Competition contradiction

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A paradox? A contradiction?

As part of the research for my new book, I’ve been going through a book by Sam Taggart. Taggart is the founder of D2D Experts, an online education company for door-to-door salesmen.

Taggart has a long but distinguished career selling door-to-door, everything from knives to solar panels to security alarms. His door-to-door selling career started at age 11, and culminated around age 35, when he finished as the #1 salesman in a company of 3,000 reps.

Anyways, grok this, if you can:

On page 44 of his book, Taggart’s top recommendation for motivating yourself is to look at all the other salesmen around you, to start tracking their results, and to start thinking of them as competition you have to beat.

And then on page 64, Taggart says how the best salesmen only view themselves as real competition.

Huh?

It’s easy to dismiss this as just contradiction or fluff inherent in a lot of sales material.

But I don’t think so.

A while back, meaning 3 years ago, I wrote about 6 characteristics of people who manage to do the seemingly impossible.

These 6 characteristics came out of a study of pro athletes who came back from devastating injury to compete at the highest level again… as well as star Wall Street traders who managed to beat not only all other traders, but the randomness inherent in the market as well.

One of the common characteristics of such people was that they simultaneously had a short-term view of the task to be accomplished, as well as a long-term view.

In other words, these folks looked at their situation from both 3 feet away, and from 3,000 feet up in the air. They did so the same time, or at least switching constantly between the two.

And so I think it is with Taggart’s advice — and so it is in many other situations in life.

We all want the “one thing” to cling to.

But quite often, particularly in the most important things in life, you gotta hold two opposing thoughts in your head, and you gotta live by both of them.

Of course you don’t really gotta. You don’t gotta do anything. But if you are currently worried by competition, whether that’s other businesses who target same audience as you, or other solutions or trends that tend to wipe out what you’re doing, or simply people within your own company who try to outperform you, then it might make sense to:

1. Make a list of all these villains, to keep track of their activity, and to start viewing them as competition to be beaten

2. To ignore them and to focus on doing the best you can

Anyways, I’ll have Taggart’s advice — not this, but something less contradictory — in my new book, full title:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24. The way things are going, I might have to shave half my head, like Demosthenes, to keep myself from leaving the house until the book is finished.

In any case, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​​

Zag when you’re zigging

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A reader writes in reply to a recent email to say:

===

John, if you weren’t so angsty you would be hilarious. I’m quite certain you will get your next 10 Commandments book done in time to meet your self-imposed deadline (the best kind of deadline, btw) and I love seeing behind the curtain as you keyboard warrior your way there.

However, the title is insufferably long! IMHO

===

I’ve had several people write in about the title of the new book, and to more or less suggest I might do better.

I can understand.

The conventional wisdom is that a nonfiction book title should be short, ideally one punchy word:

Blink

Behave

Nudge

Contagious

Sapiens

At 23 words and 206 characters, my title definitely doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

Will it work? The fact I have readers writing in to complain about it is encouraging, but I will have to see whether this translates into interest in the book from people who are not already in my audience.

If you’re wondering why I would choose a title like that in the first place, the answer is simply that I find it amusing. But also, there’s the powerful psychological principle of contrast. If everybody is tripping over themselves to come up with a punchy one-word title, then having a 23-word title makes it more likely my book will stand out.

I’m probably not telling you anything new by saying it pays to zag when everyone else is zigging, to contrast yourself to others in your market.

But there’s another kind of contrast you can do. It’s widespread across the influence disciplines I’m profiling in my new book. As opposed to contrasting yourself to others — what you might call external contrast — this second kind of contrast is an internal contrast — to zag when you YOU are zigging.

Maybe know exactly what I mean. Or maybe you can guess.

In any case, I am devoting an entire chapter, specifically Commandment IV to illustrating and laying out this powerful idea.

And on that note:

My angst-producing goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.

Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​ ​​

The magic of not using a person’s name

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When I was, I don’t know, 18, my grandfather handed me a book. “Read this book,” he said. “It’s very important.”

The book was How To Win Friends And Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. It was one of my grandfather’s stock book recommendations. I think he gave me another copy a few years later.

I read the book then, and several times since.

It really is important. It’s full of simple but useful advice like, smile… be interested in other people… remember and use people’s names.

Of course, you can do all this stuff and still get nowhere, or do worse than simply not doing anything.

I remember a Mitchell & Webb skit in which two guys meet at a dinner party. One of them, played by Robert Webb, is introduced as a real “people person.” Sure enough, he does everything Dale Carnegie advises, dialed up to 11.

The guy he’s talking to, played by David Mitchell, doesn’t pick up on it at first. But then he starts to sense something strange. And eventually it dawns on him:

===

Ohhh, I see what’s going on. You think you’re good with people. It all makes sense now. The fake mateyness… the rapey arm-touching… the way you keep using my name in a way that makes me feel oddly violated, as if you’d just dipped your cock in my drink.

===

In short:

There’s something known as “calibration.”

In long:

When you learn any new technique and persuasion strategy, you gotta twiddle and tweak the knobs until you dial it down to the lowest possible effective dose. Otherwise you go from being a people person to being that guy or gal who “thinks he’s good with people.”

I’m telling you all this in anticipation of my new book, all about persuasion and influence, of the full and magnificent title:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.

Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​ ​

Lies and legends of the left brain

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A couple years ago, I came across a bizarre and eye-opening story told by neuroscientist V.S Ramachandran.

Ramachandran was working with split-brain patients, who have surgically had the connection between their left and brain hemispheres cut to control seizures.

In an experiment, Ramachandran demonstrated that these patients effectively had two different minds inside one skull. One mind would like chocolate ice cream best, the other vanilla. One believed in God, the other didn’t.

This story was my first exposure to strange and wonderful world of split-brain research.

I had always thought all the “left-brained/right-brained” stuff was just bunk. I didn’t realize it’s based on pretty incontrovertible scientific proof, going back to research on these split-brain people.

I recently came across another split-brain story, this one in a book by neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga.

Gazzaniga did his PhD at Caltech under a guy named Roger Sperry, who went on to win the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for this work.

Sperry and Gazzaniga were pioneers in working with split-brain patients. These patients seemed to be perfectly normal. But thanks to a bunch of clever experiments, Sperry and Gazzaniga managed to tease out some strange things happening in these patients, which reveal real mysteries of the mind.

For example, the scientists would simultaneously show two images to the patient in such a way that each image only went to one hemisphere.

The patient was then asked to point, with his two hands, to cards connected to the image he had just seen.

One time, a patient was shown a picture of a snow scene for the right brain… and a chicken claw for the left brain.

He then pointed to images of a shovel and a chicken (with the left hand being controlled by the right brain, and the right hand being controlled by the left brain — we’re cross-wired like that).

So far so good. The different sides of the brain had seen different images, and could identify those images by pointing with the hands they controlled.

But here’s where it gets really tricky and interesting:

Gazzaniga had the intuition to ask the patient to explain why he had selected the two images, the one of a chicken and the other of a shovel.

One last scientific fact:

Verbal stuff happens mainly on the left hemisphere (again, we know this based on these split-brain experiments).

In other words, when verbalizing stuff, this patient didn’t have access to the information about the snow scene his right brain had seen. The part of his brain that could speak had only seen one image, that of a chicken claw.

The fact this patient had no possible idea why he had pointed to an image of a shovel didn’t stop him. He immediately and confidently replied:

“Oh, that’s simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken, and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.”

Hm. Do you see what happened?

This split-brain patient, or rather the left mind in his skull, came up with a story, consistent with the facts he knew (the fact was he had pointed to a picture of a shovel).

Of course, in this case, the story was completely fabricated and wrong, and had nothing to do with the actual reason (that the other half of his brain had seen a snow scene and had connected it to the image of a shovel).

To me, this is really fascinating. Because it’s not just about these rare few people who don’t have a connection between the left and right brain hemispheres.

This same thing is happening in all of us, all the time, even right now as you read this. It’s just not so neatly visible and trackable in connected-brain humans as it is in split-brain humans (hence why this research won the Nobel Prize).

This is cool knowledge on its own. But it also practical consequences, and gives you specific technique to practice in case you want to influence others.

This technique is nothing new. But it is immensely powerful. (And no, it’s not “Tell a stawrry.”)

You probably know the technique I have in mind. But if not, you can find it in my upcoming book, full title:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.

Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​ ​

The Trump-Fauci money mystery

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I read a fascinating story a few days ago about an interaction between Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci during Trump’s first administration.

It happened well into the covid era. The first vaccines were being released, and the country was ready to get back to business.

Fauci then made a public statement about the possible need for booster shots in order for the vaccines to be effective.

Here’s what happened next, in Fauci’s own words:

===

The president was irate, saying that I could not keep doing this to him. He said he loved me, but the country was in trouble, and I was making it worse. He added that the stock market went up only six hundred points in response to the positive phase 1 vaccine news and it should have gone up a thousand points and so I cost the country “one trillion fucking dollars.”

===

Stories like this make my head spin. If Trump was right, and it’s very possible he was, then where did that “one trillion fucking dollars” go?

Had Fauci not said anything, would that trillion really be there in the world in any meaningful way?

How can a trillion dollars of actual “value” just appear and disappear, on command, with a few words by the right person in the right place at the right time?

I’ve long been fascinated by the topic of money. Not in the sense of getting my hands on as much of it as I can, but simply understanding what it is.

I have never found a good explanation. Whenever somebody gives me their own explanation, it always seems inadequate.

From what little I understand, money is so confusing because it’s a mix of different things. Hope about the future… willingness to cooperate… built-up knowledge… information about the physical world… information about personal values and preferences, as in, “Do you value this beautiful house? Or do you value the plot of land underneath it more, and you’d be willing to pay to have the house demolished?”

If you have a comprehensive theory of what money is, or a good analogy, or you can point me to some insightful book on the matter, I will be grateful to you.

Meanwhile, one thing is clear to me:

We live in a world of ideas and feelings, which have tremendous real-world influence, even when the physical reality remains almost entirely unchanged, as in the Trump-Fauci story above.

It might be worth thinking about, learning about, getting informed about how to influence those ideas and feelings, including for your own money-getting ambitions.

And on that note, I’d like to remind you I’m making one final, desperate, almost-certain-to-fail-but-possibly-will-succeed push to finish my new 10 Commandments book, full title:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

As the very long title suggests, this book will be about 10 techniques or “commandments” used by some of the most effective communicators and influencers in the world, across all history and space, both for good and evil, in their quest to change feelings, plant ideas, and motivate action.

My goal is to finish and publish this book by March 24.

Until then, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

If you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​

Small list, big win

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We interrupt our scheduled programming of teasing the launch of my new 10 Commandments book to bring you an important and inspiring message.

This message was posted in my Daily Email House community by one of the members, Vanja Kovacevic.

Vanja went from a high-powered IP lawyer career to being a life and career coach. As part of building up that new venture, Vanja realized she had to do some marketing for herself.

A couple weeks ago, she decided to start sending daily emails. And the result, in Vanja’s words:

===

I started DEH with a small list of mostly family and friends that had been inactive for about three years. Two months into DEH, I finally started sending daily emails to this list.

None of these people use email or content marketing in any way, and I know that some of them are allergic to receiving emails too often. Three emails in, I asked them to opt into daily emailing. I got 4 opt-ins. And my mom.

So far, I only have a subscribe link on my LinkedIn, and my microlist grew to 18 people.

Yesterday, I sent my 16th email since then, and someone on my microlist bought my energy healing session I was writing about the other day. Yay!

I’m just now realizing that this is actually possible for me too. Feeling super motivated to keep going and get better at it.

===

I once made a list of common elements in all the areas of my life where I’ve actually gone on to have success.

I found three common elements. One of them was an experience of an early win.

Since then, I’ve been recommending to people to orchestrate an early win for themselves. Do whatever you can to make sure it will happen. Usually, that means celebrating the stuff that you’ve accomplished, that’s under your own control.

Did you set up your email software? Did you write up your first email? Did you send it out?

Great, each of those is a victory to celebrate.

Such small, reachable, but important milestones give you a sense of control and progress. Marking them makes it drastically more likely you will keep taking the subsequent steps that lead to eventual big success.

At the same time, sometimes fortune smiles on you. Sometimes you get a big early win that would make even an established expert smile.

As Vanja’s case shows, it’s possible to get a proper sale, even with a “microlist” of only 18 people (including mom), and after just 16 days of daily emails. (And yes, I followed up with Vanja, and it wasn’t her mom who bought.)

Is something similar possible for you too? That’s really for you to decide and to prove.

One thing’s for sure. It will only happen if you take those first initial steps, however small. And if you want my help and guidance along the way:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Lilla

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I will call the girl Lilla, because that really was her name. I met her on the sidewalk of a busy street in Budapest, Hungary.

I’d been walking with a group of friends down the Kiskörút — the “small ring road” in the center of Budapest — when an attractive girl of about 25 walked past us.

I wheeled about without saying a word… jogged back through the crowd of people… stepped in front of the still-moving girl… locked my eyes on hers like two suction cups… smiled… and held up my hands to make it clear I had something to say to her.

She stopped. I asked if she spoke English. She said she did. I gave her a compliment, saying that she looked nice. She smiled and said thank you.

We chatted for a few more minutes. Eventually, I said I have to go, but that I’d like to invite her for a drink one evening. Lilla, for that was her name, smiled and said, “Ok. Here, take my number.”

After I put her number into my phone, we talked for a couple more minutes, and then said goodbye. Lilla walked on the way she was going, and I rejoined my friends, who were waiting some way down the street, nodding their heads in approval.

If you think I’m trying to boost myself up as some sort of supernaturally talented seducer, let me tell you the sad truth:

For the first three decades of my life, I was entirely useless with women. Shy, passive, avoidant.

That changed when I discovered “daygame” — a collection of online wisdom for how to approach a woman on the street, start a conversation, and then get her phone number, with the clear and stated goal of inviting her out one evening.

It took a couple months of daily practice to perform this mating dance naturally and with confidence. But soon enough, an interaction like the one with Lilla became typical.

I could stop almost any girl on the street and have a pleasant conversation. Many times, those five-minute chats ended with plans to meet again one night for a drink.

And so it was with Lilla. I invited her out a few days later.

Lilla lived far in the outskirts of Budapest. Since I suggested the center as the meeting place, she said that 6pm, right when she finished work, was really the only time that would work.

What to do? 6pm is not the sexiest time of the day, but I already had plans for every other night. So I agreed.

To make this seduction even less likely, it turned out Lilla didn’t drink alcohol.

So here we were, at 6:30pm, with the June sun still high up overhead, sitting in a tea house in the fifth district in Budapest, sipping rooibos, and having the most intensely boring, chemistry-free conversation imaginable. Lilla’s friends, my job, her travel plans.

Lilla’s English was fine but not perfect. Or maybe she just wasn’t “that kind of girl.” In any case, all my attempts at sexual innuendo fell flat as they made their way across the table.

I looked inside my teapot. It was nearing the end. I couldn’t imagine that a second round of rooibos would help any. Something had to change.

“How about we go for a lemonade?” I asked. “I know a place around the corner.” Lilla said fine.

As we strolled through Budapest’s fifth district, my mind raced over my options. A lemonade was clearly not any kind of real solution. Where would we take our conversation now, sugar or no sugar? Another 40 minutes of pointless interview chatter wouldn’t do either Lilla or me good.

And then, suddenly, I had a moment of inspiration. I thought back to the collection of online pick up wisdom I had read. I remembered something. And I stopped walking.

Lilla stopped too, and turned to me to see what’s up.

I locked eyes with her, again suction-cup-like. I said, “Give me your hands.” I held out my hands to her as I said this.

For a moment, Lilla hesitated. Quite natural. She had really just met me a short while earlier. I hadn’t explained what I wanted her hands for, or what I was planning to do. I just stood there, my eyes on hers, my hands held out, smirking a little, not saying anything.

Slowly, a little smile spread across Lilla’s face. She looked down at her feet and then back up at me. And she put her hands in mine, curious to see where this would lead.

Are you curious also? I hope so.

Because this is one of the more personal stories I’m including in my new 10 Commandments book, full title:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

Earlier this week, I went to the crossroads and made a pact with a traveling salesman who lurks there a lot.

This traveling salesman promised he’d make sure I finished this book by March 24 if only I would sign some kind of contract he had.

I signed, and as a result, I have been making great progress on a final push to get this book published by March 24.

In the meantime, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes out.

And on that note, if you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out early to people on this pre-launch list:

​​Click here to get on the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book​​

The foolish goal for my new 10 Commandments book

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Last month, I set myself the goal to finish and publish my new 10 Commandments book by March 24, 2025. For reference, the full title of my new book is:

10 Commandments of Con Men, Pick Up Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters

The goal to publish this book by March 25 is foolish in many ways. I’ve been working on this book, about the common elements I’ve seen among a bunch of influence disciplines, for a couple years now without getting it done.

I’ve already set myself a deadline on a few occasions — November 31 last year, then December 31 — without success.

Worst of all, the current state of the book is really a salad of notes, aborted chapters, and half-formed ideas.

Since I made my resolution last month, about 10 days have passed. I can’t really say I’m not on schedule, since I didn’t set a schedule when I set the goal. But it certainly doesn’t feel like I’m on schedule.

So today, I did formally set a schedule for what I need to do over next 19 days in order to finish and publish this book by the 24th. I’ve also decided to publicly announce this via this email, and perhaps use the threat of public failure and resulting shame as motivation to get this book done.

And there is a chance it will get done.

I made it sound impossible above, but that’s the copywriter in me.

The fact is, I have done all the research. I have made various outlines and now have one I’m set on.

I have already written a huge chunks of the content, in the form of emails which I was sending to a small group of “book beta-testers” back in November, as well as occasional other emails to this main list.

Plus I’m not really intending this book to be a massive encyclopedia, but in line with my original 10 Commandments book, which was sg like 12k words total.

So it might get done? It might not? We will see.

Meanwhile, I will be writing about this book and how it’s progressing, plus what I’m thinking about doing to make it a success when it comes.

And on that note, if you are interested in the topic of this book, and you’re thinking you might wanna get a copy when it comes out, click below. I’m planning some launch bonuses and I will be dripping them out to people on this pre-launch list:

Click here to sign up to the bonus-dripping pre-launch list for my new 10 Commandments book

Should I offer to eat my shoe?

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Back in 1979, German film director Werner Herzog ate his shoe.

Herzog had once said that a fellow director, Errol Morris, would never finish his movie Gates of Heaven. Herzog was hoping to be proven wrong, so he added that if Morris did ever finish the movie, he, Herzog, would eat his shoe.

Morris eventually finished his movie.

So Herzog put on an event. The thing was filmed. A couple hundred people attended.

Herzog first boiled his leather shoe for five hours with garlic, herbs, and duck fat to make it somewhat edible. He then cut up the leather into tiny pieces. Over the course of about 45 minutes, Herzog chewed and swallowed much of the leather. The sole went uneaten.

I thought of this today because I was thinking of guarantees for an offer.

It is a well-known truth that a guarantee reassures undecided buyers and increases sales.

The standard is the money-back guarantee. You can get generous with it, and offer double-your-money-back. Or you can get creative. “I’ll eat my hat!”

But I don’t wear a hat. I don’t even own one. That’s why thought of Wener Herzog and his shoe.

I looked over to the shoe rack near my front door. There’s a pair of old white Converse All-Stars there. They’re made of canvas. I could boil them? Maybe season them? A bit vinegar? At least eat the laces?

But then I snapped out of my fantasy.

Guarantees are great. I encourage you to think about how to offer them for what you sell, and to get creative.

But I am not and will not be offering a guarantee for Daily Email Habit, the main offer I’ve been promoting over past few months.

It’s not simply that shoe canvas is tough, and my Converse have been through a lot, and that I don’t want to risk somebody actually requesting that I eat one of them.

My reason is simply that I actually want Daily Email Habit to be useful to the people who join.

The basic offer I’m making is to help you start and stick with the habit of sending daily emails.

What I offer is help getting you over initial hurdle of what to write about each day… guidance to making your daily emails more effective… and savings of time and brain power.

But you still have to put in the work.

I don’t want to encourage uncommitted or undedicated people to try out Daily Email Habit by promising to eat my shoe, or by offering any kind of guarantee.

As I wrote a few days ago, I’m even trying to turn people away if they don’t know what they’re getting into. Daily Email Habit only really makes sense for people who are committed and dedicated to write daily and profit from it.

If that’s you, Daily Email habit can be a great help. I have a growing wall of testimonials and case studies on the sales page from people who started their own daily email habit and who profited as a result.

If you’d like to read some of their stories, or start your own habit that can lead you to similar results, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

A daily email newsletter I read and recommend

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Today, I’d like to get you to sign up to Jason Resnick’s daily email newsletter.

6 months ago, I had never heard of Jason. That says less about him (successful and well connected) than it does about me (hermit and a half).

The way I did eventually hear about Jason was that I got on a call with one of my own customers, Chris Howes.

Chris runs Creative Strings Academy, a paid online membership of hundreds of musicians, and he has an email newsletter with over 10,000 people on it.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have more customers like Chris,” I said to myself.

So I asked Chris to get on a call. I wanted to find out more about who he is, how his business works, what his problems are. Maybe this could help me create new offers to attract more customers like him.

Chris agreed to get on a call with me. But he told me straight up, “If you’re trying to recruit me as a coaching or consulting client, I’m already working with someone.”

That someone turned out to be Jason Resnick.

And so, out of my hermit cave, at a safe distance, I signed up to Jason’s daily email newsletter and started stalking Jason online. It turned out that:

1. Like me, Jason teaches email marketing, but he focuses on the many -ation parts of email marketing I know precious little about, like automation, and optimization, and segmentation

2. Jason’s audience is made up of online business owners with profitable businesses (along with Chris, I recognized a few other common customers and clients among the testimonials on Jason’s site)

3. Jason writes daily emails in which he shares actual email marketing tips, based on his own business as well as his work with coaching clients (as opposed to focusing on magic or golden retrievers or New Yorker cartoons, the way I tend to do)

My stalking and lurking went on for 6 months. That whole time, it was on my todo list to write to Jason to get introduced. Of course I never did.

And then, a couple weeks ago, as part of a “JV Outreach Challenge” I ran inside my Daily Email House community, I finally replied to one of Jason’s emails.

I told Jason some of the story above.

I pointed out that there’s an overlap between his audience and my audience, and that he and I seem to focus on complementary parts of the email space.

I asked if he might be down to do a cross-promotion, where we would each introduce our audience to the other’s newsletter.

Jason agreed.

And so here we are.

I’d like to recommend to you sign up to Jason’s daily email newsletter, the same way that I’m signed up.

Jason is offering a lead magnet when you sign up, a 13-point landing page checklist.

Jason’s checklist is free, it’s short, and from what I can tell, having myself never A/B tested a landing page, it’s full of good points.

So sign up to Jason’s newsletter to get the free checklist.

Or really, sign up because what Jason writes about and what I write about are complementary… because you can learn something valuable from his experience and his work with successful business owners… and because you will get to see daily emails done in a different way than you may be used to.

If you run an online business, or if you do email marketing in any way, I suggest you take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/jason