Clever lead gen spotted in teddy bear email

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These days, one of the only people whose emails I read regularly is marketing legend Dean Jackson.

Dean has this folksy, cheerful, teddy bear public persona.

He talks slowly and patiently, like he’s your friend, with his arm around your shoulder.

He makes everything into an accessible analogy — “would you like a cookie,” “vending machine vs. slot machine,” “more cheese, less whiskers.”

Dean’s public persona masks the fact that the man is really the fountain of dozens of innovative marketing ideas that have become so widespread online that we don’t even think somebody had to invent them. But somebody did, and that person was Dean.

Anyways, I noticed something in a recent Dean email. Says Dean:

“On Wednesday, at Noon ET, I’m doing a live Book Titles Workshop & Q&A call.”

That might not seem remarkable unless you know one of Dean’s businesses is 90 Minute Books, where they interview you over 90 minutes and then turn that into a book you can use for lead gen.

So how does Dean’s Book Titles Workshop fit in?

Simple.

First, it gets the right people to raise their hands, so they can be identified, tagged, and followed up with. (Dean’s audience is small, brick-and-mortar biz owners, and the workshop is for the few among them who are thinking about having a book.)

Second, to those who actually show up, the workshop gives a small but meaningful win.

With Dean’s help, those people will walk away with a book title, something they can see, feel, hold, treasure, cherish, and talk to others about.

Of course, they still don’t have the book. After they have the book title, Dean’s service is the natural next step.

This is worth doing yourself.

You might have a big service or an expensive offer.

A proven strategy to sell that is to do what Dean is doing.

Help people take the very first step, however tiny, towards the big outcome you ultimately provide.

For one thing, it will help you identify leads. For another, it will give the people who take the first step a quick win, a feeling of inspiration, and momentum they will want to keep.

Let me apply this lesson myself.

The most important part of your marketing message is the promise you make. That’s equally true whether you’re selling a service, coaching, a course, or yourself as a person of trust and influence.

Based on my 1-1 work with dozens of online business owners, I can tell you that most business owners DO NOT DO A GOOD JOB with the core promise they are making in their marketing.

Next Tuesday, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST, I will hold a Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call.

It’s free & you can Register Here.

I’ll share the most important parts of:

* What makes a good promise

* The importance of being clear over clever

* Choosing a promise that sounds credible

And we’ll end with a Q&A session to answer your Core Promise questions.

Don’t forget to register so I can send you the details.

See you there.

How to make direct marketing FUN for yourself

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OLD, DULL WAY OF DOING DIRECT MARKETING

You get bombarded with direct response ads, whether via Facebook, in your inbox, or via your physical mailbox. And if you’re anything like me, your reactions as you flip trough these ads is…

“Not for me… not for me… God this is ugly… this COULD be for me except they are talking to me like I’m an idiot… not for me… not for me…”

On the flip side, you bombard others with direct response ads, whether actual ads or emails or sales letters. And if you’re anything like me, you dutifully stuff your ads full of the old DR chestnuts you have read about in books and courses:

“Buy now… amazing… secret… our warehouse manager just called… my accountant says I’m crazy… maximum money… minimum time…”

FUN, NEW WAY OF DOING DIRECT MARKETING

You open up a new text file. And when you get bombarded with DR ads, you treat each one like a riddle, a puzzle, or a scavenger hunt. You look for curious or interesting patterns or phrases. You write down any that you find in your text file.

“Why isn’t this number lower”… “You can’t buy anything here”… “A month from today, you can be nothing more than 30 days older”… “It costs you nothing to learn about this opportunity…”

On the flip side, you take your curious or interesting patterns and phrases from your text file, and you find ways to test them out in your own marketing.

“Will it work for me, I wonder… and if it doesn’t work for me, I wonder why that other ad was using it and if it worked for them… and if it does work for me, I wonder how else I can use it…”

I’ve done this in many forms, with many ads, over many years.

When I just got started with copywriting, I did it with sales letters my clients wanted me to model.

Later, on my own, i did it with emails. (I went for a month in 2019 reading Ben Settle’s emails not for the content, but with an eye to patterns in the hooks he was using and the offers he was promoting.)

And just yesterday, I started doing it with Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin group.

I’ve been promoting Ronin regularly, because I’m in it and because I’ve profited mightily from being in it.

If you’re not as much into Ronin as I am, you might not realize that Royalty Ronin is basically one big direct response ad. I mean the content inside the group.

Travis Sago, the guy behind Ronin, is a master of direct marketing. And everything he does inside Ronin is done with a purpose, and that purpose is selling.

Ronin, for all the education, inspiration, and value it delivers along the way, is effectively a giant, ongoing, direct response sales letter for various of Travis’s new offers.

Some of Travis’s direct response experiments work. Some don’t. Some he ends up codifying and sharing with others, often in the form of an expensive new training. Some he keeps to himself for years, or maybe forever.

For my own benefit, and in order to make direct marketing more FUN for myself, yesterday I sat down and started looking for phrases and patterns inside Ronin that caught my eye.

I made a list of 10 ideas, looking over just a few of Travis’s recent posts.

One of these 10 ideas, a subject line Travis used, led to the offer behind my email yesterday, about an auction to get investors to purchase your newsletter or group.

Other ideas I spotted I might use in other emails, or in sales letters, or on live workshops, or maybe in one of my communities.

So my advice for you is to do likewise.

Make direct marketing more FUN for yourself.

Turn it into a game, and you will enjoy yourself more, and make more money. (In minimum time!)

I also got an offer for you:

Try out Ronin yourself. Travis offers a week’s free trial. If you find it’s not for you, you can cancel before the week is out and get charged nothing.

If you do sign up for a trial of Ronin, forward me your welcome email from Travis.

In turn, I will send you a list of the 10 valuable ideas I noted in Ronin yesterday, along with how I am planning to apply a few of them.

I’m making this offer good until tomorrow, Tuesday Jun 9, at 8:31pm CET.

If you’re interested, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

Want investors bidding to purchase your newsletter?

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This is for you if you own a newsletter, email list, Skool community, or Facebook group… and if you would ever consider selling it.

I’ve got a network of thousands of business owners, online investors, and ordinary folks who want to speed up the time it would take for them to make money online.

Many of them would love to purchase your email list, newsletter, or community, if you would be open to selling it, whether because you have bigger priorities, or because your passion has moved elsewhere, or simply because you need the cash.

Crucial point #1:

These are folks who will treat your newsletter or community right if they purchase it.

The people in my network realize that money online is made via long-term relationships, value, and trust.

They will do right by your audience and make the ongoing experience for your audience great.

In short, your folks will be in good hands if you decide to sell.

Crucial point 2:

I can make sure you are paid fairly and even generously.

Selling normally means having to talk to a dozen potential buyers, many of who try to lowball you or haggle you into the ground.

What I’m offering instead is to run an auction, and get investors to compete with each other, and reveal what they are willing to pay, and do it publicly, in a way that gets other bidders to reveal what they would pay as well.

So do you want investors bidding to purchase your newsletter, email list, or community?

If you do, reply to this email.

It doesn’t oblige you in any way.

We’ll just talk about what you have, and if I can help you find a new home for it, and get you paid generously in the process.

The Pope is back in town

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Guess who’s coming on Tuesday
That wild-eyed pontiff who had been away
Hasn’t changed, is gonna have much to say
But man, I still think that cat is crazy

This coming Tuesday and Wednesday, the current Pope, Leo XIV, is coming for a visit to Barcelona.

The Pope is gonna have lunch at the episcopal palace.

He’s gonna visit a prison.

He’s gonna give a talk to the masses at the Barcelona Olympic stadium, after which, he will go for a ride in the popemobile from one end of Barcelona to the other, all the way from Montjuic to Sagrada Familia, before blessing and inaugurating a recently completed tower at the church.

I’m thinking to actually go see the man at the Olympic stadium, or at least to try to catch a glimpse of him as he rolls by in the popemobile.

Which is kinda curious.

I’m not Catholic. The Pope for me is effectively just some guy. And for the longest time, it was unimaginable and impossible for me to understand why I would stand and crowd and cheer just some guy.

How does just some guy get imbued with so much charisma and authority and personal power?

As I’ve gotten older (brain works badder than before) and as I’ve learned more about psychology, I have an answer, at least one that works for myself.

The Pope has billions of people’s eyes on him, and, crucially, billions of people know that billions of people’s eyes are on him.

We are all looking for mental shortcuts. (And the older we get, the more we look for mental shortcuts, at least my experience.)

And the best mental shortcut is to go and think and do like others do. Hence, Pope fascination.

You might think it’s sacrilegious or disrespectful for me to boil down that crazy cat from the Vatican to this.

I just think it’s human psychology, which applies far and wide, to religious stuff as well as to business stuff.

It’s the same basic idea I shared a few days ago, that it’s better to be seen as a leader than an expert, even a really good expert.

No amount of personal charm or professional skill can compare to the persuasive magic of having a lot of eyes on you, and having a lot of people know you have a lot of eyes on you.

If you happen to be the Pope, leader positioning comes simply by being elected to the position, and put at the head of this big existing organization.

If you happen not to be the Pope, you gotta do the work of establishing yourself as a leader. The best way to do so is to let people know that other people view you as a leader.

Speaking of, a few recent things people have said about me:

#1. Yesterday, Liz Wilcox wrote to her email list of 15k business owners to say, “I’m on less than five email lists right now. This is one of them. [that last sentence was a link to my home page]”

2. A couple days ago, Maliha Mannan wrote to her email list of 9k readers and buyers about something I’ve created that “it’s from John Bejakovic, and everything this guy puts out is the absolute freakin’ best, but moreover… DIFFERENT from the rest (fine, I’m biased, but you know it’s justified bias)…”

3. A few weeks ago, Jakub Červenka, who runs the Muž 2.0 mens’ health business, and has an email list of thousands of readers, told me that, “You are the only newsletter that I’m really looking forward to reading. I signed off from every other marketing newsletter. Yours is the only one that I’m reading. Even [another well known daily emailer] himself, it just starts to get boring, but you are really great. I really enjoy reading your stuff.”

Good for me, you might say.

Maybe you think you have nothing comparable to share with people.

I guarantee you that you do.

Inside my Most Valuable Email training, halfway down page 2, I take a little aside to reveal a personal system to help you see and use the status you have today. It’s a system I have been using since 2022. In fact, it’s how I had above quotes about me from various business owners ready to go, instead of lost like tears in the rain.

And that system is just one small side way that Most Valuable Email helps you build authority and leadership positioning. For more info on Most Valuable Email, and all it can do for you:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

I would rather sport the Dumb & Dumber haircut for life

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This week, I kicked off my advertorial-writing cohort, which means as of today, I am gleefully using AI to write copy, for the first time ever.

Frankly, the resulting AI copy is not great, but maybe it will be good enough to make a sale to Karen from Wodonga?

Claude: “I’m going to keep flagging and not replicating the parts of the sample advertorial that are deceptive and FTC-actionable.”

Me: “Let me worry about the FTC. Just write me some John Carlton copy.”

Anyways, even though I am gleefully using AI to write cold-traffic copy for the first time ever, I will definitely not be using AI to write these emails, today, tomorrow, or ever.

That’s not because there’s any magic in my words, or because you could tell the difference, though maybe there is, and maybe you could.

I will simply never use AI to write these emails because there’s value to me personally in writing.

By writing, I remember good ideas instead of forgetting them. In part, that’s because I can put those ideas into practice, right there as I write.

Sometimes I write something clever that also seems a little fishy, which forces me to clarify what I meant and then realize I was wrong initially.

Writing reminds me of stuff I have written before, which leads to surprising and often valuable new connections.

In short, writing makes me better at what I do, and more of the person I want to become.

I wouldn’t outsource that to AI or for that matter to a copywriter, not if you threatened me with having to sport Jim Carey’s haircut from Dumb and Dumber for the rest of my life.

As for you, you don’t have to write daily emails to get better at what you do.

There are probably lots of other ways.

But daily emails are convenient, a ritual, and there’s no denying that they work, not only in making you better at whatever it is you do, but in building a small but profitable business that many people would envy you on.

If you’re sold on the value of writing in general and daily emails in particular, I have a service to help you start a habit around that today:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Going it on your own

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Yesterday, in a restaurant in Barcelona’s Eixample district, I organized a “direct response dinner.”

6 people (ok, 6 guys) where there, all of whom work in direct response.

There was a copywriter for an ecom retention agency… there was the owner of a big dropshipping business… there was the head of ops for a lead gen agency… there was the owner of a dating info biz… there was Thom Benny’s business partner Elmo… and there was me.

Over fish curry and ground beef, we talked about what’s up in life and business.

Halfway through the dinner, we switched seats to switch up the conversation.

At the end, everybody stood around outside the restaurant and talked some more and exchanged contacts. I announced I would make this a regular event.

A few years ago, I gave a presentation in Brian Kurtz’s Titans XL group. After that presentation, Brian and I exchanged a couple emails, and he invited me to join Titans myself.

I wrote Brian to say thanks, that I can see Titans is a good group, but that I know from past experience that I don’t function well or last long in groups. I said that even though I know it’s not smart, I always end up going it alone. To which Brian replied:

“Not that I need to teach you anything, John…but whether it’s my group or someone else’s (or one you manufacture on your own), “going it on your own” is a huge mistake.”

That has stuck with me for years. It was a key motivator for why I decided to create my Daily Email House community, and later, why created the Monetization Mastermind. It’s also why decided to organize the dinner last night.

I’m kind of weird and awkward whenever I’m invited to other people’s stuff. I don’t really participate. I look for any excuse to skulk out.

I could tell myself that’s silly, and wait for myself to change and become a better, more sociable, more well-adjusted person.

Or I could simply work with what I’ve got, and figure out how to do something with it. In my case, that’s meant following Brian’s advice, and “manufacturing” groups and communities of my own.

I’m telling you this because maybe it applies to you as well.

Maybe what applies is the specific idea that, if you don’t function well in other people’s groups, then you should manufacture one of your own.

Or maybe what applies is the broader idea to stop waiting for yourself to become a better person in order to get what you want. (Business coach Rich Schefren phrases this as, “Put your business goals ahead of your self-development goals.”)

Final point:

I personally knew everybody I invited to dinner last night, with the exception of James, the head of ops for a lead gen agency.

I had never met James before or interacted with him in any way. I invited him because he is inside Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin group, and I figured anybody who is in Ronin is ok in my book and is worth meeting. (James turned out to be great.)

Royalty Ronin is the only group I’m a member of in any meaningful way, and the only group I’ve managed to stick around in for more than a few weeks. (I’ve been in Ronin for over two years now.)

That’s not because there’s magic inside Ronin that makes me into a chipper and regular participant. (I rarely post and I comment even more rarely.)

Rater, I stay inside Ronin and I keep lurking there because I’ve learned so much from Travis Sago, both via the ton of expensive trainings that he makes available for free inside Ronin… and via observing Travis and what he does. (This is stuff that might or might not make it into future expensive trainings, but it’s yours free if you only pay attention.)

If you wanna see if Ronin could work for you, whether you participate in groups or not:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S. If you do make it past free trial and stay inside Ronin, write me an email and let me know. I have some bonuses with your name on them.

An influence and positioning riddle

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Let’s see if you can spot the pattern:

1. Today, I got a question from a paying subscriber to my Daily Email Habit service. The question was about writing daily emails. I wrote up my answer to that question and posted it inside my Daily Email House community, which has ~500 members, many of them also Daily Email Habit paying subscribers.

2. Earlier today, I got a question from one of the folks who joined my advertorial cohort, which kicked off yesterday, and which I charged $5k for. This cohort member wanted feedback on a couple advertorials she had written, and she had a question about cold outreach.

3. Yesterday afternoon, I got on a call with a business owner who I’m helping to better monetize his email list. We spent some time talking about email copy (I gave him a little tip about positioning) and then we moved on to talking offers, which is where the real money lies.

So, can you spot the pattern?

I’ll give you a moment.

No rush.

I’ll be right over here, eating a banana and getting a sip of water, while you prepare your answer.

Got your best guess?

Ok. So let me tell you what’s up:

Yesterday on that call with the coaching client, he said something like, “I’ll be able to increase the price of this offer in the future after I get some client wins that I can share.”

No doubt, case studies of client wins are valuable.

But I would argue that an occasional case study, even one featuring a very dramatic and successful turnaround, is less valuable than simply hammering home to people, day after day, that you’re the kind of person that others come to and pay for advice, guidance, and help.

In other words, it’s more valuable to be seen as a leader than to be seen as an expert.

It’s what I done above.

I told you I had people coming to me, paying me, getting my advice and guidance.

I didn’t say anything about the results of that advice and guidance. There was no “case study,” no “client wins.” I simply positioned myself as the wise old man (quite old) at the mouth of the cave at the top of the mountain, who others seek out for his wisdom (and old age).

Of course, if you can combine expertise and leadership, then you’re really in the money.

If you wanna flex both your leadership and your expertise at the same time, and if you’re willing to email regularly about topics like influence, marketing, or copywriting, then I’ll remind you of my Most Valuable Email program.

I’ve had a few hundred people pay me a few hundred dollars for this program. Here are the results that some of them have reported after implementing the Most Valuable Email trick:

#1. “… made me make 5 times more the investment in MVE”

#2. “The highest-converting single-email campaign sent to the non-buyers of all time”

#3. “My inbox is flooded with applause and response and compliments”

For more info on MVE:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Emotional reactivity in email promos

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Last Wednesday, I started a new, possibly doomed email promo.

My goal was to get 5 people into the 1-Person Advertorial Agency Cohort.

My offer was help with copywriting, help with getting clients, up to and including making $10k from advertorial work.

My price was $5k.

Like I said, I started promoting this on Wednesday.

By about Friday, I was hating it.

A few dozen people had responded to express interest, most of them before I had publicly announced the price.

After several days of email back-and-forth, nobody had signed up. Some people had opted out. Some had stopped responding. The others had questions, doubts, or concerns. The nerve!

I spent a part of my Friday fantasizing of simply closing down this whole thing, and focusing on writing my own advertorials rather than trying to persuade anybody to join me. “I’ll show them!”

Fortunately, I have been here before.

Instead of lashing out at the world, I simply kept promoting the offer to my list, answering questions from the people who had expressed interest, and honing the 1-1 sales process bit by bit.

On Saturday, one person joined. Yesterday, four more people joined, including one guy (a long-time reader and buyer) who only responded to the “Final Call” email I sent out.

In sum:

I wanted 5 people. I got 5 people. $10k collected over the past two days, with another $15k due when I get people to the result I promised.

I’m telling you this because, besides running this advertorial cohort, I’m also coaching several business owners on how to make money with their email list. And making money with your email list means email promos.

I’ve recently seen, on a couple different occasions, people getting frustrated due to a lack of results, shutting down their promo after just a day or two, and scrapping the offer.

I know how it feels. I’ve been there. In fact, like I just told you, I was there last week, ready to shut down my own promo and scrap the offer.

Maybe now that I’ve told you that it happens to me, you will be able to recognize it in yourself as well.

It’s helpful to label it. (“Emotional reactivity” is not a very elegant term, but it’s what I call it.)

It’s also helpful to remind yourself that, now that you’re in the middle of the promo, it’s probably not a good time to make dramatic decisions, like killing the offer, or slashing the price, or promising tons of new deliverables that you hadn’t planned on initially.

Rather, the middle of the promo is a time for talking to your audience, clarifying your offer and your positioning, and making the best out of what you’ve already got.

From time to time, I like to promote Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin community. From time to time, I like to reiterate that Travis’s Ronin is the best deal in Internet Marketing right now. From time to time, I cite some cool or fundamental thing I’ve learned from Travis.

The fact is, this entire “advertorial cohort” promo wouldn’t have happened without the many things, big and small, I’ve learned from Travis and the courses and trainings and regular posts he puts up inside Royalty Ronin.

Everything, from the very concept of this promo, to the offer structure, to the pricing, to how I promoted it, to the fact that I didn’t give up in frustration after a few days of no results… all of that comes from stuff I can trace directly to Travis.

Travis offers a week-long free trial for Royalty Ronin. I’ve gotten a metric ton, and 100k+ worth of income, due to what’s inside Ronin. Maybe you will too. If you wanna give it a try:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S. If you do make it past free trial and stay inside Ronin, write me an email and let me know. I have some bonuses with your name on them.

Last call for 1PAA cohort

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I’m reading a book called No More Mr. Nice Guy, and on page 65 it says:

“Nice Guys have a difficult time comprehending that in general, people are not drawn to perfection in others. People are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual’s life force.”

The book is about 1-1, personal relationships. But the same applies to 1-many or business relationships.

Let that be the useful marketing message for today.

In entirely unrelated news, this is the last call I will make for the 1-Person Advertorial Agency cohort.

It’s come to my attention that this entire week, I’ve been promoting this cohort and insisting that it kicks off on May 1.

That of course is nonsense, since May 1 is well past.

The fact is I made a mistake, one I then copy-pasted over and over. The cohort actually kicks off tomorrow, JUNE 1.

Since I’ve been promoting this offer all week long, I imagine that you’ve either dismissed it as not being for you, or you’ve replied to me to express interest. But on the odd chance that this is the first time you’re hearing about this offer, here’s what’s up, in 3 points:

#1. The investment is $5k

The destination we’re headed to is advertorials that you can reasonably make $2k+ with the right clients, and that take max 1-2 days each to finish.

If you get just one such gig a month, I figure it’s worth $24k over the next year.

$5k is a reasonable investment to fix that.

That said, I am committed to getting you to where I say I will get you.

That’s why I’m breaking up the $5k as follows, so I have a stake in the outcome I promise to get you:

* $2k to start

* The remaining $3k when you make your first $10k from advertorial work

#2. I will help you get clients via the two methods laid out in 1PAA

One of these methods is Upwork (that’s where I got my biggest advertorial clients back in the day).

The other is cold outreach to promising brands with a ready-made advertorial.

(I suggest doing both of these methods in parallel during the cohort, for the quickest and best results.)

I will help you filter out who to approach, the messages to send them, the offers to make them. But you still have to do the work, as laid out in 1PAA.

#3. We get started next week, May June 1st, and we keep going until you get to $10k

The cohort will be organized as a month-long Skool group where I can answer questions and give feedback on copy and client-getting efforts.

1 month is plenty of time to pick/get a client, write an advertorial for them, and deliver it. (If you’re feeling very proactive, it’s enough to write and deliver 5 or 10 advertorials.)

After the month is done, I’ll keep giving you ongoing support and feedback over email (for any questions you might have) or Google Docs (for advertorial critiques).

Again, my promise is to keep working with you until you make $10k from advertorial work.

That’s it.

If you’re interested, reply to this email. Again, we start tomorrow, JUNE 1st.