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A copywriting revelation from today’s Uber ride

December 14, 2019 by John Bejakovic

I took an Uber today and in my best Gene Schwartz moment, I decided to chat with the driver.

We talked for a few minutes about casual topics. Suddenly, he shifted to his interest in theology and his deep Catholic faith.

He spoke enthusiastically for a minute. And then, sensing my lack of religious conviction, he launched into a persuasive argument. These were the key points:

1. Perhaps you think God doesn’t care about you?

2. Of course he does. Why else would he make you in his own image?

3. You’ve got reason… You’ve got memory… You’ve got free will. These are all aspects of God. He gave them to you because he cares.

4. You should look into this more… it will give you the meaning you haven’t been able to find so far in life.

Here’s why I bring this up:

A few days ago, I watched an excerpt from the Agora copy camp (or whatever it was called). This is a video training recorded at Agora Financial offices where they locked a bunch of newbie copywriters in a dungeon, and over the course of a week or two, taught them the Agora way of writing copy.

The excerpt I watched showed Joe Schriefer, the copy chief at Agora, explaining how to structure your sales letters.

The first step is to brainstorm a giant list of objections…

Then pick out the most important ones, and put them in a logical order — the order in which they will appear to your reader.

The next step is to convert each objection into a sexy subhead.

And the final step, the actual writing, is to expand each subheadlined section in a 4-part structure, which my Uber driver adopted instinctively:

1. Objection
2. Claim
3. Proof
4. Benefit

If you write sales copy, you should look into this structure. It will give you the kind of writing speed and persuasive power you haven’t been able to develop with more heathen copywriting methods. Why else would Joe Schriefer share it with you?

A screeching halt for curiosity subject lines

December 13, 2019 by John Bejakovic

A few days ago, my (former) car started giving me serious barney.

Suddenly, I couldn’t change gears properly.

One time, I was in second gear, trying to shift into third.

After a struggle, I got it out of second gear… but instead of third gear, it hopped into first.

Of course, since I was trying to speed up, black smoke shot out the diesel exhaust, the car revved up with a roar, and then slowed down. The exact opposite of what I was trying to accomplish.

I bring this up because right around the time this car trouble started, I sent out an email with the subject line,

“My biggest email mistake of 2019”

It was about how I don’t get much love whenever I use bizarre, curiosity-first subject lines. To which a reader named Andrew responded:

“I’ve noticed similar variations with my own email open rates depending on the subjects. For example, my list really doesn’t like rants, but the same email posted to LinkedIn as a blog post generally does much better.”

Andrew’s definitely got a point.

There are general principles of how to create an effective message, whether that’s an email, a blog post, or a YouTube video.

But much also also depends on the medium and the market.

For example, people are saturated with marketing emails — and they are much more ready to dismiss a weird email. On the other hand, LinkedIn probably has way fewer direct marketers, and something that stands out as a little bizarre might do very well there.

In other words, what works in one setting might not work in the other. Maybe that’s Obvious Adams.

But unless you take the trouble to find out what works where… and adjust your (formerly effective) message accordingly…

Then you might find that the end result is like jamming your car into the wrong gear: black smoke, an unpleasant noise, and a screeching halt.

Soothing the shame-filled sailor

December 12, 2019 by John Bejakovic

If Billy Budd is real, I haven’t met him in my 39 years on this planet.

Billy Budd, as you might know, is the eponymous main character of Herman Melville’s last novel. He’s “the handsome sailor,” which is shorthand for saying he is beautiful, brave, optimistic, strong, kind, likeable, healthy, and noble.

Quite a combination.

Not often seen.

Especially in real life.

For example, I’ve only ever come across a few people — fewer than 5, either men or women — who I thought qualified to be a real-life Billy Budd. And that was only at first sight.

Because whenever I got a chance to know these people better… it turned out they were not really “the handsome sailor.” These perfect-seeming people all had secret problems, conflicts, and scars lurking beneath the surface.

And so it is with all of us.

All of us have problems. Usually bunches of problems.

And along with these problems, there’s almost always shame. This shame doesn’t have to be conscious. But it’s there. And it’s powerful.

That’s why a hackneyed copywriting phrase crops up in so many sales letters, year after year. You might think this phrase is hokey… but it works. It soothes shame, cleanses sins, and opens up the reader to the possibility that their problem can be fixed.

Do you wanna know the phrase? Here goes:

“It’s not your fault.”

Try using this phrase in your copy in some form. And watch your conversions rise like a sail in a full breeze.

Because like I said, most of us are not handsome sailors… we’re shame-filled sailors. Not that that’s all bad. In Melville’s book, Billy Budd pays for his perfection with his life — though he dies a noble, admirable death. But who wants that?

How to write like your client in 3 mechanical steps

December 11, 2019 by John Bejakovic

Who’s the greatest actor in Hollywood? Well, now that Chris Farley is dead and Mickey Rourke is unrecognizable, the field is thin. In my opinion, it’s not De Niro… or Pacino… or DiCaprio… or even Nicolas Cage.

Instead, I think the greatest actor is [drum roll, opening the envelope]:

Jim Carrey.

Yes, Jim Carrey is amazingly talented. If you don’t believe me, just go on YouTube and find a 1983 appearance he did on the Johnny Carson show.

Carrey puts on a complex performance, doing pat imitations of James Dean, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and Elvis. He actually becomes Elvis. It’s incredible. Almost supernatural.

How does he do it?

Well, there’s body movement.

When he’s imitating Elvis, Carrey can’t stand still. Hair flailing, shoulders jerking, weight shifting from leg to leg, arms out to the sides like he’s trying to balance himself on a slippery patch of ice.

Then there’s the face.

Lips in a one-sided sneer, eyes rolling back in his head.

Then there’s voice.

Yes, there’s a bit of magic in how Carrey mimics the color of Elvis’s voice. But he also creates the effect by exaggerating Elvis’s cadence — how fast/slow, how loud/quiet he speaks — and which words he emphasizes.

And that’s all there really is to it.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s no doubt that Carrey is talented, and that he worked hard to develop his plastic face and his mimicry of the people he imitates. I just want to point out that there are 3 almost mechanical strategies that, when perfected, allow him to create the illusion he is actually another person.

And get this:

The same thing is true when you’re trying to imitate somebody’s voice in writing.

Fortunately, it’s much easier to write like somebody than to imitate how they look and speak. When you’re writing, you’ve got much more time — and you don’t need to get everything perfect.

But just like on stage, a few simple tricks or strategies are enough to imitate somebody’s voice on the written page.

In fact, if you go by the advice of Justin Blackman, a “Brand Ventrioloquist” who’s written copy for big brands (Red Bull) as well as direct response businesses (The Copywriter Club), there might only be 3 mechanical steps you need to take to write in anybody’s voice.

Which 3 things?

Well, Justin laid them out on a recent episode of The Copywriter’s Podcast. If you’re in the business of imitating your client’s voice in print, it might be worthwhile to listen to. Here’s the link:

http://copywriterspodcast.com/index.php?podcast=940

Simple price negotiation with long-term clients

December 10, 2019 by John Bejakovic

Yesterday I talked to a previous client about a possible new job. He offered me to handle emails for one of his businesses on a straight-up commission basis.

At this point, a lot of copywriters would start running and screaming “Red flag!” But I got no muss with getting paid all on commission, at least with this client. I’ve worked with him already… he’s legit… and his business is making money and growing.

At issue is how much commission I would get paid. The client wrote:

“What’s the minimum amount you’d want to be making for the volume of emails that I’m proposing?”

Hmmm. That’s not a question I have a good answer to. So I thought for a minute. And I responded using a strategy that I saw described on Mark Ford’s blog.

Mark says he saw his client/partner BB (I assume Bill Bonner, the billionaire founder of Agora) using this strategy throughout his career.

It’s a way of negotiating that’s very simple, but effective if your main goal is a long-term relationship and a fair outcome for everyone involved.

I think Mark’s post explains it very well, so I won’t rehash it here. It’s worth reading if you find yourself negotiating prices with clients, and you hope to do business with them again. Here’s the link if you’re interested:

https://www.markford.net/2019/10/23/11059/?doing_wp_cron=1576003704.1623599529266357421875

The original live recording of Purple Rain

January 23, 2021December 8, 2019 by John Bejakovic

After Prince died in 2016, a bunch of Prince videos suddenly flooded onto YouTube. These included both the legit, MTV videos, which Prince wasn’t allowing on YouTube before, as well as crazy bootleg recordings of various Prince concerts.

Among these, you can now find the original live recording of Purple Rain.

It turns out the album version, the same one that’s in the movie, was really recorded live in 1983 at a benefit concert in Minneapolis. I find this pretty incredible — but it’s a testament to how tight of a band Prince ran and how crazy talented they all were.

I think there are a bunch of persuasion and influence lessons that could be squeezed out of this whole story and the live performance that Prince and the Revolution put on. But for today, I want to give the persuasion stuff a bit of a break — something I called “persuasion bleach” in an earlier email.

Instead, I just want to share with you the original live recording of Purple Rain.

If you’re not a Prince fan, this probably won’t be meaningful to you and you will want to pass. But if you do like Prince or at least his particular song, then this original version is definitely worth a look and listen. Here it is if you’re curious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8gScJGfa4

How to get paid extraordinarily for doing ordinary work

December 7, 2019 by John Bejakovic

A banana taped to the wall just sold for $120,000.

That’s because it was art. The artist in question, Maurizio Cattelan, became famous with his last piece, a functioning solid gold toilet, titled “America.”

America-toilet was first installed at the Guggenheim, where it was used as intended by 100,000 people. It was then loaned to a palace in the UK, where it was stolen and probably melted down.

(All this outrageous information was reported by CNN, so you can be sure it’s true.)

And here’s the 24-karat point:

Cattelan could have stayed in his home town of Padua, taping fruit to the wall. He probably would have been shunned and mocked. Instead, he chose to go on the world stage, where he tapes fruit to the wall, and is being celebrated and paid millions of dollars.

Fact is, you often get as much as you ask for. And that even holds in “results-based” professions like sales or copywriting.

You can work for small clients, who give you trouble, pay you pennies, and grumble when they do. Or you can work for big clients, who appreciate your work, pay you millions, and treat it like the deal of a lifetime.

In both cases, the fruit taped to the wall is much the same. It’s the context that makes all the difference. And if that’s true, then it’s time to start looking for a “gold toilet” opportunity that will make you a star in your field… so people ooh and aah even when you stick a banana to the wall.

The smart way to discover secret new opportunities

January 23, 2021December 6, 2019 by John Bejakovic

I have a friend visiting from out of town, so last night I took him to a unique restaurant.

The entrance is hidden. You have to walk in off the street, through a dark and smokey hallway that doubles as a cafe, at the end of which, a door opens up into a series of large rooms.

The restaurant itself is bright and full of people, all eating large platters of veal and lamb… and then stuffing forkfuls of chocolate mousse down their throats and washing it down with red wine.

It’s one of the better places to eat in town. And yet it’s so easy to miss when you’re walking down the street. The only reason I know it is because my dad took me here many years ago.

Lots of things in life can be like this.

For example, I first read the 4-Hour Workweek some time in 2011. It got me intrigued about the idea of online businesses.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” I thought, “if there were more info like this?”

It took me years to discover that, yes, there is a ton of info out there about copywriting and marketing and making money online. I found it eventually by poking around the Internet and following clues and reading and exploring. But I wasted a lot of time.

That’s one way to discover restaurants, too.

You can go online, look over dozens or hundreds of restaurant listings on Yelp or Trip Advisor…

Read a bunch of reviews for the ones that look interesting…

Then try out the best candidates one by one.

It’s one way. But the more I go through life, the more I realize it’s a slow and wasteful way.

A much better way is to have somebody knowledgeable take you by the hand and say, “Here, there’s this incredible opportunity right behind this dark and smokey hallway.”

And just in case you’re wondering… it’s easier to have this happen than you might think. All you really have to do is to talk to people… be interested… and be open to new suggestions.

[3-Min DR News] The end of protein, $1M+ email drops, DJ Trump ad spend

January 23, 2021December 5, 2019 by John Bejakovic

My local radio station has these short, punchy 3-minute news segments.

I like them. So I thought I would do something similar on occasion, but about direct response marketing. Here’s the first edition:

The end of protein?

I just listened to a new interview with Dr. Steven Gundry. Gundry is the face of Gundry MD, a Golden Hippo company. (Golden Hippo one of the biggest direct response health businesses.)

Anyways, Dr. Gundry says in the interview that you should limit your protein to 20 grams a day because that’s all we need and because “protein ages you.” So we’ve come full circle. First fat was bad and carbs were good… Then carbs were bad and protein was good… And now protein is bad and fat is good.

Will a low-protein longevity diet be the new fad for the 2020s, spawning hundreds of new direct response offers, like keto and paleo did before it? Here’s the Gundry interview if you wanna decide for yourself:

https://jamesaltucher.com/podcast/508-dr-steven-gundry

A multi-million dollar email

Justin Goff’s “Wife saves husband — doctors stunned” email drop started running several years, or at least that’s when I first heard about it. In any case, it’s running still. I see it on average twice a month in Newsmax alone. In fact, it ran again today.

Who knows how many millions of dollars worth of business this single piece of copy has brought in? Here’s a version from Glenn Beck’s list is in case you wanna read and study:

https://newslettercollector.com/newsletter/wife-saves-husband-doctors-stunned-by-military-fountain-of-youth-drink(2)/

DJ Trump in 3rd place with ad spend

I wanted to see which advertisers are spending the most on FB ads. Foolish, it turns out. There’s no way FB is sharing that data. But, thanks to Trump and Cambridge Analytica, FB is sharing very clear data about which political campaigns are spending how much.

Looking over the past 30 days, the top spender, at around $4.3 million, is one Tom Steyer, a billionaire Dem candidate for president I had never even heard of. No. 2 is Mike Bloomberg who entered the race only two weeks ago, but already spent $1.5 million. In 3rd place, we have DJ Trump, with around $1.4 mil in ad spend.

If you wanna see the full list, which links to the ads for all the candidates, and also includes other high-integrity advertisers such as Goldman Sachs and Planned Parenthood, here’s where to go:

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/report/

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