Why 30 minutes is better than 2 minutes

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How do you get a penthouse on New York’s Park Avenue, a world famous art collection, and an all-around very good life?

Ask copywriter Gene Schwartz, because he had all three.

Gene paid for it all with his direct mail copywriting, both for clients and for his own publishing business.

Gene’s secret to success?

Hard work.

How hard?

“I work three hours a day,” Gene said, “every single day for five days a week. That’s all I work.”

I don’t know about you, but I feel three hours a day is something even I could manage.

But enough chop licking.

The real reason I bring up Gene Schwartz is because I re-watched an old presentation he gave at Rodale Press.

The presentation was interesting through and through. But what really caught my eye was one of the questions asked at the end.

​​It was very much connected to an issue I’m seeing with the ecommerce emails I write a lot of. I’ll talk about that another time. For now, here’s the question Gene faced:

Back in the 90s when this all happened, Rodale was running 2-minute TV commercials to sell its books. People bought these books in good numbers. But they didn’t buy very many books after, which is where all the profits are made in direct response.

So the question to Gene was, why do these TV customers not continue to buy as well as those who get one of Gene’s monster direct mail packages?

Gene responded:

“Think of what the person has committed who buys your book. If I send them this monster [holds up one direct mail package] or this monster [holds up another], well, this person really and honestly spends 15 minutes to a half hour on this thing. He really devotes a great deal of time to it. So what he’s not doing is just sending you a check for $29. He’s sending you 30 minutes. When you get a person who gets two minutes, he’s not doing anything like that.”

Gene summed it up by saying, “Different type of person. Different type of commitment.”

Here’s what I get out of this:

One of the most common questions by marketing normies is, “Why are those sales letters so long? Nobody will read that.”

The typical answer is that some people do in fact read it, and that’s how long it takes to convince 2% of them to buy.

That’s part of the answer, but it’s obviously not the whole answer. After all, Rodale sold the same books through 2-minute TV ads and 25-page direct mail pieces.

The other part is there in Gene’s response. Different marketing selects different groups of people as your customers. And it actually changes the psychology of those customers, not just in the moment when they order your product, but for the future as well.

You’re not just pushing benefits. You’re training people to be better customers. So if anybody asks you why you write those ridiculously long sales letters (or all those stupid email) that nobody ever reads, tell them the truth:

Because it’s the only way to pay for a Park Avenue penthouse, working just 3 hours a day.

Speaking of stupid emails — I write a daily email newsletter. Since you’ve just spent two minutes reading something I’ve written, you might be committed enough to get on it. If that’s the case, here’s where to go.

The invaluable experience of freelancing for peanuts

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Today, I was waiting in line at the grocery store and watching the fiasco up front.

A woman of indeterminate middle age, wearing skimpy latex shorts and big leather boots, had just put all her groceries on the conveyor belt.

Only once the grocery dude rang everything up and it was time to pay, did Cruella de Vil realize she didn’t have her wallet.

Ok, it happens to everybody. But then it went to another level.

“Please put the groceries aside,” she commanded the grocery dude, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She left the store, I guess to get her wallet.

She was back in 5 seconds.

“Could you put the groceries in a bag for me and charge me for the bag? I’ll be in a hurry when I get back.”

The grocery dude was confused but he did as he was told. Cruella left the store for a second time.

She was back again in another 10 seconds.

“Actually I’ve got my own bag,” she said. She unwrapped a little designer nylon bag and started packing her groceries inside. She still hadn’t paid or even gotten her wallet. Eventually she left for the third time.

But let’s switch to another topic for a second.

Before all this happened — in fact, all the way yesterday — I got involved in a discussion on Reddit.

The gist of the discussion was an old freelance copywriter conundrum:

Is it worth working for peanuts at the start of your freelance copywriting journey… or is it better to hone your skills in secret, and then to approach higher-caliber clients straight away?

I was on the peanuts side. My argument was that peanuts are better than no peanuts.

Other people disagreed, because they find peanuts offensive.

It’s too bad the discussion stopped there.

Because peanuts or no peanuts, I feel there’s a lot of value in getting experience with client work, even if the money is laughable.

For example, some clients can be very demanding. But when it comes to paying, suddenly they’ve forgotten their wallet at home, just like Cruella did in the story above.

Eventually, you can learn to recognize the red flags, like the tiny latex shorts or the big Doc Martens. But you have to have those experiences yourself.

That’s why I think, if you’re just starting out, it’s good to get going with client work as soon as possible. You’ll get invaluable experience in the business of copy. And the fact that a client is paying you peanuts can even be a benefit, because it can take much of the pressure off.

The Joey Tribbiani school of subtle persuasion

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Over the years, I’ve said a lot of bad things about the TV show Friends. I take it all back. Because a few days ago, a kind and multi-talented reader wrote in to point out the persuasion lesson hiding right in the pilot episode.

The scene is set in a Manhattan apartment of one Ross Geller, circa 1994. Ross’s wife has just left him. Ross is desperate. He fears he will never find love again. What if there’s only one woman for every man?

Joey Tribbiani, Ross’s man-whore friend, is personally offended by this idea. “That’s like saying there’s only one flavor of ice cream for you. Let me tell you something… there’s lots of flavors out there. Rocky Road… cookie dough… cherry vanilla! This is the best thing that ever happened to you! Welcome back to the world. Grab a spoon!”

Perhaps this scene is not terribly convincing, much like all of Friends. But it does illustrate the gist of a powerful way to create insight. And that’s persuading by metaphor or analogy.

“Romantic partners are like ice cream.” When your brain hears this, it starts to look for points of similarity. It maps obvious features of one thing to another. And if those fit well enough, your brain jumps to the conclusion that other, less obvious features map also.

“Ice cream comes in different flavors. So do romantic partners. Just because you like one flavor, that doesn’t mean you cannot like another.” Maybe you’re not convinced. But Ross is.

By the end of the pilot episode, Ross makes a bold move on his old high-school crush, Rachel. “Do you think it would be ok,” Ross asks, “if I asked you out, sometime, maybe?”

Rachel realizes she’s dealing with a child. “Yeah, maybe,” she says.

That’s good enough for Ross. He leaves the apartment, walking on a cloud. “What’s with you?” asks his sister.

A smile spreads across Ross’s face. “I just grabbed a spoon.”

Here’s why this kind of persuasion works — even outside of 90s sitcoms.

We often get entrenched in a way of thinking. Getting out of that rut can be hard. That’s what analogies and metaphors are for. They create a new perspective — a new pattern of thought — around an old and familiar problem.

Imagine a cliffside of sheer rock, jutting straight up. You want to get to the top. “But it’s impossible,” you tell yourself.

An analogy is a wooden arrow sign, stuck into the ground next to that cliff. “Hidden staircase this way,” it says. All you have to do is follow where it’s pointing.

Computer genius Alan Kay once said that a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. It doesn’t take a genius to see that, if you can make a good analogy to your prospect and raise his IQ by 80 points, he might finally be smart enough to see the value in your offer.

How valuable would that be for you?

Well, after the pilot, Friends ran for another 262 episodes. Today, 25 years later, the franchise is still worth over $1 billion each year, thanks to reruns.

Am I saying that analogies could be worth $1 billion to you? No. But maybe, for a split-second, your brain jumped to that conclusion.

By the way, I’m putting together a book on other strategies for creating insight in your prospect. If you want to know more and get notified when the book is out, one option is to get on my daily email newsletter.

A current case of whale fall

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On May 17, I wrote about whale fall. That’s my term for how little businesses or even individuals can carve out a unique position for themselves in the marketplace, by feeding off the carcass of a dead or declining whale.

Today, I want to share a quick news bite with you regarding this:

Hey, a new email provider, is out there right now looking to replace the likes of Google’s Gmail.

“Gmail has basically frozen all innovation in email for a good decade,” said David Heinemeier Hansson, one of the guys behind Hey.

(Heinemeier Hansson is well-known in nerd circles, because he is one of the developers and co-founders of Ruby on Rails and Basecamp, and because he is an all-around loud guy.)

So Hey is reimagining email. Each new sender first has to get your consent, or they become ignored. Tracking pixels are automatically blocked. Hey doesn’t have an inbox, but it does have something called an “Imbox.”

As of now, you can only get on the waiting list for a Hey email account. And you have to write a haiku to do it. (I’m not kidding.) Once you are on the waiting list, if your haiku is approved, you then get the chance to pay Heinemeier Hansson $99 for a year of Hey email.

Pretty outrageous, right?

And yet, there is apparently a line of people, wrapping twice around the Internet, who have submitted their haikus and who are holding their $99 in hand, ready to hand it over.

I personally don’t think Hey will succeed long-term, at least as it currently stands. But I bring this story up for two reasons:

1. Even if Hey is not successful, it might have an impact on how promotional emails are handled.

There were already rumblings last summer that Apple was doing some anti-marketing email moves. Now, other tech whales might get in on it. If you are in marketing, it’s good to keep half an eye on these things so you don’t get blindsided.

2. The number one ideal of any whale is to get larger and to absorb more. Along the way, whales get sloppy. So if your primary concern is freedom rather than size, then you can follow your instincts and even make a good business out of it.

That’s the essence of whale fall, and that’s what Hey illustrates, even before it’s launched.

In other news, I just read that Google is facing a $5 billion lawsuit for tracking Chrome users in incognito mode. Maybe it’s time to reimagine how people access their porn? For the right person or small business, it could be a brand new whale fall opportunity.

In still other news, did you get that initial email I sent on May 17 about whale fall? If not, maybe it’s because you’re not subscribed to my email newsletter. Or you’ve got Hey, and you didn’t give your consent to receive my daily emails. In the second case, there’s not much I can do. But if the first case is the problem, here’s how to get on my newsletter list.

Inspiration for would-be New Professors

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Last Thursday morning, I read an article about a man who set an unusual world record.

Between December 2018 and August 2019, he traveled around the world by boat one-and-a-half times.

And in each of the world’s five oceans, including at Antarctica and somewhere close to the North Pole, he visited the deepest underwater point, in what are called “hadal” regions.

In order to become the first person to do this, Victor Vescovo, for that is the man’s name, had to build a custom-made submarine.

He had to retrofit a big ole ship, which he had bought from the U.S. Navy.

He had to hire a crew of engineers, scientists and support staff, all there to help him in his record-setting quest.

The whole enterprise cost a little less than $48 million, which Vescovo, who made that much and more in private equity, paid himself.

But don’t think this was a foolish waste of a rich man’s money.

According to the article, the U.S Navy has showed interest in buying Vescovo’s innovative submarine + blueprints, for a little over what Vescovo himself paid to develop and test it.

In other words, there’s a good chance that Vescovo will have somebody else foot the bill for his unique and quirky passion project of the past several years.

I don’t know about you, but this sounds pretty romantic to me. It’s the kind of life I would like to live.

Not that I’m interested in exploring ocean depths, or managing a big crew, or setting world records.

But I like the idea of having a sailboat of one, sailing to an unexplored island when the mood strikes me, writing up what I’ve learned along the way, and having others pay me to live this life.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be a real sailboat or real islands.

It could just be an unusual topic I get interested in and start researching. Kind of like being a tenured professor, but without the years of clawing up the academic hierarchy.

So why am I telling you this?

No reason. Odds are, you don’t share this same dream.

But on the small chance that you do, then I want to tell you there’s hope.

I was talking to fellow copywriter Will Ward about this idea today.

And Will pointed me to the blog of Gretchen McCulloch, someone who is very much living a life like this. Gretchen has even written up a series of posts about how she became one of The New Professors (my term, not hers), and perhaps, how you can too.

I’m reading these blog posts right now. It’s good for inspiration and maybe a bit of guidance. If you want to read them too and be inspired, here’s where to get started:

https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/189045267597/part-i-what-is-a-weird-internet-career

The “Attractionist” lure for weak negotiators

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My sophomore year in college, I had a girlfriend who loved me so well she ran off to live in Japan.

I bought a plane ticket to visit her during Christmas vacation. But I was careless with my travel arrangements. I booked my flight for the day before the final exam of one of my computer science classes.

The ticket was nonrefundable. And expensive.

My only option was to go talk to the professor. Maybe I could convince him to let me take the exam early.

As I said, this was a computer science class.

The professor teaching it was a beady-eyed automaton who thought in C code and expressed himself with the preciseness of a computer printout. At one point, there was an entire website, created by current and former students, dedicated to the man’s inhuman, Terminator-like nature.

I mustered all my courage and showed up to his office one day.

He was in there, wearing the same short-sleeve button-up shirt he always wore. It had seen so many washes that it had become faded and paper-thin. His nipples regularly poked through during lectures in the cold engineering building.

“Professor Terminator?” I said from the door to his office.

He swiveled around in his chair and focused on me with his cold and fishy gaze.

I explained my nonrefundable ticket predicament. Would there be any chance to take the exam early? Or late? Or anything?

Without saying a word, he swiveled back towards his computer and started typing and clicking. He pulled up the course syllabus.

“The syllabus clearly states the final is scheduled for December 6!” He faced me again. Through his expressionless mask, I sensed he was furious that I would approach him with such a disturbing and illogical request.

I explained that in that case, I would have to miss the final and probably fail the class. He threw up his arms — how was this his problem?

So I tucked my tail between my legs, thanked him for his time, and left. My heart was beating at around 200 BPM. I felt defeated and ashamed.

Throughout my life, I’ve had a few wins like this. They made me think this is how negotiations and sales always go. And I wanted no part of it.

I bet there are a bunch of people out there just like me. Because if you look around, you will see a growing number of copywriting and marketing gurus catering exactly to weak and feckless negotiators.

I call these gurus “Attractionists”. They promise that you can create your freelance copywriting business without ever needing to sell. All you need to do is “attract leads by giving value,” “be human,” “know your worth.”

I’m sure people can get to the point where they are so in demand that they never have to negotiate. But my feeling is, you’re unlikely to jump from zero to total success, and completely bypass the phase where you need to do some selling. As Mark Ford wrote in Ready Fire Aim:

“To be a truly effective entrepreneur, you must become your business’s first and foremost expert at selling. There is only one way to do this: Invest most of your time, attention, and energy in the selling process. The ratio of time, creativity, and money spent on selling as opposed to other aspects of business should be something like 80/20, with 80 percent going towards selling and only 20 percent toward everything else.”

Now here are some good news:

As you go through life, you don’t have to be in hopeless negotiation situations like I was above, where your only hope is for the other side to take pity on you.

You don’t have to be powerless.

And you don’t have to be afraid of facing disagreement or having a conflict of interests with the other side.

Negotiation, persuasion, and yes, sales, can all be learned. I’ve done it. And I’m an anti-natural.

If you too are naturally reluctant to negotiate or sell, then I recommend Jim Camp’s book Start with No. For one thing, it’s an effective system, particularly if you are looking for long-term success rather than quick “wins”. For another, being accommodating and non-confrontational by nature can actually be an asset to you if you use this system.

One final point. Once you learn the basics of how to negotiate, you can choose to make it less of a daily concern in your specific business. But in my opinion, it makes sense to do that from a position of power, and not out of fear.

Anyways, if you want to check out Jim Camp’s book, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/start-with-no

Selling without “you”

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There are many ways to flay a feline, and sales copy is no exception:

Today, I read through a part of the Chaffee Royalties promo. This 2008 sales letter is famous for its use of “transubstantiation,” and because it was analyzed in the book Great Leads.

But something else struck me upon reading the lead of Chaffee Royalties:

There’s almost no “you”. There are no direct promises. It’s all intrigue, case studies, historical anecdotes.

In many ways, Chaffee Royalties doesn’t read like “typical” copy. If I looked at this without knowing it’s a sales letter, I wouldn’t be sure immediately that there is something for sale — simply because not every sentence ends with, “and so can you!”

Even so, this sales letter was successful. Not only did it do well enough to get into Great Leads, but Agora ran a version of it again in 2013, just with different stocks.

Here’s what I’m trying to get at:

A while back, I mentioned the most common piece of feedback I kept getting from my former copywriting coach. That was to make more “on the nose” claims in the lead. Meaning, make claims that are so direct and you-focused that even the most distracted reader can’t fail to grasp them.

That’s obviously worked well for my-ex coach. And in many ways, it’s copywriting dogma, which you can see in the majority of big-name promotions.

But even at very high levels, writing to the same financial newsletter market… there are people who have had success selling with a soft, indirect, and camouflaged approach.

And so can you.

My appeal for your help

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I recently watched a movie called Elmer Gantry, about a traveling salesman who loves hard drinks and fast women.

Elmer lands in a small town in Kansas, where he falls for a preacher woman named Sister Sharon Falconer. So Elmer joins Sister Sharon’s traveling revival meeting, preaching as the “reformed businessman.”

In his first performance, on the topic of “Christ in commerce,” Elmer sermonizes to the masses:

“I was in hell. I knew all the salesman’s tricks. Why wasn’t I rich? Why wasn’t I successful? I opened the Bible, and I read the 18th Psalm. ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress.'”

Long sermon short, with Jesus’s help, Elmer makes the sale of a bunch of electric toasters. Hallelujah! Biggest deal of Elmer’s life.

It’s a good scene. But what’s the point of it?

Unfortunately, I don’t know.

Over the past week, I’ve watched a new movie each day, Elmer Gantry among them. And while I’ve collected a bunch of interesting scenes like the one above, I still haven’t found what I’ve been looking for.

I mentioned in previous emails I’m putting together a book about insight marketing. I pretty much have all the pieces I need, except for one thing:

A pop culture illustration of “persuading by analogy.”

That’s what I’ve been looking for. But no soap. So I’m appealing to you for help.

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Two characters. One is trying to persuade the other. But rational, logical appeals aren’t doing it.

So character one launches into a story or a parable or an extended metaphor. Character two listens, not seeing where this is going. By the end of the story or parable, character two sees how this is an analogy to the situation at hand… he grasps the moral of it all… and he is grudgingly persuaded.

I feel I’ve seen this scene a thousand times in movies and on TV. But now that I want to find a good illustration of it, my mind has locked up, and the history of cinema has been rewritten. After a lot of thinking, digging, and watching, I’ve still got nothing.

So if you can help me out, I’d appreciate it.

Have you watched a movie in the last week? Was there a scene of persuasion through analogy?

Or maybe you know something from a book? An episode of Seinfeld? A famous court case? A newspaper cartoon? A video game?

Anything will help. Just write in and let me know. You will be my rock and fortress.

Repealing prohibition on multiple daily emails

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Prohibition in the U.S. ended in 1933 with the repeal of 18th Amendment. After that, states could make their own laws about the sale of alcohol.

Some states couldn’t wait to get soused.

But others kept up with prohibition. Oklahoma, for example, kept going with prohibition until 1959.

Today, there are still over 500 “dry” municipalities across the U.S. One recent study even found that prohibition, horrendous as it sounds, might be a good idea. According to this study, crime went up by about 10% in areas that went from dry to wet.

The point being, just because you can stop, doesn’t mean you should. And I’m not talking about prohibition, see? I’m talking about marketing, specifically email marketing.

Over the last few years, it’s become commonplace for companies to send a daily email. But there’s nothing magic about the number one.

You can send your customers more than one email a day. For example, most Agora imprints send at least two emails each day, with one being mostly content and the other mostly promotion.

So two is ok. What about more?

Email marketing guru Ben Settle combines his content and promotion in each email. That’s why he can get away with sending, for example, five emails this past Monday, and over 10 over a recent 3-day promo window.

Old direct marketing wisdom says to keep repeating something until it becomes unprofitable.

Of course, too many emails can become unprofitable. Maybe you do burn out your list after a time. More likely, you get to a point you’re better off spending your time doing something else than writing an additional email — perhaps working on building your list, or creating a new offer.

But most businesses never get to that point of declining email profits. Maybe your business is one of them. In that case, it might be time to start writing an additional daily email — and getting sloshed on all those extra profits.

Of course, this all assumes you make money from your daily emails. I don’t. That’s why I only send one a day. It usually has to do with marketing or copywriting, like what you just read. If you’d like to get my one daily email as it comes out, here’s where to go.

When marketing jiggery pokery backfires

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One time, I stopped a girl on the street, and I unsuccessfully tried to run game.

That means I didn’t ask her any questions like other boring guys would do. Instead, I made observational statements.

“You look like you’re from Sweden,” I said.

“No,” the girl said.

“Really. Because with the blonde hair and the dark clothes and that confident attitude… you gave me a definite Nordic vibe.”

She just stared at me.

“Yep, I can imagine you, walking down a street in Stockholm, listening to Ace of Base, ready to board your Viking ship.”

She started to frown. My stupid assumptions were not getting me anywhere. Should I escape to safety and call it a day? I decided on one last desperate play.

“So… where are you from?”

“Oh, I’m from Slovakia,” she said, brightening up. She started to talk. I listened. A few minutes later, I asked her to sit down for an orange juice with me. She said ok.

I’m not saying that game doesn’t work. It definitely does. But sometimes… you don’t need game. And on rare occasions, game can in fact backfire.

Same thing with high-octane marketing.

Late in 2019, I signed up to Agora’s Daily Insider Secrets. That’s the free daily email newsletter for Agora’s newest imprint, which deals with copywriting and marketing.

They sent interesting emails. I read them on occasion, and I wondered what it was leading to.

And then it came.

A 72-hour marathon live stream… with some of the biggest names in the Internet Marketing world, most of whom I had never heard of… sharing tips and tricks to help you make a million dollars, stat.

At this point, I tuned out.

I wasn’t sure what exactly they were selling. I wasn’t curious to find out. All the emails about the live stream I kept getting didn’t change my mind.

Some time later, quite by accident, I did find out what the offer was.

The main part is like a video newsletter. Each month, Rich Schefren interviews several successful marketers, and they spill the rice on what’s working for them right now.

Then there are several bonuses, including a recording of a 12-day training course that Agora gave its new media buyers back in 2018.

I think there’s more stuff too. And you get all of this for some ridiculous price like $50 a year (the standard Agora newsletter subscription rate).

At which point, I said, “Oh, I’m from Croatia,” and I got out my credit card. I don’t know why they didn’t just start off with that charming and seductive offer, instead of the live stream jiggery pokery.

Anyways, having gone through the past two months’ worth of interviews inside… and going through the media buying training now… I can comfortably recommend Steal Our Winners. It’s worth tracking down and checking out.

But you know what?

Most offers out there, particularly in the Internet Marketing and copywriting space, are just awful.

And if you want to keep an eye out on the bad ones, and get an occasional recommendation for the rare good ones, you might like to sign up to my daily email newsletter. You can join it for free by clicking here.