I was an idiot then, but today I’m much more mature

by

Two fingers on my right hand are crooked — the ring finger, and the pinkie.

They are crooked because back when I was a junior in college, I cut myself in a freak accident involving a butter knife, which I attempted to stab into the wall in a fit of rage.

(I was an idiot then, but I feel I’ve really, really matured since.)

This momentary, stupid action turned out to have major consequences.

I did serious damage to my fingers. I had to go to the ER to get the bleeding taken care of immediately.

A few days later, I had to go into a three-hour surgery to actually fix my fingers, since I’d managed to cut through the tendons.

After surgery, I had this big strange cast on my arm, which had wires and springs that were glued to my fingernails, to keep my fingers bent at exactly the right angle.

I had to walk around the university campus for months with this monstrosity catching everybody’s attention.

Inevitably, every fifteen steps or so, some college bro would stop and stare at me in wonder. “Dude… what happened to your hand?”

After the first dozen times of getting asked this question, I started to glare at the question asker with daggers in my eyes. If I said anything, I’d bark back, “I CUT MYSELF!” My friend Sam, who was my roommate at the time, would just walk alongside me and chuckle at my canned, hostile response.

But let’s get to work. You may have heard of Cunningham’s law, which says:

“The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.”

It’s not just on the Internet. It can be like that in the real world too.

Questions are supposed to be this miracle sales tool to get people to open up and share their innermost secrets. And they can be. But there are certain situations where questions don’t work, simply because they’ve been asked too many times, or because the person is too guarded.

What to do in those cases? Here’s Bejakovic’s corollary to Cunningham’s law:

“If people don’t want to answer your questions, then make an assumption or statement, regardless of how wrong.”

That’s a bit of a tip if you ever find yourself in situations, sales or otherwise, where doing the right thing normally, asking questions, gets people to glare at you or maybe bark a 3-word answer and then clam up.

Instead of asking them, “What happened to your hand,” just say, “That looks like an injury caused by a butter knife.” If you’re right, you look like a wizard. If you’re wrong, you find out the truth.

Anyways, it’s time for me to go to the gym and work out a bit, to keep my boiling rage under control. (Just kidding. Like I said, I’ve really, really matured.)

If you’d like my help writing daily emails — sometimes on strange topics, which nonetheless serve a purpose — then consider my Daily Email Habit service.

The next prompt goes out tonight at 12 midnight PST. To find out more about Daily Email Habit, or to sign up in time for that next prompt:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

What now?

by

Back when I used to watch TED talks — what happened to them? — I saw one by Elizabeth Gilbert, the Eat Pray Love woman.

Gilbert’s talk came soon after she had published the book, which immediately went on to became a raging, runaway, international bestseller-to-be-made-into-a-movie-starring-Julia-Roberts.

Gilbert’s TED talk was about what now. What does she do now that she’s gotten everything she ever worked for? She seemed nervous, and she admitted to being afraid.

Weird, right?

Gilbert was probably set with money for the rest of her life. She had achieved more than 99.9% of people who ever dream of being a writer will ever achieve. She had endless amounts of praise and recognition.

And yet, what now?

This is a common thing. It happens whatever you’re after, not just with writing but whatever achievements you’re working towards, even with small goals.

Trivial though it sounds, it happens to me whenever I end up concluding a launch.

What now?

Usually I’ve been working on this thing for a while, building the actual product, preselling it, then there’s the climax of the launch promo. If it all goes well, I feel elated. For a bit. And then, what now?

I’ll tell ya.

I learned a long time ago that the answer is, now you get to work on the next thing, which is really where the satisfaction lies. As business coach Rich Schefren says, goals are there to get you excited to take action. That’s really their only purpose.

So this email is for you if you have recently completed a project or achieved a goal, and you’re wondering, “What now?”

Since I help getting people started with writing a daily email, maybe your next project could be writing, building a personal brand, or simply seeing what happens if you consistently send an email out each day into the world.

Because in my experience, the process of writing and publishing something every day is a micro-goal in itself.

It takes some work to do it. It’s satisfying to have done it. And then it starts all over again tomorrow. But again, that’s really where the satisfaction lies.

In any case, if you’d like my help with daily emailing as your new project:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

PSA: Beware the anti-launxxers

by

This morning at 9am Barcelona time, I wrapped up the Prospective Profit Pricing event for Daily Email Habit.

Since I rolled out Daily Email Habit some 6 weeks ago and only sold it via regular daily emails since, this PPP event served as a kind of launch.

The event lasted for two days and four emails.

62 new people ended up signing up to Daily Email Habit as a result of those four emails.

Considering how small my list is, and the fact that I have been promoting Daily Email Habit pretty much every day for the past 6 weeks, and that I thought demand was near tapped out (there were days in the past weeks when I made 0 sales), I gotta say I’m pleased with how this turned out.

And now, public service announcement #1:

I’ve been seeing a new crop of online marketers who are positioning themselves as anti-launch.

Their spiel is no deadlines, no scarcity, no urgency — “no manipulation!” Just put your offer out there every day, and eventually everyone who is right for it will buy.

I’m not sure if this is just positioning themselves in a contrary way. Or maybe they’re catering to people who have been exhausted by massive affiliate-based PLF-style launches that have to be run every three months in order to generate any income, with a few lonely crickets chirping in the meantime.

In any case, beware their anti-launch propaganda.

It’s ironic, because those same anti-launxxers run plenty of offers with scarcity and urgency baked in — effectively launches, or email promos at least.

But what if they didn’t?

Their core message is still terrible advice if you ask me.

Launches and daily emails are like heads and tails — two sides of a gold krugerand that you can drop into your piggy bank.

Daily emails build desire for what you sell, and overcome objections. Launches, or promos, or whatever you want to call them, give people an undeniable reason to act NOW.

And as for manipulation?

I side with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who said that the only bad manipulation is manipulation that’s obvious.

The fact is, not a single person wrote me during this “launch” to complain about my manipulative deadline and manipulative disappearing bonus. If anything, I got a lot of people who wrote me to tell me they are excited to get started, and that this was the push they needed.

End of public service announcement #1.

Begin public service announcement #2:

I’d like to turn your attention to something free, new, and frankly AMA~ING.

I will write a full email about it tomorrow.

But if you are at all interested in copywriting, you MUST MUST MUST click through below.

Do you ever hear me using such over-the-top and positive language?

You don’t, because it’s almost never warranted, and in fact it usually works against you, by letting people down when they finally see your offer.

Well, not today. If you are into copywriting, you have to click through, and in fact, you have to sign up for what’s waiting for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/back-in-town

Last chance to gamble before the Daily Email Habit price increase

by

Here’s a curious story about looming deadlines:

In the early days of FedEx, founder and CEO Fred Smith took the company’s last $5k and went to Vegas.

FedEx had a fuel bill of $25k. That last $5k wouldn’t be enough to cover it anyhow.

So Smith went to Vegas and played blackjack. He gambled and won $27k. That was enough to cover the fuel bill.

FedEx had survived for another week. And then it survived another week. Eventually, it turned into something big.

Now let me ask you:

Will you gamble $20 on a month of Daily Email Habit?

Will-ye or nill-ye, the price of Daily Email Habit is going up tonight, from $20/month to $30/month, at 12 midnight PST, just three hours from now.

This is the last email I will send before the fateful price increase.

As a reminder, Daily Email Habit is my service to help you start and stick with consistent daily emailing.

Here’s what that means in real terms, from virtuoso-making guitar teacher René Kerkdyk, who subscribes to Daily Email Habit:

===

Just a short raving review:

I just wrote my daily email in 10 minutes going from sheer panic about what to write to a finished email building my expertise and selling my stuff. Thank you, John!

====

I have also created a members-only club, Daily Email House, for business owners and marketers who send more or less daily emails.

Until to-night at 12 midnight, Daily Email House is a free bonus in case you sign up to Daily Email Habit. After that, it will disappear as a free bonus, and rise from its ashes as a new, fiery, paid offer.

All that’s to say, maybe the sales page below is worth a look? And right now? Before the deadline sneaks up on you with its cold, sleep-inducing claws?

If you’d like my help writing your daily emails, tomorrow, and the day after, and then next week, until eventually your daily emailing turns into something big:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

“You’re pretty funny”

by

A few days, I ago got an email from copywriter and business strategist Nadia Dalbani, who wrote:

===

John.

I’ve read 3 of your emails in a row. I haven’t had time to read them the past few days, so I had to have a read-a-thon (a John-a-thon!).

Anyway, I’m so close to buying Daily Email Habit even though I totally read the sales page and you DID say don’t buy this if you don’t plan to *actually* have a Daily Email Habit – I only email my list once a week, so I initially left like yup, NOT for me.

But I can confirm, even reading your emails in reverse order, I am definitely more convinced to start an every single day email habit due to your pitches.

===

I remember hearing a story once about how Bill Murray and Chevy Chase got into an actual fist fight on the set of Saturday Night Live.

The two apparently hated each other. It all came to a boil one day when Murray said to Chase, “You’re pretty funny.”

Chevy Chase then started swinging.

I’ve always wondered why “pretty funny” is such an insult, at least if you think of yourself as funny. It’s much more insulting than, say, “not funny.”

(If you have any insight on this for me, write in and let me know.)

In any case, that’s a little how I felt after reading Nadia’s email.

“Pretty good email. Pretty, pretty good. Almost got me. But not quite.”

Nadia lives in London. After I read her message, I started getting ready to buy a ticket so I could fly there, confront her in person, and maybe start a fight.

Fortunately, yesterday I got a new message from Nadia, just in time:

===

Alright, alright, it took, like, 3 more emails, but you got me. I’m mega excited to start Daily Email Habit 😄

===

Like I say, this is particularly fortunate, not only because it will prevent an ugly confrontation on the streets of London, but because it also backs up the very premise of Daily Email Habit.

For one thing, the emails Nadia responded to were based on prompts I sent out as part of Daily Email Habit. (I eat my own dog food most days.)

For another thing, this little case study backs up the general principle of putting out a daily email… gradually building up desire… gradually chipping away at objections… all while keeping readers interested enough that they keep opening and reading your emails.

This is really what Daily Email Habit is there to help you do.

And if you are thinking of getting started, I can only recommend you act now.

My Prospective Profit Price event is coming to a close tonight at 12pm midnight PST.

After that, the price for Daily Email Habit goes up from a modest $20/month to a wallet-busting $30/month.

Also, Daily Email House, the lively community that I’ve created for those who write more or less daily emails, will stop being a free bonus tonight at midnight.

If you have any questions, or to join now, take a look at this pretty good sales page:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How much things cost now

by

A couple days ago, I announced I’ll be increasing the price of my Daily Email Habit service from $20/month to $30/month. I got a reply to that announcement from copywriter and brand strategist Chavy Helfgott, who has subscribed to Daily Email Habit since day 1. She wrote:

===

Just chiming in to say that even at $30, you will be vastly undercharging.

I honestly feel that the 40+ days of daily email prompts + knowledge gained in the community, have so far have been at least as valuable for me than the $10,000 personal business coaching I paid for a few years ago.

===

I’ll get back to those numbers in a second.

But first, let me tell you that, also a couple days ago, marketer Ross O’Lochlainn, who I guess was in Dan Ferrari’s little coaching group right before me, shared how much some things cost now.

Ross was at an in-person mastermind. A couple who was also in attendance shared the details of their business.

Their business is dream interpretation.

Their current low-ticket offer is $3k. Their premium dream interpretation offer, for a small “bleeding neck” segment of their audience, sells for $35,000 a pop. (People have bought.) The couple think they could get the price up to $75k, or maybe $100k.

Says Ross, this has now replaced his previous best story of premium offerings, which was a dude who charges $10,000 to help people do handstands.

I’m not sharing this to shake my head at the greedy Martin Shkrelis of the dream interpretation and handstand industries.

I’m sharing this to open your mind and maybe mine.

The same “stuff” can be packaged up in a different way and presented inside of a different experience to sell not for 2x, 10x, or even 40x… but even 500x, like Chavy says above.

Or 333x if you sign up tomorrow.

Because today is the last day, ever, in the history of mankind, I will be offering the Charter Member price for Daily Email Habit.

Tonight at 12pm midnight, the price goes up to $30/month.

(Apparently, there is still a lot of room for the price to increase beyond that, too.)

Also, Daily Email House, the community that Chavy refers to above, goes away as a free bonus, at the chime of midnight, just like an ordinary pumpkin that magically turns into its own beautiful paid offer.

If you would like to join Daily Email Habit before these vastly underpriced privileges disappear:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Announcing: PPP for Daily Email Habit

by

As I mentioned yesterday, a reader from Brazil gave me the idea to finally increase the price of my Daily Email Habit service.

Daily Email Habit currently sells at the Charter Member price of $20/month. It will sell at that price until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 12 midnight PST.

After that, Daily Email Habit will sell for $30/month.

A sizable increase? A minimal bump?

If you ask me, it’s the wrong way to think about it. I’m calling this my Prospective Profit Price event. It’s really about what Daily Email Habit can do for you, if you simply open each day’s email and follow what it says. Specifically:

#1. Daily Email Habit can save you between 5 minutes to an agonizing hour of your day, each time you sit down to write your daily email.

The main part of Daily Email Habit is a daily “puzzle” or prompt, to get you over the hurdle of what to write about.

If you write every day, getting over that hurdle more quickly adds up — a couple of hours a month on the low end, 10 hours or more on the high.

#2. Daily Email Habit can help make your emails more effective.

The Daily Email Habit “puzzles” are not just random prompts, are not written by AI, and are not pulled out of a hat.

I design each puzzle strategically, based on my experience writing this newsletter, managing client email lists with tens of thousands of names on them, and writing something like 3,000 sales messages in my sales copywriting career.

Spend a couple minutes to come up with your own answer to the daily puzzle in Daily Email Habit, and your emails will have a better chance at making more sales today, and keeping readers around and interested for what you offer them tomorrow.

#3. And finally, if you are not writing daily emails yet, or you’re not consistent with it, then Daily Email Habit can help you start and stick with the habit.

It’s not just that it makes the process faster… or even just that it helps you get better results, so you’re more motivated to stick with it.

I’ve also purposely baked in some “consistency” elements into Daily Email Habit, such as the streak counter, to make it more likely you open up each day’s email, and actually stick with the habit of daily emailing.

And as I wrote yesterday, if you stick with daily emailing long enough, you have a real shot at the kind of money, influence, and opportunities that you cannot even imagine now.

I also have a second reason why you might want to join Daily Email Habit before tomorrow at 12 midnight PST.

As I hinted at last week, I’ve created a members-only club for business owners and marketers who write more or less daily emails.

It’s called Daily Email House. It’s quite colorful and lively inside. The members are interacting, posting ideas, asking questions, and contributing possible answers.

I’m in there as well, both to act as a kind of Jareth-like host, to make sure everybody is having a good time, and to share behind-the-scenes secrets I don’t share in this newsletter.

The House started out as a free bonus for Daily Email Habit. But it will stop being a free bonus for Daily Email Habit tomorrow. After that, I’ll spin it off into its own paid offer, which frankly will cost more than Daily Email Habit costs.

So there you go:

A courtesy notice to sign up for Daily Email Habit, if writing daily emails for the long term is something you do, or want to do.

The deadline, once again, to join Daily Email before the Charter Member disappears, and while you can get inside Daily Email House for free, is tomorrow at 12 midnight PST.

After that, the new, higher Prospective Profit Price kicks in, and Daily Email House stops being a free bonus.

If you wanna take advantage of this opportunity in time, and even to get tomorrow’s Daily Email Habit prompt before it’s gone, head on over here now:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

It’s hard to be broke and unmotivated

by

A fairly shameless reader from Brazil writes in to ask:

===

Hey John,

do you offer parity purchase discounts? I’m asking because I live in Brazil and $100 in the US = $244 here in Brazil as you can see in the image below:

[screenshot of the wrong data from the World Bank]

a lot of creators offer this kind of parity discount like Justin Welsh, Rob Lennon etc

[a screenshot from somewhere on the Internet]

anyway, it would be great if you offer that too. I feel I need this “accountability push” to my daily writing habit.

tks

===

I squinted hard at this message. Was this guy pulling my leg, or some of my other body parts?

The offer he’s referring to, Daily Email Habit, currently sells for $20/month.

Going by his math above, that would mean it effectively costs a Brazilian… $49/month.

This dude (who’s written me before to say he works as a data scientist) can’t afford $49/month (PPP-adjusted!)… and at the same time, he says he needs an “accountability push.”

What can I say?

It’s hard to be broke and unmotivated, wherever you’re from in the world.

That’s all the sympathy I have for this guy.

The fact is, I have no intention of offering discounts on my offers based on country of origin, color of hair, shoe size, age, height, or weight — all of which are correlated with income.

I also won’t offer discounts based on any other factor, personal or not.

But the message above did have the twinkle of opportunity to it.

It made me realize 1) I’ve been offering the introductory pricing for Daily Email Habit long enough, and 2) I haven’t done a good enough job making it clear what the value of this service is.

So I’d like to announce that, starting this Wednesday, I will increase the price of Daily Email Habit from the current Charter Member price of $20/month to a mighty $30/month.

Call it Prospective Profit Pricing.

Because it’s really not about what this service costs, but the prospect of what it can do for you. For example:

* If Daily Email Habit saves you just 5 minutes a day you would have spent thinking up what to write an email about… that’s two hours saved a month.

I don’t know what your hourly wage is, but odds are fair this translates to at least a hundred bucks every month. And if you save a bit more time, or if your wage is a bit higher, then this service becomes even more valuable.

* If Daily Email Habit helps you write a slightly more effective email on occasion, you can make a sale you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Better yet, if Daily Email Habit helps you write emails that make a stronger connection with readers, this can turn into many more sales down the line.

What’s a sale worth to you? What are many more sales worth to you? I don’t know. But it could legitimately be thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars.

* And if you’re not writing daily emails now, or you are but you might drop it, and if Daily Email Habit helps you start and stick with it for the long term, it’s uncertain what the result is going to be.

But there’s a shot, a non-negligible shot, at the kind of money, influence, and opportunities that you cannot even imagine now.

It’s been like that for me and for a good number of other people who have really kept at daily emailing for a while.

So sign up for Daily Email Habit based on those prospective profits… not on the exorbitant price I’m asking for it.

And if that’s STILL not enough for you — greedy, greedy —

I’ll also have a second reason why you might want to sign up for Daily Email Habit before the Charter Member pricing disappears.

I’ll talk about that second reason tomorrow.

Meanwhile, if you want to get the jump on joining Daily Email Habit under the current introductory price (and benefit sooner from the second reason I’ll announce tomorrow), here’s where to go now:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

You’re one mediocre, unread sales letter away from charging 40x more than the competition

by

Comes a long but interesting question about magic words that bring you riches:

===

Im asking you this for two reasons: A) Your Course on Bullets and B) You’ve been on Ben Settles List, who I’m going to reference.

Long story short I saw a marketer reference a Book and said he was thinking about summarizing and making a Course, that he could probably charge upwards of $300 dollars for.

I have been re-reading ” Ogilvy on Advertising” and was thinking, it’s $25 New on Amazon and is recommended by virtually every top copywriter, marketer etc… Yet Ben Settle and many other sell their info ( and I’m not saying their info is not good and maybe worth every penny they charge ) for MUCH More Money. But on the surface aren’t even in the conversation with the Ogilvy’s, Hopkins’ and many others whose works are supposed to be the Holy Grail.

In your opinion, What’s the difference? Is it Positioning or could it simply be the use of Bullets to create curiosity and build value that allows them to charge So much more?

I mean back to Ben Settle, do his $800 to $1000 products have more useful info in them than ” Ogilvy on Advertising ” or many of the other so-called classics? Im guessing NO

Could the ability to charge so much more just come down to the power of a Good Sales Letter?

===

That last part of the question is a reference to a supposed quote from famed direct marketer Gary Halbert, which goes something like, “You’re one good sales letter away from never worrying about money again.”

I don’t know if that was ever true, even for Gary.

I doubt it’s true for anybody today.

One thing I’m sure of, as sure as that the moon is in fact made of cheese:

There’s no “one good sales letter” that will allow you to sell a book for $1k in any mass-market way.

I’ve bought Ben Settle’s stuff before, including books he charges hundreds of dollars for. I never once read the sales page when I bought, except as much as was unavoidable to locate the “Buy Now” button.

Why did I pay Ben so much? Particularly since he makes a big deal about the fact that none of the stuff he teaches is secret or new? Without me even bothering to get the full details of what I was buying?

Positioning, if that’s what you want to call it. But not positioning of the product itself. That’s secondary or even unimportant here.

Rather, it was the gradual, patient, and strategic positioning of the person selling. As Dan Kennedy writes, “The higher up in income you go, the more you’re paid for who you are, rather than what you do.”

That’s the psychological effect.

The mechanism to get there was daily emails.

Emails that, day after day, month after month, year after year, built Ben up as somebody to listen to and respect… put him in a marketplace of one and gave him a mini-monopoly… and did enough teasing of his product to allow me to ignore the fact that there’s nothing new or secret in there, and probably nothing that a careful reading of Robert Collier’s book couldn’t give me.

Ben sums it up himself:

===

Don’t get me wrong, sales copy is important.

But if I had to choose between having the world’s best copywriting skills or having top notch email skills, I’d choose email every time. It’s made me (and certain clients who hired me for emails, when I had clients) far more money.

===

Email is how you charge 40x more than the competition.

It’s how you can sell at a premium with a mediocre sales page, or even no sales page at all.

Ben’s done it… I’ve done it… maybe you’d like to do it too?

If you would, and if want my help in getting there, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

David Ogilvy endorses the Daily Email Habit approach

by

This morning I found myself reading “Quotations of David Ogilvy,” put out in 2023 by the Ogilvy agency, on the 75th anniversary of its founding.

Here’s a quote from Ogilvy that caught my eye:

===

Dr. Gallup reports that if you say something which you don’t also illustrate, the viewer immediately forgets it. I conclude that if you don’t show it there is no point in saying it. Try running your commercial with the sound turned off; if it doesn’t tell without sound, it is useless.

===

I’m sharing this with you for two reasons.

One is that it’s a useful reminder, even if you never write a TV commercial. Really, it comes down to effective communication. If you don’t illustrate, the reader will forget it. If you don’t show it, there’s no point in saying it.

Reason two is that I was lucky to have somehow learned that lesson early in my copywriting career. Somebody must have shown it to me, because I also remembered it over the years.

The basic idea above — illustrate, don’t just say — is the underlying idea of pretty much everything I’ve done in the marketing space.

It’s the underlying idea of my Copy Riddles program, and its try-and-compare method of learning to write copy, instead of just a bunch of “here’s how” instruction.

It’s the underlying idea of thousands of sales emails I’ve written, both for clients and for myself, and the way I teach others to do that inside my Simple Money Emails and Most Valuable Email programs.

And it’s the underlying idea of my Daily Email Habit service.

Because on most days — not all, but most — I don’t just send a daily prompt for to help you write your own daily email. I also use that prompt in my own daily email, to show and illustrate how it can be done.

About that, I got the following feedback from Chris Howes, who runs a successful music teaching memebrship, Creative Strings Academy. Chris subscribes to Daily Email Habit, and he had this to say:

===

But more importantly, I now get TWO LESSONS from you every day. And I often learn as much or more from your regular daily free emails. Together, hand in hand, they feel like someone dropped off a shopping cart from Sams Club full of gifts at my front door and said here you go…

===

As David Ogilvy said, “We sell — or else.”

I don’t know what the “else” is. I don’t want to find out.

So if you’d like to buy a month’s worth of daily email puzzles, in order to write your own daily emails, and to get additional inspiration and illustration from my daily emails, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/deh