Book and go to page 47, where it says “There is power in issuing permission slips”

4. Send me an email, with the sentence immediately preceding that “permission slips” sentence

I will then tell you the most valuable and interesting thing I have personally learned out of that entire 270-page sample book, and possibly out of entire Overdeliver collection. Because I have gone through the entire massive collection, each part of it, and I have taken notes.

So here’s the link to get started. ​​Go ahead. ​​It’s okay:

https://overdeliverbook.com/

How to write for influence

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A while back, while pondering lazily how I could become more successful in life, I came across the article:

“How To Be Successful”

“Hmmm maybe I will read this article,” I said to myself, “and it will tell me the secret I have been missing.”

It looked like a good bet.

The article had 894 upvotes on a popular news aggregator. It had 300 comments. And it was linked to repeatedly ever since it was published, popping up every few months, each time with a big new response.

So what did this article say to justify this level of influence and interest?

Well, it had 13 insightful and surprising ideas such as:

* Work hard
* Focus
* Build a network

No?

​​You say these ideas aren’t tickling you with their novelty?

You don’t feel any insight from hearing these secrets of success?

Well, that’s kind of my point.

The article is solid. But it’s hardly novel or uniquely insightful.

It could have been written by some diligent high schooler in a 2,000 word Quora response.

But if the quality of the content is not it, what possibly explains the success of this “How to be successful” article?

Is it the presentation? The copy in the headline? The story in the lead? Is it just blind luck?

I’ll quit teasing you.

The article was written by Sam Altman. Altman is a 37-year-old tech investor worth some $250 million.

At age 26, Altman became president of the startup incubator Y Combinator (Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase).

Currently, he is the CEO of OpenAI, the Elon Musk- and Peter Thiel-backed research lab that is looking to replace every creative job on the planet with better, faster, cheaper software.

Maybe none of that means too much to you.

So the point I am trying to make is that within the venture capital and tech world, Altman probably could sign his name on a cocktail napkin… then take a photo of his napkin… post it on Twitter… and get thousands of people liking his autographed napkin photo and enthusing, “This! This is what makes the difference between the hugely successful and all the wannabes!”

And that is how you write for influence.

First, you become somebody famous, admired, and elite. And then you say whatever you like, even if it’s just “work hard.” People will still upvote, share, and spread your message on their own.

That’s not to say Altman’s “How to be successful” advice is not solid. It probably really is where it’s at.

Just nobody would hear the message it if it wasn’t coming from the mouth of Sam Altman.

But since it is coming from him, maybe you will hear it. Maybe you will even hear it right now.

So in case you are more ambitious than I am, and you want to read all of Altman’s 13 well-trodden points, and 1000x your chances of becoming a lightning success, here’s the full article:

https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful

Captain Midnight: The perfect direct response prospect

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On the evening of April 26 1986, millions of homes on the eastern half of the US were tuning in to the spy drama The Falcon and the Snowman.

​​It was being broadcast on HBO. But not for long.

Soon after midnight on the 27th, the picture flickered and changed. The SMPTE color bars appeared along with a message:

GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]

This weird interruption only lasted 4 1/2 minutes, but it had big consequences.

The next day, network news picked up the story.

​​People around the country got to jabbering about the unfairness of HBO’s prices.

​​HBO was furious, and they put pressure on the FCC to catch Captain Midnight, whoever he was.

​​Several months and an investigative manhunt later, that’s just what happened.

In July of that year, Captain Midnight was arrested and exposed as a 25-year-old electrical engineer named John MacDougall.

​​MacDougall lived in Ocala, Florida. He had a part-time job there at the Central Florida Teleport satellite uplink station.

Turns out, MacDougall also had a satellite dish installation business.

His business was doing well, until changes in HBO’s pricing turned people away from the idea of getting a satellite dish installed.

MacDougall’s business tanked. He was personally offended by HBO and financially hurt.

And so, while monitoring the satellite uplink of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, he made an impulsive decision.

He pulled up the character generator and typed up the above message. Once Pee-wee’s Big Adventure finished, he pointed the giant 30-foot dish straight at the Galaxy 1 satellite. And he jammed Transponder 23, which carried the eastern feed of HBO.

MacDougall’s message appeared on millions of TVs across the country, and Captain Midnight was born.

I thought this story was interesting. Almost as interesting as Richard Armstrong’s How to Talk Anybody into Anything.

That’s the little book Richard wrote about 44 points he learned by studying con artists. Point 3 is about how con artists choose their marks.

I won’t tell you what RIchard’s point 3 is here. You can find that at the link below.

What I will tell you is that, when you’re writing direct response copy, you might feel your prospects are gullible nincompoops.

But they are not. At least if they are good prospects. In order to sell big with direct marketing, you want to sell to people like Captain Midnight.

How do we know? Well, that’s what Richard Armstrong says, and he’s what you might call an A-list copywriter.

Richard’s How to Talk Anybody into Anything could probably sell for hundreds of dollars. Once upon a time, it was only available behind a paywall, as a bonus for RIchard’s novel the Don Con.

But right now, you can download a copy of RIchard’s 44-point con man guide, for free, without any obligations. In case you are interested, here’s where to go:

​​​​https://www.thedoncon.com/

The future of continuity offers for publishing businesses

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I have this friend who makes a lot of money but leads a very isolated and dull life. As a result, he spends much of his money on ridiculous, overpriced purchases.

For example, a while ago, he bought a $2,000 Japanese smart toilet. He had it shipped from Japan and installed in his house in Baltimore.

This morning, I thought of my friend and his foot-massaging, storybook-reading, life-coaching toilet. I imagined him going to his master bathroom… using his smart toilet for its core functionality… and attempting to flush. But instead of hearing the satisfying rush of water, a soothing female voice would say:

“Thank you for using SmartAsshin! Your subscription to the Flusshi® function has now expired. To renew your Flusshi® subscription, please visit smartasshin.com.”

That might sound ridiculous. But it’s not entirely out of the realm of the possible.

A couple days ago, I read that BMW has been trying out subscriptions for things like heated car seats.

The idea is that each new BMW comes fully equipped with all the extras. But in order to activate any of the extras, you have to pay. Monthly.

As the folks at BMW argue it, this system actually makes a lot of sense.

It allows people to try out functionality before committing.

It allows buyers to upgrade their car as they can afford to do it.

Plus it makes the resale value of the car greater. The functionality of the car no longer depends on the choices of the initial buyer.

Of course, BMW buyers don’t see it that way. They are furious, and there is a lot of backlash. I guess see it as a variation of my scenario above, with the Japanese smart toilet.

And now to get deadly serious.

Smart marketers, in particular smart direct marketers, have long known:

Continuity offers are where it’s at.

Of course, BMW story shows it ain’t so simple. Put a part of your usual service behind a paywall, and you can face indifference, or perhaps backlash.

It will be interesting to see what happens with BMW and their heated seats by the month.

Meanwhile, if you have a business… and your offer is not inherently a subscription like a streaming service or a newsletter… then it’s past time to start thinking how to integrate subscriptions into your offers.

And if you are looking for ideas for how to do it, without triggering a backlash, then check out the article below.

It comes from Simon Owens, somebody I’ve written about before. Owens publishes a Substack newsletter, covering media and publishing businesses.

In the article below, he talks about three subscription models he has seen. None of them involves hiding more of your content behind a paywall.

Of course, you don’t have to check out Owens’s article.

You can also just stay put.

In time, I will probably take Owens’s ideas… pad them out with a few other good things I find… and repackage them into a product, which I will offer to you later. Perhaps inside some kind of continuity offer.

But in case you don’t want to wait for that, you can do some of that work yourself right now. Here’s the link:

https://simonowens.substack.com/p/thinking-outside-the-box-with-paid

Email tweaks that typically triple sales

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My recent batch of book recommendation emails stimulated more responses than I usually get. One person who wrote in was Camille Clare, who, along with her husband Dustin, founded shelter.stream.

​​Shelter is a kind of high-class Netflix. It’s a streaming service, which only features architecture and design films and series.

Last month, with the goal of increasing subscriptions for Shelter, Camille took me up on my Email Marketing Audit. And not only that.

As soon as we finished the consult last month, I could see Camille actually put my recommendations to work. (I’m signed up to her list.)

So when she replied to one of my emails a few days ago, I asked Camille how her own tweaked emails are doing. Here’s what she wrote:

“Emails are going great! Just so you know, since your feedback, we have tripled our sales via email. So that’s pretty awesome and thank you :)”

Tripled sales… within a few weeks… thanks to some small-to-modest changes in email strategy.
​​
That’s too good of a testimonial not to share right away, without the usual infotaining jiggery-pokery. Because for the moment, I am in a rare position:

I only started offering the Email Marketing Audit last month. And since Camille is the first consulting client to get back to me with her results, I can honestly say that “tripling sales is a typical result following my consult.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean my Email Marketing Audit will also triple your sales within a month, like it did for Camille.

But if, like Camille, you have a great offer… if you have a source of high-quality leads… and if you’re doing email marketing already… then my Email Marketing Audit could be worth much more to you than my consulting fee.

Of course, that’s assuming you actually implement what I suggest.

But in case you’re ready, eager, and determined to make more sales via email, you can start the process here:

https://bejakovic.com/audit

How to get really rich in sales and marketing

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One afternoon a few years ago, I was sitting by the beach in Barcelona, eating my empanada and trying to mind my own business, when I saw an Indian guy selling beach blankets.

He was talking to a group of women who were interested but not yet decided on buying.

He sweet talked them a little bit.

He answered some questions.

He applied a bit of pressure at the right moments.

Eventually, he convinced them to buy.

He was about to close the sale when the women decided that they wanted another pattern of beach blanket after all.

The guy hung his head.

“No problem,” he seemed to say. And he jogged across the beach for a few hundred yards to get the other pattern from his stash.

He jogged back, handed over the correct blanket, and finally closed the sale.

While I was watching this, all I could think is how much work and skill it had taken for this guy to close this one sale, which probably netted him a profit of a dollar or two.

And it’s just about the same level of work and skill that it would take for a $100 or $1,000 or maybe even $10,000 sale.

Point being, it’s not really what you do that matters so much as who you do it for.

You can have the same skills. Do the same work. Maybe even make the same offer. But find a hungrier market, a richer market, a more invested market, and you will make more money, while having an easier time doing it.

At least that’s my inspirational message for you for today.

This message ties into my 11th Commandment of A-list Copywriters.

11th Commandment? Maybe you thought there were only 10?

Nope. There is an 11th apocryphal A-list commandment, discovered only in 2018, on an audio cassette buried in a clay vessel at the bottom of a flooded cave in western Ethiopia.

If you’d like to find out what that apocryphal 11th commandment is, then make sure you take me up on the offer at the end of my 10 Commandments book.

And if you haven’t got a copy of that book yet, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

About my semi-confessional love note to the wrong girl (and my lifelong history of sending such notes to the wrong people)

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When I was in 10th grade, I had a light-to-moderate crush on this girl in my English class, Sarah K.

One day, while we were in class, I wrote Sarah some kind of a note. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote. It was not a full-on confession of love. More like a semi-confession, veiled in some kind of inside joke.

The class was seated in an L-shaped arrangement of desks. Sarah’s desk was in front of and perpendicular to mine.

I folded up the note.

I waited for the opportune moment.
​​
And I tossed the note from where I sat to Sarah’s desk.

But Sarah didn’t notice. She was busy writing something. In fact, everyone was busy writing something. Well, except me.

“Psst, Sarah!” I tried to get her attention.

But in my characteristically careless way, I forgot that Sarah K. shared the desk with Sara L.

Sara L. looked up from her writing. She saw my hopeful-then-terrified face. And then she spotted the note on the desk.

Sara L. picked up the note. Unfolded it. Tried to parse the meaning of whatever I had written for Sarah K.

Sara L. then frowned, shook her head a little, and gave me a disapproving look. It said, “You are SO weird.” She crumpled up the note and threw it over her shoulder.

Well, that was a long time ago. It doesn’t sting much any more.

​​But really, how little things change.

Yesterday, you may have been surprised to get an email from me with the subject line “Death of a postcard.”

I meant to send that email just to the 20 people who are the first subscribers to my Most Valuable Postcard.

But instead, I ended up sending the email to my entire list. Years of daily ritual clicking is a hard habit to break.

I realized my mistake only a few moments after I sent out the email.

I literally groaned. Because here’s something you might or might not know about me:

In spite of the frequent typos, missing articles, and ungrammatical sentences in my emails (a consequence of how I write, a topic for another time), I actually hate making mistakes.

The memory of even a tiny mistake can keep me up at night, or startle me awake in the morning.

And sending out a semi-confessional note to a mass of people who were not supposed to get it — well, that’s a less tiny mistake than just a typo.

Like I said, I groaned.

And then, in the very next moment, I took a deep breath.

I reached into my mental library. I pulled out my copy of Daniel Throssell’s Email Copywriting Compendium. ​​And I flipped the mental pages until I got to rule #101.

“Aha,” I said, “here we go. Here’s the fix for this mess.”

I won’t tell you what Daniel’s rule #101 is. If you’ve bought the Email Copywriting Compendium already, you can reach for it now in your mental bookshelf, or at least pull it up on your computer, and look up rule #101 yourself.

And if you haven’t bought the Email Copywriting Compendium yet, well…

Daniel certainly doesn’t need my help in selling it. And since so many people on my list are also on Daniel’s list, I’m not sure what help I can give.

Still, I have been in a giving mood lately. And I have been sharing resources that I personally find valuable. So I will link to Daniel’s Compendium below.

If you write daily emails, I encourage you to get it and read it. Maybe even twice. That’s how many times I’ve read it so far, and I might read it again.

And in case you’re wondering:

This is not an affiliate link. It’s also not part of any kind of JV, cross-promo, list-swap deal with Daniel.

I’m just linking to Daniel’s Compendium because a) you might get value out of it and b) in gratitude over that rule #101. Plus a few other of Daniel’s rules, which I’ve peppered into this email.

​​Maybe you can spot these rules in action. If not, here’s where to go:

https://persuasivepage.com/compendium/