Announcing: My Love/Hate AI event

by

Starting today, and ending Thursday at 12 midnight PST, I’m promoting Gasper Crepinsek’s ChatGPT Mastery.

ChatGPT Mastery is a 30-day, email-delivered course that teaches you how to use AI to eliminate the work tasks you hate.

In my email yesterday, I wrote about a study that looked at AI use in a business setting.

That study found that telling people to “be more productive” using AI didn’t translate into any effect. On the other hand, telling people to use AI to “eliminate the parts of your job you hate” produced great results.

The fact is, I don’t use AI for much outside of research, as a replacement for awful Google search and for sifting through fluffy, overstuffed, and often irrelevant web content (it’s saved me hundreds of hours there).

But that’s because I have managed to build up my little online business, if that’s what you can call this email newsletter, into a collection of activities I’m either okay doing, or that I even love doing (such as, for example, writing this email).

I have been able to do this because 1) I write exclusively about things that interest me personally, such as influence and psychology and 2) because I apply those ideas in my writing in a way that lights up my readers’ brains, at least some of the time, and gives them a feeling of insight, of something new learned about themselves and their place in the world.

This feeling — because insight is a feeling — makes it dramatically more likely readers to buy when I have an offer that’s right for them, and keeps them coming back to read more. And that translates into a business that’s easy and fun to run.

But back to Gasper’s ChatGPT Mastery.

It sells for $297.

If one small idea inside ChatGPT Mastery saves you just one hour of hateful work a month, ChatGPT Mastery easily pays for itself in the next month or two alone. After that, it turns into an investment that keeps paying you time and freedom dividends, without you having to lift a finger.

But to make sure ChatGPT is effectively free for you on day 0, as soon as you click the “buy now” button, I will also add in a bonus with an equivalent real-world value.

It’s a training I’ve given live to a group of a few dozen marketers and copywriters, and only sold once before, for $297, the same price that Gasper’s ChatGPT Mastery sells for.

This training is called Age of Insight, and it’s about the influence and psychology that go with the feeling of insight, which you can create with written words alone.

This is a topic I have been interested in for a long time. I have written about it many times in these emails. But I never pulled together everything I know, everything I saw smart marketers like Rich Schefren, and Travis Sago, and Stefan Georgi doing, into one cohesive system, until I gave the Age of Insight training.

You might wonder how Age of Insight is related to AI.

It’s not.

In fact, it’s quite opposite and possibly complementary to it. Hence the name of this little promo, the Love/Hate AI event.

I love writing about the topic of insight, and I love applying insight techniques in what I write.

Maybe you will feel the same after you go through this training.

Even if not, being able to create that feeling of insight is supremely valuable, and that’s not just me saying it (those multimillionaire marketers I listed above have all said it in one way or another.)

But enough hard selling.

If you are considering ChatGPT Mastery, to take away the parts of your job that you hate, and if you’d like my Age of Insight training as an equivalent-value free bonus, then here’s Gasper’s sales page with the full info:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

P.S. If you decide to buy via this affiliate link, then forward me your receipt, and I will get you access to Age of Insight.

P.P.S. If you bought ChatGPT Mastery when I promoted it before, then this bonus is for you too. So is the deadline. Write me before Thursday at 12 midnight PST to say you want the bonus, and it shall be done.

Where AI really shines (you’re guaranteed to love it)

by

I was listening to a podcast recently on a topic I thought I would never ever listen to:

“Asking for a friend… which jobs are safe from AI?”

The reason I thought I would never ever listen to this is that I’m sure nobody knows anything when it comes to the real impact of AI, and so I figured the entire podcast would be bunk.

Fortunately, I went against my sureness. I listened anyways, and I was enlightened.

According to the podcast, the answer to “Which jobs are safe from AI” is:

1. Nobody knows

2. That doesn’t mean we cannot look closer and think about this issue in more detail and maybe draw some new and useful distinctions

For example:

One thing I heard in this podcast was about an internal company study.

Some company, presumably a law firm, took two separate offices and the paralegals working within those offices.

In one office, they instructed the paralegals to “use AI to become more productive.”

In the other office, they instructed the paralegals to “use AI to do the parts of your job that you hate.”

Result:

The first office, the “more productive” office, really got nothing out of AI.

The second office, the “parts of your job that you hate” office, flourished. They beavered away until they got AI to replace many things they hated doing. As a result, the paralegal role in that office changed into something more like junior attorney work.

These workers were by definition happier, by eliminating things from their work that they hate and spending more time doing things they are neutral on or even enjoy.

That’s why I say if you use AI where it really shines — to do the things you hate — you are guaranteed to love it.

On that note:

Starting tomorrow, and ending this Thursday, I will be promoting Gasper Crepinsek’s ChatGPT Mastery, a 30-day, email-delivered course that teaches you how to use AI to eliminate the parts of your job that you hate.

I will have a bonus as part of this promo, which has nothing to do with AI, but which in my mind is complementary to Gasper’s offer, in ways that I will talk about starting tomorrow.

This bonus is equal in real-world value to the price that Gasper is asking for ChatGPT Mastery. (Of course, if you bought ChatGPT Mastery the first time I promoted it, earlier this year, you will also be able to get this bonus.)

I am also thinking to create one or two more bonuses for this promotion.

I have my own ideas on bonuses to create, but often, the best ideas come from my readers and customers.

So if you are considering getting ChatGPT Mastery, or have already gotten it, then hit reply.

Tell me about problems in your life, tell me about things you hate doing but have to do, or simply tell me what I know that you have always wanted to know.

No promises, except I promise that I will read and consider all replies for the bonuses I create as part of my promo this week.

Disconnect at my first FC Barcelona match

by

Yesterday, for the first time ever, and after three years of living in Barcelona, I, a total non-fan, went to my first football game ever. And it was super exciting.

FC Barcelona, one of the most dominant and richest teams in the world, was playing Girona FC, a total underdog and second-to-last in the league standings.

The reality of the match:

Barcelona scored early. Girona equalized with a bicycle kick shot. There was lots of attacking and chances on both sides. And then, in the last minute of extra time, Barcelona scored the winning goal.

Honestly, it was the best possible way to see a real live football game for the first time ever.

But what really got me is the feeling of disconnect.

This match happened at the small Barcelona Olympic stadium, where FC Barcelona is playing while their main stadium is being refurbished.

There was almost no advertising anywhere, no flashing jumbotrons, no announcements, no fireworks.

There were lots of empty bleachers because this old Olympic stadium is not really good for watching football, plus apparently some fans are simply boycotting the games since this place is not the real “home” of Barcelona.

As a result, the entire atmosphere felt like watching a local under-17 practice more than some super consequential world-class match… featuring supremely skilled athletes chosen from millions who tried very hard to be worthy of appearing on this same stage… with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line in terms of possible sponsorships, injuries, transfers, etc.

It also felt weird to know that every consequential and inconsequential moment I was witnessing was being streamed all around the world, and that countless photos, reels, writeups, analyses, and stats from this event would appear billions of times on phones and laptops and TVs in the coming days.

I’m not sure what happens when something real, like a bunch of dudes running after a ball on a grassy pitch on Montjuic one afternoon, passes into the symbolic realm, like articles and photos and stories that can live forever.

But something happens.

It’s a very strange and powerful thing, something so strange and powerful that we usually like to shrug it off because the truth of it makes us uncomfortable and forces us to face things about ourselves that we’d rather ignore.

I realize this is all getting a little vague and philosophical.

Rather than waffling on more, I will simply point you to an email I wrote a long time ago.

This old deals with this topic, and in fact talks about a sociological theory that has to do specifically with this. But it’s not just theory. This old email also gives you a practical takeaway for your marketing and writing and branding, if those are the kinds of things you engage in.

By the way, after I wrote this email years ago, I got the following kinds of replies from readers:

“Glorious”

“This is a profound message John. Just a message of appreciation.”

“Daaaamn good!!!”

“The greatest crime you commit is not selling something in your emails. You have the best marketing insights of ANY list I’m on…”

That last comment came from “Australia’s best copywriter,” Daniel Throssell. In case you’re curious what Daniel and my other readers liked so well, and how you can use it in what you do today, here’s the email in question:

https://bejakovic.com/more-real-than-real/

What I would do if I won $500 million tomorrow

by

A friend of mine recently interviewed at a high-tech company, one that start with N and ends with A and sells AI chips.

He had contacts inside the company who were coaching him on the interview process. Along with the gamut of technical questions, these contacts told him to prepare for some unusual life riddles, such as:

“If you somehow won $500 million tomorrow, what would you do with your life?”

… the right answer apparently being, “I would still work at a high-tech company, preferably one that start with N and ends with A and sells AI chips.”

I asked myself what I would do if I suddenly had 500 million.

I guess if I’ve learned one thing about myself over my life it’s that, regardless of what significant changes occur, including places to live, income levels, or accomplishments achieved, I quickly feel the same.

I used to think that’s a bad thing. Now I just take it as a fact of life, like having a nose.

And so, outside of maybe some initial splurge spending (maybe a pinball machine?), I imagine I’d keep living pretty much as I already do, and doing what I already do.

One thing I’m sure would not change is that I’d keep writing in some form, because I enjoy it.

It’s quite possible I’d keep writing about the same stuff I write about now, because it’s the stuff that interests me personally, and that I think about even when I am not officially “working.”

It’s even possible I’d keep writing this daily email as is, because I already have a significant audience, and I enjoy the validation, feedback, and even impact that I can have when people read and consider what I write.

“Good for you,” I hear you saying. “If big corporations ever start hiring daily email writers, you will be well qualified with your answer.”

Fair enough. Perhaps you don’t feel the same about writing.

Perhaps writing doesn’t come naturally. Perhaps it’s not something you think about during the day. Perhaps it’s something you only are considering because it could be useful for your business, maybe as a stepping stone to your own $500 million Avalon.

That’s fine. In fact, that’s a good thing.

Whether writing is something you truly crave or not, it can be tremendously useful for your business.

And if writing is something you find a bit enjoyable, but also a bit of a chore, then I’ve created a service to make that chore faster and easier and maybe even more fun to complete each day.

For more information on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Split-brain spending

by

“You want my eternal admiration?” my friend Marci asked me. “Go talk to that girl.”

He pointed out a tall blonde, with very upright posture and a confident “don’t mess with me” walk, who was dressed in an expensive-looking and fashionable outfit. She had just turned the corner from Passeig de Gracia, Spain’s most expensive shopping street, full of luxury brand stores, to a less glamorous side street.

Don’t you worry.

This is not an email about pickup. Rather, it’s an email about a strange shopping behavior, which has gotten the name “split-brain spending.”

Split-brain spending involves buying most things discount so you can splurge on luxury items.

For example, the fashionable, attractive, intimidating blonde I saw yesterday took a few more steps and went inside an Aldi, a discount supermarket that’s something like Kmart in the US, if you remember those before they went bankrupt.

I didn’t follow her in there, and so I didn’t find out whether she shops in Aldi regularly in order to afford an occasional $1,500 Louis Vuitton bag or $400 Prada sunglasses or $700 Hermes silk scarf.

But apparently, it’s a common-enough phenomenon.

The Wall Street Journal wrote up an article about it back in 2023.

At that time, inflation was a relatively new experience for most folks.

People were getting stressed and exhausted by it, and they vented by “revenge spending” on luxury things like clothes or international travel or maybe a fancy leather couch.

That’s why between 2020 and 2023, the luxury market outstripped overall retail sales, with 70% growth for luxury, compared to overall retail’s modest 25% growth.

I checked this morning, and it seems the luxury market constricted in 2024 for the first time in 15 years.

Even so, the bigger point still stands, and it stands in all economic seasons.

People will buy to treat and spoil themselves, even if they are conscious of spending normally, or even if they don’t have all that much money overall.

“Economists call this an attempt to reclaim agency over their finances,” says that WSJ article.

So my point for today is to give your customers that opportunity, even if you normally sell budget offers or give away stuff for free. Add in some high-ticket “spoil and splurge” items that tap into split-brain spending, and allow your customers to buy a feeling of control over their lives.

In my email yesterday, I asked what offers you might have bought for $200 or over, which really delivered value in your life, beyond simply being fun to consume or exciting to buy.

I got a number of replies to that, mainly about courses. But I also got a message from a reader named Robert (not sure he wants me to share his last name). Robert wrote about a $300 hair drier his wife bought, and he said:

===

This may not be the answer you’re hoping for because I don’t know if you’d be able to promote it. But it delivered and amazed my wife.

She used to break a sweat drying her hair because she had so much. I wasn’t lucky enough to catch it on sale, but it’s been worth every penny. She told her sister, and her sis bought two (one for each home).

===

Maybe I’m out of touch, but I would never imagine a $300 hair dryer before Robert sent it in. And yet I think it supports the idea in this email well.

Or maybe like Robert says, it’s just a product that solves a legit problem for a specific segment, and is worth every penny for that reason.

On that note, let me repeat my offer from yesterday:

I’m always on the lookout for great products to promote. The problem is, lots of stuff looks great on the outside. But does it actually deliver results? That’s where I’m hoping you can help me.

What’s a product or a service that you paid $200 or more for over the past year, which really delivered?

It could be an info product, a physical product, a service, or something you paid to have done for you. And by “really delivered,” I’m not talking about being fun and diverting, but of giving you real value in your real life.

If you’re game, hit reply and let me know of stuff you’ve paid for that was a good investment.

In turn, I’ll reply to you and tell you three offers I’ve bought over the past year or so, all of which cost around $1k, all of which delivered real value to me, and all of which happened to be sold via infotainment.

Do we have a deal? If so, hit reply, and fire away.

How much is infotainment worth?

by

How much is infotainment worth? I mean, how much do stories and pop culture analogies and outrage in your marketing sell, above and beyond what you could sell by appealing to personal interest alone?

I don’t know. As far as I know, nobody has ever tried to quantify it.

But I do know of an analogous situation, one that has been quantified. Check it:

Back in 1946, baseball club owner Bill Veeck was the first to introduce fireworks at a baseball game. The baseball establishment was outraged. “It cheapens this great and noble sport,” they said.

Veeck was undeterred. Eventually, other team owners came around, and today, fireworks are a standard addition to many major league games.

Of course, the change in attitude came down to money.

As Veeck argued and found to be true, fireworks at a baseball game pay for themselves many times over, primarily in the form of keeping fans at the stadium longer and selling more hotdogs and beer. When combined with a home-team win, the results are multiplicative. Here are the stats:

1. Lose game, no fireworks: X

2. Lose game, fireworks: 1.4X

3. Win game, no fireworks: 2X

4. Win game, fireworks: 3X

In my mind, this is analogous to selling with or without infotainment.

In this analogy, fireworks are the fun, infotainment, insight.

As for “winning the game,” that maps to your customers actually profiting from the product or the service that you sell.

And “extra money made via concessions” maps to how much more money your one-time customers are willing to spend with you in the future.

Do the baseball numbers above map perfectly to selling?

Again, I don’t know. I would be surprised if they mapped perfectly, But I do suspect they are indicative.

The fact is, infotainment has value in terms of customer loyalty and future willingness to buy. But it has far less value than a product that delivers real results. You can be unlikable or dull, and people will still buy from you, over and over, if they get value from what you sell.

Of course, if you both have a great offer that actually produces results… and you add in your stories and analogies and outrage… then you can look forward to really amazing profits, ones that insulate you from the ups and down of the market and the claws of the competition.

Now I got a favor to ask you, or rather, a deal to make with you:

I’m always on the lookout for great products to promote. The problem is, lots of stuff looks great on the outside. But does it actually deliver results? That’s where I’m hoping you can help me.

What’s a product or a service that you paid $200 or more for over the past year, which really delivered?

It could be an info product, a service, or something you paid to have done for you. And by “really delivered,” I’m not talking about being fun and diverting, but of giving you real value in your real life.

If you’re game, hit reply and let me know of stuff you’ve paid for that was a good investment.

In turn, I’ll reply to you and tell you three offers I’ve bought over the past year or so, all of which cost around $1k, all of which delivered real value to me, and all of which happened to be sold via infotainment.

Do we have a deal? If so, hit reply, and fire away.

How to get informed (it’s not the news)

by

Perhaps you’ve seen the trending anti-news article that’s gone viralish over the past week.

It deals with news versus reality, specifically, deaths as reported in the news versus the deaths people actually die from.

The article compared data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to news reports of deaths in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the news website of Fox News.

Some of the results:

First, there wasn’t much difference between the three news outlets, in spite of different political leanings.

Second, there was a big gap between which deaths get written about and which deaths actually happen.

On the over-represented side, murders were 43 times more reported than their share of deaths. Terrorism deaths got 18,000 times more coverage than their share of actual deaths.

On the under-represented side, deaths from things like stroke and heart disease were underreported in the news by a factor of 9 and 10, respectively.

I personally don’t watch or read the news, and this kind of stuff allows me to be smug. “You see,” I imagine telling some imaginary debate partner, “I haven’t been missing anything.”

The fact is, the news doesn’t represent reality, meaning stuff that happens out there. The only reality it represents is what biases exist in the human mind, across time and across space and culture:

Our cravings for novelty… for low probability, high-impact events… for negative rather than positive outcomes… for individual dramatic stories rather than statistics encompassing millions of data points.

But though I personally ignore the news and even like to be smug about it, it’s not just cynical and self-serving news outlets that do this to us.

We do the same thing to ourselves, all the time, because of habit but also because of our inborn neurology. We focus on the negative… the low-probability… the high-impact… and we weave stories about such things that often have little to do with the reality of of our existence.

This all sounds kinda depressing, and I don’t want you leaving my email that way.

So let me share a resource I’ve shared multiple times over the past year and a half.

It lays out a simple process that has allowed me to see reality more clearly and to challenge stories my brain likes to tell itself.

This process worked for me when I first read about it and tried it a year and a half ago. It’s working for me still.

Maybe most importantly, following this process opened up some sort of a gateway in my mind that’s allowed related ideas and practices to flow in, which have made me more happy and resilient these days than I have felt my whole adult life.

In case you want to get informed about reality:

https://bejakovic.com/stillworking

What to do when people won’t buy money at a discount

by

Last year, I read a book called Ice To The Eskimos by sports marketer Jon Spoelstra. I highly recommend it, because of stories like this one:

Back in the 1990s, Spoelstra gave a talk to a bunch of basketball team owners in Spain.

Says Spoelstra, at that time, pro sports teams outside the US lacked one big thing the Americans had: marketing. The owners of such non-US teams thought that if fans wanted to come, they would come. If the fans didn’t wanna come, they wouldn’t.

Spoelstra knew better. And to make his point, he ran a little stunt during that talk to the Spanish basketball team owners.

He took out a hundred peseta bill. “Who here will give me a 10 peseta coin for this 100 peseta bill?”

The team owners murmured and looked around the room. Maybe the translator had fumbled something? Or the American was crazy?

Spoelstra repeated his offer. “Who will give me a 10 peseta coin for this 100 peseta bill?”

More murmuring. Finally one of the team owners pulled out a coin and held it up. Spolestra jumped on the coin, and gave the team owner the bill in exchange.

“Do you have another 10 peseta coin?” Spoelstra asked.

The team owner shrugged and pulled one out. Spoelstra gave him another 100 peseta bill.

They repeated the deal a few more times.

“When will you stop giving me 10 peseta coins for 100 peseta bills?” Spoelstra asked the team owner.

The team owner smirked. “Only when you run out of 100 peseta bills.”

That was Spoelstra’s point about marketing. You hire a ticket salesperson… he makes you 100 pesetas… and only keeps 10 for himself. It’s a good deal, and one you should keep making as long as you can.

“Fine fine,” I hear you saying. “Thanks for the bland insight. Do you have anything more, or are we done here?”

I do have one more thing to share with you. One year later, the organization that had hired Spoelstra to give that presentation sent him a report about the attendance figures for each team.

The team owners who still refused to hire a ticket salesperson saw the same attendance numbers as before.

The team owners who took Spoelstra’s advice and hired a ticket salesperson all had attendance increases of 50% or more.

But here’s the bit that thrilled my novelty-seeking heart:

The team owner who actually traded with Spoelstra and got a 100 peseta bill for each 10 peseta coin, didn’t end up hiring one ticket salesperson… or two… but three ticket salespeople.

I don’t know his final attendance numbers, but Spoelstra says that over the coming year, that team owner had more attendance growth and revenue growth than anyone in the room. At the end of the year, the team owner ended up sending Spoelstra a framed 100 peseta bill with an engraving that said, “I didn’t stop. Thank you.”

Maybe that “I didn’t stop” was all due to the personality of that team owner.

After all, he was active while others were passive, daring while others were hesitant, even in a controlled and safe environment of Spoelstra’s presentation. Maybe he was just a risk-taker and a leader, where others weren’t.

Maybe.

But maybe it was also due to something else. Maybe it was due to the actual physical and emotional experience that team owner had of handing over a 10 peseta coin and getting 100 pesetas in return, over and over.

That kind of real and direct experience, and the resulting neurological imprinting, even if it’s done in a joke and play context, can have wide-ranging effects.

That’s something to keep in mind if you are trying to create change in your audience, or in yourself.

And on an entirely related note, I’d like to remind you of my Most Valuable Email training.

You are likely to get benefit from this training if you simply buy it and read it. But you are likely to get 16x the value if you put it into action, however hesitatingly and jokingly at first. And same goes for your own audience.

For more info on Most Valuable Email:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

The bluebird who paid a $10k bill plus travel expenses

by

Recently, I had the idea to take a bunch of my previous emails on the topic of pricing and positioning, and to write a book titled “Charge More,” or something like that.

The basic idea being, charge more for what you offer.

But like “Just Do It,” “Charge More” is one of those bits of good advice that people nod their heads to in agreement, but rarely actually follow.

So rather than just repeating “Charge More” for 150 pages to no effect, I figured I would take a bunch of emails I’ve written, with distinctions and stories, to both inspire people to raise their prices, and to give them tips on how to do so in various situations.

And now that I’ve given you that intro, it seems a good time to share a story by sales trainer Dave Sandler, which I read in Sandler’s book You Can’t Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar. The story goes like this:

Sandler once gave a talk at a business convention, outlining his own homebrewed system for raising salesmen’s self-esteem.

Next day, Sandler flew back from the convention to his home in Baltimore.

At the time, all of Sandler’s business was local to Baltimore. He wasn’t expecting anything to come from the convention.

But the next morning, Sandler got a call from an excited business owner from Indiana, halfway around the country.

The business owner was there at convention. He said he took Sandler’s ideas back to his salespeople. He was flabbergasted at the initial results. He wanted Sandler to come out immediately and give his salespeople the full training.

While this guy talking, Sandler thought to himself, “Well! here’s a bluebird.” It’s like the guy had just flown in through an open window and landed on Sandler’s desk.

At the time, Sandler’s fee for a 2-day seminar in Baltimore was $2,500 dollars (this was in the early 1970s). He was simply waiting for the excited business owner to exhaust himself with talking, and then he’d ask for $2,500 plus travel expenses.

But the business owner kept talking, all about how much money he had spent on traditional sales training… and how happy he had been to hear Sandler speak on this topic, because Sandler was right, and others didn’t get it…

“I do have to spend the night at a hotel and away from home to teach this seminar,” Sandler thought. “Better ask for another $500 and make it an even $3k. I’ll do it once the guy stops talking.”

… but the business owner still kept on, all about the books and tapes and trainings he had purchased for his sales staff, and how none of it had worked… and how much it’s been hurting his business… and how it’s been driving him up the wall and he didn’t know what to do until now…

“I do also have to get on a plane for this,” Sandler thought. “Plus I’ll have to give up some selling time. I’ll tell him the price is $3,500, as soon as he slows down.”

… but the biz owner kept talking and talking, venting and venting, revealing and revealing. Sandler says it felt like the guy talked for an hour, even though it was probably only a few minutes.

Finally the business owner talked himself out. “By the way,” he said, “how much is this going to cost me?”

“$10,000,” Sandler said, “plus travel expenses.”

“Well that’s no problem,” the business owner replied. “How soon can you get here?”

I think there are lots of lessons in this little story. Let me just share one, right at the top, about how Sandler got a warm inbound lead, a bluebird who landed on his desk, ready to to buy without any sales call or persuasion or objection overcoming.

Sandler did it by flying across the country and getting up on stage and giving a talk.

That’s an effective way of getting warm inbound leads, if you’re willing to fly around and get up on stage and give speeches to crowds.

But the same psychology applies whenever you have a platform to speak from, even if that platform is entirely virtual, and even if speaking is really writing, like what you’re reading now.

The key is simply to build a mini-monopoly, a situation in which people in your audience have grown to trust you and to have a relationship with you and to want to work with you specifically, even if you have supposed “competition.”

All that’s to say, if you don’t consistently write daily emails yet, it pays to start. And if you want my help doing so:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Anti-proof #1A

by

Yesterday, I wrote an email wondering about a strange social proof conundrum:

Why do endorsements and testimonials sometimes act as powerful proof elements… while at other times they act as a red flag that signals the offer itself is unproven and iffy?

I didn’t have an answer I was convinced by, beyond shrugging my shoulders and saying, “because readers can basically sniff out if you’re coming from a position of power or not.”

I got a number of replies to yesterday’s email, from readers who both disagree with me and agree with me. For example, reader John McDermott thinks it all comes down to gut feelings:

===

It obviously depends on the audience to a certain extent, but I think people make buying decisions largely from ‘gut feelings.’ That is, whether the offer invokes their defenses on some ‘spidey senses’ level. Or not.

Just as a salesman shouldn’t actually wear blue suede shoes, an ad shouldn’t show any ‘tells’ that the audience will perceive.

===

On the other hand, a reader named Devd thinks it’s about structuring your copy in the right way:

===

I think towards the end of the book, Gene Schwartz talked about something related to this in Breakthrough Advertising.

Like being the mind reader, and amply supplying the copy with claim-proof and other stuff as required.

And not blabbering about just proof or claims alone for too long, and having the right thinking process to switch as needed based on the thought process of your prospect after reading each line you write.

That’d probably help avoid the copy feeling too needy, I guess.

===

A mysterious French copywriter or marketer, who keeps buying my offers under different names but goes by “Bro in Arms” in his emails, thinks it might not have anything to do with social proof at all:

===

Or maybe it’s just a great product.

And like Elon Musk says in his biography, great products sell themselves through word of mouth.

===

On the other hand, marketer Sean McCool, whose Persuasion by the Pint podcast I appeared on last Friday, thinks it’s the framing of the endorsement that matters:

===

I think the speaker in the letter matters. If a “publisher” is talking about the guru and then shares testimonials about the guru in the letter, that is much more powerful and accepted than if the guru is the voice in the letter.

Thats why so many Agora promos use a publisher.

===

And Maliha Mannan, who writes dailyish emails and sells courses over at The Side Blogger, offers an insider’s perspective:

===

I have a hard time believing in testimonials, but I know I’m an outlier.

In most cases, as a buyer, a testimonial only works on me, regardless of whether it’s a testimonial about the person making the offer or the offer itself, when I have already developed a positive view of the seller. In that case, a testimonial of the offer itself comes off stronger than that of the person (because I already like the person?)…

On the other hand, as a seller of offers, I usually work with what I have. Since I’m pretty bad at asking for testimonials, most of what I have are things people have said in the passing, and most of these tend to be comments about me.

For example, “I like how you teach,” is an email after someone has taken a course. But it’s not exactly about the course itself.

On a more curious note, I get the best testimonials from fellow info-entrepreneurs. Maybe because we understand what it means to have a really good testimonial, we tend to give out the best testimonials ourselves.

===

So? Are we any closer to unraveling this mystery?

I personally still don’t have an answer that convinces me. But perhaps some of the above comments gave you a good idea, maybe even one you can run with in your own marketing.

In any case, it was important to share these reader perspectives. That’s because daily emails should feel as much as possible as a dinner party, rather than as a sermon or a university lecture.

Since I end all my emails by promoting something, let me now point you to my Daily Email Habit service, which helps you write daily emails that feel like a dinner party, while at the same time getting people at the party to pay the tab at the end of the night.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a good number of “fellow info-entrepreneurs” as subscribers to Daily Email Habit. I’ve got testimonials on the sales page from some of them, saying things like:

#1. “Fourth day in DEH. Turned the Elvis bullet into an email. Got a sale to my £170 course. So I’d say the investment has paid for itself.”

#2. “Within 5 minutes of getting your first ‘prompt’ in my inbox, I was cranking out my first email. Zero resistance.”

#3. “10 minutes going from sheer panic about what to write to a finished email building my expertise and selling my stuff.”

#4. “Exactly what I needed to get me thinking about my list.”

#5. “My best Black Friday yet… your service contributed to this result.”

If you’d like to find out more about Daily Email Habit, and see if it might make sales for you too:

https://bejakovic.com/deh/