Bombarded by water

by

A-list copywriter Richard Armstrong once gave a talk in which he said how stupid it is to claim that we are “bombarded by information.” Says Richard:

“It makes no more sense to say we are bombarded with information than it would be to say that a fish is bombarded with water.”

A fish lives in water. It swims in water. It breathes water. In fact, it’s largely made up of water. And so it is with us and information.

I’m telling you this in case you are still on the fence about joining ChatGPT Mastery, which I’ve been promoting since Monday, and which will close to new members tonight, Thursday, at 12 midnight EST.

ChatGPT Mastery is about, well, mastering ChatGPT. And you may feel that info about ChatGPT is as abundant as ocean water. So why pay for it, and why pay the hefty $199 that ChatGPT Mastery asks of you?

The fact is, none of us have any hope of putting our arms, or fins, around the ocean. It’s too immense a body of water.

But there are small, local currents in the ocean which flow in the direction you want to go, and which take you there in less time and with less effort than it might take otherwise.

First, you either have to find these currents or have somebody else point them out. Second, and critically, you have to give these currents a chance to carry you along.

ChatGPT Mastery is one such forward-moving current, at least if your desired destination is automating parts of your business, freeing up your time, even (gasp!) increasing your productivity while working less.

I’ve pointed out this current for you. But you still have to give it a chance to carry you along.

Mind you, I’m not saying that paying for information guarantees you will benefit from it. I’d be a billionaire had I implemented and benefited from every info product I ever bought. And I’d be President of the U.S., due to sheer popularity, if all the people who bought stuff from me implemented and benefited from it. (Not really — The U.S. Constitution prohibits me from ever becoming president, since I wasn’t born in the U.S., but you get my point.)

That said, paying for info on how to master ChatGPT does make it more likely you will take this information for real and benefit from it.

As does the cohort nature of ChatGPT Mastery, with its start and end dates.

As does the fact that ChatGPT Mastery is delivered to your inbox daily, where you can’t ignore it as easily, and where it can keep nudging you to get some value from it.

You might think it’s silly of me to harp on these things. But I have been selling information online long enough that I know what a difference irrational things like these make to the value of information and teaching.

It’s these kinds of difference that actually allow you to slip inside that forward-moving current, so you can get carried along to your desired destination more quickly and easily.

Like I said, ChatGPT Mastery closes tonight at 12 midnight EST. If you’d like to find out more about it, specifically why I am endorsing it, here’s my original email from Monday:

===

Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

How to get a one-time course to maintain its value

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Dr. Kiran Agarwal, who is both a practicing GP in London and a stress-management coach, writes in with a legit question (or actually 3) about my ongoing promo of ChatGPT Mastery:

===

Thanks for introducing Gasper – I am interested as you are supporting him.

A couple of quick questions- is this specific for chatGPT? or prompts can be used for any other AIs?

And why would you not let it write your daily emails? Is it because you like writing them or anything else?

As things are changing so fast in AI space, how will this one time course maintain its value after a couple of months?

===

Kiran’s third question is really the most interesting, but let me answer the first two quickly:

1. ChatGPT Mastery is specific to ChatGPT. That said, I imagine the prompts would work in any other chat-like AI tool like Claude or Gemini.

2. I get value out of writing emails beyond just the money I make from them, or the fact that they’re sent out. Plus, I don’t think that anybody or anything can get my own tone and ideas exactly right.

That’s why I wouldn’t let AI write my emails, and why I wouldn’t hire a copywriter to write my emails either.

3. Like I said, this question is the most interesting. Sure, it’s fine to find out how to get the most out of ChatGPT today… but what about in July? Or August? Or next year?

I checked the sales page for ChatGPT Mastery, and there was nothing about this question. So I wrote to Gasper Crepinsek, the guy behind ChatGPT Mastery, to find out what he has to say.

Gasper got back to me with the exact response I was hoping for:

===

If someone wants to take the course again, I will simply add them in the future run.

I want to build long-term customers. My whole goal is to keep adding to the course and people who put the trust early will get everything I add locked in at the initial price they paid.

===

I think what Gasper is doing is super smart. I say that having done the same with my Copy Riddles course back when I ran it as a cohort course.

I allowed people who joined Copy Riddles in previous runs to join future runs for free. It bought me a bunch of goodwill, created customers who are still with me years later, plus it produced some great case studies and testimonials from people who got more on the 2nd or 3rd run than they did the first time around. He who has ears, let him hear.

Also, let him hear this:

The deadline to join ChatGPT Mastery is tomorrow, Thursday, at 12 midnight EST (not PST, the way I do).

If you’re on the fence, it’s time to make up your mind one way or the other, otherwise the deadline will make up your mind for you.

If you want more info to help you make up your mind, here’s my initial email, detailing why I’m endorsing and promoting ChatGPT Mastery:

===

Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

Bitter prediction

by

Derek Johanson is apparently running a launch of CopyHour this week. I say “apparently” because there was some mixup with Derek’s emails, and they only arrived to my inbox today. I opened one this morning to read the following bitter prediction:

===

Back in the 1960s, researchers were looking at the productivity improvements computers were about to bring – and sounded the alarm because it looked like humans were soon going to only be working 2 hours a day with the same output.

What would we do with all that free time!? What will happen to the economy!?

Obviously that’s not what happened. Instead of working less, we just started outputting a lot more in the same amount of time.

I have a feeling we’re going through a similar cycle now.

AI is about to replace a lot of the work we’re doing now – not just copywriting, but everything. But, instead of not working, we’re likely just all going to start outputting 10x-100x what we used to because of those advances in AI.

===

If you wanna lose money, put your chips on “But this time it’s different!” In other words, the Lindy Effect backs up Derek’s bitter prediction.

We’ve had breakthroughs in labor-saving technology for hundreds of years. At each point, the Powers That Be started worrying, “If people aren’t working, what the hell are we gonna do with them?”

The result was that, with each new labor-saving technology, some way was devised to keep people as busy are before, or busier, while simply making their output 100x greater.

But, and I realize I’m most likely going to shoot myself in the foot here, this time it’s different, at least the way I see it.

It’s not so much because the latest crop of AI is such a powerful labor-saving tool, though that’s certainly a requirement.

Rather, I think it’s because other parts of society have changed from the days of mainframe computers and rotary presses and spinning jennies.

Maybe I’m biased, but I see more and more people working for themselves, or with a range of clients or customers or followers, rather than with one single boss. This makes it more likely that people can work from where they want, as much or as little as they want, rather than 40+ hours, take it or leave it, from our office in downtown Baltimore, exclusively on the employer’s terms.

Or if you want to get more dark, I also think the Powers That Be are fine to let us have our leisure today because they now have other ways of controlling the world that they didn’t have before. That could be monetary, technological, or simply via TikTok propaganda.

All that’s to say, my prediction is that this time it really is different.

We genuinely are entering an era where unprecedented numbers of people free up leisure time for themselves, and work only on things they choose to do, in moderation, rather than obsessively running on the hamster wheel because it’s either run or die.

AI is an inevitable part of this transformation. And you can get started with it today. Which brings me to the offer I am promoting nowadays, ChatGPT Mastery.

I wrote an email about ChatGPT Mastery yesterday that did surprisingly well.

Direct marketing dogma says if something is working, don’t touch it.

So here is my email from yesterday, reprinted word for word, in case you want to automate some of your work and free up some of your time:

===

Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

Announcing: ChatGPT Mastery

by

Today I’d like to recommend to you a 30-day program called ChatGPT Mastery, which is about… mastering ChatGPT, with the goal of having a kind of large and fast horse to ride on.

Here’s a list of exciting facts I’ve prepared for you about this new offer:

#1. ChatGPT Mastery is a cohort course — it kicks off and ends on a specific date — that helps you actually integrate and benefit from AI.

The idea being, things in the AI space are changing so fast that anything that came out even a few months ago is likely to be out of date.

And rather than saying “Oh let me spend a few dozen hours every quarter researching the latest advice on how to actually use this stuff” — because you won’t, just like I won’t – you can just get somebody else to do the work of cutting a path for you through the quickly regenerating AI jungle.

#2. I myself have gone through through ChatGPT Mastery, from A-Z, all 30 days, during the last cohort.

I didn’t pay for it because I was offered to get in for free.

I did go through it first and foremost for my own selfish interests — I feel a constant sense of guilt over not using AI enough in what I do — and only then with a secondary goal of promoting it if I benefited from it enough. So here I am.

#3. ChatGPT Mastery is created and run by Gasper Crepinsek. Gasper is an ex-Boston Consulting Group guy and from what I can tell, one of those hardworking and productive consulting types, the kind I look upon with a mixture of wonder and green envy.

But to hear Gasper tell it, he quit his consulting job to have more freedom, started creating info products online like everybody else, realized he had just bought himself another 70 hr/week job, and then had the idea to automate as much of it as he could with AI.

He’s largely succeeded — he now spends his mornings eating croissants and sipping coffee while strolling around Paris, because most of his work of content creation and social media and even his trip planning have been automated in large part or in full.

#4. Before I went through the 30 days of ChatGPT Mastery, I had already been using ChatGPT daily for a couple years. Inevitably, that means a good part of what Gasper teaches was familiar to me.

Other stuff he teaches was simply not relevant (I won’t be using ChatGPT to write my daily emails, thank you). The way I still benefited from ChatGPT Mastery was:

– By having my mind opened to using ChatGPT for things for things I hadn’t thought of before (just one example: I did a “dopamine reset” protocol over 4 weeks, which was frankly wonderful, and which ChatGPT designed for me, and which I got the idea for while doing ChatGPT Mastery)

– By seeing Gasper’s very structured, consulting-minded approach to automating various aspects of his business, and being inspired to port some of that to my own specific situation

– With several valuable meta-prompts that I continue to use, such as the prompt for generating custom GPTs

#5. The way you could benefit from ChatGPT Mastery is likely to be highly specific to what you do and who you are.

The program focuses on a different use case every day. Some days will be more relevant to you than others. The previous cohort covered topics like competitor analysis, insights based on customer calls or testimonials, and of course the usual stuff like content and idea generation, plus hobuncha more.

If you do any of the specific things that Gasper covers, and if you do them on at least an occasional basis, then odds are you will get a great return on both the time and money and that ChatGPT Mastery requires of you, before the 30 days are out.

Beyond that, ChatGPT Mastery can open your mind to what’s possible, give you confidence and a bunch of examples to get you spotting what could be automated in what you do, plus the techniques for how to do it (I’ve already automated a handful of things in what I do, and I have a list of next things to do).

#6. The time required for ChatGPT Mastery is about 15-20 minutes per day for 30 days. The money required is an upfront payment of $199.

I can imagine that one or the other of these is not easy for you to eke out in the current moment.

All I can say is that it’s an investment that’s likely to pay you back many times over, in terms of both time and money. And the sooner you make that investment, the greater and quicker the returns will come.

#7. If you’d like to find out the full details about ChatGPT Mastery, or even to sign up before the cohort kicks off:

https://bejakovic.com/gasper

Last call for MyPeeps bonus offer

by

Once upon a time, I saw a one-panel cartoon that showed Pinocchio and his fairy godmother hovering over him, ready to make Pinocchio’s deepest wish come true.

The caption explained what Pinocchio was wishing for:

“It’s not so much that I want to be a real, live human boy as that I’d rather be anything than a terrifying, nightmare-inducing marionette.”

That’s my tip for you for today, at least if you are planning on running ads to grow your email list.

If you need more explanation of what I mean by that tip, or if you simply want a much more detailed process for running ads to grow your email list, then I suggest you take a look at the sales page below for Travis Speegle’s MyPeeps course.

I bought Travis’s Mypeeps course myself last year.

I went through it and I was impressed with the content.

I promoted it to my list and even ran a 4-week implementation group on the back of it, in which I followed the process to subscribers at $0.60 a name for a new list I had created (dog owners, see my email yesterday).

Along with Joe Biden, Rafael Nadal, and the Paris Olympics, that implementation group has faded into the 2024 past. But if you get MyPeeps by 12 midnight PST tonight, and forward me your receipt, then I will give you access to:

#1. The recordings of the three calls I put on inside that implementation group

#2. My 8 pages of notes from going through MyPeeps

#3. An interview I did with Travis Speegle, which many people wrote me to say was eye-opening to them, particularly around Travis’s personal positioning as a media buyer

#4. “Do You Make These Mistakes In Paid Ads For Your Personal List?” — a document I’ve written up about the biggest mistake I saw people making in that implementation group, which sabotaged all their other good work, along with my suggestion for how you might be able to avoid this mistake.

Again, the deadline is tonight, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST. After that, these bonuses go back into the darkness of the cupboard, and not even your fairy godmother will be able to get them out.

If you’d like to act before then:

https://bejakovic.com/mypeeps

Why I didn’t build a list in the copywriting/marketing space

by

Yesterday I mentioned how a while back, I followed Travis Speegle’s MyPeeps program to build up a new email list of dog owners via paid ads. To which a long-time reader wrote in to ask:

===

Just curious, John, how come you didn’t build a list in the copywriting/marketing space? I’m using a different process myself that will help me build a list with a combo of content + paid ads so curious to hear how come you don’t try to grow your existing list.

===

Good question.

First off, I frankly don’t want to build a “copywriting” list.

I haven’t primarily been writing about copywriting for, I don’t know, the past two+ years, ever since I stopped working with copywriting clients, and maybe before then.

I have been writing about persuasion and influence and psychology on the one hand, and online businesses and marketing on the other hand, and random other stuff that I find funny or interesting on the third hand.

But the real question is why not build up this existing list, and why start a new list instead?

I thought about it. I came up with a few reasons, ranked here from most logical and therefore least likely to be true, to least logical and therefore most likely to be true:

#1. I wanted to do a demonstration for the people inside the implementation group I ran when I first promoted MyPeeps. I didn’t want people who were building up their own lists to throw up their arms and say, “Of course you can do it because you have all these assets I don’t have!” A new list would make the demonstration cleaner and more persuasive.

#2. I was genuinely thinking to do this dog list as a side business of its own (I still think it could be viable). The list building implementation group I ran seemed like a good moment to kick that off.

#3. My simple opportunity-seeking mindset, which lives at the core of my person, and which says it’s more exciting to start something new and risky than to toil away on something familiar and proven.

#4. Because it’s simpler to run ads for a new, impersonal list than an existing, personal list. About that:

Like I said, I ran a 4-week implementation group for the people who bought MyPeeps when I promoted it as an affiliate.

In that group, I could see people running ads to build up their own personal lists.

AND IT DID NOT WORK.

Not because paid ads are a scam, or because Travis Speegle’s MyPeeps course doesn’t deliver.

Travis lays out very simple and yet very proven process to make paid ads work for list building, whether it’s your own personal list or an anonymous list of dog owners.

The reason it didn’t work for many people is because they refused to follow a crucial step in Travis’s process.

In fact, even when I pointed out to people they were skipping this crucial step, they nodded at me, smiled in appreciation of my looking out for them, and then turned around and continued to do exactly what they had been doing, which was skipping this crucial step.

What is this step?

Travis’s MyPeeps course describes is very well in module 1 and again in module 5.

If you would like to build up a new list, or to grow your existing list, you can find full info on Travis’s MyPeeps below:

https://bejakovic.com/mypeeps

P.S. If you have bought MyPeeps, forward me your receipt. I’ll share with you the recordings of the calls and my own notes that I initially did inside the implementation group last year.

And if you’ve already sent me your receipt, check inside the bonuses area that I gave you access to.

I’ve added a “DO YOU MAKE THESE MISTAKES IN PAID ADS FOR YOUR PERSONAL LIST?” document in there (very subtle, I know). It highlights the crucial step so many list owners are skipping when creating ads to promote their existing personal list, and explains how you can maybe avoid doing the same.

My advice on actually building an email list

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A diligent reader writes in with a familiar question:

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Hi John,

From what I’ve seen, Daily Email Habit helps you with your already existing email list, right?

My question is, do you have any course or advice on actually building an email list first. Correct me if I’m wrong about the Daily Email Habit.

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The diligent reader above is absolutely right. Daily Email Habit is about emailing your existing list.

List building is not my forte or my focus, and therefore I don’t sell a course on it.

But last year, I did promote Travis Speegle’s MyPeeps course, all about how to build a large, engaged email list.

I bought Travis’s course myself before promoting it. I thought the content was great. I ended up promoting it to my list and even running an “implementation group” on the back of it over 4 weeks.

As part of this implementation group, I started a new list (dog owners, since I’d done a lot of client work in this space once upon a time)… I went through Travis’s training… and I followed what Travis advised to the letter.

The result for me personally were new, qualified email susbcribers at about $0.60 a name.

If you are looking to build a list, then MyPeeps is my recommendation for how to do it quickly, on a budget of $10-$20 a day, so you end up with subscribers who actually want to read what you have to write and buy what you have to offer.

If you’d like to find out the full details on MyPeeps, or start building an engaged email list today:

https://bejakovic.com/mypeeps

P.S. Within that implementation group, I did three live calls with the participants.

I also had an 8-page document of notes I personally took from Travis’s course.

If you do decide to sign up for MyPeeps, forward me your receipt, and I will hook you up with the recordings of those calls and my own notes, to help you get more out of this course and to do it more quickly.

Eureka! The opposite of a humblebrag

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In this newsletter, I have a questionable habit of dissecting jokes to find out what their digestive and pulmonary systems look like. I’m about to do it right now as well, and I honestly think the result is gonna be amazing.

A couple days ago, I wrote about an interview I’d listened to with a Dublin barman, Brian Wynne. Here’s how Wynne introduces himself at the start of the podcast:

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As Michael Crichton said, I do sometimes suffer from a “deplorable excess of personality.”

I’m a friendly kind of an outgoing chap. I become friends with people easily. That’s what makes me, um, fit the bar trade so well is that, uh, I’m extremely likable… I’m incredibly handsome, intelligent, witty… you know? I am the most humble man in Ireland.

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Now here’s a riddle for ya:

If you ask people what characteristics they hate most in others, the top 2 Family Feud responses are likely to be 1) Arrogant and 2) Fake.

And yet, here is Wynne being either arrogant (“I am the most humble man in Ireland”) or fake (maybe he’s just saying he’s the most humble man in Ireland, but he doesn’t really mean it).

Of course, you probably don’t agree with either of those negative diagnoses of Wynne.

I can tell you that when I listened to him introduce himself in this way, I certainly didn’t get irritated by his supposed arrogance or repulsed by his supposed fakeness. In fact, he put a smile on muh fehs. I imagine this effect comes through in the transcript as well.

So the riddle for ya is:

What is Wynne doing/saying to make his message come across as it does?

I don’t have a good name for the effect he’s creating, but it’s kind of the opposite of a humblebrag. Maybe it could be called a boastful bond.

In any case, I have my own insightful ideas about what exactly Wynne is doing to achieve this effect.

My insightful ideas take advantage of my experience of 5+ years of running this daily newsletter, plus of course my own native intelligence, which truly is… something spectacular. An intelligence to behold. In fact, I might be the most brilliant man to ever write an email newsletter of middling reach and questionable influence.

If you’d like to get my immense insights on this topic, all I can really recommend is that you be signed up for my Daily Email Habit service before tomorrow, because I will have a daily puzzle and accompanying hints that allow you to do a “boastful bond” in your own emails as well.

After all, there’s no sense in just knowing how to do something without actually putting in in practice. And putting in practice is what Daily Email Habit is all about. If you’d like to sign up for it in time:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Basic tip for doing live webinars/workshops

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A few days ago, copywriter GC Tsalamagkakis posted the following question in my Daily Email House community:

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I have a retainer for whom I’m writing paywalled articles about coding with AI, creating custom agents, etc.

Starting next week, we’re going to start doing live webinars/workshops based on those very articles.

This will be my first time presenting–except for one time for a hackathon in 2019 where we secured a podium spot because our presentation was full of memes and our app had the right amount of buzzwords like ‘blockchain’–so I was wondering if you have any basic tips or good-to-knows.

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My basic tip or good-to-know is illustrated by the fact that I’ve forbidden myself to eat chocolate, because I’m much like a dog.

I can eat chocolate until I get sick from it, and even then, I’ll keep eating.

Logic says there would be some off-switch, some kind of negative feedback loop, some mechanism to say, “No, now is enough.” But logic is wrong.

That’s really an illustration of the fundamental marketing truth, that there’s great value in selling people more of what they have already proven to buy and consume.

I think of this a little differently from the way you may have already heard the idea.

For example, and this is in answer to GC’s question above, I sell the same kind of paid content as I do free content, which people already consumed to buy the paid content.

In other words, the books I’ve written, the courses I’ve created, the live trainings I’ve put on, and charged anywhere from $10 to $1,000, are all as stuffed as I can make them with personal stories, analogies, case studies, pop culture references, jokes, profiles of interesting and influential people, and occasionally completely irrelevant but fun asides — just like my daily emails are.

Problem:

At least in my experience, it’s hard to come up with a bunch of really good stories, analogies, case studies, jokes, pop culture references in one sitting, or even two, or even 10.

Much more effective, and much faster and easier long term, at least when it comes to creating new offers, is already to have a bunch of good stories, analogies, case studies, jokes, pop culture references lying around, which you can repurpose.

The way I personally get there is writing daily emails, which have the rather magical Triforce of:

1. Converting new prospects into customers…

2. Continuing the relationship with existing customers and helping them get more value out of what they already bought, and…

3. Creating, or helping create, high quality new offers one email at a time.

That’s to say, if you want to start putting on live webinars or workshops in the near future, or if you want to create a course, or write a book, or create a pinup calendar, then start writing a daily email today.

You will have instant fodder, usually of a very high quality, when it’s time to sit down and create that other thing.

That’s my basic tip or good-to-know for today, along with the fact that, if you haven’t yet started writing daily emails, or have started but haven’t been able to stick to it, then I can help, or rather, my Daily Email Habit service can help. For more info on that:

​https://bejakovic.com/deh​

What it’s like to finally sell Guinness

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My friend Biff recently texted me to say he had been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast, which I’ve written about often in these emails.

That podcast features interviews with people in different professions, with the goal of finding out what it’s like to do their job.

(As is often true of these kinds of podcasts, the host is somebody famous or influential, who has decided to do a pet project. In this case the influential person is Dan Heath, author of the book Made To Stick, which I’ve also written about many times in this newsletter.)

Anyways, I had not been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast for a while – there’s too much damn stuff to listen to.

I felt guilty after Biff wrote me to say he had heard some good episodes lately.

So at the gym two days ago, I put on the latest episode, to find out what it’s like to be… a barman.

A barman is apparently what in Ireland they call a bar tender. Except not really, because a barman also acts as a kind of standup comedian as well as a therapist or self-esteem coach, which U.S. bar tenders are typically not certified for.

But let me get to the point of today’s email, the valuable message that can maybe make you millions of cents or even dollars:

The barman — name, Brian Wynne – said that his pub has been around for 30 years. But in spite of it being an Irish pub, in Dublin, they didn’t sell Guinness until three weeks ago. He explained:

“We’ve been open since ’96 and we put our first Guinness tap in three weeks ago. We make an equivalent porter. When I say equivalent, I mean it’s vastly superior, of course, but I can’t say that. I’m sure your lawyers will have a go at you for allowing me to say that kinda thing.”

Dan Heath then asked Wynne how Guinness is doing after the first three weeks. Wynne replied:

“Oh, it’s outselling everything else we have. You spend 20 years explaining to people why we don’t sell Guinness ’cause our products are superior and more Irish. You make jokes about it. I have so many anecdotes and lines all built up about the sale of Guinness, which we don’t have, and then we do have it in…”

… and it outsells everything else, without even trying.

I wanted to share this with you because it’s a truth that goes far beyond the Irish pub.

I thought to myself, as I listened to Wynne while doing my fire hydrant exercises, how many online business owners find themselves in same position?

They work to create a “vastly superior” product… they turn themselves into the equivalent of a barman who educates and jokes and soft-sells… they show up day after day in front of their prospects… and yet, sales still a fraction of what they could be, if they only sold what people already really wanted, ie. a Guinness instead of their no-name vastly superior equivalent.

Do with that what seems meet.

As for me, I’ll take me to do some market research. I’ll even offer you a trade:

Hit reply to this email and tell me the last digital info purchase you made. It could be a course… some live training or coaching… a new newsletter or membership you subscribed to… or an ebook (except Amazon kindle ebooks, that’s too broad for my purposes).

I’m curious to find out what you’ve already spent money on, and maybe I will start selling the same.

And in return?

I’ll reply to you and tell you my own latest digital info purchase. (It’s not Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin, I promise that.) I will tell you that it’s an ebook, that I paid $209 for it (yes, there are no missing decimal points in there), and that I have so far taken 9 pages of notes from it.

I’m not sure it will be as useful for you as it has been to me, but if you’re curious to find out what it is, you know what to do.