Free welcome sequence for small businesses

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I recently met Liz Wilcox, and I’m gonna spend the rest of this email selling her to you.

Liz is fond of wearing large glasses, where the frame is of different colors for the left and the right eye.

She was once a contestant on the TV show Survivor (Survivor 46).

Today, Liz runs a paid membership for small business owners who want to do something with email marketing, but don’t really know what to to do.

Inside her paid membership, Liz teaches email marketing, has expert speakers come in and teach also (I will be speaking in May), plus, as the the main selling point, she gives members weekly templates and swipes for their business’s email newsletter, so they can get it out in minutes instead of hours or never.

Like I said, Liz’s membership is for business owners who have heard of the power of email marketing, but don’t really wanna write themselves… don’t wanna hire a copywriter either… don’t wanna entrust this to a VA… and yet want to get the benefit of regular communication with their prospects and clients and customers.

So how much would you pay for such an incredible and spectacular email marketing membership, which slices, and dices, and makes julienne fries?

$999/month?

NO!

$99/month??

NO!!!

$19/month???

NO! NO! NO!

Liz charges 9 whole bucks per month for her email marketing membership. And get this. She has… 4,000 members of her $9/month membership. At those numbers, she has the margin to make sure she can provide and deliver great templates, great trainings, and great everything.

But I’m not here to sell you on Liz’s membership. Not really, not yet at least.

All I really wanna do is just point you to Liz’s “Swipe Swipe Baby” lead magnet. It’s an entire templatized welcome sequence, plus three weekly newsletters, which you can plug into your business right now if you want.

When I initially talked to Liz, I asked her what lead magnet of hers I should send folks to.

She said, “I only have one. It’s six years old, and I’ll never create a new one, because it just works.”

And why not? Liz’s lead magnet is in fact the perfect magnet for prospective leads for $9/month membership.

So if you want Liz’s free welcome sequence templates… if you wanna know more about Liz (lots of Vanilla Ice references on her site)… or if you’ve been intrigued by her $9/month membership… here’s the front door, fully free to walk through:

https://bejakovic.com/lizwilcox

PSA: Lock your laptop

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I’ve just came home from the Drassanes, Barcelona’s 13th-century-Gothic-shipyard-turned-maritime-museum.

I go there to work sometimes instead of sitting at home. The museum cafe attracts idle foreigners with laptops, like me, because it’s huge, old, beautiful, quiet, and free.

Until a few days ago, I was super casual with my stuff when working at the Drassanes. I’d leave my laptop, screen open, no password set, as I went to investigate the bathroom around the corner from the cafe.

I mean, it’s a museum, right? And just a bunch of other digital nomads sitting there, deep in their own worlds. Who’s gonna take my stuff?

Probably nobody.

Probably.

Even so, I’ve recently become paranoid.

My paranoia set in after I read Kieran Drew’s latest email, about the ordeal which followed after Kieran’s laptop and phone were stolen a few weeks ago, in Buenos Aires, where Kieran has been living lately (he is English).

As a result of the theft, Kieran has had his personal accounts hijacked, his money taken from his bank, and his half-finished book, which was only saved locally to his laptop, disappear in smoke.

Plus there was and is just a bunch of stress and fear… plus endless hours on the phone trying to recover what could be recovered… plus, I imagine, a feeling like you’ve been lobotomized, since all the stuff you rely on being there is simply not.

So yeah.

I finally put a password on my laptop. I’ve been keeping an eye on all those shifty nomads who pretend to work around me. And I’ll start being a little more diligent about backing things up, and security in general. In my paranoid state, I’m advising you to do the same.

And now, to the business end of this email:

Kieran, as you might know, is a guy who writes online.

Unlike many others who write online, Kieran makes a lot of money from it, over $1.4 million over the past four years.

Pretty magically, he does it by writing an email only once a week, and only about stuff that interests him (or that befalls him, like the recent theft).

Kieran has now put together a new guide about how to write online, about what you like, and make a living at it, even a very good living.

Spoiler alert:

Kieran’s guide is not filled with the newest and hottest tactical info. If you’ve seen it all before, and if you can only get aroused by the latest gimmick, you won’t find it in Kieran’s guide, or, for that matter, in Kieran’s other content.

What you will find is exactly what Kieran has done and found to work over the years, and the principled 4-step process he now teaches to others whom he has helped to succeed as well. If you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/writeonline

Final call for… my unnamed “get you a $1k+ offer” level-up

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Final call?

For ever? For ever ever?

I don’t know. Let’s see. It’s definitely the final call for this first cohort, which will kick off next Tuesday, February 3.

In case you have successfully managed to avoid all my emails over the past few days:

I’m offering to help you create and sell a 1k+ offer, and to do it over the next few weeks.

The way to do it is to package up your knowledge and help, not as “coaching,” which so many people try offering, without success…

… but as the guaranteed solution to ONE core problem that people on your list have.

This is good for the people you sell to, and it’s good for you too.

For them, it:

* Solves a legit and nagging problem

* Gets them a result quickly

* Is an easier decision than the vague, seemingly “forever” investment of coaching

For you, it:

* Makes you feel good about working with people you can help and get results for

* Gets you paid

* Gets you customers who have had a great experience with you, and who will likely want to pay you again in the future to solve their next problem

For this first cohort, I’m asking that you have an email list that you write to regularly, with ~500 people opening your emails whenever you send.

If you have that, and if you like the idea of having an offer you can sell for $1k+, 3-5 times a month, then hit reply and tell me so, and I’ll be in touch.

Do you make these mistakes in guarantees?

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A few days ago, inside my Daily Email House community, I invited people to share:

1. “The most you’ve ever spent on a single book, course, or coaching that got you EQUIVALENT OR GREATER value”

2. “The most you’ve ever spent on a single book, course, or coaching that got you ZERO value”

The responses were interesting and revealing. (It might be worth asking your own audience, either via email or in your community, to share the same.)

One of the responses was from a House member whose worst high-ticket purchase was a £1300 program to help build an online fitness business.

Why was this the worst?

Says the House member:

“2 weeks in, I realised this was not what I wanted to do and literally just quit. Didn’t even bother trying to get my money back because it was 100% my fault.”

This speaks to my experience with money-back guarantees.

I personally never get reassured when I see an offer with a money-back guarantee because I know will most likely never claim it, even if I never open up the product… or if I open it and find it disappointing… or if I simply decide it’s not for me.

And vice versa.

I don’t offer money-back guarantees on the stuff I sell. But I have heard-tell that people who are reassured by money-back guarantees tend, more than the mean, to make for bad long-term customers.

My point today is that risk reversal can be done differently, without promising money back.

It can be done in a way that reassures good prospects, and doesn’t reassure or invite bad prospects.

For example, there’s the guarantee I made during the “I endorse you” auction I ran last month. The guarantee there was to keep working with and promoting the winner (The Amazing Nick Bandy) until I’ve paid back the entire winning bid.

(So far, I’ve been working behind the scenes with Nick, and setting the stage for him to make his $31k, and then some, back.)

As a second example, there is what I’m doing now with the “Get you a $1k+ offer” offer I have been talking about for the past week. As a reminder, this offer is for you if:

– You have tried offering coaching in the past, or are trying to offer it now, without much success, and…

– You have a small but dedicated list of readers, meaning 500 or more folks who open your emails whenever you send one.

If that’s you, then what I’m offering is to help you repackage “coaching” into a simple 1k+ offer that actually sells for you, and to keep helping you until you’ve sold $10k of your new offer.

Sounds attractive? Then hit reply and let me know.

If I’m actually suited to help you get to where you wanna go, I’ll share the full details of this offer… including how I’m taking the risk from your shoulders and putting it onto mine, and how I’m tying my success to your success.

Why I keep putting “coaching” in quotes

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Yesterday, a long-time reader and customer wrote in, with confusion about my current offer to help you turn “coaching” into a simple $1k+ offer:

===

I guess I don’t know why “coaching” is in quotes. Is this to sell coaching? Part-time coaching? There is something I’m missing or don’t understand about the offer.

===

It takes a big man to admit he has been making a mistake in his emails for a week or more, and to apologize for failing his readers.

Fortunately, I am not a big man, so you don’t have to listen to me apologize or admit to anything.

Instead, I can tell you I’ve been reading a book about marketing (I know, what’s new).

Says the book, there’s gold in what your marketplace tells you, not directly when you ask, or in formal situations like when they decide to sit down and write you a testimonial. Instead, there’s gold in unguarded moments, in casual comments, in the tone in which they write in and ask questions or reply to your emails.

In short, you gotta read between the lines.

Looking at my reader’s comment above, my reading between the lines is of frustration.

My further reading (ok, guessing) is that this frustration is due to being both intrigued by my offer and being unable to make a yes or no decision on it.

And getting still further in between the lines, I’m fully guessing this inability to decide is because my reader cannot tell if this offer I’ve been talking about is intended for him or no.

Am I right in my reading between the lines?

I have no idea. But let me try to be explicit about who this offer is for and who it’s not for, and see the result.

If:

– You have tried offering coaching in the past, or are trying to offer it now, without much success, and

– You have a small but dedicated list of readers, meaning 500 or more folks who open your emails whenever you send one…

… then what I’m offering right now is for you. My offer is to help you repackage “coaching” into a simple 1k+ offer that actually sells, and to keep helping you until you’ve sold $10k of your new offer.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a list, or you never write them, or you have no interest in working with any of the folks on your list directly and 1-1, then I’ll be useless to you, at least in my current incarnation.

As for why “coaching” is in quotes… from that same book I’m reading:

===

Want to know what separates the experts who have people begging to buy from the ones who struggle to make sales?

It’s not their expertise.

It’s not their marketing.

It’s not even their solutions.

It’s knowing exactly how to package what they know into the perfect next step.

===

That’s why I keep putting “coaching” in quotes. Because “coaching” stands for a specific way to package up and publicly present what you know.

It’s not the only way.

If offering “coaching” hasn’t been working for you, I’m offering you a new way. A way to package up what you know into the perfect next step for people in your audience, one that you can realistically and congruently charge $1k+ for, and that the right people will readily say yes to.

If that’s something you are interested in, then hit reply, and write me some lines that I can read between.

$13k of existing, hidden demand

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Today, first I got a self-serving testimonial to put in front of you, and then I will tell you something possibly illuminating, which that testimonial is proof of.

Over the past couple months, I’ve been helping several folks repackage their non-selling “coaching” into a sexy, specific, sellable $1k+ offer.

One person I’ve been helping is “Rebelpreneur” Gasper Crepinsek.

I started worked with Gasper on this back in mid-December. Over the following few weeks, Gasper’s offer gradually came together, and he put it in front of his audience. He DM’ed me last week with an update of results so far:

===

On a separate note:

We sold $13K+ with the first launch of this new offer. Not all cash collected (some split into payment plan).

Which is a great result by itself. And feel free to use it in your marketing.

===

Now as promised, here’s the possibly illuminating thing that Gasper’s testimonial is proof of:

I was privy to Gasper’s launch emails. He sent out 3-4 emails to his list, basically telling people the outcome of his $1k+ offer, with various levels of detail of how that outcome will be reached, from “no detail” to “quite a bit of detail.”

The key being, Gasper was not “creating demand” through subtle and patient marketing.

Rather, he was simply tapping into existing demand, by basically asking people if they want what he has to sell.

In his case, that existing demand turned out to be worth $13k this month, and will almost certainly be worth more $k next month, when he reopens his offer.

The same is very likely true of you.

If you have a small but dedicated audience, you have untapped demand on there.

There are people on your list right now who are open to buying — or are even actively looking to buy — from somebody who can help them solve their problems.

Those people will buy from somebody. Maybe not today. Maybe next week, or next month. But that demand will go somewhere.

Point being:

If you put together a sexy offer, that somebody can be you.

As I’ve done with Gasper, I’ll be working with a few more people in February to help them repackage “coaching” into a $1k+ offer.

Would you like to use your knowledge and skill to help people in your audience get results?

Would you like to have a $1k+ offer, which you can sell 3-5 times a month, and which you can deliver in 6 or fewer hours to start, and in less and less time with each subsequent sale?

Would you like my help in getting there?

If you would, hit reply, and let’s see if I’m a good fit to get you results.

Justifying your existence

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Over the past couple months, I’ve been invited to join, for free, a mastermind that normally costs $50k/year.

The mastermind meets weekly on Thursdays.

I have been dutifully attending every week… until this last Thursday.

I didn’t really have anything new to crow about. I had made no progress on what I was working on the Thursday prior. I felt reluctant to go on the call and maybe have to admit that.

So I told myself I’m tired and I deserve a break, and I simply skipped the mastermind call, even though it’s a warm & welcoming environment, even though it’s filled with big-time marketers, and even though I have learned crazy things each time had I attended, and it seemed crazy to miss the opportunity to learn more.

I know this same feeling from when I had hired A-lister Dan Ferrari as a copywriting coach back in 2019-2020.

I felt pressure each week to come and show some sort of progress. It didn’t really impact what I did — I was doing my work already, and an additional weekly deadline couldn’t change that — but it definitely created extra stress for days in advance of each week’s call.

The weird thing is, I know this same feeling from the other side too.

I have in the past offered 1-1 coaching to people and charging them multiple thousands of dollars per month.

I ended up working with a few folks who already had successful email-based businesses. They were convinced that better email copy would help their business grow even more. They hired me to critique their emails regularly.

After two weeks of this, it inevitably came to pass that I had pointed out any technical issues with their emails, and they had plugged up these few copywriting holes.

But my coaching clients had hired me, liked me, and wanted ongoing feedback from me, or so I assumed. And so we kept getting on weekly hour-long calls, where I kept looking over their really very good emails, because I felt I had to justify my existence, because they had paid me.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

I don’t do copy critiques any more, and I don’t get on weekly coaching calls with people just because they paid me.

You don’t have to promise weekly 1-hour calls either… or offer 24/7 access to you over WhatsApp… or give away a year of your life to anybody just because you’re out of better ideas for what to offer.

You don’t have to justify your existence, or crack the whip to “motivate” people who are already stressed that they are not doing enough.

You can go from telling yourself you are good at what you do and you like the work, and that money is secondary… to telling yourself that you help motivated and resourceful people in your audience reach an outcome they want, and that you get paid accordingly.

Over the past couple weeks, I have been talking indirectly about repackaging your “coaching,” which you might be struggling to sell, into a $1k+ offer which is both easier to sell and deliver.

It’s time to get more direct.

Would you like to use your knowledge and skill to help people in your audience get results?

Would you like to have a $1k+ offer, which you can sell 3-5 times a month, and which you can deliver in 6 or fewer hours to start, and in less and less time with each subsequent sale?

Would you like my help in getting there?

If you would, hit reply. No pressure, and no commitment. We can simply see if it makes sense to work together, and if it does, you can make your decision then.

How to write a really great hook

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A hook, as you prolly know, is how you pull people into your marketing message. It’s the core sexy idea in the headline of your ad, or the lead of your sales letter, or the top half of your email.

A few famous hooks:

* “The lazy man’s way” (to riches, to comb your hair)

* “Do you make these mistakes” (in English, in your underpants)

* A picture of a dapper man with an eyepatch [to sell dress shirts, or a parrot]

So how do you write a really great hook?

I don’t know. I wish I did. Consider the following:

For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking, on and off, about creating a $1k+ offer that sells 3-5 times a month.

At some point, I created a 1-page overview of how I have already guided a few people to that outcome, and I started offering that to people on my list, if they reply to say they want it.

Here are the email hooks I’ve used, and the number of people who responded to ask for the 1-pager:

Jan 10. Hook: “Where to buy crack.” Responses: 26.

Jan 11. Hook: “Taking credit for your rock star clients’ results.” Responses: 14.

I then spent some time talking about the promise of a $1k+ offer, without directly offering the 1-pager. I eventually offered the 1-pager again and…

Jan 22. Hook: “You’re probably creating too many products.” Responses: 7.

7 replies for a free and short and valuable PDF? At this point, I figure I’ve pretty much tapped out demand. I still try one more time and…

Jan 23, yesterday. Hook: “Really great price on coaching.” Responses 39, including my own father, an economist, who wrote, “Dear John i really need this paper for the subject I teach on the prices. Kind regards”

In case you’re as bad with numbers as I am, my point is that the responses I got, while making the same offer to my list, day after day, with different hooks, went like this:

Big, small, tiny, BIGGEST.

That’s contrary to all intuition, but that’s the power of a really great hook.

And if I knew how to write one regularly, I would write one regularly.

But my best advice for how to write a really great hook is to write a bunch of hooks, to serve them up to your market, and to let the market surprise you by which ones they love and which ones they treat like blood pudding.

If you want my help coming up with hooks for your daily emails — some good, some meh, some AMAZING — I’ve got a service just for that. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Really great price on coaching

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I talked to a dude recently who has made a new coaching offer to his list, with 1-1 access to him, in various formats, for a full year, at a really great price.

Nobody bought.

Now here’s a marketing and psychology truth that took me embarrassingly long to learn:

If you offer people a really great price on something they don’t want to buy, the really great price won’t make them want to buy it either.

That’s why discounting fails to drive sales in so many situations. Discounting only works when people want the thing being sold, and they value it at the full price you claim for it.

But back to coaching.

As I’ve been croaking about for a few weeks now, nobody really wants “coaching.”

Yes, some people manage to sell “coaching” because they have so much status, authority, and relationship with their audience. In those situations, their coaching clients are effectively buying the coach, and the relationship with that coach, rather than the coaching itself.

That’s definitely a nice position to be in.

But what if you don’t have that level of status, authority, and relationship with your audience yet?

The fix is simple, and can be executed quickly. It’s to sell people something they actually want to buy, and which they value at the price you ask for it.

This is how you go from trying and failing to sell “coaching,” which people don’t want even at a really great price… to having a $1k+ offer, which you can make 3-5 sales of each month, and which is both easier to sell and deliver than “coaching.”

Maybe you’re interested in how to implement this fix, which I claim is “simple, and can be executed quickly.”

I’ve prepared a 1-page overview of how to do it, a process I’ve guided a few people through already.

I’m begrudgingly willing to share this 1-page overview with you.

If you like what you read, you’ll have the opportunity to work with me directly in February, to implement this for yourself and your own list.

Or of course, you can just run with it yourself.

In case you’re interested in the 1-page overview, hit reply, tell me you want it, and I’ll get it to you.

You’re probably creating too many products

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I’m reading a book by a successful direct marketer. A few nights ago ago, I came across the following provocative statement:

“Creating too many products is one of the biggest mistakes marketers make. Customers become overwhelmed too easily.”

The fix, according to this guy, is to have a few products — three is enough — and to do a thorough job selling them, by changing the hook, the segment you’re targeting, your method of selling. The guy gives an example:

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I ran two campaigns, back-to-back.

The first was a seven-day webinar that talked about a hot new niche that’s taking the Internet marketing community by storm. The day after that promo ended, I launched another promotion, similar to the one I’ll reveal in the next chapter.

In both cases, I was selling the exact same product. Same exact offer and price point. But I used two different hooks and two different strategies (webinar vs. mini group).

The first promotion generated $180k in up-front sales… and… the follow-up promotion generated over $200k.

If I had just promoted the webinar and concluded that I had pulled all the sales out of my list, I would have lost out on $200k.

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been getting people to raise their hand if they’ve tried offering coaching to their list, and if they only heard crickets as a result.

My solution to this cricket cacophony is to repackage and reposition “coaching” into a $1k+ offer to solve a specific problem. Doing this makes both selling and delivery easier.

But here’s the crucial thing, and how this ties into the “too many products” idea above:

If you figure out a solid way to solve a problem for one segment of your audience… chances are excellent that have you just “created” a half dozen successful new offers, which you can sell in the future, with minimal tweaking of the underlying product, just by changing the hook, the segment you’re targeting, or your method of selling.

As one example, the product I have created as the solution to the “coaching crickets” problem is something I will pitch in the future to:

– People who hear crickets when they pitch “consulting”

– People who have a small list and want to monetize it quickly

– List owners (including those with big lists) who are only selling low- and mid-ticket offers, and are frustrated by it

– People who have a cold traffic funnel that is working but which they cannot scale (hello Nick)

– Freelancers who cannot get their audience to take them up on their services

– Freelancers who want income stability

– Community owners who want to monetize their group

– etc.

But… forget I said any of that. At least for now.

Because for now, I am only focused on list owners who pitched “coaching” to their list… and heard crickets as a result.

If that’s you, I have a solution, which I’m happy to share with you in the form of a 1-page overview.

If you like what you read, you’ll also have the opportunity to work with me directly in February, to implement this for yourself and your own list.

In case you’re interested in the 1-page overview, hit reply, tell me you want it, and I’ll get it to you.