Climbing the customer palm tree to pick one coconut

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I recently heard from an ongoing client in the ecommerce space.

He has a couple of different brands selling niche physical products (I won’t say exactly what because that’s part of his success).

Anyways, the branded physical products seem to offer steady but limited profits.

And so he is looking to launch a few “one-off” products. These are popular, trendy things, the likes you can see on FB or Amazon all the time (think wifi repeater). He wants to launch one of these campaigns each week, in hope of scoring some quick wins to pad out the income from ongoing branded product sales.

Which is ok for me, because it means I get ongoing work writing copy for all these products, as well as feedback on what’s working and what’s not.

At the same time, I feel it’s a bit like climbing a tall palm tree to gather some coconuts, one at a time.

Getting up to the top of a palm tree is rough, scary, and dangerous work.

And so imagine you somehow climb all the way up to the top, where there are about a dozen ripe coconuts.

You roll one back and forth in your hand until it comes loose…

You let it fall to the ground…

And then you start your own scary and dangerous descent, ignoring all the other coconuts in the canopy, to repeat the same thing over at the next coconut palm.

You can see where I’m going with this.

Getting a customer to buy something from you is rough, dangerous, and expensive work.

So once you’ve climbed that palm tree, it doesn’t make sense NOT to pick all the coconuts that are up there.

In part, my client is already doing this, by offering day-zero upsells.

But there’s more he could do.

Specifically, he could keep trying to sell other things to these same customers, days or weeks after that first sale.

That might seem blindingly obvious to you. But what’s really obvious is that some otherwise smart and successful businesses — like my client’s — aren’t actually doing it.

Perhaps the reason is that they really don’t know how.

Or they simply don’t have the resources to do it.

That’s why I’m making my client a risk-free offer — either he will get some “free” sales or he won’t. But either way, there’s no cost to him.

And I’ll make the same offer to you right now. If you’ve got a customer list that’s sitting idle after the initial sale, get in touch with me and we can talk about how you can get some “free” profits out of your customer list — with zero cost to you.

The other way to persuade

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Let me ask you a personal question or three:

Are you very politically conservative?

Do you care passionately about the fate of the planet and about climate change?

Were you out in the streets last night, partying after the Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship?

If you said “yes” to any of the above questions, then I believe you’ve got a leg up in the copywriting, marketing, and persuasion game.

Here’s why.

Dan Kennedy, possibly the most influential educator when it comes to direct marketing, once shared his four guiding principles for writing direct response copy. The one that’s relevant for us right now is:

“Great direct response copy makes people identify themselves as one or the other.”

In this way of looking at the world, there are two ways to persuade. One is based on self-interest — that’s 95% of “How to write copy” guides will tell you. But there’s another way. And it’s to appeal to somebody’s identity.

As Dan puts it, “they tell you the identification, and you tell them the behavior.”

This can be overt, such as, “If you’re politically conservative, then you should be outraged at the state of illegal immigration in this country.”

It can also be more subtle. Such as, “Choosy moms choose JIF.”

Now, I hope if you dig around in your brain right now, you will find at least one or two strong “self-identifications.”

Maybe that’s an alignment with an outside group, like a party or a cause or a team.

But it might also be the kind of person you strongly feel that you are (for example, a good mom).

Once you find this self-identification in yourself, start observing your own feelings, your own behaviors and attitudes when it comes to protecting and cherishing that identity.

Bottle all that up.

And use that insight and experience to become a superhuman marketer, persuader, or copywriter, by talking to other people’s self-identifications.

You will have a new and powerful arrow in your quiver — which the majority of your competition won’t even know about.

And you don’t even have to do much to attain it besides what you already love to do.

As for me, I’ve been working lately with some choosy owners of online businesses. They’re trying to build up a stockpile of copy assets that get their prospects to buy, and their customers to buy more.

I’ve also heard from other business owners who are in the same position, but who aren’t working with me yet. And you know what they did? They wrote me an email to talk to me and see if I could also help them grow their business.

One half of “mad genius”

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On the morning of February 4, 1912, a mustachioed Austrian by the name of Franz Reichelt climbed up to the first stage of the Eiffel Tower.

Reichelt was a tailor by trade, but he was up there on the viewing platform as a groundbreaking inventor.

In fact, he wore his invention — a large padded suit, which contained a parachute.

Reichelt’s initial tests with dummies had been successful. However, he was unable to reproduce those early successes.

As a result, he became convinced that he needed a greater height for his parachute to open.

So he got permission from the Paris authorities for a test from the Eiffel Tower, claiming that he would only drop a dummy or two.

Reichelt’s real plan, however, was to toss himself off the tower to dramatically prove his invention was sound.

The morning was of February 4 was cold, with temperatures around freezing. A short film taken of the event showed Reichelt’s breath in a fog as he climbed up on a table and a stool, and put his foot on the railing of the viewing deck.

He stood there rigidly, leaning forward bit by bit, apparently willing himself to take the decisive leap. This hesitation went on for about 40 seconds.

And then he did it.

He pushed off from the railing, stepped into empty space, and jumped down from the tower.

A second film, shot from ground level, showed the parachute wrapping around Reichelt as he fell for a few seconds, before hitting the ground in what appeared to be a cloud of dust.

Reichelt’s parachute design did not prove successful.

He did not survive the drop from the Eiffel Tower.

In fact, he made a 6-inch dent in the turf below as he slammed to his death. He was gathered up, taken to the hospital, and pronounced a fatality, an inventor killed by his own invention.

It’s a morbid story.

But I don’t bring it up to illustrate the folly of chasing your dreams at any price (though I think that’s a good lesson in today’s go-go society).

Instead, I want to point out why somebody would basically wrap himself in a bunch of bed sheets and jump to his death, even though small, safe tests with dummies didn’t give him much reason to believe he would survive.

The Paris newspaper Le Gaulois claimed that it was because only half the term “mad genius” applied to Reichelt.

But maybe it wasn’t even one half.

Because according to his friends, Reichelt felt pressured to make a dramatic demonstration.

This, he believed, would be the only way to attract sponsors and make a profit before his patent expired.

So he convinced himself his invention was sound, he decided it was now or never, and he took the decisive step.

So much for the story of the unlucky Franz Reichelt.

At least people know his name 100 years after his death.

But if that’s not the kind of success you aspire to, then perhaps you can take Reichelt’s story as the illustration of the power of urgency. Which, incidentally, might just be the most powerful appeal in any kind of persuasion.

I don’t have any urgency in the form of a deadline for you today, but I will have one soon. In the meantime, if you want to talk about having me write sales copy for you, just send me an email and we can talk about more mundane, but cheerier things, such as growing your business.

7 Batman rogues for evil sales bullets

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Ken McCarthy has said that the fundamental, no. 1, can’t-do-without-it skill for being an effective copywriter…

Is the ability to write a good bullet.

And Ken should know what he’s talking about.

He was a successful direct mail guy, before becoming a successful internet marketing guy, before running some very big and expensive copywriting and marketing seminars and influencing generations of millionaire marketers.

All right, so let’s say Ken’s right and bullets are important. So how then do you write a good, or rather evil, bullet?

Well, lots of different ways.

Below I’m giving you 7 different templates, which, for my own enlightenment, I paired up with top villains from Batman comic books (some of the connections are obvious, some less so):

[#1 The Riddler]
Are you younger than 34? Here’s why you are at a disadvantage when it comes to writing bullets… Plus, the 5-minute daily habit that will help you write bullets on command. Page 79.

[#2 Ra’s Al Ghul]
The one element every bullet must have (besides a benefit or a warning). Used correctly, this activates the most powerful motivation for buying, according to legendary copywriter Gary Halbert. Page 10.

[#3 Two-Face]
The popular NPR show that doubles as a school for writing killer bullets. Page 108.

[#4 Poison Ivy]
How to write twice as many bullets in one-third the time. No stress or swipe files required. Just a simple shift in preparation — inspired by a jungle plant, and recommended by marketing genius Perry Marshall. Page 70.

[#5 The Joker]
How to write a killer bullet without having access to the product. A secret technique, used by irrational, violent psychopaths, that can also help ethical copywriters. Page 25.

[#6 Scarecrow]
When putting a big benefit in a bullet can backfire. This one mistake can ruin your whole sales letter. Page 44.

[#7 Catwoman]
Why you should never start your bullet off with a number. Plus a better way to get readers hooked when your product offers a 9-item list. Page 78.

And there you go. A rogue’s gallery of 7 evil yet effective bullet formats.

What, that’s not enough?

Quite hungry you are.

Here’s a bonus one for you then:

All successful sales letters need bullets, right? Wrong. Here are the cases when bullets can actually hurt conversions. Send me an email for details.

Getting ghosted by copywriting clients

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I saw the following question today:

“I took a freelance project and then my client ghosted me. What can I do?”

I’ve fortunately never been jiffed out of money by a copywriting client.

Largely, that was due to getting my clients through Upwork for a long time. Upwork has an escrow system, so even when a client did ghost me (and it’s happened a few times), I could get paid for the work I’d done.

Off Upwork, even though some clients have been slow with payments, in the end they’ve all made good.

But what will I do one day — and I suppose it’s gotta happen once — that a client doesn’t pay?

The Internet seems filled with freelancing village elders who are ready to give advice: keep sending reminders, put up nasty reviews online, take legal action, send the “magic email” (“Well I guess your priorities musta changed!”), eat the loss.

All of those sound more or less reasonable.

And I’d probably try some of them.

But in the end, if getting my money was still no-go, I might simply take a listen to Longmont Potion Castle.

This guy has put out a dozen albums, all recordings of his absurd, bizarre, and incessant prank calls.

He calls up businesses on a Skype call and says threatening, accusatory things — but all in such a calm and comic tone that the person on the other side of the line doesn’t know if this is really an argument or a joke. From a call to a tire shop:

“I’ve got a Daihatsu Blooper. I’m gonna come up there and wring your neck. I want quadruple my purchase price. Period. End of discussion.”

So I might start making such calls to my non-paying client friends to kick off my working day and get myself in a good mood.

Of course, you might think that getting paid is not a joke.

​​Particularly if you were really counting on that money.

And I agree with you.

At the same time, why give somebody the opportunity to cheat you twice? Once, by not paying you, and twice, by putting you in a frustrated, angry frame of mind for days or weeks?

Instead, get what you can out of them. Even if that means making absurd prank phone calls. And who knows, the derelict client might be so irritated by the end they will simply pay you to stop.

I hope you’ve haven’t been jiffed by a client. But if you have, and you need inspiration, here’s the mind-bending tire shop call from Longmont Potion Castle himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADR6VNm6Qb0

Nobel-winning scientist cuts brakes on “most powerful killing system in the world”

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How’s that for a sensationalist headline? But before you turn away in disgust, here’s the story that pays it off:

Back in the 1890s, a surgeon named William Coley was searching for information on sarcoma, a type of bone cancer that killed one of his patients. He came across the record of a house painter with sarcoma, who had had four surgeries to remove the cancer.

Each time, the sarcoma came back. And then…

The house painter developed a severe streptococcus infection, which was close to killing him. He somehow recovered from the infection.

And when he recovered, his sarcoma — which no surgery could eliminate — was also gone.

Coley concluded that the infection killed the cancer. So he went around the country, preaching the new cancer-killing gospel, and purposefully infecting many cancer patients with streptococcus.

​​All the infected cancer patients got very sick. Some of those who didn’t die wound up cancer-free, just like the house painter.

As a result, Coley’s ideas and methods became popular in the early 20th century. But eventually, they were forgotten as radiation and chemotherapy started to develop.

It was only in the 1970s that Coley’s ideas resurfaced again. Scientists realized it wasn’t the streptococcus infection that killed the cancer. Instead, it was the body’s own immune system.

Long story sh-, scientists started trying to figure out how to activate the immune system to attack cancer cells, even without infecting the patient with a dangerous disease like streptococcus.

It would be a kind of holy grail. Because as one scientist working in the field put it, “the immune system is the most specific and powerful killing system in the world.”

Anyways, one big breakthrough came in 1996, when a harmonica-playing immunologist from Texas named James Allison located a “checkpoint” on a specific type of immune cell known as a T cell.

This checkpoint acts as a kind of brake, stopping the T cell from going on a rampage against foreign invaders and local slubberdegullions such as cancer cells.

Allison figured out a way to “cut the brake lines” of this checkpoint, activating the T cells, and killing the cancer.

Fast forward a few more years, and this new approach, known as immunotherapy, started becoming a standard cancer treatment.

That’s a giant breakthrough, because until now, there were only three major ways to get rid of cancer cells — cutting (surgery), burning (radiation), and poisoning (chemotherapy).

Immunotherapy is a fourth way, and it seems to work well in some otherwise hopeless cases. (A famous instance was former president Jimmy Carter, who had advanced melanoma successfully treated with a immunotherapy drug in 2015.)

So yeah.

It’s kindofa big deal.

And it was all cemented last year, when James Allison and another scientist, Tasuku Honjo, received the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries of mechanisms related to immunotherapy.

The end.

What, you’re wondering what this has to do with copywriting?

Well, not much. And also quite a lot.

There’s no direct lesson from immunotherapy itself that I can spot right now.

But there is a general rule of copywriting that says you want to present convincing and credible proof to buttress your sale and to make the close.

And if you’re doing anything related to health (the way I often am), then there are few better pieces of proof than being able to say:

“Based on a Nobel-Prize-winning discovery”

This is something I’ve spotted often in top health sales letters, and I’ve also had it confirmed, in a throwaway comment during a webinar, by Parris Lampropoulos, who is the equivalent of a Nobel-Prize winner when it comes to copywriting.

And that’s why I’ve decided to regularly go back in the annals of Nobel Prizes, and see exactly what those folks did to win.

Anyways, now we’re really at the end.

Or as the brothers Grimm might say, my tale is done, there goes a goose; whosoever catches it, may make himself a pillow out of it. In other words, if you need more guidance on how to write effective sales copy, including strong proof elements, you might like the following:

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

Ask a silly question, you get a dopey look

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A few weeks back, in a moment of weakness, I answered a question in an online copywriting forum.

In my answer, I mentioned negotiation coach Jim Camp, the guy who (among his other accomplishments) revamped the FBI’s negotiation strategy.

Now here’s the thing. Even though full access to Jim Camp’s methods and coaching (while he was alive) cost thousands of dollars in fees, the man also wrote a book called Start With No, which covers about 95% of his negotiation system and costs around $15.

Anyhow, all of this is just setup for what I want to talk about today. Because when I wrote up my response and when I mentioned Jim Camp, another commenter slid in with a new question:

“Where to study Jim Camp? Looking for his education pieces but everything is paid (and expensive). I’m aware of Start With No.”

If this guy were sitting in front of me when he asked this question, I think I’d have to scrunch up my eyebrows, smile a dopey smile, and shrug my shoulders.“I know, buddy. It’s tough.” After all, what else could I tell him?

I bring this up because top direct-response copywriter Roy Furr just shared a very simple, very effective method of getting work with premier copywriting clients.

This method is something I’ve done in the past. It has been responsible for some of the longest-running and most profitable client relationships I’ve had to date.

It’s also something I’m going to start doing again, beginning this week. That’s because I want to pad out my schedule for the coming few months, and increase my rates once again.

And here’s how this ties into studying Jim Camp:

Roy says wannabe copywriters often ask how they can get clients…

And then when they get a valuable, proven suggestion, they do nothing with the information.

Instead, they spin on their heels, face forward once again, and ask, “But how can I land a copywriting client?”

To which the only response can be a dopey look.

Anyways, I’m sure that’s not how you operate.

So in case you want to read Roy’s advice so you can apply it in your copywriting business, here’s where to start:

https://www.breakthroughmarketingsecrets.com/blog/i-was-right-did-you-listen/

Fezzik is a giant and that explains it

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I recently re-read the Princess Bride, the original 1973 novel that William Goldman wrote and later pared down to make the screenplay for the popular 1987 movie.

I love both the movie, which has the perfect cast, and the book, which has more background material.

Such as, for example, the history of Fezzik the Giant (played by Andre the Giant in the movie).

In the book, Fezzik was Turkish, born to normal-sized parents, and was always huge. In fact, when he was born, he already weighed 15 lbs, but the doctors weren’t worried because Fezzik was born two weeks early.

“That explains it,” they told Fezzik’s mother. But as Goldman points out:

“Actually, of course, it didn’t explain anything, but whenever doctors are confused about something, which is really more frequently than any of us would do well to think about, they always snatch at something in the vicinity of the case and add, ‘That explains it.'”

It’s not just doctors, of course. All of us look for a coherent story in order to make sense of our worlds. We will run and leap at the chance for a coherent story much sooner than we will absorb a complex but drearily true explanation.

This is because of evolution. The hypothalamus, the pea-sized complex of neurons which sits directly behind the right and left eyes and is therefore the first part of the brain to process incoming information, is also, according to Harvard Medical School, the part responsible for interpreting stories (and that’s probably why it’s considered to be the seat of the story chakra).

Anyways, if you’re in the business of selling things to people, this information might be useful to you in some form.

And if you want another thing that’s useful, in the form of sales emails that snatch at something in the vicinity of the case, then you might like the following offer because it is valuable:

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

The sales secret of girls who “AirPod” it in

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I read an Atlantic article today titled, The Case for Wearing AirPods All the Time.”

The case, according to author Marina Koren, is that it keeps women safe — or at least a bit safer – from various sidewalk catcallers, escalator harassers, and assorted bus and subway pervs.

And you know what? I agree with Marina. And this is coming from one such sidewalk harasser.

As I’ve written before, I have previously had and continue to have the habit of occasionally stopping a girl on the street to tell her she looks nice.

Most of the time, the girl will say thank you and then continue on her way.

Sometimes, we get into a short conversation.

On occasion, it goes much further.

The thing is, it’s never stopped me if a girl has her headphones in. But I know other guys, who would like to do the same thing I do, for whom it’s a deal breaker. “She must be on the phone,” they say. “If only she’d take her headphones out, I’d go and talk to her.”

So yes, I definitely agree with Marina Koren. I encourage more girls to wear headphones all the time to discourage all those other guys.

The incredible thing, however, is that the girls who seem most unapproachable are actually “airpodding” it in.

Sure, they have those things in their ears to present a barrier to guys they don’t want to talk to. But once that barrier is overcome, many of those girls turn out to be very ready to stop and chat — and yes, even to a stranger on the street.

At least, that’s been my experience.

And I don’t think I’m completely crazy or so far down Harasser Lane that I’ve lost touch with reality.

In fact, I think this approach of “airpodding it in” is a common feature of human nature.

I remember listening to an interview with sales trainer Stan Billue who discovered that leads who seem most guarded, off-putting, and hostile to a sales pitch were that way because they were actually the best and easiest opportunities — if you could only get past their spiky exterior.

Maybe that’s something to keep in mind the next time you’re evaluating an opportunity, whether personal or financial. And maybe consider that the more repulsed you are by the difficulty of a situation, the better the situation might actually be.

You might even find that closing such opportunities is very simple. You might just have to say something like:

In case you’re looking for info on how to write effective sales copy — specifically emails — then I might have a thing to help you out. Simply go here and see if it’s a fit for you:

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

6 sneaky ways to use reciprocity in marketing, part 2

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… continuing on from yesterday, here are 3 more ways to “give with the one hand while holding the other hand ready”:

#4 Take ’em out to a banquet

Claude Hopkins was at it again, selling Cotosuet, the fake butter. This time, he showed up at a client’s doorstep and said, “I’d like to take you to a banquet tonight.” The client pointed to his dusty work clothes and said he wasn’t dressed for a banquet. “No matter, I’m also going in my plain clothes,” Hopkins told him, and whisked the man away to the banquet.

The client had a great time. “Please don’t come to my office on Monday, he begged Hopkins when it was done. “I can’t refuse you anything after tonight and I’m loaded with your product already.”

But come Monday, there was Hopkins again — not to talk about Cotosuet, but about how he could help the client with his regional advertising. Which, incidentally, included buying more wagonloads of Cotosuet.

#5 Take a bet on ’em

I have one more Claude Hopkins story, and if you’re wondering why I keep going back to that guy, it’s because he worked so hard and did so much. In his career, he profitably advertised chicken incubators, automobiles, cough medicines, felt boots, beer, tires, soap, oatmeal, toothpaste, “germicides” (for people, not plants), plus probably a hundred other products.

And each time old Claude had to advertise something, his go-to method would be to offer a free sample — preferably a cut-out newspaper coupon, which could be redeemed for the full-price item at a local grocery store or pharmacy. In other words, the advertiser would actually pay retail to have prospects try the product.

Crazy? Likely to lead to ruin? Not if you think long term, says Claude:

“Try to hedge or protect yourself, and human nature like to circumvent you. But remove all restrictions and say, “We trust you” and human nature likes to justify that trust. All my experience in advertising has shown that in general people are honest.”

#6 Take an interest in ’em first

Zooming forward to 2019, here’s one I saw from email marketer Josh Earl. Josh has his own email list where he talks about marketing and copywriting. But at one point recently, he turned off his automated welcome email that people get first thing when they subscribe.

​​Instead, Josh goes in, does a bit of Internet sleuthing about the new subscriber based on the email address, and then writes a custom welcome email just to that new subscriber.

Costly? Yes. Not scalable? Yes. Likely to kick off the relationship on a much stronger note? Yes.

And there you go — 6 ways to use the principle of reciprocity in your marketing: give them your trust first. If you take a bit of time and put in a bit of thought, you should be able to apply at least one of these ways to make your current marketing more effective. And a couple of points to wrap it up:

In many of the stories above, the reciprocity happens before (and not instead) of the actual selling job. In other words, after you do something that elicits reciprocity, you don’t talk about your product or ask for the sale. Instead, you say, “I have this plan for how to help your business be more profitable…”

And finally: Don’t get needy. Yes, reciprocity by definition means you are taking the first step. That doesn’t mean you have to become needy — about being liked, about getting a response, about getting the sale, about getting a yes.

Instead, come up with your plan, carry it out, and move on with your life. If it works, great. if it doesn’t, that’s ok, because you now know you should make your great offer to other prospects instead.

And of course, if you want to know about other ways to make your business more profitable or to make more sales, then I have this plan that might help you. It involves writing emails to your prospects and clients along the following lines:

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