The bad (and the good) of beating a control

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BAM!

On April 6, 2019, bad boy MMA fighter Conor McGregor stepped inside a Dublin pub.

McGregor owns a brand of whiskey. So he offered to buy a round of his Proper No. 12 to all the pub patrons.

One old guy said, no thanks.

So McGregor, who at one point held two MMA belts and also fought boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, socked the old man right in the ear. The old man absorbed the jab gamely. But he quietly turned away, clearly ceding to McGregor’s physical dominance.

The infuriating thing is that none of the mainstream news media reported a fact I know deep in my heart:

This old man was the standing boxing champ of that local Dublin pub.

He won the title back in 1989, against another local drunkard named Ciaran. Since then, nobody has dared to challenge the old man’s reign. Except Conor McGregor.

Here’s where I’m going with this:

McGregor winning that pub fight was much like a copywriter beating a long-standing control. (A control, as you probably know, is your best ad, the one that’s been running successfully for a long time, and outperforming all competition.)

Maybe you see the similarity. If you beat a control, it’s impossible to say what that really means.

Maybe your new copy really is a highly trained fighting machine. Maybe it could beat all competition, even on a world stage filled with killers.

But… maybe, just maybe, you sucker punched an old man who was teetering on a bar stool after his third pint. Maybe the old copy was so outdated, so weak, and so ready for change that even a finger tap would have done it.

Nobody can tell for sure.

Which might be bad if you’re looking for copywriting “truth.”

But it’s certainly great if you’re a copywriter looking to make a name for yourself. So go out and start brawling. Get yourself a control, even if it means pushing over some tipsy, harmless geezer.

Last thing:

I have an daily email newsletter. Much of the content is me pushing over long-standing but tired claims like “he won a control, therefore he must be great” and replacing them with something more interesting.

If you’d like to sign up for my emails so you can see me terrorizing these bits of conventional wisdom, here’s where to go.

Don’t bring a knife to a proof fight

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Continuing on yesterday’s discussion about proof, there is the following sad fact:

If you are a copywriter trying to prove your case, you might be forced to squeeze juice out of a dry and withered lemon.

Most often, that consists of stacking up a few weak testimonials, and maybe including an unremarkable mechanism.

Don’t get me wrong. This kind of proof, dry and withered though it may be, is still better than nothing.

But in a way, it’s like that scene in The Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indy comes into a crowded marketplace, only to be faced with a black-robed giant who’s wielding a scimitar.

The black-robed giant laughs and does some fancy sword waving.

And then Indy pulls out a gun and shoots him.

Lesson being, don’t bring your testimonial knife to a proof fight. Somebody out there will shoot you.

But if testimonials are the scimitar equivalent of proof, then what is the equivalent of a gun?

Well, just take a look at all the direct response giants.

Guthy-Renker…

Agora…

Golden Hippo.

All these billion-dollar companies don’t use just endorsements or testimonials to prove the worth of their products. Instead, their entire offers are built around gurus with a following, credibility, and authority.

People like Tony Robbins… or James Altucher… or Steven Gundry (okay, maybe not a terrible amount of credibility there).

Point being:

You might not be able to get a famous and successful person to be the face and heart of your new product. But with a bit of thinking, you can find ways to bake the proof into your product, rather than sprinkling it on as a dry and withered afterthought.

On an entirely unrelated topic:

I have an email newsletter. It’s all about persuasion insights and strategies. Want proof that it’s worth reading? Tony Robbins is my editor. If you want to sign up and see what Tony and I have to say, here’s where to go.

The first commandment of A-list copywriters

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Steve Martin has a standup comedy bit about clueless guys in bars.

“The way I meet girls,” Steve starts, “is by looking cool. The important thing is to have a great opening line.”

So he takes a sip of water, grits his teeth to take the sting out, and walk over to an imaginary girl. After a cocky pause and a twitch of his brow, he unleashes the killer line:

“Yeah… I make a lot of money.”

This is how it is in marketing, too. Most advertisers think they’re being suave, and instead put out ads full of hyperbole and empty claims. When prospects see these ads, they do what most girls would do with Steve Martin above. A roll of the eyes. Instant dismissal.

But don’t take my word for it. This was the opinion of one Gary Bencivenga, an A-lister whose star shines brightest on the copywriters Walk of Fame.

According to Gary, the two most powerful words in advertising are neither “FREE” nor “NEW.” Instead, the two most powerful words are, “Yeah, sure.” That’s why Gary’s number one commandment was to put proof above all other elements in his ads.

But you probably know all this. So I won’t go on more about proof or Gary Bencivenga. Instead, let me make a confession.

For the past several months, I’ve been working on a book about something I call “insight marketing.”

My original plan was to write this book in 28 days. Well, that didn’t happen.

I’m making progress on the book (about halfway done) but it’s taking way more research and thinking than I planned originally.

So while I continue to write this book about insight, I decided to put out more tiny Kindle books on topics I already know a lot about.

And that’s where all of that Steve Martin/Gary Bencivenga stuff above hooks in. It’s the beginning of the first chapter of my upcoming book.

How upcoming? 28 days, of course. If you want to know when it’s out, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter, in which I write about persuasion and marketing, much like you read above.

More “maybe” for more influence

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Right now, I’m waiting at the airport. In front of me is a little girl riding a Shaun the Sheep suitcase.

I’ve never seen one of these before. It’s got a cool design (S. the Sheep on top, Union Jack below, suitcase inside). It also has wheels and works as a push bike. That’s how the little girl is using it now.

I was so impressed by the suitcase and by how much fun the girl was having, that when she rode by the first time, I stared at her and smiled. (That’s not a weakness I normally indulge in.) The girl spotted me smiling at her and looked away, embarrassed.

She kept rolling around, going in circles.

But I had stuff to do. I started checking my phone. I then got out my laptop to write this email.

Meanwhile, the girl kept passing in front of me, making ever more elaborate attempts to retrieve my attention. I cruelly kept writing. She kept riding around, until she finally stopped in front of me flailing her arms.

I’ve read this is a fundamental truth about human behavior.

In general, if you want to instill a new behavior, negative reinforcement can work, though not terribly well.

Positive reinforcement works much better.

But what works best of all is intermittent reinforcement. As Robert Sapolsky once put it, you never get more behavior out of an organism than when you introduce a “maybe” into the outcome.

That’s something to keep in mind when you’re trying to influence, in real life or online.

But maybe writing about influencing a 5-year-old human organism sounds a little callous, even for me. So I’ll wrap up this email here, and get back to admiring this girl’s suitcase-riding skills.

One more thing:

I write a daily email newsletter about influence and marketing. It’s a cold-hearted affair but some people find it interesting. If you want to get my emails (much like what you’ve just read) in your inbox each day, you can sign up right here.

No fuss or fireworks: The “duck for sale” principle

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Today I read a clever little ad, which famed copywriter Gary Bencivenga wrote to promote his own marketing agency.

​​True to Gary’s philosophy of advertising, this ad is full of value — useful info that keeps you reading whether you plan on hiring Gary’s agency or not. On page 7, there is a caption that reads:

“THE DUCK FOR SALE” PRINCIPLE. When you have a product with immediate, apparent appeal, present it straightforwardly. For example, if you are trying to sell a duck, don’t beat about the bush with a headline such as, “Announcing a special opportunity to buy a white-feathered flying object.”
You’ll get much better results with, “DUCK FOR SALE.”

I liked this a lot. And I think this “duck for sale” principle applies more broadly than just to products with immediate, apparent appeal.

I’m not saying all ads should trumpet the product in the headline. But I personally often overthink advertising. I try to get clever. Tricky. I want to work in that copywriting mystique sold by copywriting gurus.

But based on what I’ve seen after sending hundreds of emails to peddle truckloads of ecomm gimcracks… all the successful copy I’ve written satisfied the “duck for sale” principle in a way. It was direct, at least about the problem it was solving. It was simple to understand. And it was close to what was on the prospect’s mind.

Gary Bencievenga apparently likes a little book called Obvious Adams. It’s about an unremarkable man who becomes a remarkable marketing success. He gets there by doing something similar to what I’m talking about here:

“How many of us have sense to see and do the obvious thing? And how many have persistence enough in following our ideas of what is obvious? The more I thought of it, the more convinced I became that in our organization there ought to be some place for a lad who had enough sense to see the obvious thing to do and then to go about it directly, without any fuss or fireworks, and do it!”

Star Wars on Earth or elsewhere

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“It’s Star Wars on Earth!”

That’s what Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer said after reading a May 1983 article in California Magazine. The article described a special flight school for the Navy’s best pilots.

Bruckheimer knew he had to make a movie out of it. So he bought the rights to the magazine article — title, “Top Guns.” He got two screenwriters who loved flying to drop the final ‘s’ and start developing it into a script.

A couple days ago, I sent out an email with a Top Gun theme. That made me track down and rewatch a fantastic documentary I saw once on YouTube about the making of Top Gun.

The documentary is called Danger Zone. It’s got interviews with the film’s producers… the editors… the stars… the cameramen… the special effects guys… even Giorgio Moroder, the Oscar-winning composer who wrote and produced the iconic songs.

But it’s not just my boyish love of Top Gun that makes this documentary so interesting.

For one thing, it shows how complex it is to produce an hour and a half of seamless entertainment… how many specialists are involved… how much thinking lies behind seemingly simple parts… how many layers of subtlety go into even a jockish, commercial, fantasy flick.

But that’s not the biggest lesson I got from it all.

The biggest lesson — and what I want share with you tonight — is the role of chance and obstacles in the final result.

I won’t retell all the “this can’t possibly work” stories from the making of Top Gun. Watch the documentary for that. But if you’re interested in doing any kind of complex, creative work, the lesson is timeless:

Things will break. There will be deviations from your original plan. You will run into obstacles that threaten the very project.

That’s all normal. Expect it. Accept it. And with a bit of luck and good timing, the final result you produce will be stronger for it — Star Wars, in whatever market or niche you’re in.

Finally, here’s a blockbuster recommendation:

Sign up for my email newsletter. It’s free, and I share stories and ideas related to writing and marketing, much like what you’ve just read.

Story-deaf jerks

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I saw an ad today for a trendy copywriting course.

For the low price of $37, it teaches you “critical plot techniques” and “the secret to creating a protagonist.” In other words, this is a course on storytelling.

I’m sure this course is selling. But I wouldn’t buy it, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.

Don’t get me wrong. There are people who are excellent storytellers. And there are people who are completely story-deaf. They are the storytelling equivalent of Steve Martin in The Jerk — a white man clapping his hands and stomping his feet in the most off-rhythm, hopeless way possible… while his black family sits on the porch and sings Pick a Bale of Cotton.

But the vast majority of people are not at either of these extremes.

Most people are not, and will never be, Dave Chappelle-level storytellers. But most people can tell a story just fine. It’s an innate human skill, much like blinking your eyes. No need for a course that teaches “7+ story integration strategies” or “How to create a theme for your story.”

Want a storytelling tip worth paying for? Here’s one I got from my ex copywriting coach, a successful and well-paid copywriter:

In many places where you think you need a story, you actually don’t. All you really need is a scene, a snapshot.

Like in the Jerk reference I made above. I could have told you the whole story up to that scene, and included half the movie that follows. But the snapshot was enough.

And when a snapshot is not enough, then two connected snapshots, or three, might do the trick.

Start to think of storytelling in this cinematic way. Soon you won’t need a course on storytelling… any more than you need a course on snapping your fingers to the beat.

Before I go:

I write a daily email newsletter with messages like the one you’ve just read. If you’re interested in copywriting, marketing, or persuasion, you might find it valuable. Or you might not. But if you want to give it a try, here’s where to sign up.

Crash and burn with new client onboarding

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These days, airline pilots have to sit in flight simulators.

After 3 months of no flying, pilots are considered to be out of practice. They lose their certification and have to take the whole “I’m a pilot, really” test all over again. So they sit in simulators.

Other professions, such as copywriting, are not so strict or regulated. That doesn’t mean you won’t forget useful skills you might have had earlier.

For example, I just started working with a new client. That’s unusual.

For the past year or so, I’ve mainly worked with one large client.

It’s been nice and steady work, but it’s put me in a kind of lull. Along the way, I forgot some of my new-client-management skills.

With this particular new client, I forgot to set clear expectations around timelines. As a result, I got an email from him today. It’s been a day and a half since we agreed on the initial test project. He wanted to know whether I have anything to show him. I wasn’t even planning to start on the project until later today.

That’s my fault. The thing is, I should know better.

Back when I used to be on Upwork, I talked to a dozen potential new clients each month. I usually started working with one or two of them. I was very sharp with client “onboarding.”

I even wrote a little book about how to get good clients on Upwork and how to keep them good. In Section 3 of the book, I wrote the following:

“If you never want disappointed clients, then set expectations immediately. Let clients know what you will do, how the final result will look, and what they can expect in terms of results.”

I should have included something there about setting timelines, even if the client doesn’t.

Oh well. “Crash and burn, huh Mav?” Time to get back to the simulator and start practicing again.

By the way, if you haven’t seen my Upwork book, there is a chance you might find it valuable. If you’re a new copywriter, and you’re looking for work, it can help you get that jet off the flight deck. Upwork isn’t as terrible as everybody makes it sound. I managed to make over $100k on there, and I found good clients.

And if you’re not a new copywriter, well… maybe you’re just rusty with your client management skills. I obviously am. So I will reread my own advice, back from the days when I was juggling a half dozen clients at the same time. Maybe you too could use some of these reminders.

Anyways, if you’re interested, then slap on your aviators and ride into the danger zone over here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

Baby Internet turning into the Matrix

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Fair warning:

Today’s long post isn’t about persuasion or copywriting. It’s just a kooky and perhaps embarrassing prediction I want to make. Read on at your own risk.

In case you’re still here, I first want to point out a few facts.

Fact one is that some complex systems are made up of simple parts.

Bee hives. Ant colonies. Human brains.

Take a bunch of simple nodes. Bring millions or billions of them together. Allow them to communicate and react to each other.

What you can get is complex behaviors. They are unpredictable, adaptable, and often display something you can call intelligence.

Second thing I want to point out is that the Internet fits this mold.

Like the human brain, the internet is made out of billions of (relatively) simple parts.

All these laptops and servers… and cell phones and routers… and smart toasters and data centers… link together in uncountable ways. They constantly communicate among themselves. They stimulate different patterns of activity. They are always changing and yet they maintain an underlying structure.

In other words, the Internet has the features needed for complex, emergent behavior. It might even have features needed for intelligence. Not a human-like intelligence, but an intelligence nonetheless.

Fact three is that more and more people are claiming the corona situation is a large-scale conspiracy.

I don’t personally believe this. Partly because conspiracy theories are often a dumb answer to complex questions. Partly because I can’t imagine any country or Illuminati-like organization coming out ahead of the current mess.

But I do think the Internet as a whole will profit.

It will get more nodes added to it… more synapses and connections built inside it… more energy and money fed into it. As an organism, it will get more powerful.

Now here’s a fourth and final thing, which I’m not sure qualifies as fact:

The whole corona situation would not have been possible without the Internet as it is today. And by “corona situation,” I mean the pandemic plus the economic and political reaction.

30 or 40 years ago, people got one dose of news a day, and it tended to concern local things more than today. Plus, those news were somewhat filtered. News outlets still paid lip service to “decency” or “professionalism” or “public responsibility.”

Thanks to the Internet, all that’s gone. People get constant news updates, all day long. And the news has become more provocative, shocking, and global.

This meant an unprecedented level of public attention and concern about corona. Long before anybody had any direct experience with the actual virus.

Combine this with the fact that today, everybody’s got a global voice (again, thanks to the Internet). The upshot was a new level of pressure on politicians to do something. So they covered their rumps by making decisive yet short-sighted decisions. And here we are, working from home, communicating by Zoom, and shopping online.

Summing it all up:

The Internet has all the preconditions for a kind of real intelligence.

The Internet played an active part in the development of the corona situation.

The Internet stands to profit from the same.

So you can see why I said this post is kooky and potentially embarrassing.

I’m not 100% saying the Internet is an intelligent entity that consciously fanned the flames of corona for its own benefit…

But my prediction is that it’s gonna get there, some time soon.

I compare it to a newborn baby, crying because it’s hungry. It does this instinctively, but the response is nourishment and growth.

Soon enough though, the baby stops crying and learns how to speak. A few years later, it grows up and turns into the Matrix.

Are you still with me? I’m impressed by your perseverance.

If I didn’t manage to convince you with my sci-fi scenario above, well, then it’s my fault.

But if I did manage to (somewhat) convince you, then I want to point out a persuasion lesson after all. It’s Gene Schwartz’s idea of gradualization. In Gene’s words:

Every claim, every image, every proof in your ad has two separate sources of strength:

1. The content of that statement itself; and

2. The preparation you have mode for that statement — either by recognizing that preparation as already existing in your prospect’s mind, or by deliberately laying the groundwork for that statement in the preceding portion of the ad itself.

If you’re still reading, you might be interested in knowing I write a daily email newsletter. (Working together, you and I can help the Internet become stronger.) If you’d like to sign up for it, click here.

Copywriting star or bust

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In the early decades of the film industry, there could be no stars.

In 1896, the first for-money movie theater in NYC opened up. By 1910 (a landmark year as will become obvious), thousands of movies came out.

These thousands of movies featured performers, even regular ones.

But nobody knew their names.

The producers refused to credit the actors. So the actors just acted their part and got paid a worker’s wage.

That all changed in 1910. That year, a popular actress named Florence Lawrence finally got her name to appear on film.

By 1912, Lawrence was paid $250/hr a week — the highest rate of any movie performer. But that was nothing. Over the next seven years, movie actor salaries went from Lawrence’s $250 a week in 1912… to Mary Pickford’s $2,000 a week in 1915… to the first guaranteed salary of one million dollars a year for Fatty Arbuckle, in 1919.

Stars were born. And they wanted more.

The next big step came in 1952, with a little-known film of Jimmy Stewart’s, called A Bend in the River. The film is mostly remarkable because it was the first time a Hollywood star got a percentage of profits.

That meant stars went from being well-paid to swimming in vaults of gold coins. Suddenly, the stars could dictate the terms. The studios needed stars more than the stars needed studios.

All of the above are some tidbits I read in William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade. And I think they illustrate a hard truth:

If you are in any service business… whether that’s acting or copywriting or haircuttery…

Being a star and getting paid real well go hand-in-hand.

Inversely, doing good work but not having any name recognition… well, you’ll always stay on the ground floor. You’ll get the modern equivalent of a worker’s wage — and that’s it.

That’s something to keep in mind if you are building up your freelance copywriting career. And it’s something you will have to address, if the prospect of being a star makes your bladder clench up right now.

Anyways, I have no interest in being a copywriting star. But the field does interest me. I write about it every day. And if you want to get emails with the stuff I write, you can sign up here.