On average I write 3.4 good emails a month

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Over the past 8 years of running this daily newsletter, I have had a long line of big-name direct marketers and A-list copywriters come and go as subscribers.

Along the way, many have had good things to say about my abilities as an email copywriter. My favorite is from Joe Schriefer, who at the time was the copy chief at Agora Financial, one of the biggest imprints at one of the biggest direct response publishers. Joe wrote me one time and said:

“Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your emails. I think you’re one of the best email writers out there!”

I’m telling you this to set up the following shocking and quite depressing fact:

Even though I write and send an email every day, I on average write only 3.4 good emails a month.

Here’s how I know:

Earlier this year, I finally did something I shoulda done on day 0 of starting this newsletter. I created a new Google Doc, and I named it “Emails that did well.”

Ever since, when an email stands out in terms of results — usually sales made, but sometimes for other reasons, like getting a lot of qualified leads, or opening an unexpected new door, or simply getting an unusual amount of engagement — I put it in this document, along with a short summary of the results that made me think the email did well.

Over the past 5 months, since the end of January, I have put 17 emails into the “Emails that did well” document. By my math, that works out to 3.4 emails a month. That’s barely over 10%.

What about the remaining ~90% of emails I write?

I reckon they are doing their work still, and are moving some of the people somewhat closer to the hole, as marketer Travis Sago likes to say.

Still, fewer than 10% of my emails appear to be outstanding in terms of their impact. (For the record, none of these “Emails that did well” is a “cart close, last call” email. “Cart close” emails work great, but for reasons other than the copy.)

Would you like to know which of my emails did well this year?

Would you like to have running access to the emails of mine that do well in the future, for as long as I keep writing this newsletter?

If you would, I’ll make you a deal:

I’m currently promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend. This is a massive swipe file of winning lead gen copy and set of special reports on lead gen, which Lawrence normally sells for $379, but which he is making available for $79 during my promo, because that’s the deal I made with him.

I bought Lead Gen Legend myself earlier this because I was sold on it myself, without thinking to ever promote it as an affiliate.

I am promoting it now because I think it’s great, like everything else Lawrence sells, and a sweet deal at just $79.

At the same time, I’ve learned a bit or two during these 8 years of running my own newsletter.

That’s why I’m also including the following three bonuses to Lawrence’s core offer:

FREE BONUS #1. Emails that did well

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as Joe Schriefer would say, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend for $79.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

If you want it, or at a part of it, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

P.S. To get $300 off the regular $379 price of Lead Gen Legend, put in the coupon code BEJAKO on the cart page. Lawrence has these instructions on the page itself, but it’s a bit hidden, and some people have written me in confusion about it.

Make this your hobby

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Yesterday I started promoting Lead Gen Legend, “the world’s most powerful lead gen library.”

Lead Gen Legend is a giant swipe file plus much other stuff of value, put out by Lawrence Bernstein.

I bought Lead Gen Legend myself when it first came out, with no thought of promoting it as an affiliate, simply because I was sold on the value of it myself.

I am promoting it now because I think it’s great, and because I think you can profit from it.

My email yesterday managed to convey this, and actually made sales from several forward-looking marketers. It also drew some questions, such as the following:

===

Love the Lambo garage joke. You mentioned you’d address this in the next couple of days, but quick question now, is this library mostly historical context, or is it easy to swipe and adapt if I’m actively building out a cold email/digital agency list right now?

===

Being myself an opportunity seeker, I am sympathetic to the search for things that are “easy to swipe and adapt.”

But the fact is, a swipe file is not a template library, where you just plug in the name of your offer and come out with a ready-made ad or email.

That happens to be the great value of a swipe file, particularly of historical, possibly forgotten ads.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from Dan Kennedy, at one point the highest-paid copywriter on planet Earth, and almost certainly the most knowledgeable direct marketer on said planet. Says Dan:

===

I am an advocate of spending a lot of time looking backwards in order to go forwards, because the people that did it a decade ago or longer, everybody had to be better than we have to be now to get the results, because they didn’t have tools.

So the guy who managed to sell a $200 “get rich in real estate” course in 1923, what had to happen?

By the way, his process wasn’t much different than our process. Just he didn’t have any tools.

So he ran a lead generation ad and people wrote in or sent in a dollar or sent in four postage stamps in order to get his free report.

He then sent them his sales letter, and then they had to read, and then they had to get a postal money order, and not talk themselves out of it while they were getting a postal money order, and then they had to mail in the postal money order to a stranger they didn’t know from Adam’s house cat, and know they were gonna wait a month before they ever saw anything.

What that guy did was much harder than what we have to do today. He HAD to be better.

So there’s a good chance of discovering something he was doing that has been kind of lost through the years, that nobody feels compelled to do now, but if they added it to what they’re doing it would help their results considerably.

So I’m very big on going backwards in order to go forwards. So dredge up the old stuff. Make that your hobby if you’re serious about this thing.

===

All that’s to say, Lead Gen Legend contains old stuff. It also contains new stuff. (I’ll give you an example of both in another email during this promo.)

One way or another though, new or old, you’ll have to play with these ads and ideas a bit, to spot stuff that has been lost on others, to make them pay for you.

Like Dan says, make this your hobby, at least if you’re serious about this marketing thing. And your results will improve considerably.

If you’d like to get Lead Gen Legend now, and profit from the experience and skill of generations of direct marketers who simply HAD to be better than anyone working today, so you can get results that your competition can only look at with envy and frustration, then here’s where to go to start your new hobby:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

Announcing: The world’s most powerful lead gen library

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Today I have a new offer for you.

It’s what in the business is called an “affiliate offer.”

Meaning, I didn’t create this offer. And yet here I am promoting it, and if you buy it, I will get a cut of the money you invest.

With that damaging admission out of the way, here are the key facts about this offer:

1. The offer is called Lead Gen Legend.

It is, according to its maker, “the world’s most powerful lead gen library.”

2. Lead Gen Legend is a Swipe File+.

Meaning, you get a lot of curated, proven ads, but you also get much other stuff of value (hence the ‘+’) that I’ll tell you about in a second.

3. A swipe file though? Who needs a swipe file??? Isn’t that so 2021?

Well, I need a swipe file. I actually bought Lead Gen Legend when it was first offered earlier this year, without any thought of promoting it as an affiliate.

I bought it because 1) I am a hoarder of direct response materials, 2) because the promise of “the world’s most powerful lead gen library” sounded too good to pass up, and 3) because this offer is put out by the world’s most obsessed ad archivist, Lawrence Bernstein, and after already buying a bunch of stuff from Lawrence, I am predisposed to buying whatever he puts out, because everything I’ve bought so far has been frankly great.

4. The “other stuff of value” I mentioned above comes in the form of Lawrence’s experience, obsessiveness, and knowledge.

Lead Gen Legend isn’t just a bunch of lead gen ads.

First off, these are ads that worked, often to the tune of millions of dollars, across dozens of industries like “Agency & Copywriting”… “Anti-Aging & Beauty”… “Real Estate Investing”… (and of course) Dental Implants.

Second, these are ads that are commentated upon by Lawrence, who fills in the historical context, highlights what’s most important.

5. Also included in the (+) are several custom reports Lawrence has prepared, including but not limited to:

• “The Affluent Buyer Model”

• “The Inertia Breaker”

• “Free Plus Shipping”

• “Catalogue of Killer Lead Gen from a $386 Billion Firm”

6. The price, the huge price that I get a huge cut of.

When I bought Lead Gen Legend myself, not thinking to ever promote it, it was selling for $79. Lawrence has since Martin Skhreli’ed the price up to $379. And why not?

Lawrence’s list is full of big-time direct response operators, people who are spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars A DAY on lead gen. One good idea that they peel out of Lead Gen Legend could make them a 100x return on Lead Gen Legend by tomorrow.

Maybe you are at that level yourself, or maybe you are not there yet.

In any case, I’ve struck a deal with Lawrence so that, during this promo, the price if Lead Gen Legend drops a healthy $300 from its current $379, to a modest and quite manageable $79.

That’s my argument for Lead Gen Legend today.

I realized I probably haven’t convinced you yet.

After all, you might still legitimately be wondering how I am using this lead gen library myself, or if it’s simply sitting in my imaginary garage, along with my imaginary collection of hundreds of books, right behind my imaginary Lambo.

You might be wondering how you could possibly use Lead Gen Legend, given that you are a new in the business/too experienced/tall/short/a wine drinker/a beer drinker/a teetotaler, or are unique in your own magical way.

You might also be wondering why you should possibly act now, since I haven’t announced a deadline.

For all that and more, stay tuned. I’ll attempt to address it in my emails across the next day or two.

If, on the other hand, you happen to be a big-time direct response operator, or are angling to become one soon, and you want to take advantage of the world’s most powerful lead gen library today, before others get their greasy mitts on it, and profit before they can, while saving yourself $300 before the offer disappears, then here’s where to act now:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

A dog’s life

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Today is the last day of the movie festival I’ve been attending in Bologna for the past week.

Last night, after a too-rich dinner and a few glasses of wine, I finally sat down among a crowd of thousands on the hot stones of the Piazza Maggiore, the main town square.

On show on a huge screen above me, with a live orchestra playing the score, was the first million-dollar movie ever, A Dog’s Life by Charlie Chaplin.

The experience and the movie were really nice.

Then I got home and found a new 1-star review for my 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. book. The 1-star review said:

===

10 commandments of Lame

Lame, by the numbers book that gives no insight or real knowledge. It’s like the author took cliff notes from a used car salesman

===

Maybe because I’ve been on vacation for a week, or maybe because I feel the review is so off-target, but I felt zero indignation at this.

The fact is, my book is “by the numbers” — that’s the whole “10 Commandments” conceit.

It also is like Cliffs Notes taken from influence professionals such as used car salesmen, though I didn’t include the specific technique I was thinking of including from Joe Girard, the world’s sellingest car salesman.

As for giving no insight or real knowledge, that’s where I feel this review is so off-target to not even bother me.

Of course, you might think, it’s natural I would say my book is insightful or full of knowledge, since it’s my book. So take it from several other horses’, or maybe dogs’, mouths:

#1 [5 stars] “of interest not just to con men!”

“I found quite a few good ideas that can be used in sales & other endeavors and in everyday interactions, as well.”

#2 [4 stars] “Great Advice”

“Great advice on how to influence others. I plan on using some of his above in my presentations. I recommend this book to anyone trying to improve their powers of persuasion.”

#3 [5 stars] “Great as always”

“John Bejakovic always delivers. Very entertaining yet informative. Do yourself a favor an get on his email list if you wanna know about persuasion.”

Since you’re reading this, you’re already on my email list, as that last reviewer advises.

So instead, if you wanna learn more about persuasion, I’d say, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of my by-the-numbers, Cliffs’ Notes of influence techniques, full of insight and real knowledge, waiting for you here:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

How to make sure women won’t cheat on you when you’re going steady

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Yesterday I wrote an email in which I talked about my current dating model:

I go out on a date with a girl. If we have fun and I like the girl, I propose a second date. If that still goes well, then I go over to her house, sit her down on the couch for a serious conversation, and propose “going steady.”

(At this stage, there’s no ring yet because I reserve that for marriage and marriage comes later.)

After I sent out yesterday’s email, a reader replied with a question I’ve seen before in various forms:

“John… How do you ensure you find out if these women you ‘go steady’ aren’t cheating on you? Just handshake?”

Handshake is a bit too formal for my romantic soul, but the basic idea is there.

I go out with women I reasonably feel I can trust based on what I know of them so far, and I’ll offer to “go steady” with a woman only after we’ve been on a first date or two or three and it’s gone well.

If you’re a regular reader of mine and you’re shaking your head right now, wondering how in the world you have missed this important email in which I talked about my dating life, fear not.

You didn’t miss anything.

Yesterday’s email was not really about women and dates and going steady, but rather about business owners and partnerships I’m doing with them, in various forms, whether that’s emails written on spec (did some of that last year)… or auctions I run and manage for others (did one earlier this year with Derek Johanson)… or my current offer of a free advertorial for ecom store owners (I just delivered the first such free advertorial).

Whenever I write about some such deal, I get a variant of the question above:

“Hey John how do you track sales and make sure how much money these partners of yours have made via your partnership? How do you know you’re getting paid what you’re due? Do you have access to their bank accounts and tax statements and phone records, or are you using some clever affiliate tracking platform, or do you just hire a private investigator to make sure they aren’t cheating you?”

The short answer is, I don’t know.

I take a leap of faith and I see how it goes.

I do protect myself a bit, by not engaging in marriage with somebody I have just met, but instead proposing we have a “first date,” usually in the form of a small and very tightly defined project, something that won’t drain me of too much time or energy if it goes bad.

If that goes well, then we might have a second or a third date, and eventually I will go over to their house and sit them down on the couch for a serious conversation.

There’s a bigger question here.

Rather than just “How do you make sure you get paid what you’re due,” the bigger question is, “What kind of a life do you want to live?”

My personal answer to that is that I want to live a life that doesn’t involve being constantly suspicious of others or chasing in debts.

I also want to live my life thinking that, for every person out there who might actually cheat me once every Halley’s comet, there are four or five people who I could immediately find in their stead who would be happy to partner with me and be honest and fair with me.

I don’t think I’ve ever written an email in which I talked about the idea of “abundance.”

The word has unfortunately gotten tainted by hucksters.

But the fact remains, you can choose to live in a world of scarcity or a world of abundance. Making the mental switch from the first to the second takes a bit of effort, and it takes time before the mental model starts to produce material results. But it is a choice, and one you can make, and get results from.

This entire discussion, by the way, goes back to the one guy I’ve learned the most from over the past couple years.

That guy is Travis Sago. The analogy above, between dating and business partnerships, is Travis’s analogy. So is the idea of offering commission-only deals rather than doing client work that you get paid for upfront. So is the idea of doing a small test project to get a sense whether you can trust people or not.

Travis’s Royalty Ronin outlines dozens of ways that Travis has personally used his wits to make tens of millions of dolalrs online, dozens of ways that people like me have learned from Travis and have made good money with.

But the bigger idea of Ronin is that idea of organizing life in a way that suits you, really suits you, and recognizing the world really can be a place of abundance, including for you.

If you wanna give Ronin a try, Travis offers a free 7-day trial:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S. If you sign up for the trial and then decide to stay on past the 7 days because you can see the value for you inside Ronin, write me a message and let me know. I have several bonuses with your name on them.

Do you want a free advertorial for your ecom brand?

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This morning, I woke up, got onto terrace of my Airbnb in Bologna, and amid the sounds of chirping crickets and a rare scooter on the street, I opened up WhatsApp for the first time in 16 hours.

I had a message from a guy named Brandon, who owns an ecom company, which sells a very specific and niche product via very direct response advertising.

A few days ago, I sent Brandon some new ads, which I had written for him for free. That’s what Brandon’s message this morning was about:

“Very nice. The page is built, those ads have just been pushed into production”

The page Brandon is referring to is the advertorial page. That’s because last week, right before going on vacation, I also delivered Brandon a free advertorial, to bolt onto his existing funnel.

The deal is, I do the advertorial and the ads for free. If the resulting funnel succeeds in beating what he was doing before, Brandon pays me a small fraction of the revenue this new funnel will generate.

I made this offer last month to my list.

After I made that offer, I had a genuine A-list copywriter challenge me on offering sales copy for free.

“You don’t need to do anything for free,” the A-list copywriter said. “You have the experience and the skill and you can charge for it.”

That’s definitely true.

At the same time, I’ve done a lot of charging for copy in the past, aka “client” work. I was never crazy about it.

That’s why I’m testing out “investments” or “partnerships” like I’m doing with Brandon.

We both put up a small wager. If our shared bet pays off, we split the winnings in some way. If it doesn’t, we’ve both lost just our small and manageable wager.

It’s a different dynamic to client work, and so far I like it better.

That’s why my offer still stands.

If you have an ecom business, if you run ads, and if you are comfortable with direct-response copy, then I am offering to write you an advertorial. For free. I’ll do the ads too. Also very free. You just pay me a small share of the resulting revenue in case the funnel makes you money, after it makes you money.

If you are interested, reply to this email and we can talk more.

And if you know somebody who might be interested, forward them this email. They might be grateful to you, and I will be for sure. Thanks in advance.

Fumbling and bumbling to $10k+

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Over the past week, I’ve fumbled and bumbled my way through the Hogwarts of Influence promo, up to and including the cart close email, which never came, because yesterday I wrongly scheduled it to go out at 4pm my time today, which is 7 hours after I’ve actually closed the cart.

I was on vacation the entire time of this promo.

That means I didn’t revamp the offer page as I had planned.

I didn’t write more emails, particularly ones crowing about sales I had made along the way.

I didn’t come up with a better process to upsell the people who had gotten either the Hermione or Snape levels.

As a result of all this, Hogwarts of Influence was not a smashing success.

Even so, it looks like when all is said and done, it will bring in north of $10k, which is not too shab for selling a bunch of offers I have already been promoting for 5+ years, literally hundreds of times, to my small and frankly not-really-growing list.

This morning, one of the folks who asked to join at the last minute wrote:

“Btw, what’s the big idea anyway with not just having a regular sales page? Interesting!”

The background is that I had an offer page, where I listed the offer, and then asked people to write me via email instead of just linking straight to ThriveCart as is usual.

There’s a reason for this, a money-making reason, something I picked up from marketer Travis Sago.

I sat down right now, and I wrote up 7 elements of this Hogwarts of Influence promotion, which I can trace directly to Travis and his teachings.

I have made the claim before that following the stuff that Travis teaches has has led me to $100k+ worth of income that I wouldn’t have made otherwise. It looks like I can stack another $10k to that.

My ongoing offer stands:

The best place to learn from Travis is inside his Royalty Ronin community on Skool.

You get to watch Travis work live. You get a library of Travis’s expensive courses, all for free. You get a bunch of smart and successful marketers, myself included, in the group to talk with and learn from and do deals with.

Travis offers a 7-day trial for Royalty Ronin. If you’d like to see if it’s for you:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S. If you sign up for the trial and then decide to stay on past the 7 days because you can see the value for you inside Ronin, write me a message and let me know. I have several bonuses with your name on them. I’ll also share with you the list I just made of 7 of Travis’s sales teachings that I integrated into my just-closed Hogwarts of Influence event.

Last call for Hogwarts of Influence

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Tonight, at the stroke of midnight, at exactly 12am PST, I will close down my Hogwarts of Influence offer.

If you have resisted my magical incantations and spells thus far, and have succeeded in not clicking through to the offer page, here is what I am making available for a few more hours:

====> 1. Hermione Level <====

A payment of $97 gets you the special Hermione Level, for a total of $294 in real-world value:

* “Sex-appeal secret of A-list copywriters” Copy Riddles Round + one bonus Copy Riddles round, “A well-known but powerful way to rope in jaded and skeptical prospects” (last sold for $97)

* Daily Email Fastlane: Success with daily emails for your personal brand, more quickly, using the experiences of three uber-successful daily emailers I’ve coached 1-1 (last sold for $97)

* 2 months of Daily Email Habit, my daily email prompt service to help you start and stick with the habit of daily emailing (currently selling for $100)

========> 2. Snape Level <========

A payment of $97 today and 5 more monthly payments of $100 gets you EVERYTHING ABOVE…

… plus you get the majestic Snape Level, totaling $1,088 in real-world value:

* Most Valuable Email: The most valuable ‘trick’ I have found to produce engaging, influential, and audience-building emails about copywriting and marketing (currently sells for $297)

* Heart of Hearts, a 3-step process I developed to discover what people in my audience actually want (and are willing to pay for) (last sold for $297)

* 4 more months of Daily Email Habit (6 months free in total, a $300 value)

===============> 3. Dumbledore Level <===============

A payment of $97 today and 10 more monthly payments of $100 gets you EVERYTHING ABOVE…

… plus you get the supreme Dumbledore Level, totaling $3,273 in real-world value:

* Copy Riddles: Own A-list copywriting skills more quickly than you would ever believe, by working through riddles and comparing your answers to those of A-list copywriters (currently sells for $997)

* Water Into Wine, a magic formula for repackaging and repositioning your offers (or yourself) so they sell better (last sold for $197)

* Insight Exposed: The blueprint for my journaling and note-taking system, which is my secret weapon for always having something new and interesting to say (last sold for $400)

* 18 more months of Daily Email Habit (2 years free in total, a $988 value)

If you decide that any of these levels is right for you, reply to this email and say so. Again, time is ticking, and this offer, magical and mystical as it is, will vanish at midnight exactly.

Writing a novel is child’s play

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How do you write a novel?

According to Nobel-prize winning writer Harold Pinter, writing a novel is child’s play.

You just need a starting point, says Pinter. You look around and describe what you see. After that, it’s all downhill.

For example, if you happen to be in the middle of the 1974 movie Accident… which features a scene involving a middle-aged Oxford professor, his wife, and his two children, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the yard of their countryside house… then you start with that.

As one of the characters in Accident (a cynical novel author) tells another (a naive student), you just describe what you see:

Middle-aged professor… wife… children… Sunday afternoon.

Except, says Pinter via his character in Accident, you can go further. (This is possibly where Pinter sweeps his Nobel-prize winning talent under the rug.)

For example, you can notice that the wife is pregnant.

You can spot subtle signs the professor is having an affair with a girl at Oxford.

You can even claim that he’s reached the age where he can’t keep his hands off girls at Oxford.

And there you go. That’s the start of your novel, or really, your screenplay, because that’s also what Accident is about.

Like I’ve written already, I’m in Bologna this entire week.

The reason is that there’s a movie festival going on, which shows curated old movies I’ve never heard of or seen before.

One of these movies is Accident, which was written by Pinter, and which I saw yesterday, in a sweltering hot theater, with a few hundred other movie nerds who were fanning themselves and wiping off their faces with handkerchiefs, and not out of sympathy for the philandering Oxford professor.

I don’t know why I started out by telling you about novels. The fact is, this email is about movies.

Movies movies movies.

I like ’em old, I like ’em young, I like ’em arty, I like em trashy and popular.

I’ve worked movies into my emails (Accident in this one)… into my books (The Sting in my 10 Commandments of Con Men etc), into my courses (Top Gun in Daily Email Fastlane), and into my offers (Harry Potter for my current promotional event).

Speaking of, today is the last day for my Hogwarts of Influence offer.

I came up with the the idea of Hogwarting this offer because in one of my most popular courses, Most Valuable Email, I already use a Harry Potter movie to make a point. Specifically, I make the comparison between the Most Valuable Email trick I teach inside that course to the Wingardium Leviosa spell from the Harry Potter movies:

“Just say the phrase — ‘make the ‘gar’ nice and long” — and with a swish and flick of your wrist, you can make any email rise into the air and levitate.”

The Hogwarts of Influence offer is disappearing later tonight, at the witching hour, 12 midnight PST.

If you want to find out all I’m including inside the various levels of this offer, before the movie runs out and the theater is locked up, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/core-promise-pwyw/