Is it Kit or something else

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Two days ago, I got the following message from a puzzled and spam-quarantined reader:

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One crucial detail I noticed with your emails – they always end up in my ‘focused’ inbox in outlook rather than the ‘other’ where all my subscriptions end up. I use mailerlite and even when I’m using my hostinger mailbox to direct email I have heard people saying the reminders for my workshops have ended up in their spam. Is it Kit or your template or something else that makes your email go to inbox and everyone else’s go to spam? Looking forward to hearing from you!

===

I’ve debated long and hard about revealing what I’m about to reveal.

In the end, in the interest of building everlasting goodwill with my audience, I’ve decided to share with you my closely guarded Secret to Perfect Email Deliverability.

No, it’s not my email software.

No, it’s not the template I use.

Instead, my Secret to Perfect Email Deliverability, and the reason why I always land in the most prestigious inboxes…

… is this ugly Times New Roman font, in combination with a column width of precisely 140 characters.

I don’t know why it works. My guess is that when Gmail and Outlook get my emails, and see how ugly they are, they assume I am either the IRS or your high school teacher, and so I consistently make it into the primary or the focused inbox.

Ok. All right. That was… a joke, or maybe a non-joke. In any case, don’t take me seriously. I’m visiting family, it’s a glum situation here, and I’m trying to lighten the mood for myself somehow.

The fact is, I have no idea why my emails (or some of them) land in “focused” or “important” or “primary” inboxes.

Another fact is, I pay precisely zero mind to email deliverability.

My whole mind is instead taken up with writing for and to humans.

I figure if you build a relationship with your readers, many of them will seek you out, whether you land in the “focused” inbox or in spam. And if enough people seek you out, you start showing up in the preferred spots, without doing anything about it.

If that sounds reasonable to you, and if you wanna start writing emails that build trust for you and desire for your offers, while creating curiosity and forming a relationship that keeps your audience reading day after day, you might like my current offer Daily Emails 101.

The deadline for that is tomorrow, Sunday, at 11:59pm PST.

For the full details:

https://bejakovic.com/de101

P.S. Part of Daily Emails 101 is a short report I’ve prepared titled Email Tech Starter Pack. It will tell you the email software I recommend if you’re just getting started, and will tell you about the few one-time steps you will want to take when first setting up an email list.

People are buying

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Two days ago, I launched a new experiment offer called Daily Emails 101.

I’ve been intentionally vague in my emails about what this offer is, what’s inside, and how much it costs. I’ve reserved that for the sales page.

Here in this email, I’ll tell you this:

The sales page is selling, and people are buying. So far, 27.2% of the people who have hit this page have bought Daily Emails 101. Here’s what some of that have written me after they bought. First, from a curious and patern-interrupted reader:

“Whatever you are doing, you got me super curious. I have never seen something like this. Talk about a pattern interrupt. Now I can’t wait for the rest of this story am in 😅“

Second, from a long-time customer who is now flirting with buyer’s remorse:

“It was a tough decision – that’s a lot of money. Sure hope it’s worth it…. Seriously though – I’m stoked. Thanks, John.”

Third, from a copywriter looking to get back to the basics:

“Thanks John! Excited for this offer, I just purchased it… feel like I definitely needed this and need to get back to the basics. Looking forward to implementing this and sharing my results.”

Do I have you intrigued? Would you like to get the full details on Daily Emails 101? Are you strong enough to resist the siren-pull of the order form linked to on the following sales page?

There’s only one way to find out. If you are game:

https://bejakovic.com/de101/

2 email marketing tips

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Here are a couple email marketing tips:

#1. When you run a promo, run a promo

Don’t announce your offer and your deadline, and then, in subsequent emails, promote other offers while the clock for your big promo offer ticks down.

(If your offer is good, and why would you promote it otherwise, you will have people in your audience who will be pissed that you didn’t repeatedly and clearly let them know about it, and now it’s gone.)

#2. Don’t bury the lead or the close of your promo

The start and end of a promo should be super clear and direct. Don’t hide a sexy or important new offer under a clever but irrelevant subject line and a ton of unrelated copy… and don’t pussyfoot when the deadline is nigh.

(Again, you will get audience members who will be pissed that they missed out on the offer because you were too indirect and effectively snuck the offer past them.)

You might think these tips are super obvious.

But I have seen smart people violate these two rules in email promos, to their own detriment, in the last week alone.

Maybe it’s because they don’t know better, or maybe it’s some subtle self-sabotage going on.

In any case, my point is that seemingly obvious stuff is easy to miss (or ignore) when you are promoting your own offers and your own business.

Which brings me to my own new offer, which I announced yesterday with a big bright “Announcing!” subject line.

One part of this new offer is my Price Increase Promo SOP.

This is the SOP document as well as the recording of a presentation I prepared for a small cohort of folks back in April, who were doing a price increase promo with my guidance. Here are the results that Chris Howes, owner of the online music teaching platform Creative Strings Academy, got from applying this Price Increase Promo SOP:

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JB- I’m fucking swimming in sales over here!!!!!

63 sales of the $30 product based on PIP (“get it before it goes up to $67”) Remember I originally sold 74 of them at the launch in December. That’s almost as many as I sold the first time. So thats $1900.

===

Running a price increase promo isn’t hard. Still there are some subtleties and traps to be mindful of. This SOP will help you manage the subtleties and avoid the traps.

And that’s just one part of my current offer, which I’m calling Daily Emails 101. For the full details on Daily Emails 101:

https://bejakovic.com/de101​

P.S. So far, with that one brief announcement email only 12 hours ago from the time I’m writing this, I’ve made 35 sales of my new offer.

I’m telling you this 1) to highlight that being direct about your offer works and 2) to highlight that this offer is something you might want to look at before the deadline, so you don’t end up pissed at me. If you’re curious, the link is above.

Announcing: Daily Emails 101

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What I’ve got for you today:

Daily Emails 101, a walkthrough of the first 101 days of writing daily emails and making money from your email list.

Daily Emails 101 gives you to tools to start writing status-building, desire-creating daily emails, without taking 2 hours per email… to make money from your email list, your expertise, and your personal interests… and to repeatably grow your list with qualified, engaged readers.

The pre-sale for Daily Emails 101 is on right now until this Sunday. If you wanna get it or want more details:

https://bejakovic.com/de101

Why I chose my 2 (or maybe 3) Daily Email House partners

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This last Saturday, I wrote in an email that I’m looking for two “Daily Email House partners.”

My offer was, “Come and write interesting and valuable content inside my Daily Email House Skool community. You can promote my offers, your offers, or anybody else’s offers, and we split the profits from your posts 50/50.”

I’ve since found my two partners, and I’m also talking to a third guy who might be a good fit.

I once applied for a copywriting job I didn’t get.

The guy who posted that job ended up creating a video where he walked through why he hired the guy he ended up hiring, and he sent it to everybody he didn’t hire.

That video has since made me a lot of money, and I was always grateful to that non-client for taking the time to enlighten me.

I want to do something similar today. Here’s why I chose the two partners I chose, and why I am considering the third guy as well:

#1. All three have email lists and all three email daily

(I’ve seen they can write, they know how to run promos, and they are comfortable with selling. Very relevant since my Skool group is all about making money via writing daily emails.)

#2. All three have courses and offers they can legitimately promote to my audience

#3. All three have their own Skool groups that they are actively running

(A Skool group is not a sales page or a sales email, and while copywriting and marketing knowledge is helpful, it is not sufficient or even necessary for creating good group content.)

My point being:

Yes, there is value in partnering with people who have assets.

That said, you are dramatically more likely to be taken seriously as a partner if you are coming at it not as a newbie hoping to be given an opportunity, but as an “equal” bringing an opportunity.

And before you have a chance to throw up your hands in exasperation:

“Equal” is a matter of perception. You don’t need a certificate to turn you into a “business owner,” “investor,” or “chief of a Skool community.” In the words of Dan Kennedy:

“While you’re sitting in the bath, anoint yourself. Sprinkle some water in your head and call yourself a life coach…”

… or, I would add, list owner, or Skool group owner, or offer owner.

You can set up an email list and start emailing it for free if you want.

You can set up a Skool group for $9 a month.

You can launch an offer even if nobody buys, and even if you haven’t created any deliverables yet.

You can experiment, learn, and practice.

Within two months, nobody will be able to tell you were once a beginner, and not so long ago.

My personal preference for where to start, if you are just starting, is with an email list.

Nobody knows how big your email list is. You can write for years even if nobody’s reading (don’t scoff, I did it). Of course, you can also be proactive and energetic, and start making money with your very first email.

One way or the other, it’s a completely different thing to to approach a potential partner when you have your own assets, when you have real-world expertise, when you know you don’t need the partner, even if you’d like to work with them.

If this resonates with you, get started today.

If you wanna do email, all you need is email software. My recommendation, and what I myself am using, is Kit. It’s not perfect, but nothing is, and out of all the email software I’ve tried, it’s the most acceptable. You can try it yourself with a 14-day free trial here:

https://bejakovic.com/kit

P.S. If you sign up for Kit with the link above and actually use it to send out your first email, forward it to me. I have some bonuses with your name on them.

People will pay to watch you shut somebody’s mouth

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I spent last night at a World Cup watch party, watching the final between Spain and Argentina, at the apartment of some screaming Uruguayans.

Turns out, there’s no love lost between Uruguay and Argentina.

“In this apartment,” the host said as the match started, “you can hate Argentina as much as you like.”

Whenever Spain threatened to score, there was loud cheering from my hosts.

Whenever Argentina got the ball, the most common thing I heard from the people around me was “sucio” (dirty), as they shook their heads in disgust.

Spain won the match and the World Cup.

I guess it’s not sporting to kick Argentina now that they’ve lost, but statistically, they did play dirty. 5 yellow cards, 1 red card, and an Argentinian player who started a brawl after the match.

Today, the number one comment I’ve been seeing over and over about this match has been, “Before watching I didn’t even care about who won, but after watching it thank God it was Spain.”

In related news, yesterday I sent an email about a reader I kicked off my list because of a stupid message she wrote me about fellow email marketer Nick Bandy. Like I said yesterday, I don’t want people like her hanging around, and so she’s gone.

Here are some of the replies I got to that email. First, from a proud American:

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Dude. I am so proud of you for this email.

It was surgical.

– Another proud American.

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From an unimpressed Englishman:

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After your auction I briefly joined Nick’s Skool group.

I found him patronising and annoying, and left soon after (unsubbing from his list at the same time).

Would I buy anything of his or get involved in anything he was running? No

TBH I didn’t even know he was American, but I guess that makes sense now.

If the above comments mean I should be removed from your list I will leave it for you to decide.

===

And from intrigued people from all around the world:

“What may be funniest of all (to me, at least) was that my immediate response to that person’s raving against Nick was, ‘I should go check out this Nick guy. He might know what he’s doing!’ 😂“

“Thank you. Subscribed to Nick.”

“Thank you, John! I signed up and joined his Skool group.”

A couple facts:

Yesterday’s email got way more spontaneous response than other emails I’ve sent… probably since the last time I kicked somebody off my list. It also got ZERO unsubscribes, which is uncommon for me.

I wasn’t selling anything in yesterday’s email other than Nick’s optin page. I imagine yesterday’s email was still good for business, long-term because — and here’s the point of today’s email:

People will pay to watch you shut somebody’s mouth.

That’s the inverse of the famous statement by professional wrestling “heel” Gorgeous George, who said, “People will pay to watch somebody shut your mouth.”

Both Gorgeous George’s version and mine are true.

Do with that knowledge what you will.

You can build an entire business out of it, and constantly seek out people you can be in conflict with and prove wrong.

Or, if you find that approach tiring or “sucio,” you can simply use the same underlying fact to justify making a public show when you enforce boundaries, as I did with my email yesterday.

All right, on to business.

Nick Bandy, the email marketer I endorsed and hyped up in yesterday’s email, signed up for my Daily Email Habit service when he launched his own email list last year. After Nick had been emailing for a year, he wrote me to say:

“DEH is the biggest ROI I’ve ever gotten on any course or product I’ve ever purchased. It’s incalculable.”

For more info on this “biggest ROI” investment:

https://bejakovic.com/deh/

Toxic, prejudiced, and “socially and democratic-ly regressive”

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I’ll pay off that subject line in a second. But first, let me tell you about the great Nick Bandy, who I mentioned in my email yesterday.

Last December, Nick won my “I endorse YOU” auction by bidding $31k, and boy was I lucky Nick was the one who won.

Because Nick Bandy is GREAT.

Nick works as a fractional CMO for a massive reverse mortgage company. He collects a lot of money for a little bit of work each week ($12k/month for 15 hours/week). That gives him expertise, credibility, and a unique perspective in the direct marketing industry.

Last year, Nick decided to start a personal email list about marketing and online businesses. Using his fractional CMO skills, Nick built out a great cold traffic funnel that pays HIM to add new buyers to his list every day.

On top of that, Nick has since created great courses he’s been selling to his list, like Ghostbuster Sequence, which I’ve promoted repeatedly and which I myself have used to shockingly good result.

And finally, Nick writes great daily emails. I read them pretty much every day, and I think they are funny, clever, and interesting.

Not everybody agrees with me though.

Yesterday, like I said, I sent out my daily email, not about Nick, but mentioning Nick. I got a reply to that from a long-time reader and customer, who wrote me the following block of text:

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So given Nick Bandy has recently come out in all his socially and democratic-ly regressive Trump (and MAGA aligned) ‘glory’, and given that he is platforming his prejudices and his views in his newsletter now in full stereotype, you might want to mention that in future eulogies. I understand he paid you a lot of money and you’re kind of stuck with him (and who knows you may genuinely like him), but I certainly won’t buy anything more off him. I did buy one product before he out-ed himself but the internet and marketing is toxic enough without financially enabling that. I am still on his list as I like to ‘know thy enemy’ although most emails now go into a file rather than read (said enemy is a tad predictable after a while). I do realise you’re not selling him in this email but the lucrativeness of your skool group, but the epithet was still promoting him. Maybe that cesspit-corner of the world is lucrative enough, I don’t know, but no promise nor amount of money is worth that.

===

Ok. so let me address this reader’s comment step-by-step.

First, Nick is American, and from what I can tell, he is happy and even proud to be American.

He recently hammed up his patriotism around the Fourth of July, including putting a “Proudly made in America 🇺🇸” line into his email signature and calling his promo the “Freelance Freedom Jubilee.”

I personally found it funny and even wrote Nick to say so, but again, I like Nick and his emails.

Second, as for Nick being a Trump and MAGA supporter, that was news to me.

Not that Nick is or is not pro-Trump — I have no idea either way. It’s just not something I’ve ever seen in his emails or heard him talk about anywhere else.

In fact, I just searched for both “MAGA” and “Trump” in Nick’s emails and Skool group. I found four mentions in total. Here’s the most recent and relevant one, and the only one that was anything more than a passing comment or third-party rant:

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I woke up at 4 am for this appointment SOLELY to get the “Trump” passport.

It’s only available in DC, and only available for in-person appointments.

But I put “Trump” in quotation marks because to me, it’s a semiquincentennial passport. It’s not a “Trump” passport unless you think one picture of Donald Trump among dozens of pages makes it a “Trump” passport. By that logic, it’s also a “Mount Rushmore” passport because there’s one page with Mount Rushmore.

It’s also a “Nick Bandy” passport, since there’s a big picture of ME inside it, too.

People see what they want to see.

===

Nick’s final line leads into my final point about my reader’s comment above.

People see what they want to see, and most often, that’s a reflection of their own mental state.

Like I said, that reader who wrote me yesterday has been on my list for years, and has replied to dozens of my emails in the past.

One time, after I wrote an email casually mentioning Ben Settle, she replied with a 562-word response, calling Ben a “toxic, insulting, method-acting control jerk.”

Now the same reader is calling Nick toxic, prejudiced, and “socially and democratic-ly regressive.”

You can draw your own conclusions.

My conclusion is that this reader is the toxic, prejudiced, and socially and democratically regressive one.

I mean, if you go around saying nasty stuff about people based only on your own whims, what is that but toxic?

If you assume that anybody who is patriotic must also be pro-Trump, what is that but prejudiced?

And if you think that everybody who doesn’t agree with you is your enemy, what is that but “socially and democratically regressive”?

Anyways, that long-time reader is not a long-time reader any more. I’ve unsubscribed her from my list and banned her from my Skool group. I don’t want people like her hanging around.

As for Nick, like I said, the guy is great. GREAT. I endorse Nick Bandy, wholeheartedly.

Yes, that’s because Nick won my auction. It’s also because I genuinely believe everything I’ve written in this email about Nick’s emails, courses, and marketing expertise. Plus I like the guy personally.

If you want to get on Nick’s list so you can be shocked by his funny, relevant, and patriotic emails — “Proudly made in America 🇺🇸” — then here’s where to go:

https://nickbandy.com/

Looking for two Daily Email House partners

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I’ve got a free Skool group called Daily Email House.

It recently crossed 500 members.

Last winter, I ran an auction in the group and the winning bid (by the “Fractional CMO Whisperer,” Nick Bandy) came in at $31k.

I am now looking for two partners for Daily Email House, to help me run the group and to share in the profits.

If you are interested, you can find more details here:

https://www.skool.com/daily-email-house/looking-for-two-daily-email-house-partners

How I sell recurring affiliate offers

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Over the past year, I’ve been promoting a recurring affiliate offer.

I won’t name the offer here because I am not promoting it in this email, and I don’t want to muddy the waters. But I’ve promoted it in other emails, and if you read my emails on occasion, there’s a good chance you know what offer I mean. It’s a $111/month community by another dude, built largely on that dude’s authority.

Frankly, a recurring affiliate offer, particularly one built around a person, is a very hard sell.

People are in general not crazy about being billed recurring, and you typically have to bribe, bully, or bamboozle them into it.

But selling a recurring offer, built around another guru’s authority, as an affiliate, is a much harder ask.

People are willing to buy, however grudgingly, continuity as a way of being closer to their favorite guru.

But if that guru is not their favorite guru, or if they don’t know him at all, a continuity pitch becomes doubly hard.

And yet, I have lately had success selling this recurring affiliate offer.

I haven’t had TREMENDOUS success — I am not yet living in Margaritaville, drunk and flipflopped, wishing I had a reason to go back to work, but damn it — the passive affiliate income just keep rolling in.

No, I’m not there yet. But I am getting people to sign up for this affiliate recurring offer. One person here, another there, sometimes two at a time, including with a couple emails last month. It begins to add up.

What’s my secret?

I don’t have one. I have 10. (I sat down yesterday and made a list.)

I will tell you the first item on my list. Let me set it up by sharing what I heard from one guy who signed up for this recurring affiliate offer last month. I asked him what made him do it. He replied:

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You sold me on it when you promoted it a year or so ago, I just didn’t have the cash — now I do, so I’m making the investment!

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He wanted to join last year… but didn’t. Conditions weren’t right then. Now here’s a little thought experiment:

Do you think this dude would have remembered and decided to finally sign up for this recurring affiliate offer last month, had I not reminded him, and stoked the fire, a dozen times over the past year, including several times last month?

My guess is, no. No. NO.

And therein lies first great “secret” to how I’ve been able to sell recurring affiliate offers:

Regular, ongoing promotion.

That might seem… obvious. Painfully obvious.

But how many people do it?

What most people will do is, write an email or two, or still worse, drop in some affiliate “swipes” that the offer owner gives them.

Most likely, this makes them ZERO sales. So folks conclude that 1) affiliate marketing sucks 2) email marketing sucks 3) the offer they promoted is no good 4) their list sucks 5) the world is a dangerous and dark place.

I think my point is clear but I’ve been wrong before.

So my point, once more, is to keep emailing, to keep repeating yourself, to keep putting your offer out there. It works with recurring affiliate offers, and it works with other kinds of offers too.

Let me take my own advice:

I have a recurring offer. It’s called Daily Email Habit.

Maybe you’d like to sign up for it today simply because you like my emails and you feel warm and fuzzy about me.

Or maybe you want to sign up for it today for your own self-benefit — because you want to start and stick with a daily email habit that allows you to sell your own offers, or affiliate offers, including recurring affiliate offers, while having lots of knock-on benefits, like greater standing in your industry, greater expertise, and greater stability in your life and work.

Either way, to encourage you to act now, rather than next year, I have as a bonus a mini-report I’ve prepared called how to sell “How I sell recurring affiliate offers.” It contains all 10 items — I hesitate to call them secrets, but you can if you like — that I identified with yesterday.

The first one you know. The other 9 you don’t, and while you might be able to guess a few, I doubt you could guess all.

I will be linking to that “How I sell recurring affiliate offers” mini-report in tomorrow’s Daily Email Habit email, which goes out at 9am CET/3am EST/12pm PST, a little over 12 hours from now.

If you want to get that mini-report, you will have to be signed up to Daily Email Habit before then. For the full details on this recurring offer, or to sign up in time for the mini-report:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Today: Simple Money Emails + a $297 bonus

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I have this course, called Simple Money Emails, about how to write sales emails that make money today and keep readers reading tomorrow.

Simple Money Emails sells for $197.

You can buy it today, via the affiliate link below (yes, affiliate link, even though it’s my course), and get a bonus that “sold nearly 100 copies at $297 when it debuted several years ago.”

In case you’re curious or confused about this unusual offer:

This morning, I woke up to see a broadcast email by the world’s most obsessed ad archivist, Lawrence Bernstein. Lawrence decided to promote Simple Money Emails today to his list as an affiliate offer. The background as to why Lawrence is promoting Simple Money Emails, in his own words:

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Back in September of 2024, I ran a quick campaign to my house file for a compilation of ads from the great fascinations copywriter, Mel Martin.

The price for the compilation was a princely $7. I’m a big believer in having as many names of people in your database as possible…

Who’ve given you money

…versus a legion of free opt-ins. There’s something magical that happens, even with such a seemingly trivial transaction, and that seven-dollar buyer can turn into $100,000 in business. I’ve seen it happen.

As far as I can tell, John Bejakovic has a similarly sized list to my own.

And we sent approximately the same number of emails to promote the exact same product.

The difference?

Bejakovic bested Bernstein by 44.34%


153 sales vs. 106 sales

===

What made the difference?

Why did I make 153 sales to Lawrence’s 106, even though our lists are the same size… even though we sent the same number of emails… even though it was Lawrence’s offer on sale, which if anything should sell better to his list than to an affiliate’s list?

Lawrence’s answer to this conundrum is that it all comes down to the kinds of emails I send.

That’s why Lawrence is promoting Simple Money Emails today, because that course lays out how I write simple, effective, daily emails like the ones I used to promote Lawrence’s offer… and my offers… and dozens of offers for clients, including some for whom I made $4k-$5k worth of sales via email, every day.

And to sweeten the pot, Lawrence is also throwing in a training called Airmail Advantage, which he says “sold nearly 100 copies at $297 when it debuted several years ago.”

Airmail Advantage is a collection of proven direct marketing ideas and campaigns, all direct mail, some of which go back 100 years and all of which — gasp — are still being used today by undercover and smart direct response businesses.

Do you wanna write simple money-making emails, or know how I advise people to write such emails?

Do you wanna get a bunch of little-known direct marketing strategies, tricks, and hacks, which you can legitimately use today?

You can get both today, at the following link:

https://lawrencebernstein–desertkite.thrivecart.com/simple-money-emails

P.S. If you buy Simple Money Emails today, I’ll send you a link to get Lawrence’s Airmail Advantage. You don’t need to do anything extra, just bear with me, because I’m doing this by hand. And if you bought Simple Money Emails in the past… sigh. I asked Lawrence. He agreed to extend the same bonus offer to you as well. Just write me and ask.