Where am I falling short here?

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The survey I ran a few days ago keeps giving, including some pretty, pretty shocking gifts.

For example, yesterday, a reader named Vivian filled out the survey. As her single biggest challenge with her email list, Vivian wrote:

“Coming up with interesting ideas and presenting it in a concise and compelling way.”

In the field about what difference it would make to get a solution to this challenge, Vivian explained:

“It would help me produce more effective email campaigns that produce better results.”

And in the field about how difficult it’s been to find a good answer to the above dilemma, Vivian selected:

“Very difficult”

When I read this, I heard a voice in my head. It was the voice of a ghost, of negotiation coach Jim Camp, who died back in 2014. Camp’s voice said:

“What in the world am I doing wrong? Where am I falling short here?”

Clearly, I’m doing something very wrong.

I checked and Vivian has been on my list for over a year.

In that time, I have promoted my various email trainings, including my Most Valuable Email program, hundreds of times.

Vivian hasn’t bought MVE, even though the core promise of MVE is a different way to present your ideas in email from what everybody else is doing… a way that produces concise and compelling emails that even grizzled, wary, and sophisticated marketers and copywriters find interesting.

The only thing I can think of right now is that I’m not doing a good enough job selling what I got.

The price for Most Valuable Email is $297.

Is that expensive?

Sure.

But I exported all my ThriveCart transactions a few days ago. I’ve been using ThriveCart as my shopping cart for the past 18 months.

On average, during these 18 months, I’ve been able to turn 12.7% of my newsletter subscribers into buyers. And on average, over those 18 months, each of those buyers has paid me $354.69.

Is that good? Bad? I don’t know.

I do know these numbers have allowed me to fully replace my freelance copywriting income, which was my main source of income for 5+ years, and which many people would find enviable.

I can also tell you I got the numbers above without any kind of continuity offer… without running a high-ticket coaching program for all but a few of those 18 months… and without counting the half dozen or so affiliate promotions I’ve run during that time, which would probably add another $100 or so to that average customer value.

I’ve been making the claim over and over that Most Valuable Emails are the #1 reason I’ve been able to stick to writing this daily newsletter and getting the kinds of results above.

The MVE trick has made me, and continues to make me, an exponentially better copywriter and marketer.

Plus it’s simply fun for me to write Most Valuable Emails regularly… and it produces emails that surprise readers and keep them reading, whether they buy or not.

It’s ain’t just me, either.

On the MVE sales sales page, I have a testimonial from Thomas Lalas, the director of retention marketing at Everyday Dose. Thomas sent out a Most Valuable Email to Every Dose’s 100,000+ list. Result, in Thomas’s words:

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This email was the highest-converting single-email campaign sent to the non-buyers of all time.

Usually we get such results with 2- or 3-part campaigns, typical in launches.

Interesting to explore this [Most Valuable Email] method further.

Will likely make it a part of our welcome flow, too.

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But I’ve been yappinatin’ about all this for a long time now.

Vivian still hasn’t bought.

Maybe you haven’t either.

Like Camp says, clearly I’m doing something wrong. I want to change that.

So I spent this morning scheming up something I’m calling the “Most Vivian Event.”

I don’t ever use personalizations in my emails, so I won’t try to make this the “Most [firstname] Event.”

But if you haven’t gotten MVE (the product) yet, and more importantly, if you haven’t been using the Most Valuable Email trick in your emails, this event applies to you too.

The Most Valuable Email trick really has been that valuable to me, without any hyperbole. And it can be the same for you — if I don’t keep falling short, and if I can finally persuade you to try it out.

I wanted to kick off the Most Vivian Event today… but with the grand plans I came up for it, I realized it will take a bit of time to set up. Tomorrow is the soonest I can do it. Full details in my next email. Be there?

EXPECTING YOUR REPLY

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This past Sunday, I sent an email with a link to a survey, asking people about their single biggest challenge when it comes to writing or profiting from their email list. One respondent wrote:

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Getting suitable copywriting clients to work with and how to find them and make sure they are suitable and are a good fit with both client and service provider happy with outfoem of the relationship. What are the most effective ways to find copywriting clients when starting out? (EXPECTING YOUR REPLY)

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Even though this respondent included his (pseudonymous) email address, I did not reply to him. Maybe you can guess what happened next.

I got an email yesterday from the same guy, replying to that email I had sent out on Sunday. He asked:

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Hey John!

How would you get your first copywriting client if you had to start with that?

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I nodded thoughtfully for a moment, and then I scrolled down to the bottom of the email and I unsubscribed the guy from my list.

Not because he’s pushy or entitled (though EXPECTING YOUR REPLY did rub me the wrong way).

I unsubscribed him because I have zero interest in writing about getting your first copywriting client. I also expect that, for the rest of my life, that will never ever change.

It would be a waste of time, both for me and for the guy above, if he were to stay on my list and keep EXPECTING MY REPLY, given that his single biggest challenge is to get his first copywriting client.

To my mind at least, the most merciful thing is to set this bird free so it can fly off somewhere else. Which is what I did.

You might feel this email is a kind of flex about how I’m so cool that I can casually send engaged readers away from me.

Well, it is that, but it’s also something more.

Because one thread I found in the survey responses came from various people who already run email lists. Their single biggest challenge is that the people on their lists are the wrong type of subscribers.

Too broad of an audience… or no money… or simply a different kind of profile to what the list owner is looking for.

I’d like to suggest to you that regularly sending away the wrong people is one part of getting more of the right people onto your list. We all define ourselves both by accepting and by rejecting. You can bond with someone because you both love the Beatles… or because you both hate the Rolling Stones.

By the way, I’m not saying there’s anything personally wrong with someone if they like the Rolling Stones… or if they are looking for their first copywriting client… or if they have no money right now.

I’m just saying we all have the right to choose what birds we allow to perch and nest inside our own private and walled gardens.

Of course, repelling the people you don’t want is usually not enough. You usually also have to do some things to actively attract the people you do want.

So lemme ask you:

Do you face the challenge of getting the right people onto your list? Or do you face the challenge of a list filled with subscribers you don’t want?

If you do, hit reply. I’d like to hear more about what you’ve tried to overcome this challenge, and how it’s worked out for you.

In turn, if I can give you any suggestions or advice to help you get more of the right kinds of people onto your list, I will.

Should I say it now? I guess it’s inevitable:

EXPECTING YOUR REPLY.

A step above the A-list copywriters and marketers

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I remembered a little story today. I heard it just once, 3+ years ago, but it’s stuck with me ever since.

Marketer Caleb O’Dowd was talking about copywriter Clayton Makepeace.

Caleb said that Clayton was a step above the A-list copywriters — that he was an alchemist.

Caleb never knew Clayton personally. But here’s the little story Caleb told, which has stuck with me for years:

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When Clayton first came up on my radar I was living in Costa Rica. I had a spare room in my home and I would print out — there were several magalogs that I would print out of his — and I would tape them to the wall one page on top of the other on top of the other. I spent, not weeks, not months, I spent years doing that.

I lived there for a year and a half. By the time it was done I had to repaint the paint on the on the wall for the for the guy who owned the apartment because it was just tape pulling all the paint off the wall. But I studied him for years. There is years’ worth of mentorship and coaching and and education to be had in reverse engineering Clayton Makepeace packages.

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For reference, when Caleb was pasting his spare bedroom with Clayton Makepeace wallpaper, he was already a massively successful marketer.

Caleb had worked and mentored under Gary Halbert, and he had already sold a lot of stuff and made a lot of money.

And yet, Caleb obsessively studied Clayton Makepeace’s packages — because those packages were getting such good results in markets that Caleb was already in, and because of the audience insights that were available in Clayton’s copy.

I thought of this little story this morning, when looking over the results of the 3-question survey I ran yesterday.

I found one interesting thread in the survey results that I hadn’t thought of, a problem several people listed as their “single biggest challenge.”

I won’t tell you what that interesting thread is.

But if you were good enough to fill out my survey yesterday, I appreciate your help. Maybe the wallpaper story above connects in your mind to what you wrote in the survey and means something to you.

And if you haven’t yet filled out my little survey, you can do it now. Maybe simply filling out survey will make the above story more meaningful to you.

I will read, appreciate, and consider every response and bit of feedback I get. If you’d be good enough to give me yours, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/advice

Your advice please

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I’m hoping you can give me some advice. The background:

For a long time, I’ve had the feeling I know the people who read these emails. After all, I write every day and I make offers every day. People reply and buy pretty much every day, at least on average.

But then I started looking closer. I got on actual calls with people. I exported all my ThriveCart transactions, and looked at who was really buying.

I realized my picture of who is on my list not only vague and fuzzy, but it’s often flat-out wrong.

A small fraction of the people on my list reply to my emails. Another small fraction of the people on my list buy my offers. These two fractions are often not the same. And about the rest of my list, I can’t say much at all.

For all those reasons, I’m hoping you will click through the link below and answer 3 questions for me on the next page.

Why might you want to do this?

Because you can tell me what I should talk about that you want to listen to. Because if you have problems, my job is to solve them.

I will read, appreciate, and consider every response and bit of feedback I get. If you’d be good enough to give me yours, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/advice

Angel Heart cold outreach

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Last night, I rewatched a dark but fascinating movie called Angel Heart:

Mickey Rourke plays private detective Harry Angel, who is on a missing persons case.

Throughout the movie, in order to unearth the next clue, track down his guy, and collect his unfortunate bounty, Harry Angel pretends to be:

– A researcher from the National Institutes of Health, when getting records from a hospital…

– A journalist writing an article, when talking to Toots Suite, a blues guitar player…

– A client coming to have his future told by a spirit medium…

– A customer at a hoodoo supplies store, looking to buy some High John De Conqueror root.

Harry Angel lies. He doesn’t work at the NIH, and no amount of squinting will make that fact true.

You don’t have to lie. But you can still reposition or repackage who you are and what you do, with integrity, right now, in a matter of seconds, to make it more likely people will hear you out. Without lying, you can get the benefit of what Harry Angel does to move his case forward.

Really, it’s the same thing I talked about in my email yesterday — ask what your prospects are looking to buy, instead of how you can sell what you have.

Because this doesn’t only apply if you want to get people to buy your PDFs or coaching or copywriting services or whatever.

It applies equally well if you’re simply trying to open up conversations with people, which can yield valuable information or lead to a valuable relationship or partnership down the line. In other words, cold outreach.

In entirely related news:

If you take the idea above ^^^^ and generalize it a bit, it applies just as well to get people to open up your newsletter emails, read them, and have their mind gradually or suddenly opened to the possibility of giving you some money.

And if you want specific step-by-step instructions on how exactly you can do this today:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Is Dan Kennedy secretly reading my emails?

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One week ago, last Friday to be exact, I wrote an email about the “quiet eye,” in which I said:

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One problem I’ve seen over and over is that people ask themselves the question, “How can I sell what I have?”

Instead of asking yourself, “How can I sell what I have,” ask yourself, “What do they want to buy?” Keep that question trained in your mind for longer than is natural. Do some research. Don’t jump ahead to what you’d like to happen, which is for people to buy what you are selling.

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Then this past Wednesday, just two days ago, marketing legend Dan Kennedy wrote an email about constructing offers, in which he said:

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Too many business owners focus on their product first. They think, “I’ve got all these thermoses, how do I sell them?” But the truth is, you should never start with the product. You start with the customer. Who’s most likely to buy your thermos? What are their desires, their needs, their pain points?

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Dan Kennedy, the marketing master who has influenced generations of marketers both online and offline… saying the same thing as I said a few days earlier… using much the same rhetoric?

Could it be that Dan, who famously has no cell phone and a “no Internet” policy in his home, secretly gets his assistant in Phoenix to print out and fax him my emails each week… so he can read them in his Disney-memorabilia-filled basement with a few days’ delay, and be inspired and reminded of great marketing and persuasion ideas?

I’ll let you decide.

But I can tell you something like this has happened to me a few times already.

People I learned from and think of as authorities in the field — people like Dan — end up writing the same thing as I do, a short time after I write about it in an email, sometimes using much the same language.

That’s an inevitable consequence of producing an abundance of ideas by writing daily.

All that’s to say, if you don’t yet write, start.

And if you do write occasionally, then start writing more often.

Keep it up, and you will soon be writing words that others, even legends in the field, will be repeating and discussing next week and next month and next year, whether they actively copied you or not.

And of course, along the way, there’s other benefits to writing. Like building a devoted audience. And making sales, too.

And speaking of sales, you might be interested in my Simple Money Emails program.

It will show you how to write daily emails that make sales.

I’ll give away a part of the secret, because it’s not much of a secret at all. Simple Money Emails teaches you to write emails that 1) say something interesting at the start and 2) that transition into an offer.

You probably could have guessed that much.

What you might not guess is the central, most valuable idea inside Simple Money Emails, one which I repeat over and over throughout the program — a kind of litmus test for choosing which “something interesting” to open up the email with and which ones to discard.

This litmus test is actually something I learned from Dan Kennedy, and I credit him for it inside Simple Money Emails.

Because even though Dan doesn’t read or write emails (with the possible exception of my own), he long ago mastered the kind of story- and news- and pop culture-based sales messaging that works well in emails.

If you’d like to master it too, the following guide can help you get there:

​https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Spend all your time trying to sell out games

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Yesterday I watched a movie, Local Hero, which finished around 9:17pm my time, some 32 minutes after my daily email went out.

In those 32 minutes, I had 21 sales of the offer I introduced yesterday — “give me $10, and I’ll make you a ‘beta-tester’ for my new book.”

Since I only wanted 20 such beta-testers, I closed the shopping cart, and I updated the checkout link to point to a page that said “Thanks but this offer is now sold out.”

You might think it’s not much of an accomplishment to sell out 20 spots (actually 21) at $10 each.

And true, it’s not a lot of money.

But it’s very important anyhow. Not just for my own morale, but for public perception.

And on that note, I would like to share with you a quote from sports marketer Jon Spoelstra.

Spoelstra worked with some of the losingest and least popular sports franchises out there.

In spite of the lousy sports records of these teams, Spoelstra repeatedly managed to turn the teams into cash-cows. Here’s how:

“At the Nets, we spent all of our energies in trying to sell out games. This started with the games that people most likely would want to go to — the games with the marquee players on the opposing teams. You might think it was easy. It wasn’t. If we hadn’t committed all of our resources and manpower to selling out our best games, we wouldn’t have. A funny thing happened on our way to sellouts. Our attendance picked up in the other games where we weren’t even trying.”

I was planning to promote my beta-tester offer today to make sure this offer sold out, just like Spoelstra advises.

But since the offer sold out with just one email last night, that plan’s out.

So let me remind you of my most popular program, Most Valuable Email.

I can tell you that today’s email does not use the Most Valuable Email trick, which is what this program teaches you to perform in less than an hour.

And yet, the Most Valuable Email trick in a way underlies this entire newsletter, whether I use it in a particular email or not.

I can imagine that doesn’t make much sense without knowing what the Most Valuable Trick is. In case you’d like to find out, and better yet, to profit by using this trick yourself:

​https://bejakovic.com/mve/​

Looking for 20 beta-testers to pay an unthinkable amount for my new book

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I’m looking for 20 beta-testers for a pre-publication “email draft” of my new book.

The background:

Yesterday, I made my plans for this coming month. My goal #1 in October is to finish writing my new book, titled The 10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Copywriters, Hypnotists, Door-To-Door Salesmen, Professional Negotiators, Storytellers, Propagandists, and Stage Magicians.

I already have the first 3 commandments/chapters of this new book largely done.

Still, getting the remaining 7 written by the end of this month is ambitious, considering I’ve been working on this book for more than a year now.

In my favor, most of that time has gone to research and outlining. I’ve only been writing for the past few months, on and off. But still — I realized yesterday there’s a good chance that I won’t make it by the end of this month, not unless I change my approach.

I got to thankin’…

I’m good at writing emails, much better than at writing book chapters. Maybe there’s an opportunity there?

And so I thought up a new offer to 1) help me get this book done on time, and 2) entertain and maybe reward a small number of dedicated readers of this newsletter.

So here’s my offer to you:

If you like, you can join a small group of beta-testers for my new book. The price to get inside this exclusive and elite club is an unthinkable $10. That $10 will get you:

1. An extra email with extra content from me, each day this month, starting this Sunday, October 6, and ending Wednesday, October 30, with content that’s intended for the new book.

2. A chance to influence the final content in the book. I hope you you will hit reply when I send you these content emails and share your thoughts. If all goes well, I will have more content at the end of this month than I will need for the book. I will decide what to keep and what to toss based on your feedback.

3. An acknowledgement in the book when I do publish it, because you were there at the start, and because you helped me get it done.

4. A free paperback copy once I publish the book. My current 10 Commandments book sells for $9.99, plus shipping. This new 10 Commandments book will also be priced at $9.99, plus shipping. But join me for this beta tester group, I’ll send you a paperback copy for free when it’s published, and I’ll also cover the shipping.

If you’d like to join, you can do so at the link below. But before you do, a few caveats:

I encourage you to only join if you’re a dedicated reader of these emails… if you’re already interested in getting my new book when it comes out… and if you will have the time to read yet another email over the coming month, and maybe even to hit reply to tell me what you think of what I wrote.

Again, these “new book” emails will start this Sunday. The deadline to sign up for them is this Friday at 8:31pm CET (I want a couple days buffer), though there’s a fair chance I will turn off this offer sooner than that, maybe as soon as tomorrow morning.

If you know you want in right now, here’s where to go:

​https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments​

Last notice: “ONE-TIME Inflation-BUSTING Sale”

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Today is the last day to get a copy of Lawrence Bernstein’s “How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes,” which normally sells for $97, for just $7.

Lawrence has been good enough to make this deal available to you, because you happen to be a subscriber of this newsletter.

And… to fight against inflation?

Well maybe. But today’s subject line is one I wrote because I’m a regular subscriber of Lawrence’s Ad Money Machine monthly subscription. Lawrence recently wrote about a successful renewal letter that used that “Inflation-BUSTING” headline, so I’m trying it out today.

If you’d like to get a sense for extensive direct marketing knowledge, expertise, and archive that Lawrence brings to what he does, without signing up for a Lawrence’s monthly subscription offer, then “How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes” is a great way to get started.

It can teach you a lot about writing sexy leads, angles, and hooks for your sales letters, emails, advertorials, ads, and pretty much any other piece of copy you might have to write.

To get this guide before the price goes back up to $97, the link is below. The deadline is less than 3 hours from now, and I won’t be writing any more emails about it.

Final word about “How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes”:

I’m not an affiliate for this offer. I don’t get paid whether you buy it or not. I can tell you I did buy this offer myself, for my own purposes, several weeks ago, before I ever had any plans on promoting it to you.

If you’d like to grab it also, before the price shoots up 13-fold in just a few short hours:

​​https://bejakovic.com/fascinations​​

Your FREE Copy Riddle

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My Copy Riddles program is based on a simple idea:

1. Take a look at a bit of dry, factual text

2. Write a sexy, intriguing fascination or headline to sell your reader on that text

3. Compare what you wrote to what an A-list copywriter wrote to sell that same bit of boring text, in a sales letter that brought in hundreds of thousands of sales and millions of dollars

Would you like to try this right now? If so, here’s your free Copy Riddle:

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Auto Dealer Rip-Off

Car-purchase padding: A prep fee of $100 or more (whatever the dealership thinks it can get away with). The cost of preparing your car for delivery is already included in the manufacturer’s sticker price.

Source: Consumer Guide To Successful Car Shopping by Peter Sessler, TAB Books, Blue Ridge Summit, PA.

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If you’d like to get better writing sales copy, follow the steps above. I mean, follow steps 1 and 2:

Read the text above carefully… then do your best to write a sexy, intriguing headline or fascination to sell a reader on that text.

And if you want to also follow step 3 — if you want to see how an A-list copywriter spun this dry and boring text into something fascinating that went out to millions of people, and convinced many of them to send in cash or check or credit card info as a result — you can find that inside a guide called “How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes.”

Specifically, you can find it on page 26, right under the sub-headline that reads, “Over 2 million copies sold… and no wonder!”

(Hey, I promised you a free Copy Riddle. I said nothing about a free answer to the Copy Riddle.)

The good news is, while “How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes” normally sells for $97, it is now available to you for the next few hours, because you happen to be a reader of this newsletter, for only $7.

You can read the full story about this offer on the page I’ve linked to below.

Final word about “How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes”:

I’m not an affiliate for this offer. I don’t get paid whether you buy it or not. I can tell you I did buy this offer myself, for my own purposes, several weeks ago, before I ever had any plans on promoting it to you.

If you’d like to grab it also, before the price shoots up 13-fold in just a few short hours:

​https://bejakovic.com/fascinations​