From the archives: DON’T VOTE FOR A NEGRO

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An angry Seth Taft stood up in front of the crowd and held up a tear sheet from a newspaper.

The year was 1967. Taft was the grandson of former U.S. President William Howard Taft, and was running for mayor of Cleveland. He held up the tear sheet to show a full page ad that had recently run in local papers. In large, bold letters, the headline read:

“DON’T VOTE FOR A NEGRO”

That ad had been paid for by Taft’s opponent in the mayoral race, Carl Stokes.

The odd thing was that Stokes was black and Taft was white.

And yet, here was Taft, the front-runner and shoein for the office in predominately white Cleveland, angry and complaining about how unfair this ad was. And it was the folks behind Stokes’s campaign who had paid for an ad seemingly telling you not to vote for their guy.

The long and short of it is that Stokes won that election. In the process, he became the first black mayor of an American city.

​​It’s impossible to say whether this ad won Stokes the election. Nonetheless, the ad is a brilliant example of effective messaging, and of a general principle that holds as true in political propaganda as it does in other influence disciplines, including sales and copywriting.

What’s the general principle? And more importantly, how might you apply it in your business?

For that, take a look at link below. It’s a post I wrote a couple years ago, inspired by this ad.

​​In case you’re looking for a slight edge in your business… or in case you have a significant disadvantage relative to your competition… this post might give you some good ideas:

https://bejakovic.com/dont-listen-to-me-im-just-some-guy/

The most likely solution to all your problems

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At the risk of sounding like an idiot, let me pay off today’s subject line by telling you about my olive tree:

I have a small olive tree on my balcony. It arrived as a present for my birthday two years ago.

(Btw, if you ever want to get me a present I’ll love, a plant is a good bet.)

Right now, my olive tree is thriving. It’s got lots of healthy leaves. Small shoots are popping out everywhere. There’s even one green olive that’s maturing, which I’m planning to cure when it’s fully ripe.

But earlier this year, my olive tree was only causing me worry.

Each day, I went out onto the balcony to inspect it. Leaf after leaf was turning yellow and falling off. No new shoots were visible anywhere. At this pace, my olive would soon become barren and die.

I stood there each day, inspecting my olive tree and worrying.

Was it some kind of fungal infection? Had the soil become depleted? Was it bad feng shui?

It was only after weeks or maybe months of this that it occurred to me that the olive tree might be parched for water.

I mean, it’s sitting on my balcony, exposed to the blasting Barcelona sun, for many hours a day, day after day. Maybe a cup or two of water, twice a week, just wasn’t enough for all the heat?

That’s why I said I risked sounding like an idiot.

I told you how healthy and thriving my olive tree is today. Watering it every day is the only change I made from then to now.

Watering a plant is the most obvious thing to do to keep it alive and healthy. And yet, I thought of every other rare and novel explanation first, while my olive tree turned yellow and withered.

Now that I’ve risked sounding like an idiot, let me risk sounding like your mother:

Maybe don’t have an olive tree. But maybe there’s another area of life that’s struggling, withering, or causing you worry. Maybe it’s family, or your health, or your business.

A rare and novel explanation might really lie behind your problems.

But more likely, there’s a common, obvious explanation to it all.

You can’t keep going the way you’ve been going, inspecting and worrying. Most likely, you just gotta water more regularly – or do whatever the equivalent is for the problem you’re seeing.

But enough gardening wisdom. On to sales:

Maybe you have a business. Maybe you’re working too hard, or you’re not making consistent sales, not as many as you’d like.

What’s the real reason?

Maybe you need to optimize your ads… or increase the conversion rate on your landing pages… or innovate and come up with totally new products, new funnels, new sources of traffic.

Maybe.

Or maybe just gotta get your existing customers to pay you more frequently. Maybe you just gotta email them more, instead of allowing them to wither away. And if you want something to make your emailing easier and faster:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Do you want to play the Questions game?

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Have you ever heard of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead?

Did you read the play? Or did they make you watch the movie, like they made me, in high school English class?

Do you remember the Questions game that R+K play?

Was it more like badminton? Or more like tennis?

What were the rules? I mean, what else was forbidden, besides lobbing a statement over the net?

Why were repetitive questions not allowed? What counted as out-of-bounds “rhetoric”? And how long was an invalid hesitation?

Most importantly, why am I telling you all this?

Do you think it might have something to do with persuasion and sales and marketing?

Would you be surprised if I told you it did?

Have you heard me talk recently about sales trainer David Sandler?

Have you heard of Sandler’s “Silver Dollar” game? Can you see how it’s basically the same game as the one that R+K played?

And can you think of at least a few good reasons why a hard-nosed salesman like Sandler would encourage his students to spend time fooling around like this?

Do I have you confused? Would an example help? Why not click below then, and see if this clip makes things clearer?

The very first con artist

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On July 8, 1849, The New York Daily Herald published a fateful Sunday issue.

It started rather unpatriotically, with a front page full of news from across the Atlantic.

The French had just invaded Italy and were attacking Rome.

But the “effeminate,” “emasculate,”” and “degenerate” Italians, “upon whom it is the fashion to heap every stigma,” managed to repel the attack of the mighty French.

Further down the page, there was a revolution quashed in Paris.

The Berlin correspondent reported on military action against an uprising in Prussia.

In Ireland, things were quiet, and the Dublin correspondent simply wrote, “I have not any news of importance to communicate.”

With the grand European news covered, the Herald moved to smaller, more local matters.

First, there was an attack by Spanish pirates. Then a steamboat accident. Then theater news (“more dull than ever”).

Turning to page two, the Herald advised its readers of the arrival of the steamship Tennessee to town. Then it tallied up the progress of the cholera epidemic (67 new cases, 22 deaths). Next came sporting news (“the great trotting contest” at the Union Course race track).

And then, finally, deep in the middle of page 2, after several notices of curious deaths (an Irish woman had suffered “death by intemperance”), readers got to the “Police Intelligence” section.

That’s where our story starts. Because it was there that a small, insignificant, 351-word article appeared under the headline,

“Arrest of the Confidence Man”

This tiny article was the first known use of the term “confidence man” in English, which later gave us such terms as con man, con artist, and con game.

The Herald article told of a certain William Thompson, a “graduate of the college of Sing Sing.” Thompson had made a habit of stealing watches from wealthy New Yorkers, on the street, in broad daylight.

What was newsworthy was that Thompson didn’t steal through threats and violence, or through stealth and speed.

​​Instead, he stole in full view of his marks, calmly, with a big smile on his face, using just words.

Thompson’s con involved approaching a stranger on the street and starting a conversation. Then, after a few moments, Thompson would ask if the stranger had the confidence to lend him his watch for a day.

The crazy thing is it worked.

Contrary to all logic and reason, many marks did as Thompson asked. Thompson walked away, laughing, with the stranger’s watch in his pocket. One gold lever watch stolen in this way was worth $110 in 1849 money — about $4,300 today.

The story is so bizarre that it doesn’t quite sound real.

​​Sure, 1849 New York was a very different place from today. But strangers were still strangers, and valuables were still valuables.

Why would Thompson’s marks be so gullible? Why would they just do what they were asked to do? Why would they give their confidence to a complete stranger on the street after just a few moments of talking?

I’m hoping you can help me figure this mystery out.

​​I’m asking you because, if you’re interested in direct marketing and copywriting, I imagine you’re smart and well-read.

​​If you have any clues, hints, or ideas for me, write in and let me know. It will help me prepare a new book I’m working on. Thanks in advance.

Announcing: Done-for-you promo strategy (and implementation)

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Last week, I was working on the promo strategy for a direct response business that:

1. Has one core offer, at $4k and $12k tiers

2. Sends daily emails

3. Makes north of $150k per month.

So far, so good. ​​But then it gets less good:

1. Every day, they promote this one same offer to their list, and there’s nothing about the offer that changes or disappears, so there’s no incentive to act now

2. The list is saturated with the one offer, and even though 33k people get the emails, a negligible part of that $150k per month actually comes via email

3. People on the list stop reading after a while since all the emails take the form of, “Hey look at how well this client is doing, buy now.”

The promo strategy I came up with should help with all that.

​​Basically, instead of sending daily emails to promote the same tired offer, using email copy that the list has been trained to ignore…

… the idea is to come up with a time-limited, exciting, one-off offer… a credible reason why that offer is only being made now… and emails that people will actually read and act on.

We’ll see how well it works. But I’m optimistic.

While working on this promo strategy, I had a true Obvious Adams moment.

I like designing these promo strategies. Plus it’s definitely valuable for the businesses who run these kinds of promos.

Of course, results depend on the size of the list is, the relationship with the list, and what’s being sold.

But I’ve seen a promo go out to a list of 5k people, selling a $1k offer, and bring back $35k in sales over 4-5 days.

I’ve seen a promo to 6k people, selling a $6k offer, and bring in $18k over a week.

Hell, even when I’ve run promos to my own tiny list, the one you’re reading now, and sell offers for a few hundred bucks, I typically bring in $12k-$16k in sales in 3-4 days.

So I had a thought. If I like coming up with the strategies for these promos… and if they are valuable… why don’t I offer them to the people on my list?

Let me try it now. If you:

1. Have an email list, and get at least 1,000 opens when you send an email…

2. Have an offer that you have successfully sold before for $500 or more…

… then my offer is to design a promo strategy for you. Basically, I’ll tell you what to sell… when to sell it… and how to sell it, in order to make a bunch of sales over a limited period of a few days, via email.

I’ll tell you how to repackage and reposition what you already have, so you don’t have to create whole new products… I’ll give you the outlines of email copy to get your readers’ emotional pendulum swinging… and I’ll sprinkle in some human psychology to get people on your list to act now.

And then what?

Well, if you write your own copy for your own business, you can take this promo strategy and turn it into a promo within a few hours. I’ll gladly coach you along the way to make sure it turns out well.

Or…

If you have a copywriter working for you, you can hand this strategy to your copywriter, crack the whip, and have the copywriter do it all for you. Again, I will gladly coach your copywriter directly to give you the best chance the promo is a success.

Or…

​If you neither write your own copy nor have a copywriter, I can get a skilled and hungry copywriter for you, working on commission only.

And who knows, maybe I myself will offer to do the entire promo for you, also on commission only, if your situation sounds particularly promising (kind of like business I described up at the top).

As you can imagine, I will not be doing hundreds of these promo strategies — they take time, and I got plenty of other obligations. But I’m willing to do a couple over the next few weeks.

​​If you are interested, then it makes sense to act now. Hit reply, tell me who you are in case I don’t know you, and we can take it from there.

If your open rates are excellent but your sales suck

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Yesterday, I wrote an email about a magical, far-off place called Affiliate World. I even invited you to meet me there.

​​To which, I got a reply from James “Get Paid Write” Carran, whose newsletter I am a reader of. James wrote:

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I’m obviously not in the right crowd because I spent this entire email thinking affiliate world was a thing you were making up for the email until I got to the end and realised it was a conference 😂

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James is right — i didn’t explain Affiliate World at all.

I didn’t mention it was a conference, or that it was in Budapest until halfway through the email, or anything about the dates. I figured there was no point — either people are already going and they know, or there’s no way I will persuade them to go with this one email.

Lazy?

Maybe.

Self-defeating?

Maybe.

But I remember hearing something about this a long time ago in an interview with marketer Travis Sago.

Travis a kind of nice-guy Ben Settle. Like Ben, Travis is an expert email copywriter and direct marketer. Like Ben, he has a cult-like following. And like Ben, he has made millions with his own online businesses and has helped others make millions too. One curious thing:

Travis says he writes his email subject lines like he has to pay for each open.

Rather than trying to get everyone to open, and hoping to somehow persuade or convince or explain to them why it’s in their interest to take the next step before they click away… Travis uses each email to select from the audience a tiny pocket of highly qualified people.

There’s a broader approach here – efficiency as a business principle. It’s how Travis has been able to build up a multimillion business selling little $39 ebooks… and how he was later able to build up a second multi million business, selling $5k and $10k and $25k programs and masterminds.

I don’t practice Travis’s subject line approach with this newsletter, not every day. But maybe it’s something for you to think about on this Sunday, particularly if your open rates are excellent but your sales suck.

And in case you’d like to know what to write once people open your emails, so your emails not only get opened, not only get read, but also make sales, you might like:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

You, me, Affiliate World?

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Are you going to Affiliate World? If you are, let me know. I need the encouragement.

I’ve been reading about sales trainer David Sandler’s “traps for success.”

For example, when Sandler used to cold call on prospects at their offices, he would park his car in a downtown garage, knowing he only had enough money on him to pay for either lunch or parking.

He liked lunch, and so he spent his money during the day.

That would mean he’d have to make some sales calls, and close at least one, and get at least a few dollars of deposit, if he wanted to get his car out of the garage and drive home at the end of the day.

That’s why I’m asking if you’re going to Affiliate World.

I already know some people who are going. I’ve thought about it myself.

Last year, I went to two live marketing-related events. After each was done, I was juiced and I told myself I should do this more often. Plus this year Affiliate World’s happening in Budapest. I love Budapest — I lived there for 11 years.

At the same time, thinking about being herded onto a plane… and staying in some dungeon-like Airbnb… and paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege of feeling guilty if I don’t talk to a bunch of strangers… all that’s making me hesitate.

So I’ve set a trap for myself. I’ve told myself I will go to Affiliate World if at least five people I know will also be there.

That’s why I’m writing you. Will you be there?

Let me know. We can meet, talk marketing, or not talk marketing — after all, there are many other interesting things to talk about.

And maybe I can even show you around. Or not show you around — after all, maybe you truly enjoy talking to a bunch of strangers, and it sounds like Affiliate World will be a very stimulating place.

Stop prospects leaving against medical advice

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By the time the doctor had walked into the room, the patient was already half-dressed. He had ripped the IV from his arm, packed his backpack, and was making for the door.

“I have stuff to do,” he said. “Call me when you know.”

The patient had come in a few days earlier, feverish and sweaty. He had been admitted, and he was waiting ever since for biopsy results, because there was a good chance the lump in his throat was lymphoma.

What to say to him? What to do to keep him from bolting out the door?

Think about that for a minute.

It might be relevant even if you’re not a doctor, but if you run a business — as long as you deal with troubled customers or clients, provide highly specialized treatment, and ask for a lot of money and trust in return.

So you got your answer?

Good. First, let me point out what the doctor didn’t do:

* He didn’t command. “THOU SHALT NOT LEAVE.” That would be futile and simply untrue.

* He didn’t persuade. “10 jaw-dropping reasons why leaving hospital treatment today will shorten your life! (page 14)”

* He didn’t cajole. “Please please please don’t do this. How about we give you a 10% coupon for your next purchase of medical services?”

That’s not to say that any of those approaches is bad in itself. They all have their place. It’s just not in a hospital room, and maybe not in your business.

So what did the doctor do to get the patient to calm down… go back to his room… and agree to stay until he had gotten a proper diagnosis and possibly treatment?

You can read all about it here, from an amazed resident who witnessed the scene:

https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/teaching-doctors-the-art-of-negotiation/

Dan Kennedy’s “stealth tactic” for client attraction from scratch

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Yesterday, I got on Skype. I live in Spain, I have a Croatian phone number, and Skype is my only way to dial an American landline and not pay ridiculous charges.

Skype connected.

“Hello?”

“Hi Steve. It’s John Bejakovic. We were in contact on LinkedIn. Is now an okay time to talk?”

“Hi John. Yeah, absolutely. I was expecting your call.”

Last week, I cold-contacted this guy. We weren’t even connected on LinkedIn but I sent him a message out of the blue.

Earlier this week, I guess he finally opened up LinkedIn because he replied. We exchanged a couple more messages. At the end of it, I got him to agree to a call. He sent me his home phone number.

We did the call yesterday. ​​I was asking questions and he was willingly answering. ​At the end of the call, I also got him to give me his home address.

Now, this wasn’t a business-getting call. But… it coulda been.

The same strategy I used to get on a call with this guy and to even get his home address is one I heard Dan Kennedy advocate in his Business of Copywriting Academy.

Unfortunately, that training is hidden inside the ancient infrastructure at AWAI. That means it’s hard to buy, and impossible to promote as an affiliate. It’s a shame, because the training is really interesting and really valuable.

One idea that’s stuck with me is a kind of Trojan horse for client getting, something that Dan says he would use himself if he needed to. In his own words:

“Let me give you my stealth tactic. Here’s what I would do if I was starting from scratch, right now, and I wanted some clients in Cleveland. If and when I retire and I decide to spend six months out of the year in Orlando, if I then feel I want a couple clients, I will use this strategy exactly as I’m about to describe it to you.”

Dan is famous for 1) never leaving suburban Ohio and 2) for never using the Internet. ​​That’s why he’s talking about using this strategy locally in Cleveland and Orlando.

​​But the same strategy works online too. Again, I used it just yesterday on LinkedIn and Skype, though I wasn’t looking for client work.

So I got a deal for you:

As I wrote yesterday, I’m considering putting together something new, a kind of offer research service that tracks unique and effective offers. In particular, I’m interested in offers that are 1) working now, and that 2) don’t rely on authority or a personal brand.

Have you spotted any such offers recently? Or better yet, have you bought any such offers recently?

If you have, write in and tell me about it.

If the offer you tell me about is unique and actually matches the two criteria above (working now, not relying on authority or personal brand), then I’ll reply to tell you Dan Kennedy’s client-getting stealth tactic — what he would do if he needed clients today.

And by the way, Dan’s stealth tactic is not limited to getting copywriting clients. It’s relevant if you want clients of any kind, or partners, or just connections for your own ends, like what I was doing with the guy I contacted on LinkedIn.

In other words, this tactic can work whenever you really want a connection with a specific person or profile of person.

​​And if that sounds attractive to you, then think of an offer that matches my criteria above. Write in with it, and I’ll tell you what Dan would do.

$12k bargain that’s working now

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I just finished an interesting hot seat for a copywriter within the PCM mastermind.

This copywriter is working with a business that’s selling a $4k offer and a $12k offer.

The two offers are largely the same, except the $12k offer is more done for you and comes with a stronger guarantee. Result:

The $4k offer gets about 5 sales each month. The $12k offer gets about 8-10 sales each month.

This reminded me of a Gary Halbert quote:

“Fundamentals never change but current variations of how to best use those fundamentals are something you must always stay on top of. In other words: It’s not enough to know that everybody wants a bargain… you must also know what people currently consider a bargain.”

It’s no big mystery that an offer that’s more done for you is easier to sell, and can sell for significantly more. That’s a fundamental that never changes.

What might be a surprise is that today, people apparently consider $12k a bargain.

And on that note:

I’m considering putting together something new, about unique offers working now.

I’m interested in offers that are 1) actually selling well right now, and that are 2) selling with zero or very little appeal to authority.

The way I figure, that intersection is where the most interesting and effective offers can be found.

Ben Settle could probably sell a closetful of old shoes to his list if he wanted to. That’s not because old shoes are a great offer. It’s because Ben has spent 15 years disciplining and punishing his list to do as he says.

Maybe you don’t want to go through that, or maybe you don’t have the time.

But even if you have authority or a strong relationship with your list, a sexy, unique, effective offer, one that will stand independent of you, will make your life easier and your wallet heavier.

Like I said, I’m considering creating something new about such unique, independent offers.

Can you do me a favor?

Simply hit reply and let me know if such information could be valuable to you in what you do. If it wouldn’t be valuable to you, let me know that as well.

Or of course, if you know an offer that is both 1) working now and 2) selling without authority, then let me know, and I will add it to the list of specimens to feature. Thanks in advance.