Forming a marketing cavalry without money or influence

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One morning in late October of 2018, professor Samuel Abrams arrived to his office to find that pictures of his family, which he normally kept on his office door, had been torn down. In their place were dozens of notes stuck to the door and lying on the floor.

QUIT
QUIT QUIQUIT QUIT QUITITQUITQUIT
QUQUIT QUITTIT QUIT
QUIT

A few of the notes offered more detail:

“Our right to exist is not ‘idealogical,’ asshole”

“QUIT go teach somewhere else you racist asshat (maybe Charlottesville?)”

A few days earlier, Abrams had published an editorial in the New York Times, titled “Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators.” The editorial reported the results of his own research.
​
Among first-year college students, Abrams said, there was a two-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives. Among university professors, that ratio jumped to six-to-one. But all of that was dwarfed by the ratio of liberals to conservatives among university administration: 12-to-one.

This was incendiary enough to prompt an emergency student senate meeting at Abrams’s university. Abrams said the result of this meeting a declaration calling for him to be stripped of tenure and dismissed from the college.

I got on the spoor of this through an article in the Economist, which looked at the spread of wokeness from universities to the mainstream.

The Economist claimed it took a few key ingredients. The one that caught my sparrow eye was the role of university of administrators.

It turns university bureaucrats have been mushrooming in recent decades, outpacing both student and professor growth. For example, administrator numbers at the University of California, where I went to college, doubled since 2000.

Yesterday, I promised to tell you how to get other people to fight for you. One way of course is to have money and to use that to buy yourself an army. That’s what I talked about yesterday.

But if you don’t have money or power, well, you can still have an army. Or, rather, a cavalry.

Ideal recruits are to be found among newly arrived, low-grade influencers. People who have some power at the moment, but who are very insecure about their position and their future. Like university administrators.

If you can offer these people a new way to shore up and legitimize their position by championing you or your product or idea… well, they will do it, even if you don’t pay them.

“Uhhh… I really don’t get what the hell you’re talking about,” you say. “How exactly would I use this to get other people to promote me or to make money?”

Ok, let me give you a sketch that might help. It’s based on my vague memories of a story told to me by a friend who is active in the crypto space.

My friend was telling me there is some fraction of the crypto world, filled with new businesses and investors. Let’s call it Segment X. People in Segment X are invested in some new crypto approach, and they are flush with cash.

But they also have a ton of anxiety about where their sliver of the crypto market is going, and if any of them will be around in a year.

My friend had started a podcast around crypto. At the start, it didn’t have too much reach or audience.

But he occasionally turned the focus of his podcast to Segment X.

And as a result, all those people, and all their resources, latched onto his podcast and helped push it and promote it.

That’s basically what I’m telling you with all that wokeness stuff above. Find yourself a stable of nervy and twitching parvenus. And then get your saddle ready. Because, in the words of Al Ries and Jack Trout:

“The truth is the road to fame and fortune is rarely found within yourself. The only sure way to success is to find yourself a horse to ride. It may be difficult for the ego to accept, but success in life is based more on what others can do for you than on what you can do for yourself.”

For more horse-talk, you might like my daily email newsletter.

The magic “red clause” — get others to fight on your behalf

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The entire direct response industry emerged out of the sea of patent medicine. And much of what people keep figuring out about persuasion today was first discovered in the late 19th century by men looking to sell more nerve tonics, seaweed cakes, and soothing lung syrups.

What I’m telling you is that it’s worth reading about these patent medicine men, so you don’t have to reinvent their strategies yourself. For instance:

Some time around the turn of the 19th century, a man named Frank J. Cheney stood up, piece of paper in hand, at a meeting of the Proprietary Association of America.

​​The Proprietary Association represented the interests of hardworking snake oil hucksters, quacksalvers, and nostrum men.

Cheney, for example, was the proprietor of Hall’s Catarrh Cure, and would eventually become the president the Association.

That day, Cheney stood up to show off a special advertising contract he had been using. It contained what was later called the “Magic Red Clause.” This helped Cheney fight government interference and win, over and over again.
​
It worked like this:

Like all patent medicine men, Cheney advertised heavily in local newspapers.

So he started putting a clause in his advertising contracts in big red letters. “This contract shall become VOID in case of HOSTILE LEGISLATIVE CHANGE.”

And one time, when a local legislator threatened Cheney with an unfavorable new law, Cheney simply wrote 40 newspapers, his advertising partners.

“Look at that big red clause in our contract,” Cheney wrote. “If this new law passes, I’m afraid our contract will be void and we must stop doing business together.”

Sure enough, by the next week, all 40 newspapers had published articles critical of the new law, and Mr. Legislator had to pack it up, tail between his legs.

My point is straightforward. Have the media in your back pocket and sic them on your enemies whenever you feel threatened.

And if you don’t yet have the media in your back pocket, then spend large amounts on advertising until you do.

My point might be straightforward. But perhaps you find it impractical.

Perhaps you have neither power nor money to get others to fight your battles for you.

The point still stands.

It might not be obvious how it stands. So I’ll tell you another story, equally momentous, in my email tomorrow. And I hope all things will soon be clear, like a bottle of Liquozone.

A quick and cheap boost in status and authority

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Today, I read about a guy who writes a Substack newsletter about parenting, and it’s made him a celebrity throughout his neighborhood.

Well, it wasn’t really the newsletter.

Rather, it was a specific fact about his own parenting success, which he revealed inside the newsletter. This one fact spread like wildfire among his neighbors, and soon everyone knew him, or at least wanted to. For example, when the guy got his hair cut last week, the following conversation went down:

“Hey, I know you, don’t I?”

“What? How’s that?”

“You’re the guy who has two sons at Harvard.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”​​

Status. All of us are aware of it. And the most pure of us all quest after it like Galahad after the Holy Grail.

I’m not saying anything new here. But here’s an unrelated idea, which might be new to you, and which can help you if you quest after status:

Don’t give too much proof. Argumentation and proof are sure ways to put a ceiling on how authoritative you seem and how much status you have.

“This guy sounds like a leader… but why does he have to buttress his claims with evidence and explain everything in so much detail? Something’s off.”

So cut down on the proof and avoid ruining or hampering your status.

And as with all things authority, things go in both directions. In other words, you can also get a quick and cheap boost in status simply by refusing to make an adequate argument for the claims you’re making.

You might think I’ll just leave that claim hanging as a way of demonstrating my point.

Not so.

For one thing, I’m actively avoiding pursuing status. I have other ideas of how I want to get into people’s heads.

For another thing, none of what I told you is really my idea. ​​I don’t mind telling you I heard it all from Rich Schefren.

​​So if you want proof for what I just told you, you should haunt Rich, and see if maybe he slips up into explaining why he believes all the stuff I just told you. If you don’t know Rich, you can get to know him here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKSG9Ug9FKrFCYxSlTRwGiA

Caesar’s gruesome message that only few will want to hear

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In 75 BC, a group of pirates in the Aegean sea captured a 25-year-old Roman noble named Julius Caesar.

Caesar was neither scared nor impressed. When the pirates demanded 20 talents of silver for his release, Caesar put his hands on his hips and spat on the ground.

“Morons!” he said. “Don’t you know who you’re dealing with? Ask for at least 50 talents!”

The pirates should have taken heed at this point. Instead, they got greedy. They took up the 50 talent offer.

Caesar’s men left for a few weeks to collect the silver.

Meanwhile, Caesar settled in among the pirates. Not really as their captive. More as their demanding, moody leader.

He gambled with the pirates. He shushed them when he wanted to take a nap. He read his poetry to them and mocked them as illiterates when they weren’t adequately impressed.

Oh, and every so often, he also threatened to crucify them.

“Tee-hee,” sniggered his new pirate friends. “Sure, JC. You will ‘crucify’ us!”

After 38 days, the ransom arrived. 50 talents of silver, as promised.

The pirates released Caesar. Bad move.

The newly free Caesar went to the next island over, a place where he had no authority or influence. And he raised a small army.

He sailed after the pirates. He captured them. And as he said he would, he had them crucified. For leniency, he first had their throats cut.

When I was a kid — I guess like most boys — I imagined I would grow up into a kind of Caesar.

Fearless, moody, throwing down impossible threats that aroused mockery at first but that I then turned into frightening reality, against all odds.

Well, it didn’t turn out that way.

I’ve found I’m very unable to mold the world to my conscious will. Hell, like I wrote yesterday, I’ve never even niched down with any success.

I was a “cold email copywriter” for a bit during my first year freelancing… then an “alternative health email copywriter” for a while… and a “crypto conversion copywriter” for another… and all I really got to show for it was a bunch of wasted time and missed opportunities.

I’m not telling you not to specialize. I’m not telling you to set goals or to strive towards them.

All I really want to say is if you read stories like the one above, and then set your mind to glory… only to watch with horror as your own results fail to match up with that of Caesar… well, there is still hope.

Caesar once wrote it’s “easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”

That’s a little too gruesome to use as a motivational message at the end of a daily email.

But it does speak a fundamental human truth, one you can profit from. Because our brains love to think in instances of flashy glory.

But that’s not how the world works. All I’m saying is this:

We’re all too obsessed with modeling what successful people do today that they are successful. Those are the instances of flashy glory.

There might be more value in modelling how these people got successful in the first place. But let me stop here — before I ruin a perfectly good and gory email with some mushy inspirational stuff. I believe you can draw your own conclusions if you like. And if you want more gory, maybe inspirational stuff, sign up here.

Wanted: Specialist digital marketers (risque niche)

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Amberly Rothfield ended up homeless at age 18. So she found a job working a phone sex line.

Phone sex paid $15 an hour, three times the minimum wage in Texas at the time.

Still, it didn’t take much math to realize her employers were alienating 95% of her breathy labor into profits for themselves.

But Rothfield is entrepreneurial. She found an online platform that catered to phone sex freelancers.

She set up a profile, and by working on her SEO and thumbnails and specializing as a female dominatrix (“calling guys losers, cuckolding, and blackmail fantasies”), she became the top account on the site.

She was now making between $600 and $900 a day.

But all that was still nothing compared to what was to come.

Because in 2016, OnlyFans launched. It spread like wildfire. Within just a few years, an estimated 10.2 billion women created accounts on the site.

But Rothfield had something better in mind.

She was already a digital sex success. And she realized she could use her experience to help other women get better exposure for their breasts. So she became an OnlyFans marketing consultant.

Result?

Today, Rothfield is booked solid for months in advance, giving advice on topics like positioning, pricing, and sales funnels.

Unsexy? Yes. But she makes about a half million dollars a year.

Take a moment. Let the astronomical significance of that settle in.

Because how many digital marketing consultants are out there? More than the stars in the sky.

And how many of those myriad consultants are booked months in advance and make a half million dollars a year? About as few as the stars you can see above New York City on a typical night.

So what’s the conclusion?

Well, I guess there are many lessons you could draw from the story of Amberly Rothstein.

One possible lesson is the value of specialization.

And if you’ve been itching to find a shortcut to success and specialization seems appealing, then you’ll be glad to know that as I’ve been writing this email, another 100 million OnlyFans accounts have been created, and they all could use some marketing and copywriting help.

Maybe you’re wondering if I’ll also be jumping on this OnlyFans opportunity and creating competition for you.

The answer is no. Not because I have any particular problem with the niche. Or because I am particularly committed to some other niche.

Rather, it’s because the few times I tried consciously specializing during my copywriting career, it all came to naught. And personally, I feel I’ve learned my lesson. If you’re curious about that, then baby, ooooh, we can talk all about that tomorrow… yeah… at just $4.95/minute.

Just kidding. It will be free. But really tomorrow. Sign up here if you don’t want to miss my sexy call.

An easy way to produce interesting content without being creative or original

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I’m wrapping up a week dominated by high fever and much cat napping, which means one thing:

My mind is empty and not in good shape to write my daily email.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” I thought to myself, “if there were some easy way to create content that doesn’t require coming up with a new email idea?”

​​Of course, I respect your time, dear reader, so whatever this easy way is, the result would still have to be interesting and valuable.

So there I was, burning feverishly, when almost by accident, I remembered a blog post by Colin Theriot.

You might know Colin as the creator of the popular Cult of Copy Facebook group. ​​​What you might not know is that Colin regularly publishes articles on his site, and they are often interesting and motivational.

Well, a while back, Colin wrote something that was perfect for me.

It’s a way of producing content that doesn’t require you to say anything new or original, but still builds a good relationship with your audience, and gives them value, too. In fact, it’s probably the easiest way to create content. And yet, some big name influencers out there have created giant brands by doing this one thing alone.

Colin’s post explains it nicely and simply. I think it’s worth looking at. If you want to give it a peek, here’s the link:

https://cultofcopy.com/creation-and-innovation-are-not-the-only-way-to-provide-value/

How to win an argument by not really trying

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About 20 years ago, when I first read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, I came across a clever aphorism.

“You cannot win an argument,” wrote Carnegie.

That’s stuck with me ever since, even though it goes against my argumentative nature. The fact is, I like to debate and argue and show people how I’m right and how they aren’t.

Except, like Carnegie says, you cannot really win. You cannot argue people over to your way of thinking. And even if you do get them to admit that you’re right and they’re wrong, you’ve gained nothing except their hatred.

So most of the time, when I find I’m about to let the debating crow out of its cage, I bite my tongue and I stuff the ugly black bird back where it belongs. I smile. I nod. And I think to myself, “Boy, how wrong you are. But you won’t hear it from me.”

This is an improvement over losing friends and alienating people. But it’s hardly a creative and productive way to deal with new ideas.

There’s gotta be something better, right?

Of course. It’s just that I wasn’t clever enough to think of it myself. But I came across this better way to win arguments in an interview with billionaire investor Howard Marks.

Marks was asked what early advice helped him become so successful. He said there wasn’t any investing advice that did it.

Instead, it was just an attitude, and he’s not sure where he picked it up. He illustrated it by describing how he deals with his longtime business partner:

“Each of us is open to the other’s ideas. When we have an intellectual discussion, neither of us puts a great emphasis on winning. We want to get to the right answer. We have enormous respect for each other, which I think is the key. When he says something, a position different from mine, my first reaction is not, ‘How can I diffuse that? How can I beat that? How can I prove he’s wrong?’ My first reaction is to say, ‘Hey, what can I get from that? What can I take away? Is he right? Maybe he’s right and I was wrong.'”

“Yeah, yeah,” I hear you saying. “Enough with the high-sounding billionaire lessons. Why don’t you get off your preachy pony and give me some ideas for how I could money? Like today?”

Well I never… the ingratitude!

Honestly, this intellectual humility thing was my idea for you to make money. But you are right. It might take some time to bear fruit.

If you want to make money today, then I don’t have much advice to give you. Well, none except what I wrote up a few years ago and put inside my Upwork book.

“Upwork!” you now say. “I’ve tried it! It doesn’t work. It’s a cesspool.”

You may be completely right. I certainly won’t argue with you.

But if you want to see what I have to say about success on Upwork, and what you might be able to take away from it and maybe even make money from, today, then here is my Upwork book, still available for some uncertain time on Amazon:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork

The copywriting commandment top copywriters all violate

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“You’re on ten on your guitar… where can you go from there? Where?”

You probably know what I’m talking about. It’s a famous historical record:

Documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi is interviewing rock guitarist Nigel Tufnel.

Nigel is showing off his equipment room. His most prized guitars, and his special amplifier. It doesn’t go up to 10, like most amplifiers. It goes up to 11. One louder than 10.

“Why don’t you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number,” Marty asks, “and make that a little louder?”

Nigel stares at his prized up-to-11 amp. The only thing moving is his jaw as he works on his chewing gum. The cigarette in his hand is slowly burning down.

“These go to 11,” he finally says.

Like I said, you probably know this scene, or at least the catch phrase, “These go to 11.” It first appeared in 1984’s mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, and become an undying cultural meme.

One thing I did not know until today is that all the dialogue in This is Spinal Tap was improvised. This includes the “up to 11 line” above.

But it makes sense. Because one thing I did know, even before today, is that Christopher Guest is one of the most talented and naturally funny actors in all of entertainmentdom.

Guest acted, sang, and played guitar as Nigel Tufnel in This Is Spinal Tap. He also directed and wrote Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman. He even played the soft-spoken but sadistic Count Rugen in The Princess Bride.

But all of that is nothing. Not compared to how Christopher Guest sounds in real life. Because the man is naturally funny.

For example, he was interviewed on Charlie Rose some 15 years ago.

He was sparkling and subtle in almost every second of the live interview.

Charlie Rose: You go back to the same actors frequently?
Christopher Guest: I have to. [pause] It’s a tax thing.​​​

That’s rare.

Because most comedians, even the ones I love the best, are a big disappointment when they have to improvise.

They don’t have the same delivery.

They don’t have good punchlines.

They are simply not very funny, especially when compared to their stage or movie persona.

And this is yet another connection between the world of comedy and the world of sales copywriting. Because one of the biggest and most sacred sales copy commandments is:

“Write like you talk!”

Sure, this is good advice for people who are terrified of writing.

Or for those who are used to writing in a nonsense, corporate tone (“Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion…”)

But “write like you talk” is not something that top copywriters actually do themselves.

Don’t believe me?

Go on YouTube and find some video of Gary Halbert speaking. See how slow and ponderous the man was. It’s nothing like the crisp, funny, energetic writing in his newsletter.

And that’s not a coincidence.

Top copywriters make their copy more than “just how they talk.”

I won’t give away the secrets of the trade here.

Suffice to say that most copywriters, just like most comedians, simply aren’t that persuasive or funny in real life.

We’re not all Christopher Guest, unfortunately.

Fortunately, there is a simple fix. It’s called hard work and unrelenting toil.

In other words, if you’re not naturally an incredible storyteller or an irresistible salesman, you can still write top-level copy. Something that reads well… even though it’s not true to life. In the words of Christopher Guest himself:

“In real life, people fumble their words. They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don’t listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that because it doesn’t look good on the page.”

If you’d like to read more about the connections between copywriting and comedy, check out my daily newsletter. It’s a topic I write about on occasion. You can sign up here.

Out of office and Carlton’s self-programming trick

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I finished up this morning’s Zoom call and then I tiptoed back to bed, snuck in, and started shivering under three layers of blankets.

There were two things I wanted to get done today. The Zoom call was one. And I managed to get it done, in spite of being sick with some unidentified illness.

I’m telling you this in case you’ve written me in the past few days and haven’t gotten a response. It’s because I’ve pared down what I’m doing to the absolute essentials.

I also wanted to share a little psychological hack I learned from John Carlton. Carlton writes:

Gary Halbert used to buy himself watches, or cameras, or even boats (preferably used wooden craft requiring thousands in maintenance, but that’s another story) whenever he finished a big gig. As a reward for a job well done.

I’ve always rewarded myself with free time (as in taking the phone off the hook for an entire week, or splitting to hang with friends).

It doesn’t matter what, precisely, the reward is (as long as it’s meaningful to you)… but the ACT of rewarding yourself fires up the motivation part of your unconscious brain.

You might think it’s silly to connect Carlton’s watches-and-sailboats advice to my situation today.

So be it.

But I don’t think I could have pulled myself together for the call had I scheduled more work for myself right after, and had I not promised myself that shivery, four-hour nap as a reward.

But anyways. Here’s an email-writing tip. Wrap up what you’ve been talking about by giving your reader a takeaway he can use today. So here it is, in Carlton’s words:

Fastest path to burnout is to finish a grueling gig, clear the desk, and then start the next grueling gig.

What the hell are you thinking, you’re Superman?

Decompress, go shop for a goodie, teach your brain to associate end-of-job with fun rewards.

Main key: The reward cannot be something you’d buy or do anyway. It has to be pure excessive nonsense (like Halbert’s 14th watch or 3rd boat) that delights your Inner Kid.

Last point:

If you’d like to read me repurposing and curating famous copywriters good ideas, consider signing up to my email newsletter.

Do you ignore emails with the word “secret” in the subject line?

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Dear probationer,

It happened to a direct response entrepreneur whose name has become synonymous with success, power, and wealth.

Early in his career, he had to write an important sales letter. But he was completely blocked for a good hook.

In a last minute act of desperation, he drove down to the Library of Congress.

There he managed to track down a copy of an ancient, highly successful sales letter he had heard about years earlier. And he adapted the hook for his own letter.

Result? His letter tripled response over the control, and stayed unbeatable for over five years…

And the point of my story is this. There is a lot of value in old sales letters if you start to dig around in them.

I like to dig around in old sales letters. And today, I want to share a complimentary copy of one such letter with you.

But before I do that, I’d like to ask permission to see if you’ll get anything out of the letter that I share. To find out what kind of marketer or copywriter you are. To get some idea whether clicking on the link below will be something you enjoy or not.

And so right in this email, you’ll find a short psychological quiz. Answer the questions truthfully, and then I’ll give you an interpretation based on your results. Ready? Here goes:

1. Have you read John Caples’s Tested Advertising Methods (any edition)?

2. Have you watched two or more comedy specials in the last year?

3. Do you check your spam folder often and even read emails that clearly are spam?

4. Do you have a place in your home or office where you save classic ads you’ve hand copied?

5. Do you harbor private doubts about the marketing mantra, “If they pay, they pay attention?”

6. Do you ever prefer reading transcripts of podcasts or videos to actually watching or listening?

Interpretation: generally, the more questions you answered with “yes,” the more value you will get from seeing the sales letter at the link below.

What I’ve learned is that you’re somewhat curious (you check your spam folder). You’re also systematic about getting better at copywriting (hand copying ads and even saving the result).

You value surprise (watching multiple comedy specials). You’re also a reader (preferring transcripts on occasion). You value deep, proven information, even if it’s not trendy (the Caples book).

In short, you are a person who values insight and who is highly dedicated to getting better at your craft. Moreover, the fact that you’ve allowed yourself to be tested shows a coachable, adaptable personality.

My test also shows you value information for its own sake (the “if they pay…” mantra). And that’s why you are likely to value what you will find at the link below.

It’s a short sales letter — only 4 pages. But it illustrates very powerful techniques of influence. Techniques which will only become more relevant in the coming years.

“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt,” said Shakespeare’s Lucio circa 1604. Oh Lucio, that thou wert alive now and could attempt to click the link below. What insights! What involvement devices! What deep psychology!

https://bejakovic.com/psychology