A-pile vs. B-pile marketers

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A few days ago, I exchanged some emails with a business owner who was in a bad way.

“At the moment,” he said, “I’m feeling a bit like Halbert sitting in the dark trying to figure out what to write in that sales letter to get the power back on.”

If you don’t know the story of Gary Halbert, he was a well-known direct marketer and a better-known copywriting guru.

In the early days of his career, Gary was not very successful.

He would often spend his family’s utilities money to pay for stamps for sales letters to market some new scheme.

Those sales letters went out into the world. What came back were orders and some money, but never as many orders or as much money as Gary would have liked. Sometimes not even enough to cover the utilities bills.

The story goes that Gary was sitting in his kitchen one night, in the dark, with no water because he hadn’t paid the bills.

He was sick and tired of the stress and the visible signs of failure all around him.

And then — because that’s what makes a good story — the lights came on. Not in the kitchen, but in Gary’s head.

Gary had his moment of genius.

He figured out a new product and a new way to market it.

The result was a major success — millions of new customers and a multi-million dollar company, built on the back of one good, I mean, perfect, sales letter.

Now that I’ve told you this story, I’d like to propose that it’s proof that Gary Halbert was what I call a B-pile marketer.

We know of Gary today because his “sitting in the dark” moment actually produced a success. But it equally could have produced yet another failure. In fact, more than equally, because new direct marketing tests fail more than they succeed.

Had that happened, maybe nobody would know of Gary Halbert today, just like we don’t know the millions of other B-pile marketers who repeatedly failed and eventually disappeared. ​
​​
Compare this to marketers I’m calling “A-pile.”

A-pile marketers aren’t well-know either, but that’s because their story is not as dramatic. There’s no “sitting in the dark” moment. Instead, they build large, stable, cash-spewing businesses that work year after year, without ever being at risk of having the lights turned off.

What’s the difference between the A-pile and the B-pile?

Hark unto me, Buckwheat:

The difference is a marketing strategy that has the highest chance of being successful — of bringing back lots and lots of orders and lots and lots of money.

It’s a strategy that Gary Halbert must not have known early in his career. Or maybe he knew it and was just unable to practice it. I know for a fact — because I heard Jay Abraham say it — that it’s something Gary didn’t apply even later in his career, when he shoulda known better.

Maybe this proven, stable, cash-generating strategy went against Gary’s romantic and heroic nature.

If that’s your nature, too, then maybe this strategy won’t be right for you either.

On the other hand, if you’d like to keep the lights on, and keep the orders flowing, without having to produce a moment of genius, you can find this strategy described in detail in chapter 3 here:

https://bejakovic.com/a-pile

Mr. Beyagi’s sage advice

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I was in my shed today, trying to catch a buzzing fly with just a pair of chopsticks, when a rebellious, dark-haired youth of about 17 barged in.

“Hey are you the maintenance man?” he asked.

“No,” I said, without looking away from the buzzing fly.

“So are you gonna come and fix the faucet?”

I grunted. “Not my job.”

“Unbelievable!” the youth said. “Well, will you at least teach me karate?” And then he launched into the following monologue:

===

I’m at a point where I don’t know how to go about my karate practice. I have zero funds, no bank account, and just arms willing to fight. But how do I go about doing this?

Should I start my own dojo and market it as “Join me in my journey as a newbie karateka”? If yes, how do I attract students that way? When I have no credentials or any incentive for anyone to join my dojo for that matter.

I know it’s useless trying to beg for help, because this stuff is what other people pay you for. But I’m proud that I at least tried. I’ve never asked anyone for help before you.

I would appreciate a lesson about for aspiring karate masters. I’m not pitching myself in any way. All I ask is guidance.

===

Maybe, maybe… if only I had a collection of rusted old cars. But I don’t.

So I guided this rebellious dark-haired youth towards the door.

I opened the screen door and nudged him through it. And as I closed the door behind him, I gave him some parting advice, in my best broken English:

“You go YouTube. Free. Watch. Apply. Then go Amazon. Book, five dollar. Read. Apply. Read next book. Watch next YouTube. Apply. Apply. Come back. Five year.”

In less broken English:

It might seem cruel not to take in this youth and give him proper guidance.

It might seem cruel to send him away.

It might seem extra cruel that those who have the greatest need find it hardest to get a bit of good advice.

Except frankly that’s bullshit.

There’s never been such an abundance of free and good information out there. Or if you don’t want free and good, then $5 and really good.

The fact is, there is nothing new under the sun.

What I do, what everybody else in the course and coaching business does, is package up and simplify proven old knowledge, make it fun to consume and easy to believe in, to save you time and headspace, if that’s the kind of thing you can afford and choose to pay for.

If that’s not something you can afford, no shame in that. But in that case, you have to use your other resources — time, ingenuity, willingness to work — to get the same results that maybe you could buy with money.

I don’t currently offer any trainings about starting your own karate dojo.

But I do have a training teaching you the fundamentals of karate itself, ie. writing emails that make sales and keep readers reading.

There’s nothing new in this training. But it is proven, via literally millions of dollars worth of sales. And it is fun and easy to read. And it will save you many hours of time, if time is what you value over the bit of money I ask for this training.

Hai? Then you go here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

2 words I like to be reminded of every morning

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I was getting ready to shave this morning — foam, razor, face were all ready to go — when a yellow sticky note floated down from my bathroom mirror and landed in the sink.

“Oh no,” I said, “it’s all wet and ruined now.”

I put that yellow sticky note up on my bathroom mirror three months ago. It survived until now. It did well to live that long. It has now been replaced by a new yellow sticky note, which has the same two words on it:

“PRODUCER MOJO”

Three months ago, I got back into Travis Sago’s world. I wrote about Travis a couple times over the past week. In case the name still doesn’t ring a bell, Travis is basically an Internet marketing dude who’s been in the game some 20 years, maybe longer.

It was Travis’s advice to take a sticky note, write PRODUCER MOJO on it, and put it somewhere where you’ll see it regularly.

The idea is to become the marketing version of a Hollywood producer.

Hollywood producers don’t really “do” anything. They don’t direct. They don’t write. They don’t act. They don’t take a razor blade and cut rolls of film in two and then glue them back together.

Instead, producers… produce, whatever that means. My best guess is that they bring together other talented or resourceful people, and guide them towards some sort of common, hopefully worthwhile goal.

I’d actually first heard Travis promote “PRODUCER MOJO” four years ago, during my first visit to his world.

At that time, the idea of being a producer didn’t appeal to me.

“I like to write,” I told myself. “I don’t want to trade that for managing a bunch of people.”

Somehow, the idea is more appealing now. Maybe because I’ve aged a few years and I’ve had some experience running an Internet marketing business myself.

Or maybe, because I realized that producing doesn’t have to equal managing — maybe it can mean roping in an effective manager.

Anyways, that’s the idea I wanted to share with you today:

PRODUCER MOJO

… because there are plenty of people who have written thrilling stories, or who have tearjerking acting skills, or who just don’t know where to invest the oodles of money that are pouring out of their pants pockets.

There’s no law that says you have to ignore all this, and instead make a movie that you write, film, act every role in, and of course, fund. And don’t forget the special effects and makeup that you also do yourself.

I mean, you can do all those things.

But it’s not the only way.

And if you want to be reminded of that, then get a yellow sticky note, write PRODUCER MOJO on it, and put it somewhere where you’ll see it.

Or simply reply to this email. Because maybe you have some assets already. So do I. There’s no guarantee we’ll end up making a movie together, but if we talk, and compare what we each have, who knows where that could lead.

Where did Justin Goff go?

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On Sunday, May 26, marketer Justin Goff sent a confessional email to his list, in which he said he will only be writing weekly newsletters from now on.

For 5+ years, Justin had been writing a daily email about marketing and copywriting.

He had been using these emails to sell new offers, like clockwork, each month.

By writing daily emails and selling new offers each month, Justin had become one of the more successful and authoritative bros in the space.

But Justin had had enough. This didn’t jazz him any more.

So he announced he was going to write fewer emails, create fewer offers, and take more time to hang out with dogs and play pickleball by the pool.

Fair enough.

I checked, though. And what I found is that Justin hasn’t been writing regular weekly emails since then.

There have been five Sundays since May 26. Justin has only sent 3 emails since. In other words, he missed 40% of his planned newsletters, even just writing an email a week.

Point #1: ​It’s easy to slip up with weekly emails.

​​In theory, weekly sounds easier than daily. And it should be. But in practice, weekly emails can end up being harder, at least in your perception and as a matter of consistency.

Point #2: In a business like creating courses, coaching, or content, or selling yourself as a guide or a guru, regular posting really is the only way to stay relevant.

If you are reading this right now, there’s a fair chance that you were on Justin’s list as well. Both he and I talk about similar stuff, and to the same circles of people.

Assuming you were on Justin’s list, ask yourself, have you missed Justin or his emails?

I can tell you I used to at least skim his stuff most days. But after he went weekly, it never crossed my mind he had been skipping emails until today, when I made up my mind to talk some industry gossip.

By the way, that’s not any kind of special dig at Justin.

I’m sure the result would be the same if I were to stop writing regular daily emails. Some people might notice the first day or two. A couple might even write in to ask what’s going on. But even they would forget by next week.

It’s not that the world is cruel or heartless.

It’s just that when it comes to easy, free attention, the Internet giveth and it taketh away. It’s part of the deal.

All that’s to say:

Write for yourself. Write for your business and your goals. Write because it makes it easier to write again tomorrow, and benefit from the inevitable compounding.

Find ways to make this acceptable and even enjoyable long-term.

Do this, and sooner than you think, you can become one of the more successful and authoritative bros or babes in your space.

And it doesn’t even have to eat too much into your pool time or pickleball with the dog.

I’ve written lots of effective 15-20 minute emails, which sold everything from coaching to courses to cat training guides, and which kept me in the audience’s mind for tomorrow.

If you’d like to find out how you can do the same, and right quick and easy, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

¡Announcing: 10 Mandamientos De Los Mejores Copywriters Del Mundo!

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Yes, I now have a book in Spanish.

Even though I’ve been living in Spain for over two years, and though I’ve been studying Spanish for longer than that, the locals still frown when they hear me speak the language. Many will even switch over to English.

No matter.

Because I now have a book in Espanish.

Spanish A-list copywriter Rafa Casas took it upon himself to take my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters, and to translate and adapt it to his native language. Result:

“Los 10 Mandamientos De Los Mejores Copywriters Del Mundo”

… which you can now buy on Amazon.

But why?

Why would you possibly want to buy a Spanish-language version of a book I published 4 years ago, in perfectly serviceable English, and promoted a hundred times since then?

I can only imagine two possible reasons:

1. Because you read Spanish much better than you read English.

It’s not impossible. I know I’ve had some readers write in to reply to my emails, and I could see that they were automatically translating my emails into Spanish via Google Translate.

That’s easy to do with emails, but with books?

Now, there’s no need to translate anything yourself. Thanks to Rafa, the treasures inside this book can be yours on demand, in Spanish.

2. Because you read English much better than you read Spanish… and you want to make your Spanish better.

Don’t laugh.

I’ve been listening to podcasts in Spanish and even reading some Spanish-language books to achieve my mediocre and faltering command of the language.

I quickly realized I should listen to and read things that interest me, or my listening and reading wouldn’t last long.

So if you’re learning Spanish, and if you’re interested in topics like influence and persuasion and direct marketing, then maybe here’s your oportunidad to practice and learn and be estimulated at the same time.

I don’t expect the above two reasons will sell a lot of copies of my new Spanish-language book.

That’s ok.

​​From what I understand, Rafa is planning a kind of promotional blitz for this book in the Spanish copywriting world.

And if you’re wondering why he would go to all the trouble, it’s because all the proceeds — all the dozens of dollars in royalties that are sure to flood in — are actually going to a local charity here.

Yes, not only do I have a book in Spanish now… but I’ve changed my cold and heartless ways, and I’ve agreed to do something that can help others also.

I honestly don’t know what’s happening to me.

In any case, if you’d like a little light entretenimiento, and maybe even some ideas útiles, then:

https://bejakovic.com/10mandamientos

A hard way to live

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There have been periods of my life — years at a time — when I’ve made a habit of walking up to strange but attractive women on the street, giving them a compliment, and starting a conversation.

It’s surprisingly hard to do.

Not because of the women. The worst that ever happens from their side is a polite thank you and a smile.

The best that ever happens — well, I’ve had two long-term relationships that started in this way.

No, the reason it’s hard is because of my own fears, insecurities, and the stories I tell myself.

For example, if I see an attractive woman walking on an empty street, I will think, “It’s not a great place to go talk to her… she will be freaked out because there’s nobody else around.”

On the other hand, if I see even one other person around, I will think, “It’s not a great place to go talk to her… everybody will be standing around and watching.”

In other words, right is bad, left is bad, and you don’t want to go straight either.

A hard way to live, no?

I’m telling you this because yesterday I wrote an email promoting a new book by Travis Sago. As I said in that email, I’ve listened to Travis and learned more from him this year than from anybody else.

Even though Travis doesn’t sell any courses for less than a few grand, and even though his yearly mastermind costs something like $50k, this book is a $9.99 summary of his best marketing ideas.

And yet, in reply to my email yesterday, I got the following message from a reader:

“It’s only got 42 reviews… not great”

I’m featuring this reader reply because I recognized myself in it. Maybe you can recognize yourself too.

Specifically, maybe you can recognize the part of the brain that likes to make living hard. It says things like:

“It’s only got 42 reviews… not great. It can’t be, if nobody else is reading it.”

Or…

“It’s already got 420 reviews… not great. Everybody else has read this, so I can’t get any advantage from it.”

The fact is, a good idea is a good idea, whether it comes in a new or old package, whether it’s popular or fringe.

I’m currently re-reading the Robert Collier Letter Book, which was published 100 years ago and which has hundreds of 5-star reviews. I’m also reading Travis’s book, which was published a month ago and has 42 5-star reviews.

I could give you more proof to back up Travis’s credibility.

Would more proof matter to you?

Maybe. Or maybe that part of your brain that likes to make living hard would still pipe up with a new story.

One thing I’ve learned over all those years of walking up to women on the street is that you don’t always have to accept all the stories your brain serves up.

Life can be easier, more successful, and actually more pleasant that way.

Also, if you’d like to get Travis’s book, and maybe learn something valuable, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sandwich

Reader bans herself from buying my offers for 6 months

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Yesterday, I made available my Insight Exposed course for one day only. I made some sales of that. At $400 a ticket, it’s a nice way to write an email.

But I also got a couple responses like this:

===

I enjoy all your emails… your courses are too tempting. I have banned myself from buying anything for the next 6 months… pray for me you atheist. LOL

===

I have heard this message a lot recently, particularly during my Water Into Wine launch, which I conducted via email instead of via sales page. A few samples:

“I have made myself an unofficial promise to stop buying copywriting stuff at least this year”

“already doing some classes”

“I have already joined 2 other creators this month, not financially feasible for me at the moment”

What’s going on? I can imagine four explanations:

1. Maybe I’ve done a poor job making people want what I offer. After all, except in times of global ice age, people can usually find the money for the things they really want.

2. Maybe there’s a genuine change in the economy. Maybe there is an ice age forming after all?

3. Maybe it’s always been like this, and I’m only hearing about it now because I’ve made a point to listen to my customers and readers more.

4. Maybe there’s a genuine change in the mindset of the people on my list. Maybe there’s a glut of coaches, course creators, and copywriting gurus, all selling offers, all promising “I will teach you to be rich, admired, and free!” Maybe folks in this market have been stuffed, to the gills and beyond, with direct marketing info, and they need time to digest.

I’m not telling you this to complain. I’m telling you because you might be facing some similar situation with your own business, whether you’re aware of it or not.

So what to do?

If you ask me, only points 1 and 4 on the list above make any sense to act upon.

Point 4 is a big issue, too big for a Sunday email to try to tackle.

But what about point 1? About not doing a good enough job making people want what you offer?

Here I got some bad news/good news for you.

The bad news is, I have a direct marketing sandwich to offer you, even though you may be stuffed to the gills already.

The good news is, this sandwich costs $11.42 to buy and maybe an hour of your time to chew through and digest.

Not sold yet? The only other things I will say right now in defense of this sandwich:

– I didn’t make this sandwich, somebody else did, so maybe you can trust me more on the recommendation

– the man who made this sandwich has a different take to “I will teach you to be rich, admired, and free!” than most everybody out there

– there’s nobody else I’ve listened to more this year or learned from than this sandwich maker

Does that stir your digestion any? Maybe there’s a bit of room in there after all? If so, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/sandwich

Inadequate performance

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Yesterday, my friend Sam wrote me that he had downloaded the presidential debates so he could watch the bloodshed.

This morning, my friend Peter forwarded me a New York Times editorial that’s calling for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race after his “inadequate performance in the debate.”

And then this afternoon, I met my friend Olga, who spent much of the day in bed, and who said the only thing she has done today is to watch the presidential debate.

Olga told me her impressions of the debate. And then she said, “Maybe the debate’s something you could write about in your newsletter.”

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, the following will not be any kind of shock:

I am completely out of the loop. Permanently. Always.

I didn’t even know there was a presidential debate until friends started chattering to me about it via text and in real life.

I most definitely have not watched it.

And as for writing about the top news of the day in this newsletter… as I told Olga, I would never do that.

Well, obviously I’ve broken that vow with this email. But I didn’t know how else to get the following point across.

My theory is that you gotta pay the piper somewhere.

If you decide to talk about the immediately available stuff, the stuff that hundreds of millions of people are talking about right now on TV, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Reddit, among your friends and family, then you gotta try really really hard to have something unique and clever and hot-takey to say.

And even if you try really hard, and even if you expose yourself to looking like a tryhard, odds are good that most days you will fail to say something that hasn’t already been said, better, by a hundred other people, just a few minutes ahead of you.

That to me is an inadequate performance.

On the other hand, if you choose to spend your time and effort reading and watching less available stuff, stuff that’s not being talked about today, or yesterday, or last week, then you have a green, untrammeled field to play in.

For example:

Did you know that the problem of bloody, hateful, two-party elections was solved 2,500 years ago?

Two opposed tribes lived together inside one city’s walls.

They were highly suspicious of each other.

​​Each had a strong us vs. them mentality.

The city was ruled by a king from one tribe, who favored his own and harmed those from the other tribe.

​​Then the king died, or more correctly, he was made to disappear after he showed signs of serious cognitive decline.

How to choose a new king without devolving into civil war?

It didn’t look promising.

Each of the two parties was horrified by the leader of the other side.

Each party absolutely refused to accept the other side’s leader as the new king.

Tensions were rising. Weapons were starting to jangle.

​​So what to do?

Simple. It was the old, “you cut, I choose.”

Specifically, it was decided that the Romans, the party that had just lost its king, would choose a new king from the other tribe, the Sabines. The Sabines could not veto or influence the Romans’ choice.

The Romans chose a quiet, reserved man from the Sabine tribe, named Numa Pompilius.

At first, Numa refused to take command of the city. He liked his quiet life. But after being persuaded that Rome would devolve into civil war without him, he agreed to become king.

Numa reigned for 43 years in peace and prosperity. He founded some of Rome’s most important institutions, such as the pontifex maximus, the 12 month calendar, and the cult of the Vestal Virgins.

Two thousand years later, a clever politician, Niccolo Machiavelli, said Rome owed a greater debt to its second king, Numa, then it did to its first king, Romulus.

Good Lord this has turned into a long email.

​​Don’t write emails like this. Or do. It’s up to you.

If you do choose to write emails like this, I have something that might help. It’s my Insight Exposed course, about my notetaking, journaling, and media-consumption process.

I don’t normally sell this course, for reasons of my own.

But since I’ve already broken one law today, I might as well break two?

If you want Insight Exposed, the order form is below. I will close it down in exactly 24 hours, tomorrow, Sunday, at 8:31pm.

And if you have questions or doubts if this course is right for you, write me before you buy.

​​Here’s how to read stuff others are not reading, and make it useful for your marketing and your life:

https://bejakovic.com/ie/

3 women come to my rescue

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Yesterday, I wrote about a female reader who accused me, along with the rest of the 4 billion males on this planet, of being sexist.

I did my best — it wasn’t much — to defend myself against the accusation.

But when you’ve been charged with a serious thought crime, what you really want is some good third-party witnesses to corroborate your own defense.

Fortunately, I got a few responses from women to my email yesterday. I won’t name names here — that’s against thought court protocol — but here’s what they wrote.

​​First, from a PhD scientist and business owner:

===

Bwahahahaha I noticed all 5 were men and thought – oh my, some woman is gonna write in and whine about this…

Couldn’t see that one coming *cough*

Watcha gonna do?

===

Second, from a fundraising copywriter for NGOs:

===

I’m a woman and I almost lost an eyeball when rolling my eyes as I was reading allaboutme’s comment.

It’s the saddest, most annoying, most passe rebuke to resort to when you’ve got nothing else to throw at a man.

It’s plain lazy.

Thanks for the good work, John.

===

Third, from an MD and science fiction author:

===

Pretty impressed by the link at the end. I was a bit suspicious about the sexism, but it really helps that you clarify that everyone who entered the contest was a man. More chicks should step up, I guess! XD

===

errr… yeah. About that. I actually also got one reply yesterday, which just said:

===

Hey John,

Just read your email and I wanted to let know I am a woman (and from India).

===

Uh-oh.

This reply came in a thread of one of the Most Valuable Email contest submissions I got last week — the contest that triggered this entire sexism affair.

​​Only men ended up as winners of the contest because — so I thought — only men ended up submitting any entries.

Except apparently not.

It turns out I did get at least one submission for the MVE contest from a woman. But I didn’t recognize her as such because of her Indian name/nickname. That means two things:

1) My defense in my sexism trial has suddenly been dealt a serious, possibly fatal blow, and…

2) I might now be charged with racism to boot, or at the very least, with involuntary cultural obtuseness.

My life just got a lot more complicated.

Clearly, my slapdash self-defense won’t be enough to handle this any more.

I’ll have to call in some serious help.

The help of a master communicator.

​​Someone who hasn’t lost a legal argument in over 40 years, while fighting in dozens of big criminal and civil cases.

Perhaps you know who I mean.

Perhaps you don’t.

If so, I’m willing to tell you. But be warned. This person is too male, too pale, and too stale.

Maybe he can still teach you something though.

If you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/criminal

allaboutme: “Men are sexist, and it shows!”

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Last Thursday, I revealed the 5 winners of my Most Valuable Email contest. Then on Friday, I got an email from a female reader, who happens to have “allaboutme” as part of her email address. She wrote:

===

All males.
Gotta say I saw that coming from a mile away.
Been monitoring all-male offerings for a few months and it’s the same.
Men are sexist, and it shows!

===

It’s true. All 5 MVE contest winners were men.

That’s inevitable, because of the dozens of entries I got for this contest, all came from men.

I don’t know why that is.

A good number of women read my emails. A good number reply to my emails. A good number have bought MVE from me.

And yet, no woman decided to enter this contest, for reasons that are beyond my limited understanding.

But let’s get back to allaboutme.

I don’t know about you, but to me, saying “Men are sexist, and it shows!” sounds… kinda sexist?

At least if by “sexist” you mean “discriminating on the basis of sex”… and if by “discriminating” you mean “holding negative, dismissive attitudes about a group of people as a whole.”

If you ask me, allaboutme’s message is a perfect example of the universal law:

Whatever people seem to be talking about, they are really talking about themselves.

“Yeah yeah but — what about you Bejako?” I hear you saying. “What does it say if you are here, telling me how people are always talking about themselves? Aren’t you just talking about yourself?”

You’re a clever cow, aren’t you.

But you’re right. I am in fact talking about myself.

We all make snap generalizations, and we use them to wallpaper the walls of our mind. It’s a normal part of human life and simply how the human brain works.

But sometimes these snap generalizations have an ugly pattern on them, or an ugly color scheme.

So we end up sitting inside our mind, surrounded by all this wallpaper we’ve pasted on, suffering from the ugliness, and thinking how life is unfair. And it shows!

Is there anything to be done?

For the longest time, I thought no. Not really.

Because I’d tried thinking myself right. I’d tried meditating. I’d tried NLP. I’d tried telling myself, “Just create your own reality!”

None of it worked.

But something has been working. For a few months now. Every day.

If you’re curious, I’ll tell you what it is. But brace yourself. Or maybe just keep an open mind. And take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/allaboutme