My Prime Directive for writing this email newsletter

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A few weeks ago, marketer Matt Giaro interviewed me for his podcast.

Maybe because Matt also writes daily emails, or maybe because he’s into direct marketing, but he asked me questions I actually enjoyed answering and had something to say about.

The result is that this podcast appearance is one of my less horrific ones.

At one point, Matt asked me how I think about tying up my emails into the offers I’m making.

I told Matt how I think about that. But then I told him something that I think is much more important.

​​In fact, it’s my Prime Directive for writing this email newsletter.

It has never been to make money.

Maybe you think I’m signaling how good of a guy I am by telling you that. That’s not it. Consider this:

My Prime Directive also hasn’t been to provide value for my readers, or even to entertain them.

Nope.

My Prime Directive for this newsletter is very unsexy, very uninspiring, and a bit inhuman, almost Borg-like.

It’s simply… to keep this newsletter going day after day.

I’m writing this email from the Athens airport, waiting for my flight to Barcelona.

I’ve been in Greece for the past 5 days. It’s a kind of vacation, though each day I found a break in my “vacation time” to write this daily email.

Perhaps that’s because I’m a bit of a obsessive-compulsive beaver.

Or perhaps it’s a perfectly logical, rational decision. In the words of Morgan Housel, the author of The Psychology of Money:

“What I want to have is endurance. I want to be so unbreakable financially in the short run to increase the odds that I will be able to stick around as an investor for the stocks that I do own to compound for the longest period of time. If you understand the math of compounding, you know that the big gains come at the end of the period.”

… and I’d add, it’s not just stocks. This is also true for other assets, such as skills you’re building, knowledge you’re stacking up, content you’re creating, or email subscribers you’re attracting.

That said, just because my Prime Directive is rather inhuman — “resistance is futile, another email will follow tomorrow” — doesn’t mean I can’t on occasion try to make these emails valuable to you.

So let me take this moment to remind you of the old chestnut, which is no less true because it’s preached so often:

The best time to finally start something you have been putting off for an eternity — is today.

It doesn’t have to be an email list you write to daily.

There are plenty of other good investments out there, which you can start investing a nickel’s worth of time, energy, or money into right now.

But if you don’t hate writing… and if you happen to like flexibility and independence… then an email list of engaged readers is a good investment to start today.

And if you want some practical tips about how to do that in a way that meshes with your sense of self, assuming you’re not a natural-born salesman, then the podcast I did with Matt might be worth listening to.

The topic for that podcast was “How to send daily emails that make money without selling.”

The topic came up because I heard from a few people that it never seems I’m selling in these emails.

Of course, that can be because there are times I’m not actually selling anything, like today. (The Borg can subsist for months without food.)

On the other hand, there were also unbroken periods — stretching for years at a time — when each email I sent ended with a CTA to buy a paid product I was selling.

And yet, people somehow didn’t find it salesy… and they wanted to know how I do that.

If you’re curious too, I break it down in the interview with Matt. The link is here:

The one ring to rule them all, until it doesn’t

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A few weeks ago, Derek Johanson of CopyHour wrote an email with an inspiring idea:

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Most often all that an online business needs to go from zero to 6 figures is to focus on ONE simple business model and ONE marketing channel for growth.

One Business Model: If you sell courses, only sell courses. That’s your one business model. Don’t add coaching or do freelancing too.
​
One Marketing Channel For Traffic: If you’ve picked LinkedIn to drive traffic, don’t think about YouTube or paid ads at all.

That’s it. Going deep into ONE business model and ONE marketing channel is how you double a small business.

===

When I read this, I had a double reaction:

1. Whoa this makes sense
​
2. Hold on, this can’t be right — it’s just another manifestation of the human desire for “the one thing”

“The one thing,” as you might know, is a popular hook in direct response advertising.

It manifests itself in different guises — “the one thing,” “the ancient secret,” “the real reason” — but ultimately, it taps into to our brains’ desire to melt down the complexity and messiness of the world into just one magic ring of power to rule them all.

Rings like that exist in fantasies, but they don’t exist in real life.

Except, that’s not really what Derek was saying in his email. He was saying something more nuanced, and not-one-thingy.

I wasn’t quite sure how to stickily sum up what Derek was saying. Fortunately, somebody did it for me, in a paid private group (the only paid private group) that I’m a member of. The person in that group summed it up like this:

1. Test until it works
2. Scale until it stops working

Many things can work — for example, as sources of traffic.

The thing is, most things won’t work right out the gate. It will take some time and tweaking for them to produce results.

That’s step 1. Most people quit before they complete this step, and instead they jump to back to the beginning, to another supposed ring of power, hoping that it will work right away.

Derek’s email was about step 2. Going deep into one thing and scaling until it stops working. Which is a worthwhile idea, and like I said, quite not-one-thingy.

I thought about how to apply this to my own business. And I’m not really sure.

In terms of marketing channels to get people reading these emails, my number one source has been referrals and word-of-mouth, which I did absolutely nothing to encourage beyond writing daily and sharing novel ideas and illustrations. Maybe I should just keep writing.

As for the one business model, I still haven’t quite figured out one that I’m happy with. Which is why, over the past few months, I’ve sent out so many emails that ultimately link to $4.99 books on Amazon, or interesting articles you might find valuable, or—

Well, let me get to it now.

You remember I mentioned the paid private community I’m a member of? The only one?

I personally find it very valuable — and interesting.

Maybe you will too. But you will have to decide for yourself. I’m not promoting this community as an affiliate, and I’m not pushing you to join it. But if you’re curious to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

Jewish terrorists in Palestine

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On today’s date, July 22 to be exact, a bomb went off in King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in what was then British-controlled Mandatory Palestine.

The year was 1946.

In other words, if you were hoping to hear me take some sort of stance on the current Israel/Palestine conflict, and either to be propped up or outraged in your beliefs, then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed by this email.

Maybe best stop reading now.

On the other hand, if you want to be exposed to something new and different, then maybe read on.

Still here? All right:

The King David Hotel was the administrative headquarters of the British colonizers. In the attack, 91 British, Jewish, and Arab soldiers died. 46 more were injured.

The bombing was carried out by a Zionist paramilitary organization called Irgun Zvai Leumi, which called for the use of force to establish a Jewish state.

And regarding that terrorist label:

That’s not me making the judgment.

​​Irgun were labeled terrorists by the United Nations, The US and and UK governments, the New York Times, the 1946 Zionist Congress, and the Jewish Agency.

If that’s not enough, Albert Einstein wrote a public letter in 1948 which he compared Irgun to Nazi and fascist parties.

In spite of all this, I had never heard about Irgun until yesterday, when I did a bit of research in preparation for today’s email.

Encyclopedia Britannica described Irgun as “extremely disciplined and daring.” I was curious what that meant in practice, so I looked it up.

​​In brief:

Those wishing to join Irgun had to know somebody in the organization to have any chance to get in.

The initial interview took place in a darkened room.

The novice had a light shined into his eyes, and was quizzed on his motivations, “to weed out romantics and adventurers and those who had not seriously contemplated the potential sacrifices,” as per Wikipedia.

If the novice passed the initial interview, a 4-month indoctrination followed. This was designed to further eliminate the impatient and “those of flawed purpose” who had slipped through the initial screening.

Only if the recruit passed all these preliminary steps did he start a lengthy and arduous training program in weapons use and and military tactics and bomb-making.

The thing that struck me was that Irgun never had more than 40 members at a time.

And yet, with such a small force, they carried out a number of deadly attacks (such as the King David Hotel bombing) or daring exploits (such as capturing Acre prison, a medieval fortress that not even Napoleon had managed to take with army of thousands).

But bringing all this back to the topic of this newsletter, specifically, direct marketing and what it can tell us about human psychology.

What I read of Irgun reminded me of direct marketing authority Dan Kennedy.

Dan once said that there are large commonalities between those who join mass movements, such as Irgun, and direct response customers, particularly those who follow a guru or leader or expert, on whatever topic, whether copywriting or health or investing.

By telling you this, I don’t meant to trivialize or endorse killing people or other terrorist activity. But I do mean to tell you something about human psychology.

The little that I’ve written above about Irgun’s recruiting and training process all applies, pretty much verbatim, to the effective recruiting and training of long-term direct response customers.

If you find that a little shocking… or a little vague… or you’d just like to find out more about the psychology of those who join mass movements, and how that might be relevant in the more mundane, safe, and profit-oriented world of direct marketing… then there’s a kind of manual on the topic.

Dan once gave out copies of this manual to his own small and select group of fanatical followers, who had made it into the room only after a long period of selection and indoctrination.

If you’d like to pick up a copy of the same manual today:

https://bejakovic.com/true-believer

I was ghosted by a business owner for an eternity

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Two weeks ago, July 7 to be specific, I sent an email to a business owner I had been talking to back in 2021.

Back in 2021, the conversation between us had dropped off.

I never followed up, not until 14 days ago, to see if it still makes sense to talk about the project we had been talking about back then, where I would help him get more back-end sales for his ecom brand.

The business owner didn’t respond to me 14 days ago. Or 13 days ago. Or 12 days ago.

He ghosted me entirely, all the way up to yesterday, 2 weeks after I sent him the original email. Yesterday, he wrote:

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Hi John,

Great to hear from you. Yes, we still own [his brand]. Let’s pick up the conversation again.

Here’s a link to my schedule: [calendly link]

I look forward to talking with you soon.

===

I recently read a book called Business Buying Strategies. It’s a book about, er, strategies to buy businesses.

The book was solid, with worthwhile info by a guy named Jonathan Jay, somebody who had clearly done what he was writing about.

But more interesting than the what-to and how-to in the book were a few bonus chapters. These featured candid interviews with various business owners who had made a habit of buying other businesses.

I made two notes for myself from one of those interviews, here reproduced verbatim:

1. In spite of apparent outward success, business owners can be fucked. They might be in a place where they can’t make payroll, or can’t pay themselves.

2. Business owners get hundreds of emails a day.

All that’s to say:

1. It makes sense to reach out and offer a way out to business owners.

2. It makes sense to follow up if a business owner doesn’t respond or if the conversation goes cold.

By the way, in case you’re interested in growing by acquisition, or in cutting down the gigantic odds of failure that go into starting up anything new, now or in the future, then Jay’s book is worth a read.

Here’s the link if you’d like to spend $7.99 on some valuable info:

https://bejakovic.com/business-buying

Leadership by “dynamic indifference”

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Yesterday, I waited to board my plane with my handwritten, 100% fake-looking boarding pass.

The boarding pass was an ordinary piece of paper that had just my name and the number of the flight on it. And that’s it — no other information on there. It was a consequence of yesterday’s IT meltdown.

At the gate, the crew first let in a few passengers who had managed to check in online and had assigned seats.

Then they realized that the majority of the remaining passengers were just like me. The remaining passengers all had stupid pieces of paper in their hands, without any assigned seats. And since the computers were all down, there was no way to assign seats in any normal way.

First, there was a bit of panic on the ground crew’s faces.

They started calling around to their superiors, consulting with each other, trying to ignore the questions and suggestions that pushy passengers were making to them.

In the end, the ground crew shrugged their shoulders.

“Ok everybody can board,” they said. “You can sit wherever you find a free seat.”

And it worked out just fine. The boarding completed was as quickly, or maybe more quickly, than with the usual “excuse me but you’re in my seat” hokey pokey.

Point being:

Let’s burn down all the computers and ticket-booking systems and rules about who sits where and who does what. Let’s abolish all the top-down mandates, because the people will self-organize just as well or better.

Anarchy!

“Uh, really?”

No, not really.

But there really might be cases where doing just what I suggested actually works.

​​And it might work for you, too, even if you don’t run an airline, but an info publishing business.

​​And as a case study, let me share with you an interesting and quick snippet of an interview. The interview is with a man named Bill Bonner who:

1. Is a famous copywriter

2. Founded and still owns Agora, a huge consortium of direct response brands that employs thousands of people

3. Is worth a few billion dollars thanks to his stake in all those publishing businesses

Here’s the thing though. You might think that a billion-dollar company requires strong and dedicated management. But that’s just the opposite of what Bonner is saying in this interview.

It turns out he has abolished not just the seating assignments inside Agora, but has even vacated the pilot’s seat, and has left it to the stewardesses and the passengers to figure out who does what, and how, including flying the plane:

“In France, for example, we tried telling people what to do — from London, no less. It was a disaster. Then, at the end of our ropes, we told the remaining French employees that they would have to figure it out for themselves. “Who will be in charge?” they wanted to know. ‘Whoever takes charge,’ we replied.”

I’m telling you this because maybe you’re like me, and you have an aversion to the idea of managing people.

Well, maybe you don’t have to manage people, or even really have any management, in order for people to work for you, and to good work for you well, and to make serious money for you.

It sounds risky, or like a pipe dream. I know. But if you’re curious to find out a bit more about Bonner’s “dynamic indifference” way of leading a business, you can read about it here:

https://www.imsrindia.com/single-post/focus-on-the-work-itself-bill-bonner-founder-and-president-of-agora

What a day to fly

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“Oh what the f—”

I arrived to the airport today around 8:45am to be faced with a giant, hideous snake, made up of people and luggage, starting at the check-in counters, folding in on itself a dozen times, and finally stretching its tail some hundred yards into the depths of the terminal.

I immediately made my way for the “last call” line. Even that took almost 45 minutes before I finally made it to the check-in counter.

​​I handed my id to the woman behind the counter. ​​She wasn’t interested.

“I need proof of your booking,” she said.

“What?”

“I need to see proof that you’ve bought a ticket.”

“The proof’s there in the computer,” I said. I helpfully pointed to her computer monitor for her.

She flipped it around so I could see. It showed a booting-up window. It was frozen.

“The computers aren’t working,” she said. “I need proof that you’ve bought a ticket.”

Maybe you’ve heard. There was some giant IT crash all around the world today. America. Australia. Europe. Hospitals. Banks. Airlines.

I produced proof of booking in the end.

​​And in return, I got a flimsy piece of paper, written out by hand, with my name on it and the code for the flight. That was my boarding pass today.

I won’t go into the details of all my adventures today.

Suffice to say, the situation was a huge mess, everywhere, all at once.

As I stood there at the airport, in a crowd of thousands of people, all of us burdened with luggage, all confused, all indecisive and yet unhappy to stay where we were, I thought that this was a little sampler of what Porter Stansberry has been predicting for 15 years or more.

“End of America.” Total social collapse. A world in which things stop working, and we’re suddenly exposed and helpless.

I don’t know if Stansberry’s predictions will ever come true.

But I do know that predictions like that always get attention.

Fear works. So does greed, if you can tie it into the fear, and make a claim like copywriter Gary Halbert once did:

“How You Can Profit From The Coming Stock Market Crash And Financial Blood-Bath That Is Going To Be Caused By Cash-Rich Drug Dealers And Other Criminal Scum!”

The thing is, fear and greed can be good at getting buyers. But they might not be very good at getting repeat buyers, the buyers who actually build a direct response business.

There has to be something more.

And to find out what that something more is, today I’ll invite you to read an essay that has been ringing in my head for years.

This essay explains why the “End of America” sales letter was such a huge success, when hundreds of similar sales messages, all making the same predictions and claims, didn’t even come close.

And this analysis comes from a man who should know, because he got the sales numbers of all these hundreds of sales letters, and he got the copy to compare. Plus, he’s a master copywriter himself, who has coached and guided dozens of other master copywriters.

If you’re interested in copywriting, at all, then this essay is worth a read:

https://www.markford.net/2019/12/09/

Do you have a newsletter or FB group?

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A few days ago, I read how my buddy Kieran Drew bought another newsletter to absorb, like a growing metropolis absorbs a quaint village nearby.

The owner of the other newsletter decided to go pursue some other project. He wasn’t interested in running the newsletter any more.

So Kieran paid him per subscriber who stays on after 2 weeks. They did a kind of handoff, where the new subscribers were introduced to Kieran, and given many chances to unsubscribe, and at that point they were merged into Kieran’s list.

As far as I know, the experiment is still ongoing. It’s not clear yet whether Kieran has already made his money back or whether this buy can be considered a success. (In case you’re interested in hearing how this experiment ends, it’s worth getting on Kieran’s list at kierandrew.com.)

This made me wonder.

Do you have a newsletter, a Facebook group, or a Skool group?

Is it made up of an audience of coaches, business owners, or people interested in making money online?

And, in case this group or newsletter is not something you enjoy running and managing, have you thought of trading in the login username and password to the group, or the Excel export of newsletter contacts, for a neat stack of $100 bills?

If you find yourself a little intrigued or curious right now, write me and let’s talk.

I might be interested in buying what you have.

​​And even if it’s not a fit, I might know other people who might want to buy what you have.

​​Just write me now because — well, why not? It doesn’t cost you or oblige you in any way. And it might take this off your mind sooner rather than later.

Email pitches for highly customized service businesses

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The owner of a creative agency signed up to my list a couple weeks ago, and had a question:

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Would love to learn more about what kind of materials / services you offer in regards to specifically email pitches.

[My industry] is pulling back some right now, so we are having to put a larger emphasis on outbound, which we never really had to do before.

We are services based business and everything is so customized it makes it a challenge to really blanket offers.

However, we do get pretty good responses when we do put stuff out there.

Are you able to share some of what services you offer / any preferred reading that I should check out on your website etc?

===

There’s nothing on my site I would recommend for learning about cold outreach, and there are no cold outreach services I offer at the moment.

But I have been experimenting with cold emails myself, and I have been reading up and listening up on it.

It seems there are two schools of cold emailing:

#1. Carpet bombing, where the bulk of the work goes into setting up the technology for sending dozens or hundreds of automated “personal” emails each day, and feeding that with more or less qualified leads from various databases or from virtual assistants.

​​The idea here is to send out thousands of cold emails and maybe get two or three qualified responses.

#2. Social engineering, where, much like a red team in cybersecurity, you try to find a way into a specific organization by sending just the right message to just the right people.

The idea here is to send out 10 emails and maybe get 10 responses, which you then have to somehow twist and turn into suiting your purpose.

There’s been plenty written and said about the first approach to cold emailing.

There’s no doubt it works, but I’m personally not interested in it. And maybe, if you’re like the agency owner above, it’s not really an option because of the way your business is set up or what you offer.

So what about the second, social engineering approach?

It’s tricky and time intensive.

But if you’re after large accounts or valuable partner relationships, it can make sense to invest that time and to learn the tricks.

Again, this is not something I personally am teaching at the moment. But I do have something to recommend.

The worst part of this recommendation is that it’s free, which will make many people shrug and say, “Oh, I will come back to this later.”

The best part of this recommendation is that it might stop being free or disappear at any minute, particularly if people like me keep linking to it.

If you’d like to get it before it goes away, or before it gets a big price tag stuck on the side of it:

https://bejakovic.com/cold

The light at the end of the tunnel

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“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“How do you expect me to respond to this?”

“How about, you love me too?”

“How about: I’m leaving.”

That’s the start of the last scene of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. In case you haven’t seen it, the movie goes like this:

The first time Harry and Sally meet, they hate each other. The second time they meet, Harry doesn’t even remember who Sally is. The third time they meet, Harry and Sally become friends. Then they sleep together, and things go south and they stop being friends.

And then one New Year’s Eve, Harry finally realizes he loves Sally, and he runs to meet her, and he declares his love. And she says, “I’m leaving.”

The fact is, screenwriter Nora Ephron and director Rob Reiner both felt that movie should end like this.

​​No way should it end with Harry and Sally winding up together. That’s not how the real world works. People in those kinds of relationships don’t end up together.

That’s how the first two drafts of the movie actually went. The bitter truth.

But in the third draft, Ephron wrote this final scene, and Reiner shot it. After Sally’s “I’m leaving,” Harry delivers a speech about all the little things he loves about her, and they kiss and they wind up together, forever, in love.

And that’s how the movie was released, and it was a big, big hit.

So what’s the point?

Well, maybe it’s obvious, but you can go negative and cynical and sarcastic for the whole movie, but you gotta end on an inspiring, positive note.

​​It’s gotta make sense to people and give them a feeling of hope, at least if you want to create something that has a chance to be a big big hit, something that can appeal to a wide swath of the market.

Or in the words of screenwriter and director David Mamet:

“Children jump around at the end of the day, to expend the last of that day’s energy. The adult equivalent, when the sun goes down, is to create or witness drama — which is to say, to order the universe into a comprehensible form.”

But now I have a problem:

I’ve just pulled back the curtain. And what’s behind the curtain is not so nice. So how can I end this email on an inspiring, positive note?

Well, I can admit to you that the world is a large and complex and often unjust place. But it does have its own structure. And just by reading these emails, you’re finding out bits and pieces of that structure, and that helps you make more sense of the world you live in, and it helps you shape and influence the world for the better.

I can also tell you that the above bit, about Harry and Sally and Nora and Rob, is part of a book I’m working on, the mythical “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Copywriters, Con Men, Door-To-Door Salesmen, Professional Negotiators, Storytellers, Propagandists, and Stage Magicians.”

I’ve been working on this book for a long time. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

In the meantime, do you know about my other 10 Commandments book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters?

It also collects bits and pieces of the structure of the world, and it can help you understand and shape that world for the better. In case you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Riveting, personal story to fill my mistake quota

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Hold on to your seat, and prepare to be riveted by the following true and very personal story:

Two days ago, I meet up with my friend Adrian. Adrian suggests we go out to dinner tonight, just him, me, and my dad. (Adrian is also friends with my dad.)

I say fine.

Adrian and my dad and I text yesterday to confirm the place and time for the dinner. We quickly agree.

But then it turns out Adrian’s wife would like to join also, along with their 3-year old daughter. Oh, and can we move dinner three hours earlier because of his daughter’s bed time?

I’m not thrilled by the idea — the early dinner, the wife, the kid. I honestly tell Adrian the earlier time doesn’t work well because I also have a family lunch to go to in the afternoon.

He says he’ll check with the wife.

Throughout the rest of yesterday, there’s more tussling over WhatsApp. And then finally, in the early evening hours, Adrian decides to go back to the original plan, the original time, and the original company for the dinner.

TA-DAAA! The end.

Now that you’ve read this, I want to apologize. I know this story was only riveting in how stupid it was.

​​But how else to get the following point across in a way that sticks?

A couple months ago, I bought a book called Suddenly Talented by Sean D’Souza.

Sean you might know — he’s an Internet marketer who’s been in the game since before Google, and I’ve written about him often in this newsletter.

Sean is best known for his unorthodox marketing ideas. But he’s branched out also — to courses and workshops about cartooning, photography, and learning and skill acquisition, which is what Suddenly Talented is about.

I actually haven’t read Sean’s book yet.

​​But there’s a WhatsApp group for everyone who’s bought the book, where Sean holds court and explains his ideas about how to get good at anything, and quick.

One idea will probably be familiar to you — it’s to get okay with making mistakes, whether you’re drawing, learning a new language, or trying to write a daily email.

But Sean takes it one step further.

​​In his own workshops, he actually gives his students a mistake quota.

​​​In other words, he tells his students that they have to actively and consciously make a certain number of mistakes before he will let them even attempt to do the thing right.

Result? I don’t know, but I can guess:

1. People loosen up. They realize that a mistake is not as fatal as it might seem in their imagination.

2. People actually learn something, by actively dancing around the “right” thing to do. In the words of Claude Debussy, music is the space between the notes.

“Fine fine,” you might say, “enough with the poetry. Does this really work?”

I don’t know. But it sounded interesting enough to give it a try. That’s why I opened with the pointless and uninteresting story above.

Don’t open your emails like I did.

Or do. Do it to teach yourself that hey, even a terrible email doesn’t really cost me anything, and hey, maybe I’ll even learn something by doing things wrong.

Are you convinced? Are you not convinced? It’s okay either way.

But in case this email triggered something in your brain, you might want to check out my Most Valuable Email training. It comes with a swipe file of 51 interesting ideas, many of which have proven valuable to me and to the people who have gone through MVE, sometimes even paying for the entire course.

If you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/mve