Stale autoresponders

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A personal confession:

I’m a compulsive salad buyer. I buy those prewashed and precut bags of mixed greens, and I stack them in my fridge. I eat them too, but not at the speed that I buy them at.

This often means that, like this morning, I’ll peek into an already opened bag of salad and evaluate critically whether it’s too wilted to consume. Meanwhile, other, perfectly fresh, new bags of salad sit in my fridge, waiting until they too become old enough and unfresh enough to deserve my attention.

Do you maybe sense an analogy in the making? Something to do with marketing? Well, here goes:

On last week’s Write & Profit coaching call, I asked one question to three of the five people who are in that group. The question was:
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​”What’s the strategy behind your autoresponder?”

There are good reasons to have an email autoresponder. And then there are bad reasons.

One bad reason is, “Everybody says I should.” Another bad reason is, “Because it’s a functionality of my ESP.”

Here are a few of the problems I saw with the autoresponders among my coaching students:

#1. They were out of date. They did not represent the current philosophy or positioning or main offers of the person writing.

#2. They were not as good as their more recent emails.

#3. They did not feel fresh or real, because they were not fresh or real.

#4. They did not allow new subscribers to get to the most current and exciting offers.

If you have nothing else to eat in your fridge but wilted salad, then that makes your choice of dinner easier.

Likewise, if you don’t write fresh emails, then having a stale autoresponder is better than sending no emails at all.

On the other hand, if you are writing fresh emails, then you need to have good reasons for also having an autoresponder.

And in the absence of such good reasons, it’s better to just throw the old salad, I mean old emails, out, and serve up what’s fresh and new.

Fresh and new is not hard to do. And if you want my recipe book for fresh emails, on demand, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

The anti-subscription high-ticket community

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I’ve recently noticed an interesting new pricing model. As an example, take Codie Sanchez’s Contrarian Community.

As you might know, Codie is an ex-private-equity, Goldman Sachs woman. She quit the corporate world and started using her PE background to buy boring, cash-flow businesses. Laundromats, RV parks, and the like.

Codie also started an info publishing business, Contrarian Thinking, teaching players with money to do the same as she’s doing.

Codie writes a free Contrarian Thinking newsletter, in which she gets her audience of 200,000 readers hyped up on the opportunity of buying boring businesses.

And once they get hyped up enough, she sells them training teaching them how to actually buy a boring businesses, plus ongoing support and networking, inside what she calls Contrarian Community.

So far, so standard.

The part that got me is that Codie doesn’t charge for access to Contrarian Community monthly. She doesn’t charge for it yearly either. Instead, she charges a one-time fixed fee of $10k. And she’s built a 8-figure business out of Contrarian Thinking this way.

I’ve noticed this pricing model in a few other successful info publishing and coaching businesses recently. At first, this had me surprised — because I’ve been trained to think continuity offers are where it’s at.

But a one-time, large fixed ticket to join a community makes a lot of sense. It means:

1. More money per member, today instead of tomorrow.

2. Better quality of member.

3. Better results for members, and therefore easier sales down the line, and a more attractive offer.

4. A better community. Rather than people constantly churning, there’s stability. There are more members contributing, and more successful members supporting and encouraging those who aren’t as successful yet.

So this is something to consider.

If you too offer ongoing coaching, training, or a community of some sort, you can do this too.

Figure out what your LTV is per customer… round that up… or double it or triple it. And then charge people a one-time fee, instead of leaving them to constantly wonder if it’s worth sticking around and renewing for another cycle.
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​Do this, and you might end up producing a better community, getting better results for your customers, and making a lot more money yourself.

How to go from not funny to funny

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Yesterday, I read about championship golfer Lee Trevino, who went from being not funny to being funny. Here’s how he did it, in his own words:

“When I was a rookie, I told jokes, and no one laughed. After I began winning tournaments, I told the same jokes, and all of a sudden, people thought they were funny.”

This might sound like a joke itself. It’s not. It’s a fact of life. Status, success, and authority are more important than what say.

A corollary is that what you say should be as much about hinting at your status, success, and authority, as it is about your “actual” message.

Think Tai Lopez, talking about the importance of reading books, while standing in his garage, and casually mentioning how it’s fun to drive his new black Lamborghini “here in the Hollywood hills.”

Of course, you can be more subtle than Tai if you want.

If you want to learn some subtle ways that I build up my status, success, and authority in my emails, you can find those described in my Simple Money Emails training.

This training shows you my simple, “hypnotic,” 1-2 process to make sales today and to keep your readers’ interest tomorrow.

I distilled down this process after close to 2,000 sales emails, written both for myself and for 7- and 8-figure clients I used to work with.

So if your jokes aren’t getting any laughs right now, and if your emails aren’t making any sales right now, this training could be the fix.

For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

What’s coming up in the next few weeks

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Over the next few weeks, I will be promoting 3 affiliate offers. I’ve never promoted any of them before. But I have personally bought, consumed, or participated in each one. They are:

#1. An actual, legit business opportunity for copywriters. This is for you if you want to get new copywriting clients who pay you a lot of money, a lot more than you are used to getting for the same work.

#2. The best source of info if you are looking to start your own Morning Brew-like newsletter. I’ve endorsed this offer multiple times already. And now, I’ve reached out and gotten the good people behind this offer. I got them to provide a special and sizeable discount while I’m promoting it.

#3. A writing course for entrepreneurs who want to build an audience on social media. I’m going through this course myself right now. And when I promote it, I will aim to make it free for you.

I’m telling you what’s coming up because if one of the above offers can benefit you, I want you know. And if you have an education or business-development budget for yourself, so that you save up. Don’t fritter away your money on other offers, just because.

I’ll promote the three offers above in the next 2-3 weeks, though the exact dates are still not fixed.

Meanwhile, if none of these three offers speaks to you, you might like my Simple Money Emails training. It shows you how to make more money from your list today and keep your readers coming back tomorrow. For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Boring copy beats interesting copy

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Yesterday, I wrote about the value of being clear in email copy. I got a curious reply to that from a business owner who has been on my list for a while.

​​This business owner gave his personal experience with two email lists he’s on, by two marketers I will codename Jeremy and Gavin. My reader wrote about these two marketers:

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Jeremy’s emails are interesting, full of personality, and always something going on.

Gavin’s emails are super simple, clear, and direct to the point. Almost boring.

If I had to choose a better writer, it would probably be Jeremy.

But I’ve bought about 4 products from Gavin over the past 6 months, and none from Jeremy.

I also tend to read all of Gavin’s emails, because I know they are going to be easy to read, while I often just save Jeremy’s emails for later and end up not reading them.

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The point being:

If you write simply, clearly, and make a valuable point, you don’t need to be clever or impressive. You can even be boring. And you will still be effective.

That was why I created my Simple Money Emails training the way I did, and why I named it like I did.

Simple Money Emails shows you how to write simple emails, that make a clear point, and that lead to a sale.

I’ve used the approach inside this training to write emails that sold between $4k and $5k worth of products, every day, for years at a time.

If you’d like to do something similar:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

How to stop readers from skimming your emails

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I’m working on my new 10 Commandments book, and so I’ve been going through the archive on my website, in search of old emails that I could use in the new book as-is.

There are literally hundreds of these old emails.

Most I skim across without reading at all. But from time to time, some of the emails catch my eye.

I noticed that there’s one characteristic among the emails in my archive that do make me stop, read more carefully, nod my head.

The emails that made me do that are clear.

Being clear goes beyond getting a good Hemingway-app score.

You can write at a 3rd-grade level and still not have a clear message. If you don’t believe me, think of former U.S. President George W. Bush, who said:

​​”I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend.”

The key thing for a clear email isn’t the word choice. It’s actually having something clear to say.

I’ve personally started forcing myself to write each of my emails in just three bullet points. Here’s an example for today’s email:

1. been reading my old emails
2. good ones are clear
3. sme: don’t need quirks or style

Which brings me my Simple Money Emails training. As I say inside that training:

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Your email doesn’t need to be perfectly written or polished. It doesn’t need to use clever language or have your own “unique voice.” It doesn’t need to have any particular character or surprising, breakneck transitions.​​

Just because you saw some unique quirk in an email guru’s personal email, don’t think you have to do the same to make sales.

You don’t. I know because I have written super basic emails, without any “flair” to them other than an interesting story that I dug up somewhere online, and they did well. In fact, simple, clear, interesting emails will often do better that clever, unusual, or flowery emails.

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You can write clearly. And you can write in an interesting way. And you can write in a way that makes you sales today, and tomorrow, and the day after.

Simple Money Emails can help you get there. ​​For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

Going ape for agree and amplify

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I’m working on my new 10 Commandments book and that means I’m reaching deep into my journal and processing all the research I’ve collected.

That’s how I came across a great marketing story I should have already used for an email.

This story involves famous ad man George Lois, somebody I’ve already written about in this newsletter.

Lois was a master of dramatization.

Back in 1960 or so, Lois was tasked with creating a commercial for the new Xerox 914 photocopier. The USP was Xerox’s new technology, which used plain paper for printing and made the photocopier easy to use, unlike the steam locomotives that were used until then.

Lois decided to dramatize Xerox’s ease of use by showing a little girl — his own daughter Debbie — using the Xerox 914 to make a photocopy of her doll.

Sure enough, the commercial showed Debbie skipping over to the Xerox machine and pushing two buttons. Out came a photocopy.

Overnight, Xerox became a sensation. But competitors were furious. No photocopier could be that easy to use! They filed complaints with the FCC for deceptive advertising.

When Lois was told of this, he nodded his head and said, “Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right… it was wrong of us to use a little girl to show how easy this machine is to use… we should have used a stupid ape!”

So Lois reshot the commercial, this time with a chimp in place of Debbie, and with officials from the FCC to watch as the chimp made its photocopy, all in one take.

Following this, Xerox became the biggest photocopier company, a huge tech behemoth for decades. They funded research that changed the modern tech landscape (they invented windows, the mouse, laser printers). And then they let Apple and Microsoft eat its lunch.

But! The point of this email is not Xerox’s business incompetence, but George Lois’s advertising competence.

More specifically, the point of this email is the power of agreeing and amplifying — chimp instead of girl — whenever anybody attacks or challenges or even mocks you.

And now I’d like to tell you about my Simple Money Emails training.

This training makes it so easy to write sales emails that even a little girl could do it.

I really hope somebody will challenge me on that, because I have video recordings of an ape that does it as well.

For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

An incredibly powerful email hook

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Oh boy.

Yesterday’s email, about scarcity as a performance art, brought the replies pouring in.

I feel like I’m in the courtroom scene in Miracle on 34th Street, with postal workers bringing in satchels of mail for proof of how strongly people feel on this issue.

The issue, in case you missed my emails over the past couple days, is an upcoming livestream by marketers Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson.

During the livestream, which is set to happen in a couple weeks’ time, Russell will interview Dan, from Dan’s sacrosanct basement workspace. The topic will be Dan’s mind-boggling decision to shut down new subscriptions to his No B.S. print newsletter, starting March 3 of this year.

Real? Fake?

Some of my readers turned detective and wrote in with their findings.

They spotted a detail on the optin page for this upcoming livestream. An image shows Russell, with a mild look of panic on his face, holding a fax from Dan to demonstrate how real this decision is.

The fax has a headline in huge font that reads “SHUT ‘ER DOWN!!!”

Only problem is, the fax also has a small date in the upper right corner, and that date reads 10/24/2022.

Other readers acknowledged that Russell does go for fake scarcity, but defended the man. Some called him a marketing genius. Others just said he does a great job distilling marketing concepts and makes them usable quickly — and it’s up to you to decide what to do with them.

My main takeaway after this whole experience is that industry gossip is an incredible powerful email hook. If, like me, you needed any reminding of that, then let me remind you:

Industry gossip is an incredible powerful email hook.

The only problem I have with anything that’s incredibly powerful is that I bore quickly.

As I said recently on my “How I do it” presentation, I look at this newsletter first and foremost as a sandbox, a playground.

It’s kind of a miracle that it’s turned into a nice source of income and a fountain of good opportunities.

But once something stops being interesting for me, it stops being a topic for this newsletter. So I won’t be writing about this bit of industry gossip, as Dan himself might say, for the foreseeable future.

That said, my playground attitude is not an attitude I encourage anyone else to take.

So if you want to see how two professionals who take their jobs very seriously do it, then check out Dan and Russell’s current “SHUT ‘ER DOWN!!!” campaign.

I continue to promote it with an affiliate link, even though I don’t know if I’ve made any sales, and even though, given that it’s Dan Kennedy, I would promote it without getting paid, simply because I’ve learned so much from the man, and I think you can too.

If you’d like to sign up for that free upcoming livestream, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/no-bs-scarcity

Scarcity as a performance art

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I got a lot of replies to my “No B.S. scarcity” email on Saturday.

That email was about Dan Kennedy’s decision to close down signups to his No B.S. Marketing Letter. The email linked to an optin page for a livestream from Dan’s basement — hosted by Russell Brunson — in which Dan would explain his inexplicable decision to stop taking on new subscribers.

Here’s what a few people wrote me in response:

#1 “I’m enjoying how you managed to critique the probably fake scarcity while still using it on us all… 😅“

#2 “I registered for the livestream, John. I appreciate your integrity of not promoting since you hadn’t signed up. :-)”

#3 “If you tell me it’s worth it, I’ll probably subscribe too. If not, I will continue to read and reread Master Dan’s books.”

And then, there was one reader who replied to simply say:

“If Russell Brunson is involved, it’s fake.”

I followed up to ask if this reader had some previous experience with Russell. To which my reader replied:

“He embodies the worst of direct marketing and fake urgency/scarcity. But, it seems to be working so not sure where that leaves me.”

Legendary 19th-century conjurer Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin once wrote that a conjurer is an “actor playing the part of a magician.”

And legendary 21-st century marketer Dan Kennedy once wrote:

“This gets to a view of selling as a performance art. As such it is to be planned, scripted, physically choreographed, rehearsed, and ultimately performed. Most sales professionals unfortunately view the presentation as something that they should just be able to do.”

I’m not sure if this makes anybody in Dan’s audience — or in the audiences of all the marketers who are descended from him — feel better about the experience of witnessing scarcity as a performance art.

But it might clear things up, and explain where that leaves you — and that’s participating in a show.

One thing’s for sure:

Both Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson are sales professionals of the highest caliber.

If you want to see them in action, there’s that free livestream from Dan’s basement in a few weeks’ time, explaining why Dan has decided to shut down new signups “for the foreseeable future.”

So if you’d like to learn something about effective marketing or simply watch two wonderful actors put in a great performance, you can sign up below.

And DO IT NOW — before all the free tickets have sold out and the infinite Zoom attendee limit has been exhausted and the deadline sirens start to blare. Here’s the link, which will self-destruct after you click on it:

https://bejakovic.com/no-bs-scarcity

The seedy underbelly of every industry ever

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This past Wednesday, the BBC ran an article with the headline:

“The seedy underbelly of the life coaching industry”

The article features the story of a woman named Angela Lauria, age 50. Lauria went in search of weight loss and she wound up with a life coach who charged her $100k and got her to spend thousands more on trainings by other life coaches.

We don’t actually find out what happened to Angela in the end, but presumably she did not make her $100k back via new and bigger successes in her life.

I guess the BBC published this article because life coaching is a booming industry and because it’s still relatively new.

The point, the article says, is not to discourage people from seeking a life coach’s services — because there are good life coaches. But it’s the Wild West out there.

I personally think it’s the Wild West everywhere, and always has been.

My estimate — based on having seen behind the curtain at hundreds of businesses while I was a for-hire copywriter — is that 80% of people doing any job are at best mediocre, and more likely, they are actively bad.

Only 20% of people in any industry are genuinely dedicated, skilled, and get good results on any kind of consistent basis.

So what to do? Well, if you’re looking for a life coach, the BBC article has the following good advice:

“Ask the coach how much of their business is referral, call at least three former clients and don’t buy from anyone who won’t do a call with you directly beforehand. And don’t buy from anyone who needs an answer now – scarcity and urgency is made up.”

Meanwhile, if you want to write a personal email newsletter — to distinguish yourself, to prove your credibility, to promote your products and services — then look at my Simple Money Emails program.

​​Most of the sales for that program came via referrals. And if you’d like to see what a few previous customers had to say, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/