Announcing: 1% Writer

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Today I’d like to clue you in on a new offer called 1% Writer.

It’s not my offer.

I’m not even an affiliate.

It’s Kieran Drew’s new offer to go along with his upcoming birthday.

I asked Kieran recently if he’d be one of the people to read my new 10 Commandments book and give me feedback. He turned me down because he was busy putting this new course together.

But Kieran made me a deal, which was that he’d promote my new 10 Commandments book to his audience when I do publish it.

In turn, I said I’d gladly promote his 1% Writer to my audience.

The thing is, I haven’t seen, read, or profited from 1% Writer myself. (It’s a live cohort course, delivered by email, which will kick off next week, May 8.)

I’m still happy to promote 1% Writer to you, for the following two reasons:

Reason #1 is Kieran himself.

In case you don’t know the guy, he has a huge audience (something like 250,000 people across various platforms), and he’s made a huge amount of money in a few years’ time by selling stuff to that audience (north of $1.2 million).

Kieran’s done it all with nothing but his little typing fingers.

Clearly, he knows a thing, two, or maybe even three about how to succeed online by just writing.

What’s more, he’s directly coached a bunch of other people who have gone from zero to hero in that space, so he knows how to pass his knowledge on to others.

I’ll also say I read Kieran’s newsletter myself, when I’ve largely started to ignore most of the other people I used to follow online.

Add it all up and the sum is that I know, respect, and endorse Kieran for what he does in general.

Reason #2 I’m happy to promote 1% Writer is that it costs a whopping $33, or $1 a day. (The course lasts for 33 days, since Kieran is turning 33, and apparently there’s a mathematical connection between the two facts.)

What do you get for $33?

Says Kieran, this course has his best advice, compressed down into 33 lessons, about how to grow your audience, build authority, and turn your ideas into income.

He also says it’s the highest value-to-dollar ratio product he’s made.

I’ve happily promoted Kieran’s high-ticket courses in the past, and I’ve seen the thought and care and value he’s put into those offers.

If he says 1% Writer is the highest value-to-dollar product he’s made, I believe him. That takes nothing away from his high-ticket offers, but it does make 1% Writer an attractive offer, and one to consider seriously.

Of course, you make the final decision. To help you do that, you can find out the full details about 1% Writer, including that May 7 deadline, on the page below:

​https://1pw.kierandrew.com/

The Power of Not Now

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I’m reading a book called Straight-Line Leadership. The central message of the book is, “Just Do It.”

Of course, you can’t publish an entire book with just three words, so this three-word idea is developed in lots of different ways across 50 chapters. For example, in chapter 41, “Now Versus Later,” Straight-Line Leadership tells you:

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The only time you can ever do something about anything is now.

The problem with individuals who tolerate mediocrity in their lives is that no matter what good idea for taking action comes up, it’s never going to happen now. It’s an idea for some distant future. People who struggle have great ideas that they will implement “some day in the future.”

Almost everyone, deep down, knows what to do to get whatever result they truly want. It’s just that they are not choosing to do it right now. “Getting around to it” is not leadership.

The future is a terrible place to put an action plan because the future does not exist. Literally.

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It’s a good message. Clear, simple, powerful. But as with most clear, simple, powerful messages, it’s only half the story, at least the way I see it.

In my experience, some actions are simply too painful or frightening to take now. And no amount of repeating to myself to “just choose to do it now, because it’s either now or never,” changes that.

And yet, those actions become manageable in time. What’s changed? Time has passed. And also, something in my head has changed, due to trying to get myself to act now, and failing at it.

I guess I’m not the only one who feels like this.

I was recently listening to an interview with a wicked smart guy named Michael Levin. Levin is a professor of biology at Tufts. He works on strange topics that sound like the science of the 23rd century rather than the 21st. Stuff like, how do we tap into the electrical language that determines the way organisms determine their shape, so we can get people to regrow, say, an amputated arm?

Anyways, in this interview, which was more philosophical than scientific, Levin said:

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A useful sense of free will is very time-extended. You don’t have, right now, complete control of whatever your next thought is going to be.

And in fact, as you think about it, free from what? Free from past experience? No. And you don’t want to be free from past experience because then you don’t learn.

Free from the laws of physics? No.

So what do you really have in the moment, like within a narrow timeframe? Maybe not much.

But over the long-term, by the application of consistent effort, what you can do is shape your own cognitive structure so that in the future, new things are open to you. Your own structure allows you to do new things.

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What you have “free will” over is consistent effort. That might not translate into results. It might not even translate into action (this is the point of departure from what Straight-Leadership is saying above).

But consistent effort over the long term will in time change your brain, change your actions, and produce results that change your life. Some time. In the future. Even if it’s not cool to talk about that, because it’s supposedly “either now or never.”

So there you go. A philosophical and counterproductive email, at least from the perspective of selling you something today.

The straightforward message of Straight-Line Leadership, “Just Do It, And Now” is a much better message if you want to sell people stuff.

All I can say in my defense is that I wanted to write today’s email, because this newsletter serves several purposes beyond just selling you stuff.

That said, if you are ready to take action today, specifically around communicating regularly with your clients and prospects, and building up your image as a leader in what you do, then good on you.

And if you want my help with doing that, then take a look here:

​https://bejakovic.com/deh​

Mr. Malaprop

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About a month ago, my friend Sam forwarded me a WSJ article about a Ford executive named Mike O’Brien. Over the course of his decades-long career, O’Brien compiled a list, 2,229 items long, of his colleagues’ corporate malapropisms. A few examples:

“I don’t want to sound like a broken drum here, but…”

“Let’s not reinvent the ocean.”

“It’s no skin on our back.”

“Too many cooks in the soup.”

“We need to talk about the elephant in the closet.”

Last night, I called my mom. She’s one of the people I’ve sent an early draft of my new 10 Commandments book to. Being my mom, she’s found the book tremendous. “I’m just so impressed that you know so many facts, and can refer to all these stories, and know the names of all the directors and the screenwriters of the movies you talk about…”

I had to set my mom straight.

It’s writing. Writing.

My mom wouldn’t agree with this, but the fact is, in real life, I’m not all that smart, educated, or informed.

I say stupid stuff all the time. I don’t remember names or dates at all. I’m prone to using cliches and saying generalities. I’ve definitely slipped into worse malaprops than the ones above from O’Brien.

But in writing, it doesn’t matter. In writing, you can take a moment to think. You can look things up. You can pack your writing full of relevant facts. You can edit, so you don’t publish something that ends up stabbing you in the foot.

I don’t know if anybody needed to hear that or not.

In any case, my new 10 Commandments book, which will have a chapter about the elephant in the closet, is nearing publication.

Yesterday, I made an offer related to this book, or maybe asked for a favor. Let me repeat that once more:

Do you have an audience of your own? A newsletter, an online community, a local book club or bingo group?

What I want is for you to promote my book when it comes out. Of course, that means nothing to you and does nothing for you. I don’t know what I can offer you to make it worth your while to promote my book when it comes out, but I am open to all kinds of ideas, from straightforward to outlandish.

If you are open to it as well, at least in theory, hit reply. Let’s talk, and maybe we can figure something out that works for both of us.

Operation Mincemeat

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Today being April 30th it’s a particularly good day to tell you about Operation Mincemeat. Here’s a debrief I read about it a few weeks ago:

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Early on the morning of April 30, 1943, a floating body was discovered off the southern coast of Spain. Retrieved by a fisherman, it was brought to the city of Huelva and identified as Captain William Martin, of the British Royal Marines. A briefcase chained to the corpse contained documents indicating that the Allies planned to advance on Greece and Sardinia — intel that the Nazi-sympathizing Spanish authorities passed on to the Germans.

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The Germans decided to act on the intel, and shifted their troops to Greece and Sardinia. But the allies attacked neither Greece nor Sardinia.

Instead, the Allies attacked and easily took unguarded Sicily, which was their plan all along. The taking of Sicily in turn opened the door to mainland Italy… which led to the overthrow of Mussolini… which fractured the Axis… which shifted the balance of World War II.

As you might have guessed, Operation Mincemeat was a fakeout all along.

The corpse of “Captain William Morris” was really that of Glyndwr Michael, a London tramp who had died some days earlier by eating rat poison.

Michael’s corpse was transported by submarine to the waters off southern Spain, dressed up in a Royal Marines uniform, and left to float. The documents in the briefcase chained to the corpse were all forged by British military intelligence to make the Germans think they had stumbled onto something real.

I’m sharing this with you because 1) it’s curious and was new to me, so maybe it’s new to you too, and 2) because it’s applicable in your business as well, even if you don’t have a corpse at hand and even if you’re not engaged in a historic struggle with the Nazis.

In fact, this story ties in great to a lead magnet I have devised to go with my new 10 Commandments book, which is an extra, apocryphal 11th Commandment I’ll be giving new readers who sign up to my list. (If you’re an existing reader, you’ll be able to get it too.)

Some of the early reviewers of my book have gotten back to me. I’m eagerly integrating their feedback into the final draft of the book. I’m both excited and relieved to hear that, in spite of niggles here and there, the overall impression of the book has been very positive so far.

And so, it looks like, after a years-long and grueling struggle with this book, the balance has shifted. May 2025 will finally see the publication of this new book, full title:

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

Speaking of, I have an offer to make you, or maybe a favor to ask.

Do you have an audience of your own? A newsletter, an online community, a local book club or bingo group?

What I want is for you to promote my book when it comes out. Of course, that means nothing to you and does nothing for you. I don’t know what I can offer you to make it worth your while to promote my book when it comes out, but I am open to all kinds of ideas, from straightforward to outlandish.

If you are open to it as well, at least in theory, hit reply. Let’s talk, and maybe we can figure something out that works for both of us.

The day after

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Yesterday around 1pm, I finished writing my Daily Email Habit puzzle and was about to upload it to Kit. But my Internet had stopped working. The odd thing was I checked my phone, and not just the wifi was down, but it looked like the cellular network, too.

I shrugged and went to take a nap because… I live in Spain.

I woke up twenty minutes later. The Internet was still down. I looked inside the fridge to see if there was anything interesting happening there. It was dark. Aha. The power was out.

I opened the the circuit breaker box — all the circuit breakers were fine. I opened the front door of my apartment. The hallway outside was dark except for the emergency light.

Ok. So the power is out in the entire building. There was a notice a few days ago about some utilities work being done, maybe this was it.

I decided to go to the gym, because there was nothing else to do. The elevator wasn’t working so I took the stairs. On my way down, I passed a couple with a baby who were climbing up. The woman was carrying the baby, while the guy, panting, was carrying the stroller. Lucky for them, they live on just the second floor (the building has 12).

As I stepped out into the sunshine, I saw a bunch of people standing around on the street and talking. All stores, restaurants, and banks were dark and empty. I guess the was power out everywhere in my neighborhood?

I passed by a local brunch place. The waitress was explaining to the guests, “It’s everywhere! My boyfriend in Madrid says it, there’s no connection anywhere.”

I got to the gym, which was dark, silent, and full of people. I did my workout among suppressed grunts and increasingly stifling air (the AC wasn’t working).

I heard one of the trainers explain to somebody that this power outage is happening “en toda España.” Somebody else said Portugal too. Others were saying it’s in France and Italy as well (turned out to be exaggerations).

I walked back home. Drivers were carefully stopping at every zebra and intersection because the stoplights weren’t working either.

The streets were packed with people. Neither the metros nor trams were running. The whole city seemed to be either standing on the streets or walking home because no work could be done. An alarming number of women were sitting on park benches and reading books.

Convenience stores were the only thing that was somewhat open. Each one had a queue of people waiting at the front door. The store owners were letting in people one by one to do basic shopping if they could pay in cash.

As tends to happen, the sun started to set. I went for a walk and saw firefighters in front of a pharmacy beating down the rolling security shutter. It must run on electricity. I guess the firefighters were trying to close it by force for the pharmacists, to prevent a breakin at night.

I stood on my balcony as night fell. I was looking forward to seeing the city in total darkness for once. But it wasn’t to happen.

It turned out some buildings still had electricity — the fire station next door, various hotels, an entire neighborhood off on the hillside.

Still, Avinguda Diagonal, the main artery next to my house, was almost entirely dark. So was my little street. My own apartment was even darker.

I made a salad for dinner — the only food I had left in the house that didn’t require a stove to prepare. I had to move the cutting board to the window because the counter where I normally work was so dark I was afraid I would chop off a finger tip while slicing the cherry tomatoes.

By around 9:30pm, my apartment was like a cave. There was no Internet and I had switched off my phone earlier to conserve the battery. I lay on the couch and turned on the backlight on my Kindle to read in darkness.

Around 10pm, I heard cheering and clapping outside. A neighboring block had gotten its power back. But my block and most other blocks around me were still in the dark.

I went to bed around 10:30pm, feeling exhausted. I guess following the natural light cycle does that to you.

And then, some time during the night, I’m guessing around 2am, I woke up to loud beeping. My fridge was back and it was helpfully signalling that the temperature of the freezer was dangerously high.

All that’s to say, as of this morning, everything’s normal once again, and without even an interruption in my daily email cadence.

I have to admit I was actually looking forward to the possibility of a continuing power outage, and to having a proper, unavoidable excuse to not writing my daily email today. What would that be like? I’ve been writing a daily email for years now, every day, without fail. I was excited by the prospect of change. That’s something for me to think about.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that the curious day yesterday reminded me of a curious book I’d read two years ago. In fact, this book was the first book of my year-long Insights & More Book Club, which brought together a few of my readers specifically to read books that offered a mind-bending new perspective.

The first book of the book club fit the bill.

Even though the book is 100 years old, it was written in a particularly interesting and influential style, which I think can be relevant for anyone writing online today.

It also did lead me to moment of real insight, a perspective shift, which sticks with me to this day. I mean, even to yesterday, when I was really thinking about it.

If you’re curious, you can find the book, or maybe even read it yourself, at the following convenient link:

https://bejakovic.com/masses

What matters more than results

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Last year, a dude with some personal domain email address signed up to my list.

I make a habit of doing a bit of detective work on new subscribers. This led me to a New York Times article about the dude from 2015.

At that time, said the article, he was the manager of an investment fund with $35 billion under management.

I wrote him a 1-1 email, as I do sometimes with new subscribers, to say hello, to mention the article about him I had dug up in my snooping, and to ask what a person of his profile is doing signing up to a daily email list like mine, about writing and marketing and effective communication. He replied:

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I basically do the same thing I did for the pension fund, but now for a small group of direct clients. I also run quite a bit of money for other investment advisors and their clients. I manage about $1.2 billion total – I’m a solo shop, do it all myself.

I decided a few years ago that I wanted to be out of the public eye – 20 years was enough, so I’m pretty secretive and off the grid.

My results are still among the best in the country, but I’ve learned in the retail investment world perceptions matter more than results. So I generate best in class returns mostly for myself and personal pride.

My business actually runs and grows off the image I portray to clients and prospects. I’ve learned that I’m lucky enough to have the ability to naturally make complex things simple, which people are dying for in the investment business.

I’ve developed a somewhat unique way to communicate, mostly using very focused, simple communications. Especially in the world of AI, I think this skill will matter more than most. So I’ve become a closet student of writing, copywriting, communication, etc. That’s how I can across your newsletter. I bought your book too.

===

I thought that was curious and wanted to share it with you.

Here’s a dude who, so you might imagine, lives and breathes by measurable results. I mean, either he makes his investors money, or he doesn’t. Either he outperforms the other guy, or he doesn’t.

Except, as he says, that doesn’t really matter, not as much as perception, as the image he portrays to his clients and prospects.

That’s something to keep in mind, if you yourself work in a field that’s supposedly results-based, and particularly if you work in a field that’s more fuzzy and wooly.

So how do you build up and maintain an image that clients and prospects are willing to pay for?

The message above from the investment advisor spells it out.

I can only add that he also told me he sends “clients and prospects periodic emails about the markets, my strategy, etc.”

Maybe it’s something you could profit from too? If you’d like my help on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

“… which is really important yada yada”

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Yesterday, I made available my 3rd Conversion training for 36 hours. It’s about how to get people to consume and implement your info product, so they actually get value out of it beyond just the thrill of a purchase, and so they tell others about you, and buy more stuff when you create it.

Today, I got a question about 3rd Conversion from a course creator:

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I have just rewritten all my course slides and gearing up to rerecord them and to then release V2.

One of the things I’ve done is finish every lesson with a hook for the next lesson.

So something like “but what we haven’t covered is this and that which is really important yada yada. That’s what we’ll look at next, see you there.

Is this the sort of thing your training teaches? But many other tips like that?

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I don’t wanna razz this course creator because what he describes is endemic, and I too have been guilty of it.

But if you care about creating long-term customers from one-time buyers, and you want people to consume your info product, and get value from it, it takes active thought and work.

Just piling up a bunch of solid info, and at the end of it effectively saying, “…and there’s more, and it’s really important yada yada,” is typically too little, too loose, too late.

That’s not to say that “handing people IOUs,” as I like to call it, is never a good idea. But:

1. There are better places to hand out IOUs than at the end of a lesson

2. There’s more important stuff to do at the end of a lesson than to hand out an IOU

I’ve only made 3rd Conversion available once before, as a live training last November. To the people who took me up on that training, I also gave a free bonus document that I called, “Encyclopedia of Consumption & Digestion, 1st edition.”

This “Encyclopedia” includes 19 techniques for encouraging consumption and digestion, along with descriptions and illustrations of each technique, some of which I went over during the live training, some of which I didn’t.

I can tell you that technique #14 talks specifically about giving out IOUs… while technique #17 and #19 are about more important stuff to do at the end of a lesson, at least if you want to encourage consumption and implementation.

If you’ve already gotten 3rd Conversion from me, you will find the “Encyclopedia of Consumption & Digestion, 1st edition” as a bonus in the course area.

And if you haven’t yet gotten 3rd Conversion, you still have a few hours to get it and the bonus “Encyclopedia of Consumption & Digestion,” until 12 midnight PST, tonight.

This will be the last email I send about it.

If you need some help making up your mind, here are a few comments I got from people who attended the 3rd Conversion training live.

#1. From Jeffrey Thomas, in-house copywriter at MarketingProfs:

“JOHN this was one of the best trainings I’ve been a part of. I cannot express how excited I’ve been and I’m already reworking my presentation’s overdue slide deck.”

#2. From Folarin Madehin, freelance copywriter:

“The 3rd Conversion call was great, John! But I already expected that going in. I know you said to look at the training as more than a checklist, but that’s what was most on my mind, lol. ‘Here’s a list of stuff I can check to make products more awesome!'”

#3. From Antonet Vataj, owner of Ann Vee Marketing:

“I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say how much I absolutely loved your live class. It was perfectly timed for me, especially since I’m putting out my own offer for a done-for-you course blueprint. Your presentation was not only engaging but also such a clever demonstration of your course content in action – I was taking mental notes the whole time! (And trying to resist writing everything down lol)”

#4. From Shakoor Chowdhury, digital marketer:

“I gotta also say the way you [a list of stuff I’ve done in the past to get people to consume my courses and trainings] makes you an effective teacher and I think there is a lot to be said about the way you teach compared to traditional schooling which teaches us nothing because there is no incentive to listen and no incentive to use it or use our own initiative to ’test ourselves’ like you have done…”

“I normally get bored easily, but you were able to keep my attention throughout the entire training with minimal distraction, mainly through [some of the techniques I used inside the actual 3rd Conversion training to encourage people to consume it]… perhaps the ’tiktok generation’ has some hope after all.”

#5. From Pete Reginella, email marketer and copywriter:

“Finally got the chance to use what you taught in the 3rd Conversion training. And it went great. I did a workshop on influential and persuasive storytelling, and I modeled it according to what you taught. First time I’ve done a workshop and after sending the recording getting replies about how much people loved it.”

If you’d like to get 3rd Conversion before it disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/3rd-conversion

Don’t rely on copy for this

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Yesterday, I got an interesting course creator question from Gasper Crepinsek. (For context, last week I promoted Gasper’s ChatGPT Mastery, which is delivered as a 30-day email-based course.) Gasper wrote:

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How do you go about writing cliff hangers to the next email (that open curiosity loop)?

We already have a pretty high completion rate on the course but I want to make it even bigger. And this seems like a way that could potentially help.

===

This reminded me of a time I heard A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos during a Q&A. Somebody in the audience asked, “What kind of copy would you write to address the objection, “I need time to think about it?'”

Parris, who is as skilled and as knowledgeable a copywriter as there is, said he wouldn’t rely on copy to do this. Instead, he said he’d use the structure of the offer itself – a deadline, a limited number of spots, etc.

And so it is with my answer to Gasper’s question.

Gasper is ultimately how to tease content in a sexy way ie. how to write sales bullets.

I have an entire course about how to write sales bullets. It’s called Copy Riddles. It’s great. If you want to learn how to tease people so they pay you for the information you’re selling, then Copy Riddles is the way to go.

But when it comes to the much harder task of getting people to consume how-to info they’ve already paid for, or to complete a course, or to watch a training all the way through — and to actually get value out of it — then I wouldn’t rely on sales bullets, or on open loops, or on copy in general.

Instead, I’d rely on the structure of the course or info product itself.

I created on a training last year all about this.

It’s called 3rd Conversion, and it’s about turning one-time buyers into long-term customers by getting them to consume and digest your info products.

I’ve only offered 3rd Conversion once before, as a live training last November.

But if you like, can get your own copy of 3rd Conversion right now.

Taking a page from Parris’s book, there’s a deadline, tomorrow, Sunday at 12 midnight PST to act. After that, 3rd Conversion goes back into the vault to wait for the next four-planet alignment.

If you need some help making up your mind, here are a few comments I got from people who attended the 3rd Conversion training live.

#1. From Jeffrey Thomas, in-house copywriter at MarketingProfs:

“JOHN this was one of the best trainings I’ve been a part of. I cannot express how excited I’ve been and I’m already reworking my presentation’s overdue slide deck.”

#2. From Folarin Madehin, freelance copywriter:

“The 3rd Conversion call was great, John! But I already expected that going in. I know you said to look at the training as more than a checklist, but that’s what was most on my mind, lol. ‘Here’s a list of stuff I can check to make products more awesome!'”

#3. From Antonet Vataj, owner of Ann Vee Marketing:

“I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say how much I absolutely loved your live class. It was perfectly timed for me, especially since I’m putting out my own offer for a done-for-you course blueprint. Your presentation was not only engaging but also such a clever demonstration of your course content in action – I was taking mental notes the whole time! (And trying to resist writing everything down lol)”

#4. From Shakoor Chowdhury, digital marketer:

“I gotta also say the way you [a list of stuff I’ve done in the past to get people to consume my courses and trainings] makes you an effective teacher and I think there is a lot to be said about the way you teach compared to traditional schooling which teaches us nothing because there is no incentive to listen and no incentive to use it or use our own initiative to ’test ourselves’ like you have done…”

“I normally get bored easily, but you were able to keep my attention throughout the entire training with minimal distraction, mainly through [some of the techniques I used inside the actual 3rd Conversion training to encourage people to consume it]… perhaps the ’tiktok generation’ has some hope after all.”

#5. From Pete Reginella, email marketer and copywriter:

“Finally got the chance to use what you taught in the 3rd Conversion training. And it went great. I did a workshop on influential and persuasive storytelling, and I modeled it according to what you taught. First time I’ve done a workshop and after sending the recording getting replies about how much people loved it.”

If you’d like to get 3rd Conversion, before it disappears:

​https://bejakovic.com/3rd-conversion​

It drops out the bottom of every sales funnel

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Last summer, I listened to an old sales training by a guy named Fred Herman. Says Fred:

“I believe every sale sort of funnels down this way. You need to have a product or a service. You need to have a customer, of course, to talk to. Then you need to find out what his dominant buying motive is. And then the picture he will buy will drop right out the bottom of the funnel, because people don’t buy products or services, they buy pictures of the end result of that product or service, playing a part in their life.”

This echoes something that the great Robert Collier wrote a hundred years ago in his Letter Book:

“Thousands of sales have been lost, millions of dollars worth of business have failed to materialize, solely because so few letter-writers have that knack of visualizing a proposition — of painting it in words so the reader can see it as they see it.”

And of course, if you need something a bit more modern, there’s negotiation coach Jim Camp, who summed it up in his pithy and dramatic way:

“No vision, no decision.”

“Sure sure,” you say. “Words, words, more words. I need pictures though! Isn’t that what you’re trying to sell me on?”

All right, let’s see if you can picture this:

Yesterday, I told you about Albert Lasker and Claude C. Hopkins.

Lasker, who ran the biggest and most powerful ad agency in the US, wanted Hopkins to come and work for him.

Problem was, Hopkins 1) didn’t want to be in advertising any more and 2) had made millions and didn’t need to work ever again.

Lasker asked Hopkins to meet for lunch at an upscale restaurant.

He played to Hopkins’s vanity, pulling out several pages of typewritten copy for a major new client, the best copy he had been able to get written by the best copywriters out there, which just wasn’t good enough to be submitted.

He made Hopkins an “easy yes” proposition — “just write three ads for us so we can submit it to this one client.”

Crucially — and this is really the picture-within-the-picture I want to give you — Lasker didn’t offer Hopkins any money to take the job.

After all, what’s money gonna do for Hopkins? He’s already got enough.

Instead, as the dessert arrived, Lasker told Hopkins to send his wife to the car dealer so she can pick out whatever car she likes, and Lasker would pay for it.

A bit of backstory:

1. Hopkins’s wife wanted an electric car (crazy thing is, those existed in 1907).

2. Hopkins, though a multimillionaire, was cheap and couldn’t part with the money to buy his wife the electric car. This was causing… tension at home.

You might think, what’s the difference between getting paid outright and getting paid via a free car for your wife?

In theory, no difference.

In practice, all the difference in the world.

And so it is with your prospects and customers too.

You might be promising them money.

That works some of the time. But what works all the time is to promise people what they really want. And that, like old Fred says up top, is a picture of the end result of what they are buying, playing a part in their life.

Of course, that takes some research on your part. Lasker had to do some scheming and digging to find out that Hopkins’s wife wanted an electric car and that Hopkins was too cheap to buy it for her, and that this was the most pressing problem in his life right now. But that’s what made Hopkins yield, “as all do, to Lasker’s persuasiveness.”

And that’s it. That’s all I got for you.

I have nothing to sell you today, at least nothing wonderfully expensive the way I would like.

But if you want more stories that can buy you a car, featuring Claude C. Hopkins and Albert Lasker, can find a couple in my original 10 Commandments book.

I’ve shipped off the new 10 Commandments book to several trusted readers and I am waiting, my cheeks red from holding my breath, for their feedback so I can integrate said feedback and hit publish on Amazon.

Meanwhile, if you still haven’t read the original 10 Commandments, you can find them all waiting for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

A persuasion riddle featuring the greatest ad man of all time

by

I got a riddle for you. A persuasion riddle. It goes like this:

In 1907, Albert Lasker, President at the Lord & Thomas ad agency, badly wanted to hire Claude C. Hopkins, widely believed to be the greatest ad man of that time, and really, of any time.

Problem:

Hopkins 1) didn’t want to work and 2) didn’t need the money.

The background was that, a short while earlier, Hopkins had been publicly disgraced and privately shook up.

He had become a part owner of a patent medicine company called Liquozone. He believed in the Liquozone product — he thought it had saved his daughter’s life. He advertised it very aggressively and effectively.

Hopkins took Liquozone from bankruptcy in 1902 to making a profit of $1.8 million the next year (about $60 million in today’s money).

Over the next five years, Hopkins, who owned a 25% stake in Liquozone, made millions of dollars personally, probably over $100 million in today’s money.

And then some muckracking journalist had the gall to go and write a series of muckracking articles (“The Great American Fraud”) about how patent medicines were all bunk and how Liquozone in particular was the “same old fake” and how, according to lab tests, it was probably more harmful than helpful.

In response to those articles, a bunch of states banned Liquozone, and the federal government set up the Food and Drug Administration, to regulate health products and the claims made about them.

Again, Hopkins, who genuinely believed in Liquozone, was privately hurt. And publicly, being involved with something that was now known as a fake and a scam, he decided to retire to a village on Lake Michigan, determined not to work in advertising no more.

And yet, as Hopkins later wrote, “As far as I know, no ordinary human being has ever resisted Albert Lasker. Nothing he desired has ever been forbidden him. So I yielded, as all do, to his persuasiveness.”

So here’s the riddle:

What did Albert Lasker say or do to convince Hopkins, who didn’t want to work and who didn’t need the money, to come out of his village hiding hole and get back into copywriting?

If you dig around on the internet, or if you get Perplexity to do it for you, you can probably find the answer.

But what’s the fun in that? And what’s the value?

The fact is, if you riddle this out for yourself, you might come up with good ideas of your own.

And when I share the actual answer in my email tomorrow, it’s sure to be much more memorable and useful to you.

By the way, the answer to this riddle applies way beyond convincing A-list copywriters to come work for you. It applies to just about any kind of new business partnership you might want to start.

But more about that tomorrow.

For today, I thought about what offer makes sense to promote, given the Hopkins and Lasker story above.

I realized that once again, it’s Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin, which I was promoting extensively last month.

I’m no longer giving away bonuses just for trying out Ronin for free for a week.

I am giving away bonuses if you decide to stick with Ronin past the free trial.

But honestly, the bonuses I’m offering, nice as they are, are but a drop in the total value of what you get if you are actually inside the Ronin community, and if you simply make a point to do something with the resources inside.

If you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin