Deeply and irrevocably intimate

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Be warned:

Today’s email is long and intimate. I saw no other way to make the point I wanted to make.

But if you stick with me, I hope to make it worth your while with a deep truth about persuasion and belief.

So if you’re still here, let me tell you a personal story, which I’ve only told a few people:

One evening when I was 15 years old, I was sitting at the dinner table. And then things started to go wrong.

My mom was sitting across from me at the same table. She was speaking — I could see that and I could hear the sounds. But I could no longer understand a word she was saying.

She must have realized something was wrong with me. She stood up.

But before she could walk over to my side of the table, a buzzing built up in my ears, and then the world went black. I keeled over and fell to the floor.

Turns out, I’d had a grand mal seizure. Basically, an electrical storm built up in my brain, and all my neurons started firing at once.

My mom called 911 and I wound up at the hospital. Over the next few days, I stayed in the hospital and had a few more seizures. Eventually, they put me on some meds and sent me home.

“We’ll keep an eye on it,” the neurologist said a few days later. “But it’s nothing to worry about. These kinds of seizures are frequent in adolescents, and they usually go away on their own.”

And that’s how it was for me. I was on that anti-seizure medication for a couple years. Eventually I got off it.

And it was all fine, just like the neurologist said. During my medicated time and ever since, I never had any more seizure episodes. I was sure of that (a bit of foreshadowing there).

Fast-forward to age 20. I was attending college in beautiful Santa Cruz, California.

The campus is on top of a hill in the middle of a redwood forest. So while walking between class and dorm, you go among these monumental, swaying, 300-foot-tall coastal redwoods.

And because there are natural gullies and canyons in the Santa Cruz hills, you also get to walk across wooden Ewok bridges that make you feel like you’re flying 80 feet up in the air.

It was summertime and the campus was empty. I was walking on the path through the redwoods and there was no one else around.

I reached one of the Ewok bridges. And as soon as I stepped onto the first plank, it washed over me:

A 100% real, eyes-wide-open, religious epiphany.

I am not joking or making this up. It was hard to describe it then, and it’s even harder now, years later. But the essence of it was an absolute certainty — coupled with a vision — of the oneness and total rightness of everything in the universe.

Like I said, the epiphany came on suddenly. It faded gradually, over the course of what I guess was about a minute. The whole time, I didn’t stop walking, though I probably slowed down a bit in wonder of it all.

So what happened to me that day? Who the hell knows.

Had I been brought up in a religious environment, I might have interpreted it as a revelation from God.

But I wasn’t brought up like that. So I filed this epiphany away as a mysterious one-time experience.

I still think of it often but I almost never talk about it. In fact, until today, I only told two people about it.

And this brings us to last night.

Last night, I was reading a book about the human brain and all the unusual things that can happen to it. Such as, for example, focal seizures — seizures that don’t engulf the whole brain.

Some of these seizures happen in the temporal lobe, the part of the brain that’s in charge of emotion.

These temporal lobe seizures don’t cause fits or fainting. But they can cause “deeply moving spiritual experiences, including a feeling of divine presence and the sense of direct communion with God.”

“Hmm,” I said to myself, as a buzzing started to build in my ears. The book went on:

“The seizures — and visitations — last usually only for a few seconds each time. But these brief temporal lobe storms can sometimes permanently alter the patient’s personality so that even between seizures he is different from other people. This process, called kindling, might permanently alter — and sometimes enrich — the patient’s inner emotional life.”

“Well that sounds nice,” I said, “but it definitely doesn’t apply to me.” Still I kept reading:

“Patients see cosmic significance in trivial events. It is claimed that they tend to be humorless, full of self-importance, and to maintain elaborate diaries that record quotidian events in elaborate detail — a trait called hypergraphia.”

At this point, I almost fell out of my chair. Instead, I just laughed in my usual humorless way. “Haha! And all this time, I thought I was just writing long-winded daily emails about persuasion!”

But I shouldn’t try to joke, because I was dead serious about this. This book was describing me. It listed other common traits of this “temporal lobe personality”:

“Argumentative, pedantic, egocentric, and obsessively preoccupied with philosophical and theological issues.”

Confession time — I don’t know how well I manage to hide it in these daily emails… but these traits all fit me to a tittle. As just one example:

The reason I was reading this brain book in the first place is because it’s part of my big and so-far secret research project. That project has been mushrooming on my computer desktop for years — in a folder labeled, “RELIGION.”

But I feel I’ve forced you to read my elaborate diary for long enough. So let me bring this around to persuasion and make it useful for you.

I don’t know for sure whether I really had a seizure that day in Santa Cruz. I certainly don’t know whether I have “temporal lobe personality” or really, whether such a thing even exists (neurologists are not in agreement).

But last night, as I read the book that seemed to describe me to exactly, I felt both enlightened and depressed.

Enlightened… because these few paragraphs made a jumble of moments, behaviors, and tendencies in my life snap together into a single, easy-to-understand, unitary diagnosis.

But it also made me depressed… because who wants to be diagnosed as a self-absorbed, argumentative blowhard?

In other words, had somebody offered me a magic pill… and promised to rid me of my “temporal lobe personality” and the “rich inner emotional life” it’s supposed to bring… well, I would have paid good money for that pill.

(The fact is, such a magic pill does exist. It’s cheap and it’s usually sold in liquid form. It’s called alcohol.)

Anyways, that’s the truth about marketing I promised you at the start. If it’s not clear, let me evangelize:

You might not be able to trigger a seizure in your prospect’s brain. But you can get your prospect on the path to an epiphany.

And all it really takes is a disease name (“temporal lobe personality”)… a bagful of symptoms (hypergraphia, humorlessness, interest in religion)… and, optionally, an etiology (seizures in the limbic system).

Perhaps you get what I’m saying. But perhaps you want more explanation of how to use this to make sales.

In that case, you might like to know I’m working on a book about it. Predictably, the title of it is The Gospel of Insight Marketing.

But that’s all in the future. My plan is to get that book out in March.

For now, the only offer I have for you is the much less religious, potentially much more useful Niche Expert Cold Email training.

I’m been harping on about this for a few days. But in case you managed to ignore me until now, here’s where you can enlightened on the details of this free offer:

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

The old “Simon Lannister”: How to achieve the possible

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Simon flew through the finish line and immediately collapsed, face down on the track.

“You all right, Si?” It was his sister Margot, standing over him and holding a stopwatch.

Simon lay there on the ground, gasping for breath. “heave… heave… TIME? heave…”

“Oh right,” Margot said. She looked at the stopwatch. “Three minutes, 59.7 seconds. That seems good. Is that good?”

Simon kept heaving for breath, face flat on the ground. Gradually his hands curled into fists and his heaves turned into sobs. “I did it… I DID IT…”

Simon’s Jack Russell terrier, Sergeant, came over and sniffed his master’s feet. Sergeant followed the scent away into the grassy, wildflower-covered field in the middle of the track.

“I don’t mean to rush you Si,” Margot said, “but could you maybe hurry it up? We’ll be late for lunch. And you know how mum gets whenever we’re late.”

And that’s all the detail that’s been preserved about this historic event.

Because historians love to study and celebrate Roger Bannister, the first man to run the four-minute mile, back in 1954.

But practically nobody studies or even remembers Simon Lannister, the 34th man to run the four-minute mile, only a few years later, in 1958.

And I suspect it will be the same with me and my achievement yesterday.

Because yesterday, I got banned from r/copywriting.

The context is that over the past few days, I’ve been rewarding people who share links to my Copy Riddles optin page.

And that’s why Sonam Zahrt-Tenzin, a copywriter who’s already gone through the Copy Riddles program, put together a nice writeup of his experience and posted it on the r/copywriting subreddit.

But when I went to read it a few hours later, it was “[removed].” In fact, a post at the top of r/copywriting said any links to me and any of my stuff are now banned because there have been too many of them over the past few days.

You might think this is a failure but:

I’m grateful to Sonam and to all the other people who shared links to my site.

Like I said, I doubt history will remember our collective achievement in getting me banned from r/copywriting. I’m certainty not the first to break through that barrier — I believe that was Daniel Throssell, and probably other people after him.

Even so, it’s been an achievement for me. And I don’t mean that in a perverse, “good is bad, bad is good” sense.

I mean it in the sense that I’ve seen a nice bump in new subscribers over the past few days.

In fact, I saw a bump on top of that bump after the “banned” post appeared at the top of r/copywriting. And since that post is sitting there still, I’m guessing it will send a few more people to check out my site.

What’s more, I imagine this promo campaign will bring me knock-on benefits and name exposure, which will only be obvious in weeks and months to come.

That’s the achievement I’m happy about.

Now, as you might have noticed if you’ve been reading my emails for a while, I’m not a person who particularly craves attention, controversy, or conflict.

But the fact is, if you do anything in life… besides drumming your fingers on the table and watching the seasons change outside your window… then soon enough, you will run into resistance, whether internal or external.

In my experience, the only thing to do at that point is to give it the old Simon Lannister:

Keep putting one foot in front of the other, if for no other reason than that you’ve set your mind to it. And once you’re done, pick yourself up from the track, and rather than dwelling on your achievement or the resistance you encountered, go get lunch, and then move on to the next goal in your life.

For example:

Even though Daniel was the first to get banned from many choice locations on the Internet… I’m sure other virgin forums, groups, and communities remain.

So if you’d like to help me get the word out about this newsletter, and possibly get banned somewhere new, then take a look at the link below.

I’m offering a bribe in exchange for your help. But if the bribe doesn’t turn you on, ignore it. And if you want to help me out just for the sake of helping me out, I’ll be grateful to you. Here are the full details:

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

My fruitful first Clickbank failure

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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of my first-ever book. Well… book might be a bit grandiose.

It was more like an 85-page pdf. And by publication, I really just mean I put it up on Clickbank for sale.

The title of this thing was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. The background was this:

10 years ago, I was a dissatisfied office drone working at an IT company. Day after day, I’d sit at my computer, drumming my fingers on the desk, looking out the window as the sun set at 4pm. “And I still have to sit here and pretend to work for 2 more hours!” I wanted to get free.

And then I heard about Mike Geary. Mike was making a million dollars a month selling his own 85-page pdf, The Truth About Abs, on Clickbank.

How could I do the same?

Fortunately, the same source who clued me in to Mike Geary (Tim Ferriss) also clued me in to that most highly revered and valuable guide to direct marketing:

Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters.

Being the bookish type that I am, I got the Boron Letters and I read them. At the time, I wasn’t sure what exactly was so great about them. But I did get one thing from Gary, and that’s when he talks about how to create an info product:

1. Pick a topic
2. Read 5 of the best books on the topic and take notes
3. Write up your own book/85-page report with the best information taken from those other books
4. Make millions!

And here we get to the crossroads.

Because in an unusual move for me… I actually put the Boron Letters down… stared at the void for a bit… and then took a hesitating, first step forward.

In other words, I stopped reading and actually did what Gary was telling me to do. I followed his steps 1-3.

The outcome was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. I put it up on Clickbank. And then, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of step 4 aaaand…

Total sales? 0. Total money made? $0. Total learning experience?

Well, with 10 years of hindsight and about 6 years of working as a direct response copywriter, let me highlight a few of the mistakes I made with this first project:

1. Name. I went with Salary Negotiation Blueprint just because every other info product at the time was “something something blueprint.”

But what exactly was the promise in my name? That with my blueprint, you could… negotiate? Not very tempting.

2. “Affiliates will love it!” No, they won’t.

You can see public lists of what Clickbank affiliates love to promote, and salary negotiation guides are not it. This was a lesson I could have learned from the Boron Letters — sell to a starving crowd.

3. My market. What profile of person is going to buy an ebook on salary negotiation?

I can’t say, because I never managed to sell a single copy. But my guess is, these aren’t exactly players with money. More likely to be schlubs on a budget — much like me at the time.

6. The back end. What can you sell to somebody who bought a guide on salary negotiation? A course on networking over the water cooler? Or a guide on Slack tips and tricks, maybe? It feels like grasping at straws.

Ultimately, salary negotiation is a one-time need. Which is bad — because the profits come on the back end.

7. The price. I can’t remember the price. I think I started out at $37, and when I failed to make any sales there, I moved it down to $17, where I continued to fail to make sales.

But whether at $37 or at $17, my price was completely disconnected to the value of my offer. There was zero thought or strategy to it.

So there you go. Maybe you can learn a bit about direct marketing from my mistakes above. Or maybe you knew all this simple stuff before.

Either way, you’re in a good place.

Because there are mountains of people out there who don’t know even these basics of direct marketing and copywriting.

​​And not all these people are as clueless and unsuccessful as I was 10 years ago. Some of them have working businesses — even thriving businesses — in spite of awful, self-defeating marketing.

But you’ve probably heard this claim before.

I know I heard it for a long time. And all I could say is, “Well, where are all these mountains of business owners who could benefit from my growing marketing knowledge? I’m ready to help them out!”

The perverse truth is, they seem to pop up the most when you no longer need them.

A part of it is simply your level of skills. But a part of it is the exposure you give yourself.

In other words, you can shortcut the process somewhat, by giving yourself more exposure. Which brings me to my ongoing offer:

You can get a free copy of my Niche Expert Cold Emails training.

This training covers two cold email strategies that got me in touch with a couple of business owners, one with a working business, and the other with a thriving business.

All in all, these cold emails led to $16k worth of copywriting work. Not Mike Geary money, but an important step on my journey away from office dronedom. And I’m sure I could have gotten more work from these emails, had I just used them more consistently.

The training is yours free right now, as part of a promotion I’m trying out. For the full details, take a look here:

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

Boiler rooms in Tirana

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A couple weeks ago I was in Tirana, Albania. I got to talking with one of the locals and it turned out he works in a boiler room.

“We do forex,” he explained. “We invest their money for them. Actually, we just take their money.” He shrugged. “Which country are you from?”

“Croatia,” I said.

“Ah. We don’t have any clients there. But Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary — yes. I manage the sales team for the Hungarian market. It’s a very good market.”

I couldn’t believe it. “You have a team here of Hungarian forex sales people?”

“No no, all Albanians,” he said. “They learn a few phrases in Hungarian, the rest is in English. But it’s ok. These lawyers and doctors we call all speak good English.”

“Greed is universal,” I said to myself. “But how do you know who to call? How do you get their number?”

He looked at me like I’m an idiot. “They see an ad on the Internet. They click. They fill out the form with their info. Then one of our sales guys calls them. Then they give us all their money.”

Now I’m not an expert on boiler room tactics. But from what I know, it sounds like the same stuff that worked in 1972 works still in 2022. It’s just that the base of operations shifted from Chicago and Jersey City to other, less regulated locations like Tirana.

But the same system continues to work.

Of course, you don’t have to be a scammer. This basic funnel works even if you’re selling a legit, high-ticket offer, which can genuinely benefit your customers or clients. The sales system doesn’t care what you’re selling.

And equally as of course, this is not the only way to sell.

For example, the type of daily emails I write. Very hot right now. Many businesses want to do something similar. The promise is that you can build a relationship with your marketplace… without hard-selling… and instead, based on trust, influence, and personality.

Which is all true. But it ain’t new.

It goes back to Matt Furey… who probably got it from Dan Kennedy, who was sending weekly faxes, very similar in tone and content to what you’re reading now, but 20 and 30 years ago.

And if you asked Dan — if you could get him on the fax — I’m sure he would say that what he was doing then wasn’t new either. Somebody in the 70s and 50s and probably 1920s was probably doing the same long-form, personality-infused, frequent-contact marketing — just in a slightly different format.

So my point for you is that there’s a lot of value in knowing the history of your industry. Don’t be a scammer — I’m not advising that. But there’s almost nothing new under the sun, and it pays to know what came before you.

Which brings me to my offer, in case you didn’t take me up on it yesterday.

It’s to get a free copy of my Niche Expert Cold Emails training.

Because in my early days of working as a freelance copywriter, I hit upon two cold emails that got me client work.

​​Both of them were different from other cold email techniques out there. But I doubt they were truly new.

​​Had I been a better student, I probably would have found these ideas sooner, instead of having to wait to discover them on my own.

Whatever. You can do better than I did. Take advantage of my experience instead of fumbling around in the dark. Especially now that it’s free — well, free in money terms. For the full details:

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

My Andre Chaperon-like, Sphere of Influence-inspired optin page

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Here’s a little riddle for you:

How do three men, one of whom has been mostl—

But hold. This is neither the time nor the place for that.

In case you read my email yesterday, you know I promised that today, I’d reuse something I’d written in my email yesterday.

And in fact, I’ve done just that. But it’s not that tiny bit at the top. And it’s not in this email you’re reading.

Instead, you can find what I promised at the link below. That’s where you can read the scene from the Princess Bride I wrote about yesterday, and see how I made it fit to a completely new purpose.

The purpose, in this case, is to illustrate and set up a valuable lesson from my Copy Riddles program, which I’ll open up again for a few days later this month.

For this round of Copy Riddles, I decided to put a bit of thought into getting the word out.

So I wrote up an Andre Chaperon-like, Sphere of Influence-inspired optin page on the Copy Riddles site.

That means that rather than promising people interesting or entertaining information if they opt in to my list… I put that interesting and entertaining stuff right there on the page. And if somebody really is interested and entertained once they are done reading, they can opt in for more.

So here’s the deal for today:

If you’d like to find out (or be reminded of, in case you’ve already gone through Copy Riddles) a valuable little copywriting secret I discovered hidden inside a bullet by A-list copywriter David Deutsch…

Or if you’d like to see what exactly an Andre Chaperon-like, Sphere of Influence-inspired optin page looks like…

Or if you just want to get closure on my Princess Bride email from yesterday…

Then take a look at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Oh and if you do take a look, I’d appreciate your feedback on this page.

Because starting tomorrow, I’ll be promoting this page (I’ll explain how tomorrow). But that means i still have a bit of time to make changes, to add, and to remove.

So whatever your impression of this page, and whatever your feedback… I’ll be grateful if you write me an email and let me know. Thanks in advance.

Rescuing the Dread Pirate Roberts from a creative shipwreck

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“There will be no survivors… my men are here, and I am here… but soon, you will not be here…”

Here’s a little riddle for you:

How do three men, one of whom has been mostly dead all day long, storm a castle gate guarded by 60 soldiers?

Inconceivable, right?

​​Even if one of the three men happens to be a giant, and another a master swordsman… the enemies are too many. Success is inconceivable.

But what if you also throw in a wheelbarrow among your assets? And what if you even have a magical, fire-protective, “holocaust cloak”?

Suddenly, the inconceivable becomes easy. Because here’s what you do:

Just load one of the three men — preferably, the giant — into the wheelbarrow. Wrap the holocaust cloak around him.

Then start rolling the wheelbarrow towards the gate… and have the giant yell death threats at the soldiers as you approach.

Finally, just as fear and doubt start to creep into the hearts of the castle defenders… set the holocaust cloak on fire. Have your burning giant yell:

“The Dread Pirate Roberts takes no survivors… all your worst nightmares are about to come true… the Dread Pirate Roberts is here for your souls…”

Presto. The soldiers scatter in a panic, and you have taken the castle.

Perhaps you recognize this as a scene from the 1987 movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman.

But perhaps you also recognize it as something else, written by me in 2021.

Because about a month ago, I wrote an email about pirates. In that email, I was re-telling another scene from another William Goldman script, titled Sea Kings. That other scene had many of the same elements as the scene above:

First, a giant all-black figure who appears on the horizon at dusk, and who keeps floating nearer and nearer…

Then, the deep voice rumbling out from the figure… “Death or surrender… surrender or die… the Devil bids you choose…”

And finally, smoke and flames that erupt from around that black giant… to truly identify the legendary pirate you’re meeting face to face:

“Run up the white flag… It’s Blackbeard…”

It turns out Goldman reused a bunch of elements from Sea Kings (written some time in the 70s, never produced) to The Princess Bride (written some time later in the 70s, produced into a movie in 1987, became a giant hit and a big cultural icon).

The bigger point is that if you write a lot, you will eventually come up with a good idea, phrase, joke, motif, trick, transition, or image… which is part of a big creative shipwreck.

​​​Maybe that’s a book you never got published… or a video you made that nobody ever watched… or a daily email that ran too long and failed to make a clear point.

So why not reuse that good element a second, or a third, or a fifth time? In the right context, that rescued element might become highly influential, even though it was part of a disaster initially.

Take my email today, for example.

I hope you liked it. But maybe you didn’t.

If so, would you like me to try again?

As you wish. I’ll try again tomorrow, by rescuing an element of the copy I used today… and fitting it to a new purpose and a different format.

Good night, dear reader. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely write you an email in the morning.

The Law of Reflection

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I expected some blowback to my email yesterday.

For one thing, I was writing about loaded topics — corona, Novak Djokovic, government lockdowns, Prince of Persia.

For another, in the hours after I wrote and scheduled yesterday’s email, the story I was writing about blew up. It went from being something only tennis fans and Australians might know about… to the number one international news items, with the predictable outrage and memery and fixed opinions.

So yes — I was expecting people to write in and tell me how stupid, flippant, and just clearly very wrong my email is.

I should have known better. Because what happened was this:

A bunch of people did write in. Some liked the email and the point I was making. Some offered to be my nemesis (the takeaway of yesterday’s email). Some told me personal stories of their own from the ground in Australia. Some disagreed with the email, in reasoned and civil tones.

But not one person was insulting, aggressive, outraged or seeking to outrage me.

In fact, the last time I can remember getting an outraged response to my emails was over six months ago. The same guy who wrote that outraged response had written me a few inflammatory emails before. So I unsubscribed him from my list, and wrote an email about it the next day.

Like I said, no outrage since. Maybe there’s a lesson in there. In any case, there’s definitely a lesson in here:

“The adversary mirrors you”

That’s from master negotiator Jim Camp. The adversary in Camp’s system is the person you are negotiating with, but it could just as well be a prospect you are looking to sell… a reader you are looking to influence… or a girl you are trying to get on a date.

In fact, Camp’s advice is almost the same as the advice of the late and great pickup coach Tom Torero. Tom used to tell guys that “the girl is your mirror.”

If she looks startled or scared when you approach her… if she won’t stick around to talk to you… if she doesn’t trust you with her phone number… then take a step back. And figure out exactly what you’re projecting into the world, and how you should change it.

In other words, this mirroring stuff isn’t my plea for the world to be civil and boring.

I’m just telling you to figure out how you want your adversaries to feel and act. Relaxed and confident? Fun and playful? Scared and outraged? Then you know what to do. Feel and act that same way yourself.

Or vice versa:

Figure out how you want to feel and act in your life and your business. Just be aware that those are the kinds of prospects you will attract.

If there are enough such prospects, then you’re well in the saddle. But if you don’t have enough prospects who want to feel and act the way you do…

Then you might benefit from the following referral advice from Jim Camp. It is a kind of corollary to Camp’s Law of Reflection above. Camp says:

“What’s the key to getting referrals? It’s simple. Give them.”

The real Djokovic problem

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If you’re a tennis fan or an Australian or a non-Australian, you’ve undoubtedly heard the smouldering news:

World tennis #1 Novak Djokovic is being deported from the Land Down Under.

Djokovic arrived yesterday to play in the Australian Open, which he has won 9 times already. But…

Djokovic is not vaccinated against corona and was not willing to get vaccinated to participate at the Australian Open.

So the organizers had to finagle (“rigorous review process”) a special medical exemption for Djokovic to be allowed into the country, which has strict vaccine mandates.

And then the folks at the Australian Open had themselves a “good news, bad news” situation:

“Good news! We have the world no. 1 coming to play at the tournament!”

“Bad news! The people of Australia seem genuinely pissed about the medical exemption… since they’ve been forced to live under lockdown for the better part of two years!”

And so, while Djokovic’s plane was in the air, and the smoke from the wildfire on the ground was rising thick and heavy, the Australian PM went on TV to take a tough stand. On arrival, Djokovic would have to prove his medical exemption is legit — or “be on the next plane home.”

The tension was immense. But thankfully, it seems to be getting solved in a nice and clean way.

It turned out somebody on Djokovic’s staff had fumbled the visa application, and had ticked the wrong box somewhere. So Djokovic’s visa is invalid. The Australian government refused to make an exception — “rules are rules” — and so here we are.

At this point, I could switch and talk about direct marketing, and the kinds of prospects you want to sell to, and more importantly, the ones you want to avoid.

But instead, I’d rather talk tennis. All right, not really tennis tennis, but what this Djokovic situation can teach us about personal branding, in tennis and more broadly.

Because I feel this entire situation could not have happened — not with this level of scrutiny, outrage, and interest — without the animosity that has built up against Djokovic over the years.

Let me make it clear:

I personally like the guy. I’ve been a tennis fan for a long time, and I root for Djokovic whenever I see him play. Plus, I find his public appearances charming and funny.

But the tennis media will tell you the world hates the man. His corona stance is just the latest reason why. Before that, it was that he is a cult-minded kook… before that, that he is arrogant… and before that, that he is a whiner and malingerer who takes medical time-outs as a game strategy.

To me, all these seem like surface justifications for something deeper. So I kept asking myself, why do many tennis fans hate Djokovic, and why does the media keep making him into a villain?

I’ve had my own theory about this for a long time. And today, I read a very interesting article, which put my theory into a bigger context. The gist of it is this:

There is a difference between having an enemy and a nemesis.

An enemy is just somebody in your way to getting what you want.

But a nemesis is much like the “Shadow Man” in the Prince of Persia video game — an eerie, bizarro version of yourself, who can match all your skills, who keeps foiling you at key moments, and who ultimately forces you to learn, develop, and grow in order to win.

A true nemesis makes for peak levels of drama, a story we instinctively respond and cling to.

And that’s what made Djokovic so offensive.

My theory for all the Djokovic hate is that he ruined the greatest rivalry tennis has ever known, the one between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

Federer and Nadal had a true nemesis storyline, which fans and media loved.

Djokovic ended that. And in his dominance over the past 10+ years, he has had no true nemesis of his own. People never forgave him for what he took away and failed to replace.

That’s been at the core of why he’s been made into a villain. And now it’s coming back to bite him, at the tournament which was his best chance to break the biggest record in tennis — the number of Grand Slam titles — for which he is currently tied with Federer and Nadal.

So here’s my takeaway for you:

If you want a personal storyline that people eat up, get emotionally involved with, and fight to defend, then find yourself a worthy nemesis. Somebody who matches your skills and who can genuinely defeat you.

Because if you don’t, the consequences are clear. Over time, you’ll face growing resentment at your success… hostility at your attempts to be friendly and open… and eventually, a long and lonely flight, “on the next plane home.”

By the way:

The article on the nemesis I mentioned above, by a guy named Ted Gioia, was both interesting and well-written. So in case you’re curious about nemesizing your life or your business, here’s where you can read more:

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/you-dont-need-a-mentorfind-a-nemesis

Variety is the spice of copywriting failure

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Variety is the spice of life. But don’t you believe it.

The person who first wrote this idea was William Cowper, a poet. That makes sense. Creative types like poets love variety. When they evaluate their own work, they love to see variety in it.

Trouble is, markets often say different. Marketing copy is often better if it repeats the same message, in predictable ways. It reduces mental load. It makes up for the lack of attention readers give to advertisements. It creates belief by repetition.

I went to a restaurant last year when I was in Baltimore. I hadn’t been there in a long time. “Meatless muffalleta,” I said with expectation. “Oh, we’ve changed up our menu!” the waitress chirped back. “Try something else, we don’t have the muffalletta any more.” I won’t ever go back there.

Marketers often use baseball analogies. “That promo was a home run.” But you don’t see baseball players trying to introduce variety when going up to the plate. “Put a pure swing on it.” Don’t get creative.

Won’t readers get bored? No. They will thank you. The TV show Friends has been playing non-stop for 25 years. Same episodes. And if you say that’s because Friends is entertainment, then you haven’t seen Friends.

But maybe you say I’m breaking my own rule. Why all these arguments to prove one point? Isn’t that too much variety?

You’re right. It’s a weakness on my part. I’m trying to beat it out of myself. And if you’re also a “creative type” in the business of marketing, maybe try it too.

And now for something completely different:

Every day, I write an email about marketing and copywriting. I’m trying to reduce the variety and to say the same thing over and over. But I fail often and I end up saying new and unexpected things.

If you want to come watch me fail, and maybe learn something in the process, you can sign up here.

The most unlikely Australian murder mystery

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True story:

In 1935, somewhere off the coast of Sydney, Australia, a fisherman netted a 14-foot tiger shark that, unknown to the fisherman, was hiding a nasty secret in its belly.

The fisherman brought the shark to the local aquarium. The local aquarians put the shark into a tank. Then they all stood around, watching with satisfaction as the shark swam around its new home.

But soon, the shark began acting strange.

It started ramming its head against the sides of the tank, clutching its belly, and saying, “Uff… I don’t feel so good.”

The shark ended up vomiting. Within a few minutes, the foul-smelling contents of its stomach floated to the surface.

Visitors to the aquarium took turns identifying what they could see.

Some brown goo… a bird… a rat… and yep, there it was:

A tattooed human arm, with a rope tied around it. But…

Closer inspection of the arm showed no bite marks. The arm was cleanly severed. In other words, someone had cut it off and tried to get rid of it.

So whose arm was it? What was it doing at the bottom of the ocean? And what was the tattoo on it?

If you are curious about the rest of this severed arm mystery or the copywriting moral it contained, I’m afraid that particular fishing boat has sailed. Because the above true story was the intro to an email that email copywritress Liza Schermann sent out — a few days ago.

That email was part of a challenge Liza set to herself – to write 29 days of sexy emails about unsexy topics. So far, she has written about:

* Her failed apple crumble at Christmas
* Cushions
* Her water heater
* The mating habits of lobsters (pretty sexy, but we will let it slide)
* The above shark story (again, pretty sexy, at least copywriting-wise, but ok)
* Her attitude towards clothes ironing
* Toilet paper and the way you hang it (rolling over or under)
* Multiplication (the mathematical kind)
* Household finances

I’m telling you this to point out a curious fact about the mathematics of email copywriting:

Liza has been true to her challenge. She has managed to take the above mundane and unpromising topics and write interesting, funny, and — I’m afraid to say this — even sexy emails.

And here’s the curious thing:

I’ve been on Liza’s email list for a while. She previously only sent an email a week. I liked reading those emails.

But her daily, “unsexy” emails are much better.

That’s something I’ve noticed with my own writing as well.

It’s easier to prepare and write 10 good emails (or in Liza’s case, 29) than to write just one good email. It’s not just a matter of practice. It’s also a matter of research… idea generation… and less fiddling and self-censoring.

So that’s my takeaway for you:

If you’re having trouble writing a good email, try writing 10 instead. Paradoxically, you might find it easier going.

But getting back to the shark. Like I said, that particular fishing expedition has sailed. But a new one is waiting in harbor right now, because Liza is writing these emails day-for-day.

So if you want to follow Liza on her quest to write about tablecloths… the mechanics of garbage trucks… and the history of chamomile tea (I’m just guessing at possible future topics)… then you can do that at the link below. But a warning to ye first:

I’ve known Liza personally for a long while, long before either she or I got into copywriting. I also feel a bit responsible for and invested in her copywriting career. I’ve even hired her to write some stuff for me before. Plus, if you were on my Influential Emails training, you know she was there to help me run the thing and make it a success.

So if none of that turns you off, and you still want some sexy stuff in your life, here’s where you can follow as Liza turns lead into goldfish:

https://www.thecrazyemaillady.com/