Are you Joe Hepp to the real con game?

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Yesterday, a friend and I spent a lot of time tracking down the phrase “Joe Hepp.”

It appears in A House of Games, a David Mamet film about con men.

“Are you Joe Hepp?” is apparently an old circus saying that means, “Are you a know-it-all?” It later morphed into, “Are you hep?” — meaning “are you in the know?” — and later hip, hippy, hipster, etc.

But here’s something you might find more interesting.

It’s the etymology of another phrase from A House of Games. It comes up when the main con man, Mike, talks about what a con game really is.

It’s short for confidence game, says Mike.

You might have already known that.

But do you know why it’s called a confidence game?

Not because the con man gains your confidence in order to cheat you. Instead, it’s because he gives you his confidence. And this makes you trust him, and makes you susceptible for manipulation and persuasion.

In other words, it’s the old reciprocity principle from Robert Cialdini’s book Influence.

Except, not as it’s applied in the lame and ineffective way of most marketers (“If I bombard my prospects with free pdfs and hard-teaching emails, then they will feel obliged to eventually buy from me”).

No.

There are much better, more subtle, and more effective ways to apply reciprocity — AKA the con game — to copywriting and marketing.

I won’t lay them out here.

But if you’d like to know what I have in mind, you might find some answers here:

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

7 reasons NOT to date your copywriting clients

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I saw the following thread today in the Ask Men subreddit:

“If you really like a girl, what are some reasons you wouldn’t date her?”

Reading through the top responses, I realized many of these reasons apply, in slightly modified form, to dating your copywriting clients as well:

#1. “Not willing to discuss issues we’ve had”

Some clients I’ve had never shared the results of campaigns I worked on for them. Was a time, when I happily kept working for these clients, just for the money.

Not so any more.

Today, a big part of what I get from any new copywriting project is the opportunity to learn and improve — and getting feedback in the form of sales results is a major part of that.

#2. “Different stages in life”

I’m in a kind of settled, “middle age” period in my little copywriting career.

This means I prefer to work with boring, established, successful businesses that are already making sales.

I would be unlikely to get involved with the uncertainty and stress — or if you prefer, excitement — that comes with most young, hungry, no-name startups.

#3. “Deep debt, unwillingness to work”

If a client is not doing well financially, and if they are hoping my copywriting will save the day, I silently pivot on my heel and run in the opposite direction.

#4. “She lives 8 hours away. By airplane”

I’ve had long-term clients from all over the world, from New Zealand to Thailand to the UK to California.

So physical distance in a client relationship doesn’t bother me.

But I do still need a bit of love and regular interaction, at least in the form of timely replies to questions I send and requests for info I make.

#5. “She doesn’t want to date me”

Why chase clients who don’t want to work with me — when there’s so much demand for good copywriting out there?

#6. “My wife would be pissed”

There were times when I was working with several clients at the same time who could be considered competition to each other.

None of them has ever been jealous or tried to keep me all to themselves.

That said, if I did date a copywriting client long-term, and they asked me not to work with a specific competitor of theirs, it’s something I would consider doing.

#7. “Mismatch of core values: religion, etc.”

Some businesses out there are outright scams, selling shoddy or harmful products.

Others prey on segments of the population — gambling addicts, for example — who cannot make anything close to a rational decision.

I don’t work with these kinds of clients, because I feel that there are plenty of ways to get rich by selling something that gives value to the buyer instead of making them worse off.

And there you have it:

7 reasons NOT to date an otherwise attractive girl…

And 7 reasons I choose NOT to write copy for some otherwise attractive clients.

Now, if you have a business and you found yourself on the list above, then odds are slim we will work together.

And if you did not recognize yourself on the list above, but you are looking for sales copy and you think you might want to work with me, then write me an email and we can schedule a lightning-fast first date to get to know each other a bit better.

Why you should ignore your competition

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True story:

Two entrepreneurs started two similar businesses, selling cubic zirconia (aka synthetic diamonds) by mail.

The first guy ran a well-written ad in the LA Times and sold a bunch of one-karat fake diamonds.

After all expenses were covered, he made a profit of around $3,000.

Disgusted with this small payout, guy number one folded shop and moved on to a new opportunity.

Guy two also ran an ad in the LA Times.

His ad was not as well written, and though it pulled some sales, the end result was about a $10,000 loss once all the expenses were counted.

However, guy two did not exit the market.

Instead, he mailed out his fake diamonds in a fancy wooden box with a letter that said (I’m paraphrasing),

“Look at your beautiful one-karat diamond in its beautiful box. Doesn’t it have a fiery brilliance? Oh and by the way, in case it’s smaller than you expected, we do also offer five- and ten-karat stones. And if you like, just return this beautiful but tiny diamond and we will credit its value to your purchase of a bigger rock.”

Guy two rode this fancy-wooden-box-plus-upsell-letter approach to a $25 million business — in the first year alone.

I heard this story in a talk given by Jay Abraham. And I was reminded of it today, when I read an article written by marketer Sean D’Souza.

I think Sean’s article is valuable reading for anybody who’s interested in building a successful and lasting building online — rather than just looking for a one-time opportunity with a quick payout. It might also be valuable reading for copywriters who put a lot of stock in swipe files.

In case either of these sounds like you, then here’s the link to read the full story:

https://www.psychotactics.com/ignore-your-competition/

Silent stories run deep

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Yesterday, I walked into an unfamiliar room and got naked.

I took a warm shower, tiptoed over to a large, clam-like apparatus, and climbed in.

I closed the clam shell behind myself.

All around me was warm, salty water and complete darkness and silence.

I was in an isolation (or sensory deprivation) tank.

For the next hour or so, I lay there in the darkness, waiting for the visions to start.

At least, that’s what I’d read would happen. I got this idea from Paddy Chayefsky’s novel Altered States, in which a scientist starts experimenting with sensory deprivation and psychedelic drugs, and winds up transforming into an ape-like creature who runs amok in Central Park.

The story in the book is less kooky than this quick summary makes it sound.

And kooky or not, this story was enough to make “sensory deprivation” something I very much wanted to try.

Which is a lesson to keep in mind if you are trying to convince people of anything — particularly anything unusual, or something they might not know they want.

Just consider:

Had I read a sales letter, an advertorial, or a blog post with a headline like, “How to induce safe, drug-free hallucinations,” odds are the message would have just bounced off me.

In the best case, it might have gotten me interested, but it would have caused all sorts of objections and doubts to pop up as well.

But a story, in an obscure novel from 40 years ago, was enough to get me to seek out a “float” halfway around the world, without inquiring about the price, safety, or effectiveness of this experience.

And this all happened without even a call to action. Speaking of which:

If you are selling something to an “unaware” audience, and you want to try a story-based approach in your sales emails, then you might find some valuable pointers here:

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

How to outguess “America’s greatest copywriter” for $100

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During his famous farewell seminar in 2006, Gary Bencivenga ran a “Pick The Winner” contest.

He’d show two different headlines or magalog covers and ask the audience to choose which one did better in a direct test. (Example: “HE PROVED IT to millions on PBS television…” vs. “Deadly artery plaque dissolved!”)

The interesting thing was that Gary himself admitted he wasn’t good at picking among these competing headlines.

Let me repeat this:

Gary Bencivenga, who has been called “America’s greatest copywriter,” admitted he can’t pick a winning headline from two solid but very different appeals.

​​So what hope do you have?

And if you can’t even hope to pick out a winning headline, how can you write a good ad?

After all, the headline often determines whether the rest of your ad will get a reading at all.

Before I answer this, let me switch gears for a second. And let me tell you about an interesting bit of research I came across in psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Kahneman and another psychologist, Gary Klein, had very different attitudes about expert intuitions (such as the ability of a top copywriter to pick a winning headline).

Gary Klein was all for expert intuition.

He studied decision making among firefighters, and he had many reports of how firefighters would make gut calls that turned out to be the right call.

Kahneman, on the other hand, didn’t believe much in the power of expert intuition.

That’s because he spent his time looking at decision making in fields such as finance, where he found that expert intuition was often negatively correlated to the actual outcome. (In other words, once you hear what an expert stock broker advises, you should do the exact opposite.)

So Kahneman and Klein decided to collaborate and answer the following:

When can you trust experts? And how can you develop expert intuition that you can rely on?

It turns out there are two conditions.

First, the domain needs to be predictable enough. Emergency room cases are predictable — but the stock market is not.

Second, you need an opportunity to get feedback, and preferably a lot of feedback, relatively quickly.

So let’s get back to writing copy.

Looking at the two criteria above, you can see why even a top copywriter like Gary B. might not have great intuition when it comes to picking headline winners.

Even if you think an individual market (say, the market for weight loss advice in 2019) is more or less predictable…

It’s hard to get enough feedback on what the market would respond to if all you’ve got is one direct mailing every six months, like Gary used to have.

Fortunately, that’s not the situation we’re in any longer.

With $100, you can promote an offer on a PPC network like Google display, and perform dozens of different (and statistically valid) copy tests.

This way, you can get almost immediate feedback.

You can learn which appeals work.

Plus you will start to develop a world-class copy intuition, which will soon outstrip even great copy masters from earlier generations.

Which goes back to something I read from another top copywriter, Dan Ferrari:

“Winning at direct response is mostly a matter of taking as many swings as possible. The C-level marketers that test 50 promos per year will beat the A-list marketers that test 5. Over longer periods of time, as variability compounds, this will become even more pronounced.”

Anyways, maybe this is valuable if you’re looking to write good copy.

And if you want to see some “Pick The Winner” contests I’ve run with several email lists I manage, you might like the following:

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

The dangers of premature O

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Today I heard a talk by Perry Marshall about a topic dear to many marketers:

The 80/20 rule.

The basic idea is that 20% of your causes are responsible for 80% of your effects.

So 80% of the grunting at your local gym is caused by 20% of gym rats…

While just 20% of Seinfeld episodes will produce 80% of the most memorable jokes.

More seriously, if you’re doing any kind of creative or productive work, this rule says you can get more done than a romp of otters by focusing on that small part of your business where you are most valuable, and ignoring all the rest.

The underlying idea here is optimization. Of your time. Of your efforts. And of your assets. It’s an idea that’s popular with guys like Perry who have a background in engineering but have since moved into marketing.

The thing is, I also have an engineering background. And I know another optimization rule-of-thumb besides the famous 80/20 rule.

This rule comes from Donald Knuth, a legendary professor of computer science from Stanford University. Prof. Knuth had the following to say on the topic of optimization:

“We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

In other words…

Optimize too early, and you might end up wasting time and resources focusing on irrelevant things…

And more importantly, you might get stuck with a sub-optimal solution.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

In my own copywriting business, I’ve had several ongoing clients over the past several years. This 20% of my clients has represented steady, well-paid work — probably 80% of my total income.

And yet, I have not focused on getting more than my usual share of work from these same clients…

And I have not gone out looking for more of the same kind of client.

That’s because I believe these particular clients — though they have been good to me so far — are not the kinds of businesses that will get the highest value out of the copy I write.

And that’s why I spend a lot of time and effort courting different clients, who at this point might be more difficult, fickle, and demanding, but present a bigger opportunity long term.

So am I saying you should ignore the 80/20 rule altogether?

Not at all. Instead, just consider whether you really need to optimize your business at this point — or simply work a bit harder.

Anyways, if you are looking for a sales copywriter and you’re wondering whether you could get a lot of value out of the kind of copy that I write, then here’s something that might help you decide:

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

Fear and loathing in Facebook advertising

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I listened to a webinar a few days ago put on by two big name marketers.

The webinar was all about how to squeak more out of your marketing on Facebook, now that Facebook is cracking down on direct response ads.

The answer that these two big marketing guns had was to water down your copy. To change the main triggering words. To replace disgusting images with generic ones.

To me, this was code for more of the same, disguised in a way to make it palatable to Facebook.

And, again to my mind, underlying this new marketing approach was a continued emphasis on the emotions of fear and greed — and a bit of contempt for the customer.

Don’t get me wrong.

This marketing approach obviously works, and it’s definitely one way to get rich as a marketer. It’s also something I’ve been guilty of myself as a copywriter.

And yet, this is not the only way to succeed.

You can appeal to other emotions than fear and greed.

You can choose to make a good product rather than hyperactive marketing the core of your business.

You can look out for your customers rather than treat them with contempt.

And none of this has to be driven by altruism. As Mark Ford has written:

“Proponents of the fear-and-greed approach often argue that the smart thing to do is to follow a fear-based lead with an appeal to the prospect’s greed.

“But I have found that if you do that, you wind up attracting the kind of customer you don’t want: someone who is gullible and greedy.

“You can’t build a business by selling to the gullible and greedy. You can make scores, sometimes big scores. But you will never have a sustainably profitable business.”

This quote of Mark’s is something I keep coming back to often recently, and a kind of sign post I keep working my way towards.

And if you are a business owner or a copywriter, I think it’s a worthwhile idea to consider.

Anyways, if you have a business selling a good product and you want some help in marketing it — using copy that works in the interest of your customers — then you might like the following:

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

Dread Pirate Leonardo’s to-do list

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Leonardo Da Vinci used to keep many notebooks and in some of them, he entered his daily to-do items. It’s not your typical laundry list:

– Examine the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto
– Ask about the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese
– Draw Milan

When did Leonardo find time to do all this plus paint the Mona Lisa plus design the first tank plus make important anatomical discoveries?

I don’t know.

But I suspect he had the same attitude as Westley from The Princess Bride.

Westley is just a poor stable boy when he sets off into the world to make his fortune.

But before he gets anywhere, his ship is captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who never takes prisoners. So when Westley offers to become Roberts’ valet, the Dread Pirate agrees, but just for that one day.

In the evening, Roberts says, “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

This goes on each day. Westley learns as much as he can in that one day. He makes himself as useful as he can aboard the Revenge, DPR’s fearsome ship.

And each night, he hears the same. “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

In time, Westley becomes a master of fencing, he learns how to run a pirate ship, and he even inherits the title of “Dread Pirate Roberts” when the current Dread Pirate Roberts decides to retire.

And he does it all done one day at a time.

With the threat of imminent death hanging over him.

Which is basically the situation we all find ourselves in.

So personally, when I get overwhelmed with future plans and goals and things I’d like to accomplish but I haven’t even started on yet…

I just remember the encouraging words of the Dread Pirate Roberts — “I’ll most likely kill you in the morning” — and resolve to learn and do as much as I can for today.

That might be something to consider if you’re feeling overwhelmed with your own to-dos. And if learning how to write effective sales emails is among your to-dos, then check out the following:

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

Naked yoga for lonely, bearded old men

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Taking a naked yoga class is not so much about stretching.

Rather, it’s more about ogling the naked female instructor.

For example, a typical naked yoga class culminates in a pose known as “bird of paradise,” where the (naked) instructor stands on one leg and holds her other leg at a 180-degree angle.

I read about this in an article about bizarre courses you can now take around East London.

Along with naked yoga, you can also sign up for rope bondage classes, cuddle parties, and tantra workshops.

According to Samantha Rea, the author of the article, most of the interest is from men, typically “older, usually single, left-leaning middle-class guys who sometimes sport a man-bun and a big, bushy beard—lubricated with artisan beard-oil—along with loose cotton trousers.”

Samantha writes that, to her mind, these classes are not much different than getting a lap dance. The only real difference is “paying for a lap dance is a more honest transaction.”

And that brings me to the topic of selling in marketing.

Occasionally (though less often as I’ve continued to raise my copywriting rates), I still come across a business that would like to “increase engagement” with their prospects or customers.

Often, this is code for pumping out well-meaning content, without in any way trying to make the sale or promote the offers the business has.

It’s not the kind of job I take on.

For one, I focus on sales copywriting, which always aims to clearly get an action from the reader.

I do this because it gets clients results, which is good for me in the long term.

On a more astral plane, I feel that aiming to “increase engagement” without selling is much like lap dancing for the woke (as Samantha puts it).

If you ask me, it’s better to have the sales honestly out in the open.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to drum your prospects on the head with your sales pitch. It’s true people do not like to be sold to. That’s why your prospects should feel like they are buying because they want to, rather than because you have sold them.

The good news is, it’s not hard to get a grip on this skill.

Assuming you write to your prospects regularly about things they care about, in a fun and entertaining way. And if you want to find out in more detail how to do this, you might like the following:

The productivity benefits of dirty hostels and shared bathrooms

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Ben Settle wrote an email today with the subject line, “Why airports are the devil.”

Ben’s email is all about how he hates travel — the bacteria-infected airports, the dirty hostels, and the horror-filled lifestyle of a digital nomad.

Now, I hate many of the same things that Ben’s pointing out.

And yet, I still travel frequently and willingly.

And I think traveling is important — whether I like it or not.

That’s because I’ve noticed that when I sit at home and develop a daily routine, my brain slowly and imperceptibly starts to get slow, stupid, and depressed.

After a while, it simply refuses to work very well. It refuses to be active, creative, or engaged — because everything around me is too familiar.

The upshot is it starts to take me longer and longer to get work completed… Small obstacles become overwhelming… And I find it hard to stay motivated or positive.

Going for a trip clears all those cobwebs quickly and amps me up with energy for when I get back home. And that’s why I’m willing to submit to uncomfortable airplane seats or to bacteria in dodgy restaurants or embarrassment when having to deal with strangers in a strange land.

I’m sure there are many people who are like Ben, and who can thrive in their own home fortress, with a regular, familiar routine, day in and day out.

But I suspect many people are also like me.

The thing is, not everyone has a free and flexible lifestyle.

Many people who do get depressed and bored and inactive in their daily lives cannot travel and get new experiences whenever they want.

And so they seek novelty, stimulation, and entertainment wherever they can get it.

Usually through TV shows. Or social media. Or even in the marketing they are exposed to.

Which, in case you’ve got a business, is a great opportunity.

If you send marketing emails entertaining and challenging your audience, you can help your prospects make up for the fact they have routine and staid lives.

And if you want to see how I write such emails — even as I sleep on friends’ couches and expose myself to dangerous airport bacteria — then you might like the following:

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