The illogical root of all buying decisions

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Back in 1985, a strange case came to light.

It had to do with a man only known as Elliot.

This Elliot was a man of above average intelligence, a successful businessman, and happily married.

It then turned out he had a big brain tumor, which doctors successfully operated to remove.

Elliot seemed to be fine after the surgery. His intelligence, memories, perceptual skills, learning were all in tact. Only one thing was missing.

Elliot had lost most of his emotional capacity. Doctors figured this out by showing Elliot gruesome videos, which didn’t create any kind of reaction in him.

That part was expected, because the surgery removed a part of the amygdala, which is involved in emotions.

What wasn’t expected were some bizarre effects of this.

After the surgery, Elliot would take 30 minutes to decide which color pen to use. He’d take several hours to decide where to eat lunch. He wasn’t functioning at work any more, he lost his job, and eventually his wife divorced him as well.

What was happening?

Elliot could no longer make a decision.

It turned out that emotions, filthy illogical emotions, are actually necessary to making a decision. This includes all decisions (including buying decisions), even ones that seems to be made based on logic alone.

And here’s something interesting.

Antonio Damasio, the neuroscientist who examined Elliot and published a book about his case, has a theory about how the brain makes decisions, and how emotions come into play.

If Damasio is right, then the most effective way to stir emotions is not trough hype.

Or power words.

Or melodrama.

Instead, it’s something much simpler, more subtle, and effective.

I’ve even done it in this email. If you look close enough, you’ll be able to spot it.

I’ll also discuss it in more detail in my upcoming book on email marketing for the health space. To get your free copy when I finish this book up, sign up below:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The “fresh fish” sales argument

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Here’s a true story about hypocrisy:

It has to do with DVDs.

About 10 years ago, if you bought a DVD to play at home, you would first have to sit through a little educational video. The short video had a driving, Prodigy-like soundtrack, and it said:

“You wouldn’t steal a car…”

“You wouldn’t steal a television…”

“Downloading pirated films is stealing.”

“Piracy. It’s a crime”

Tell me more, Mr. DVD.

You see, it turns out that driving Prodigy-like music in the background, which was used in the original video and was distributed to millions of DVDs, was actually pirated.

A Dutch musician by the name of Melchior Reitveldt wrote the music for the Dutch royalty organization, under the agreement that it was to be used one time at a local music festival.

Once Reitveldt realized his music was being used across the world without his permission, it took him quite a bit of time and effort to actually collect his royalties from that same Dutch royalty organization, which had cheated him earlier and which was crying about piracy.

Anyhow, I’m not here to talk about copyright.

But copywriting, on the other hand, we can discuss.

You see, today I was writing an advertorial for a dog seat belt. I didn’t even know these existed until a few days ago, but it makes perfect sense.

Your dog goes in the car.

If he’s not restrained, he can jump in your lap while you’re driving, jump out the window when he sees a biker, or get catapulted when you hit the brakes.

It seems that woke dog owners are fully aware of this fact.

And one statement many dog owners repeatedly made was an echo of the piracy ad:

“You wouldn’t let your toddler walk up and down the back seat… So why would you let your dog do it?”

There’s something here.

In fact, the great Gary Bencivenga used this argument as well, when selling premium, fresh-pressed, mail-order olive oil:

“You and I insist on fresh milk, fresh eggs, fresh fish, fresh meat, and fresh produce. Don’t we deserve fresh olive oil???”

So in short, this “You wouldn’t… So why would you…” formula can often (not always, see the piracy ad above) be an effective sales argument to throw in.

And since I first noticed this argument in that Gary B. sales letter, I will from now on call it the “fresh fish” argument to help me remember it for the future.

On an entirely other note:

If you need fresh advice on how to get started as a copywriter, specifically on the online platform Upwork, you might be interested in my upcoming book on the topic.

To get notified when I finish it up and make it available, sign up below:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

The night of the yellow ad

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On the evening of December 5th of this year, websites across the Internet started displaying an unusual ad.

There was no text on the ad.

No image.

Nothing was being advertised.

It was just a plain, 300×250 yellow square.

And to make things weirder, the revenues from these ads were huge. Some websites saw an 800% increase in their ad revenue. Altogether, this little yellow square, running for less than an hour, was responsible for somewhere between $1.6 million and $10 million in ad spend.

Was it all a brilliant marketing campaign?

Or some behemoth company that could afford to throw away millions of dollars on a bizarre stunt?

Neither, actually. The company behind the yellow ad was a small Australian ecommerce fashion brand called The Iconic. And the whole thing was a mistake, made by an ad team at Google, which helps companies learn how to use its ad platform.

(The Iconic apparently won’t be billed for Google’s mistake, and publishers will still be paid, I guess out of Google’s deep pockets.)

Now I’ve recently been dabbling with pay-per-click.

Not on Google, but on Facebook and, more recently, on Amazon.

So the story above is pretty relevant to me.

You see, any of these companies will gladly tell you how you should run your ad campaigns. They will give you advice. They will even offer to automate away much of the work.

The trouble is, even if they don’t make a nasty technical snafu like the “night of the yellow ad,” they aren’t really experts in marketing.

And I don’t think their advice really has my best interests in mind.

So instead, when I make my PPC campaigns, I keep it simple.

Instead of relying on the fancy advice of companies like Facebook and Google, I apply 100-year-old principles from Claude Hopkins’s Scientific Advertising, and go from there.

Does this apply to you?

Probably not. But it might be something to keep in mind in case you run (or are planning to run) paid ads.

On a related note:

If you are getting started as a freelancer on Upwork, I would also not go with the recommendations of that particular company for how to become successful.

Instead, I would recommend another resource.

It’s not 100 years old.

In fact, it’s not even published yet.

It’s an ebook I’m putting together right now, called How to Become a $150/hr, Top-Rated Sales Copywriter on Upwork.

If you want to get notified when I’m finished with this book and it becomes available, sign up below and I’ll keep you in the loop:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

4 lessons from the ongoing Parris bonanza

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Earlier today, I contributed $297 to help a guy named Taki beat cancer.

I’ve never met Taki. I have no special connection to him. I’m also not naturally the type to contribute to charitable causes. So what gives?

Well, as the GoFundMe page says,

“If you donate $297 or more, Parris Lampropoulos will send you a thank-you gift. Just email him your donation receipt.”

Let me explain what this is all about.

1. Name recognition

I’d first heard of Parris Lampropoulos through an interview on Clayton Makepeace’s site.

Clayton is (or was?) a super successful copywriter.

And he regularly interviewed other super successful copywriters, including Parris.

After reading the interview, I was curious to see whether Parris had a blog, or a newsletter, or a book, or a copywriting course…

And he didn’t. He seemed to be a secretive, off-line kind of guy. A shame, I thought, and I filed the name Parris Lampropoulus away for later.

That’s an important point — I knew the name. Because then…

2. Touch-point barrage

About a week ago, it started to trickle in.

First, I read an email from Ben Settle.

Parris Lampropoulus is finally making available his copywriting wisdom! And for ridiculously cheap! And all in an effort to help his cousin Taki beat cancer!

Ben was the first, but certainly not the last, to make this announcement.

Over the next few days, I saw David Garfinkel, Brian Kurtz, Abbey Woodcock, David Deutsch, and probably somebody else I’m forgetting also promoting Parris’s offer. Here’s why this barrage mattered:

3. Sell to buyers

After I first heard of the Parris offer, I got excited. I then told myself to cool off.

“You’ve got enough copywriting books and courses to last you the next five years,” I said to myself. “Why buy more?”

But the thing is, over the past year or two, I’ve started freely spending money on good information. And I’ve found I never regret it.

In other words, I always get more out of the info I bought than what I paid for it. Maybe through winning new client work, or through being able to charge more, or through some mysterious opportunities opening up.

So in many ways, I was an ideal prospect for this offer. And when I got a second reminder about Parris’s offer — and a third, and a fourth, all from independent quarters — my initial resistance wore down quickly.

And there was one last thing that helped.

4. The charitable opportunity

Some people probably took up Parris on his offer specifically because they wanted to help Taki. But like I said, I’m not the type to contribute to charitable causes (yet — maybe this first experience will be a crack in the floodgates).

Still, the charitable offer did help to convince me to pony up $297. I realized this when I considered the alternative.

If this had simply been a new course launch, I probably would have held off.

A part of why is urgency — Parris will take this offer down once the funding goal is reached, and that probably wouldn’t have been true with a regular course.

But another part of it is the fire sale element of all this.

People rush to a fire sale because they feel they must be getting a steal. Because they think they are taking advantage of somebody else’s time of need.

I’m not proud of it, but I realize that, somewhere not very deep down, there was an element of this in my motivation to seize this opportunity.

So there you have it.

My analysis of an easy, enjoyable $297 sale, or rather purchase.

I think Gary Halbert once wrote that, if you want to do direct mail, you should buy stuff through mail, and allow yourself to enjoy the process. That way, you can understand what the process is like for one of your customers — to have doubts, to make the decision, to be excited about the purchase.

That’s what I did today. Besides, of course, helping a guy named Taki and getting a valuable and rare item for my copywriting library.

Anyways, if you’re selling something online, I believe you should be able to use any of the four points above to sell a little more of whatever it is you’re selling.

And if you’re interested in taking Parris up on his offer, before the fundraising target is met, here’s the link to the page that describes everything you get:

http://o.copychief.com/parris-lampropoulos

A swiped skeleton for solutions to chronic problems

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A while ago, I listened to an interview with Harlan Kilstein, a big copywriter in the health space.

One thing Harlan talked about how he swipes ideas from other marketers.

“The key,” Harlan said, “is to swipe across industries.”

In other words, don’t copy weight loss promotions if you’re selling weight loss. But do look to weight loss promotions if you’re selling, say, a kidney disease book. Which is exactly what I did a couple of years ago.

I was supposed to write a new version of the VSL for The Kidney Disease Solution. At the time, this was a top-50 Clickbank product.

Look, I thought to myself, kidney disease is a chronic condition.

So is weight loss.

Why don’t I look at what the best weight loss promotions are doing?

And so I took the skeleton of possibly the biggest weight loss VSL of all time, Mike Geary’s Truth about Abs. It was written by Jon Benson, I believe. And it goes roughly as follows:

1. Opening story — feeling LOUSY
2. Statement of the problem
3. Success story — feeling GREAT
4. Debunking myths and disqualifying the competition
5. Introducing the product, etc.

Like I said, I applied this Truth about Abs skeleton to The Kidney Disease Solution VSL.

And the result was a 30% boost in conversion.

But that’s not all.

I believe this simple formula — basically a before-and-after story lead — works more broadly for chronic conditions.

I’ve just used it to write about an upper back brace used to improve poor posture. I could also imagine it being used for selling dating products, memory supplements, probiotics — in short, any solution to an ongoing, throbbing pain, rather than a sharp, momentary pain.

Of course, the devil is in the details.

How do you choose the right stories for the before and after?

Which myths do you debunk so that you simultaneously build up your own offer?

Well, that’s simply a matter of jog-trotty legwork.

In other words, trying out different ideas, and seeing what seems to sparkle, based on your research and your knowledge of the market you’re writing for.

Anyways, on to a completely different topic:

The chronic problem of not having enough copywriting clients.

And my solution to it.

That is, my Upwork book. It won’t teach you about the craft of copy, or even the boring legwork that’s sometimes required to come up with a thunderbolt of a VSL. Instead, it will only cover the business of copywriting. Specifically, how to get good clients through the online platform Upwork.

If this is something that interests you, then sign up below, and I’ll send you an email when I finish this book and put it up for sale:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

How to use satanism to sell your product

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A couple of weeks ago, a festive satanic statue was placed inside the Illinois statehouse.

It’s the holiday season, after all, and all religious organizations that wanted to could be represented.

Predictably, this led to outrage by conservative groups.

Shocked coverage on news outlets across the world.

And a jump in applications to join the Temple of Satan, the body behind the statue.

So what is it that these satanists are promoting? What evil, filthy, depraved trick are they hoping to play on the rest of the world?

Well, the statue itself has the inscription, “Knowledge is the greatest gift,” and it shows a hand, holding an apple, with a snake coiled around it.

And here are some tenets of the satanist faith, taken from their website (I’m cherrypicking):

– Compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason

– Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world

– The freedoms of others should be respected

It seems these satanists want compassion, reason, empathy, a solid scientific education, and respect for others.

In other words, the Temple of Satan sounds like it’s a cross between the Public Library Association and Amnesty International.

Pretty, pretty boring.

Well intentioned, yes.

But not inspiring or viral at all.

And yet, here we are, reading and talking about them, all because it’s under the satanist umbrella.

Which, of course, is a very good lesson to learn. It’s something that expert copywriter and direct marketer, Joe Sugarman, who made millions selling tech gadgets and blue-blocking sunglasses, called “concept selling.”

Concepts sell better than products.

The Temple of Satan gets attention and new applications to join.

Compassion and empathy — not so much.

So if you’re selling a good, solid, healthy product or service, then it might be time to think of a concept like “satanism” to sell more of it.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be satanism itself. But with a bit of work, you too can come up with a dramatic, attention-grabbing concept, without offending too many religious groups in the process.

If you want a few case studies of how I’ve done this for my own products and for clients, sign up below, and get a free copy of my ebook on email marketing for the health space (ETA February 2019):

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Gary Halbert’s first and most important lesson

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A long time ago, in a beautiful city far, far away…

I worked as an IT office drudge, and I decided I had had enough.

Fortunately, I knew a guy who was doing freelance copywriting.

I thought I could do the same, so I took a week off my regular IT job to sit at home and try it out.

I wanted to see if I could do the writing, and what it would be like to work by myself.

The writing part was fine, and I decided that I would give the freelance life a shot.

However, there was one problem.

Two days after starting my stay-at-home work experiment, I started to get depressed.

Not sad.

Not hopeless.

Just my nervous system seemed to be slowly shutting down, and I found it hard to concentrate or feel very motivated about achieving anything.

And again, this happened just two days after trying to work from home by myself.

The good thing was, I had a suspicion of what the problem was.

And I had a quick fix for it.

In fact, it’s an idea I got from the Prince of Print, old Gary Halbert himself.

It’s something that Gary once called his first and most important lesson.

And it’s something I continue to apply to this day, and that I consider to be vital in making me a successful freelance copywriter.

The thing is, this has nothing to do with writing.

Nothing to do with persuasion.

And yet, without it, I could never have succeeded in making a comfortable career, working a couple of hours a day, usually in my pajamas.

Anyways, if you want to know what this important lesson is, you can rifle through the thousands of pages of content that Gary Halbert has left online as his legacy. It won’t be a waste of your time.

However, if for any reason you don’t want to go that route, there is a second option.

You can also consult my upcoming book,  which covers freelance copywriting on Upwork.

I’m making my way through all the sections I’ve planned out for this book, and I should be finished with it by the end of the month.

If you want to get notified once it’s out, simply sign up below, and I’ll send you an email to let you know when I finish. And then, you’ll have Gary’s secret lesson all to yourself. Here’s the link to get notified:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Cogsworth wisdom for long-term Upwork success

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“This is yet another example of the late neoclassic Baroque period. And, as I always say, ‘If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!'”
— Cogsworth, Beauty and the Beast

A few weeks back, I was interviewed about freelancing on Upwork.

Nick Tubis, the guy who interviewed me, said something along the lines of, “Most successful freelancers get invited to jobs. What would you do if you’re not getting invited?”

To which I told him the truth:

Yes, I regularly get invited to Upwork jobs.

And I also regularly scroll through listed jobs, and apply to any for which I might be a good match. It worked for me at the start of my time on Upwork, and it’s working for me still. In the words of Cogsworth: If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!

Let me give you an example:

Earlier this year, I landed a daily email writing gig this way.

It paid $150/hr.

I didn’t get invited to this job. I found it and applied.

If I hadn’t searched for jobs that day, and I hadn’t applied, I wouldn’t have gotten this contract, which netted me about $6k before the client decided to take the work in-house.

The fact is, many potential clients who might be a perfect match for you will never find your profile.

They won’t invite you to their job.

They will pass like a ship in the night.

So my strategy now is the same as my strategy when I started on Upwork.

Each day, I take a bit of time, and go through the newest job listings.

And then, if I find something good, I send in a very brief and yet very effective job application.

It usually takes me about 2 minutes to write.

And yet, it routinely wins me 4-figure contracts, just like that daily email writing job.

I’ll lay out how I write this typical job application in my upcoming book about freelance copywriting on Upwork.

This book won’t teach you how to write copy.

Just how to win jobs, deal with clients, and get paid better and better rates on Upwork.

If that’s something you’re interested in, and you want to get notified when I finish up this book, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

How to properly toot your own horn on Upwork

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A while back, I was lurking in the CopyHour Facebook group when a post caught my eye.

By the way, CopyHour is a course offered by Derek Johansen.

It’s a structured take on Gary Halbert’s idea of neural imprinting — basically, copying out successful sales letters by hand each day.

Anyways, the post in the CopyHour group was by a guy going through the course, and trying to get started on Upwork as a sales copywriter.

He was asking for feedback on his profile overview statement. That’s the description about yourself you put on Upwork to tell potential clients about yourself. The trouble is, copywriters, especially new copywriters, mistake this for an opportunity to display their copywriting skills.

That’s exactly what this guy did.

He wrote a long, conversational post.

He tried to make the skeleton dance (“I’m new and inexperienced but that means I’ll work extra hard”).

And he even used a “secret” lead.

In my opinion, this is not the right way to toot your own horn as a sales copywriter on Upwork. So I responded to this guy with my thoughts, which might be relevant to you as well if you’re starting on Upwork:

1. Don’t be clever. There are good clients on Upwork but they are outnumbered by people who need miracles for under $50. To me it seems your description would appeal more to the second group than to the first.

2. Don’t apologize for starting out. The majority of people offering services on Upwork are incompetent to begin with — odds are, you’re already better. Instead, tell potential clients in detail what you will do for them, and give them reasons to believe you will deliver (beyond just trying hard).

You see, Upwork is basically a B2B platform.

People who are searching for freelancers on there already have a pretty good idea what they need. They just want to make sure you’re it. And that’s why fancy copywriting tricks that are designed to suck in prospects from cold traffic will only get in your way.

Instead, I think it’s much better to be direct with your Upwork self-description.

Yes, there are some tricks to making your description stand out, and making it more convincing. Though it’s more about putting on your marketing hat, rather than your copywriting hat.

Anyways, if you want to find out what these tricks are, and how I used them to write my own Upwork profile, you’ll be able to read about it in my upcoming book on the business of Upwork freelancing.

I’m planning to finish this book by the end of the month.

And if you want me to notify you when it’s out, simply sign up below:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Why you should disqualify your best prospects

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A true marketing tale:

Yesterday morning I got an email from a well-known copywriter.

It was a long content piece, talking about where the world of copywriting and direct response was going.

It was interesting, even inspiring.

At the end, the guy introduced his offer: mentoring for copywriters who want to take advantage of all these coming changes to become the top 1%. He wasn’t selling anything directly — rather just trying to get people to set up a kind of strategy call.

A good sales pitch.

And I was ready.

But I couldn’t really tell if it was right for me.

I still had questions, and even the free call seemed like too much commitment to make.

Now this email was probably over a thousand words long. But these doubts I had at the end could have been resolved with a few lines at most. Something like: “This offer isn’t right for you if x, y, or z.”

Would it have turned me off if I didn’t match these criteria?

Sure.

But I didn’t act anyhow.

There was still some hesitation and resistance, even though this expert copywriter did everything else right.

This hesitation can be overcome, by all things, when you state who your offer is not right for.

Don’t try to massage it either.

Be blunt and honest.

After all, why would you want people who are not qualified leads taking you up on your offer?

Just my attitude.

And it’s the same attitude I take when I talk to prospective copywriting clients.

It’s served me well so far. I’m not as far along as the A-list copywriter I’ve been writing about. But I am well-paid, and on Upwork, where I still get most of my clients, I’ve got a 100% rating.

Only taking on jobs where I know I can deliver is a big part of this. It’s another thing that disqualifying prospects helps with.

Anyways, if you want to know more of my Upwork strategy, and how I’ve managed to get to a $150/hr rate on the site that clients are happy to pay, then you’ll want to read my upcoming book on freelance copywriting on Upwork.

This book isn’t for you in case you’re looking to learn the craft of copywriting. It will only cover the business side, and only on Upwork.

If that’s something you want more info about, then sign up below, and I’ll notify you when the book is out:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/